'Lethal injection?'

'Not funny. No, my friend Mrs Beatty knows a dodo whisperer who can work wonders with unruly dodos.'

'You're kidding me, right?'

'Not at all.'

'I'll try anything, I suppose. I can't understand why he's so difficult — Pickers is a real sweetheart.'

We fell silent for a moment.

'Mum?' I said at last.

'Yes?'

'What do you think of Herr Bismarck?'

'Otto? Well, most people remember him for his "blood and iron" rhetoric, unification arguments and the wars — but few give him credit for devising the first social security system in Europe.'

'No, I mean . . . that is to say . . . you wouldn't—'

But at that moment we heard some oaths and a slammed door. After a few thumps and bumps Hamlet burst into the living room with Emma in tow. He stopped, composed himself, rubbed his forehead, looