Small Annoying Root Vegetables: Episode 3.1415926.
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640286 20899862803482.
Dot, dot, dot.
Shnibbidy Bob Joe sighed, set the five-hundred-sixty-first pen of the week down, and scratched his nose with one very ink-stained hand.
2.5 billion digits down, and still no recognizable pattern. Sometimes, the unfairness of it all gave Shnibbidy Bob a huge headache. Forty years he had sat, day in, day out, with a pen and paper and only the will to be the first man ever to discover a pattern in Pi keeping him alive and sane. And yet, he was still waiting for the payoff. Pi was such an ornery decimal.
Not that he had much else to do, living for years behind renowned Sith Lord Darth Vader's refrigerator. At least the quest for Pi kept him busy. Aside from sneaking out once or twice a month to order immense bales of binder paper-he claimed to be single-handedly responsible for the complete deforestation of the planet Vuebegon-there wasn't much excitement to living behind a refrigerator, even if it was a very nice, high-tech refrigerator, and belonged to a mass murderer, at that.
Still, he often wished that he had never stopped to pick up that blue marble, the blue marble that had opened up a large gash in space-time and sucked him through into this strange universe before he could so much as yell for help. He much preferred his vegetable garden and loyal, slobbery Labrador retriever to a refrigerator in a giant spherical battle station out in the middle of space.
Ah well. No use wishing for what would never come to pass.
Shnibbidy Bob stuffed the full sheet of paper through the crack in the wall behind him, pulled out a fresh sheet, and returned to his life's work.
.53421170679821480. ________________________________________________________________________
"Lord Vader!"
"Eh?"
"The admiral requests your presence in the lower detention block, in the shortest order you can manage."
"Tell him that it'll be a couple of hours, maybe a little longer."
"Er, he was thinking more along the lines of a couple of minutes, my lord."
"That's just too bad for him then. Do you have any idea how long my poor petunias have gone without water?"
"Lord Vader-"
"And the geraniums?"
"Lord Vader-"
"And most of all, my precious, precious turnips?"
"Lord Vader, for heavens' sake, your garden can survive for a couple more minutes! This is urgent!"
Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and self-appointed horticulturalist, set his blue watering can down among the potted petunias and glared at the young lieutenant who was standing nervously in the greenhouse doorway.
"What," he said softly, his voice dripping with menace, "could be more important than my root vegetables?"
"Well, Lord Vader, you see, er, the prisoner we picked up on that spaceship two days ago refuses to talk. It's obvious she knows something that we don't, but she won't squeal, blast her. We were thinking that your.methods.might be more effective."
"Aaah!" Had anyone been able to see through the black mask that shielded Darth Vader's face, they would have seen his face crack into a big smile. "I see what your admiral is thinking. And a fine thought it is, too. No one extracts information better than Darth Vader. Hey, XY- 1.234!" Vader spun around to face the small black android cowering behind the rows of turnip plants. "Bring out.the canned beets!"
The lieutenant at the door gasped in horror and staggered back.
"No! You aren't going to use the canned beets on the girl, are you?"
"The admiral wants the information. The quickest way to get it: canned beets.
Run along now, and tell the admiral I'm coming."
The lieutenant saluted hastily and dashed as quickly as he could from the greenhouse. ________________________________________________________________________
The girl everyone was making such a fuss over was nothing much to look at. Five-foot-three with murky brown hair coiled into strange doughnut-like constructs and very odd clothes, she didn't seem like a likely person to carry precious rebel secrets. Of course, no one Darth Vader knew dressed like she did, so she could be some new type of religious fanatic joined up with the Rebel Alliance. Her pants were blue denim, flared out at the ankles with bright orange flowers sewn on-she liked plants, Vader thought, maybe he could win her over with gardening talk-and she was wearing a tattered-looking T-shirt with a picture of four men splashed across the front and the The Beatles scrawled above it in curly writing. Really quite unheard of, and Darth Vader knew a lot of people with funny dressing habits.
"Lord Vader," the admiral said-why did everyone seem to start sentences with "Lord Vader" around here? "That's the rebel ringleader. She won't talk, and we've tried all we've got in the regular informational department. I presume you brought. Ah, you're starting out tough, are you? I'd have thought you'd at least start with the canned spinach before going for the whole treatment."
"I didn't want to waste time," Vader barked. "My turnips need watering, so let's get this over with."
"You people are delusional," the girl cut in, "if you think I'm going to say anything and betray the people who took me in even though I was a little out of the norm."
"Ah, delusional are we?" the admiral sneered. "Just wait and see what the Dark Lord has in store for you!"
The girl glanced at him scornfully.
"I can't even hear what you're asking me, you know," she snorted, grabbing one of the odd coils of hair and yanking it away from her head. To Vader's surprise, it came off easily, something black and padded embedded in the middle suddenly visible.
It's a headphone set, he realized, she's glued her hair to the headphones for some odd reason.
"Your precious Beatles are not going to keep you from revealing the location of the rebel base." The admiral seemed to have a record- breaking library of smirks at his disposal. "Lord Vader! The beets!"
"Immediately," Vader rumbled, pulling the jar of beets out of his billowing cloak. "Rebel scum, cower before the force of.CANNED BEETS!"
The girl gasped, turned pale, and shrank back.
"N-n-not, not canned beets?" she stammered.
"N-n-not canned beets?" stammered one of the stormtrooper guards at the door.
Vader smiled again.
"Yes. Canned beets. XY-1.234! The spoon, please!"
"We'd better go," hissed the guard. "This is going to get really, really ugly."
The two guards glanced nervously at Darth Vader, then scuttled back down the corridor.
"Now." Vader cracked open the can and dug the large spoon into the goopy mass of beets, drawing it out piled high with purple substance and sticky syrup. He took one predatory step towards his victim, brandishing the spoon. "Talk!"
All the girl managed was a squeak.
The admiral beat a hasty retreat.
"No response?" Vader took another step forward.
In went the spoonful of canned beets.
The high-pitched screams that followed caused the little man behind the refrigerator two floors down to cringe and cover his ears. ________________________________________________________________________
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640286 20899862803482.
Dot, dot, dot.
Shnibbidy Bob Joe sighed, set the five-hundred-sixty-first pen of the week down, and scratched his nose with one very ink-stained hand.
2.5 billion digits down, and still no recognizable pattern. Sometimes, the unfairness of it all gave Shnibbidy Bob a huge headache. Forty years he had sat, day in, day out, with a pen and paper and only the will to be the first man ever to discover a pattern in Pi keeping him alive and sane. And yet, he was still waiting for the payoff. Pi was such an ornery decimal.
Not that he had much else to do, living for years behind renowned Sith Lord Darth Vader's refrigerator. At least the quest for Pi kept him busy. Aside from sneaking out once or twice a month to order immense bales of binder paper-he claimed to be single-handedly responsible for the complete deforestation of the planet Vuebegon-there wasn't much excitement to living behind a refrigerator, even if it was a very nice, high-tech refrigerator, and belonged to a mass murderer, at that.
Still, he often wished that he had never stopped to pick up that blue marble, the blue marble that had opened up a large gash in space-time and sucked him through into this strange universe before he could so much as yell for help. He much preferred his vegetable garden and loyal, slobbery Labrador retriever to a refrigerator in a giant spherical battle station out in the middle of space.
Ah well. No use wishing for what would never come to pass.
Shnibbidy Bob stuffed the full sheet of paper through the crack in the wall behind him, pulled out a fresh sheet, and returned to his life's work.
.53421170679821480. ________________________________________________________________________
"Lord Vader!"
"Eh?"
"The admiral requests your presence in the lower detention block, in the shortest order you can manage."
"Tell him that it'll be a couple of hours, maybe a little longer."
"Er, he was thinking more along the lines of a couple of minutes, my lord."
"That's just too bad for him then. Do you have any idea how long my poor petunias have gone without water?"
"Lord Vader-"
"And the geraniums?"
"Lord Vader-"
"And most of all, my precious, precious turnips?"
"Lord Vader, for heavens' sake, your garden can survive for a couple more minutes! This is urgent!"
Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith and self-appointed horticulturalist, set his blue watering can down among the potted petunias and glared at the young lieutenant who was standing nervously in the greenhouse doorway.
"What," he said softly, his voice dripping with menace, "could be more important than my root vegetables?"
"Well, Lord Vader, you see, er, the prisoner we picked up on that spaceship two days ago refuses to talk. It's obvious she knows something that we don't, but she won't squeal, blast her. We were thinking that your.methods.might be more effective."
"Aaah!" Had anyone been able to see through the black mask that shielded Darth Vader's face, they would have seen his face crack into a big smile. "I see what your admiral is thinking. And a fine thought it is, too. No one extracts information better than Darth Vader. Hey, XY- 1.234!" Vader spun around to face the small black android cowering behind the rows of turnip plants. "Bring out.the canned beets!"
The lieutenant at the door gasped in horror and staggered back.
"No! You aren't going to use the canned beets on the girl, are you?"
"The admiral wants the information. The quickest way to get it: canned beets.
Run along now, and tell the admiral I'm coming."
The lieutenant saluted hastily and dashed as quickly as he could from the greenhouse. ________________________________________________________________________
The girl everyone was making such a fuss over was nothing much to look at. Five-foot-three with murky brown hair coiled into strange doughnut-like constructs and very odd clothes, she didn't seem like a likely person to carry precious rebel secrets. Of course, no one Darth Vader knew dressed like she did, so she could be some new type of religious fanatic joined up with the Rebel Alliance. Her pants were blue denim, flared out at the ankles with bright orange flowers sewn on-she liked plants, Vader thought, maybe he could win her over with gardening talk-and she was wearing a tattered-looking T-shirt with a picture of four men splashed across the front and the The Beatles scrawled above it in curly writing. Really quite unheard of, and Darth Vader knew a lot of people with funny dressing habits.
"Lord Vader," the admiral said-why did everyone seem to start sentences with "Lord Vader" around here? "That's the rebel ringleader. She won't talk, and we've tried all we've got in the regular informational department. I presume you brought. Ah, you're starting out tough, are you? I'd have thought you'd at least start with the canned spinach before going for the whole treatment."
"I didn't want to waste time," Vader barked. "My turnips need watering, so let's get this over with."
"You people are delusional," the girl cut in, "if you think I'm going to say anything and betray the people who took me in even though I was a little out of the norm."
"Ah, delusional are we?" the admiral sneered. "Just wait and see what the Dark Lord has in store for you!"
The girl glanced at him scornfully.
"I can't even hear what you're asking me, you know," she snorted, grabbing one of the odd coils of hair and yanking it away from her head. To Vader's surprise, it came off easily, something black and padded embedded in the middle suddenly visible.
It's a headphone set, he realized, she's glued her hair to the headphones for some odd reason.
"Your precious Beatles are not going to keep you from revealing the location of the rebel base." The admiral seemed to have a record- breaking library of smirks at his disposal. "Lord Vader! The beets!"
"Immediately," Vader rumbled, pulling the jar of beets out of his billowing cloak. "Rebel scum, cower before the force of.CANNED BEETS!"
The girl gasped, turned pale, and shrank back.
"N-n-not, not canned beets?" she stammered.
"N-n-not canned beets?" stammered one of the stormtrooper guards at the door.
Vader smiled again.
"Yes. Canned beets. XY-1.234! The spoon, please!"
"We'd better go," hissed the guard. "This is going to get really, really ugly."
The two guards glanced nervously at Darth Vader, then scuttled back down the corridor.
"Now." Vader cracked open the can and dug the large spoon into the goopy mass of beets, drawing it out piled high with purple substance and sticky syrup. He took one predatory step towards his victim, brandishing the spoon. "Talk!"
All the girl managed was a squeak.
The admiral beat a hasty retreat.
"No response?" Vader took another step forward.
In went the spoonful of canned beets.
The high-pitched screams that followed caused the little man behind the refrigerator two floors down to cringe and cover his ears. ________________________________________________________________________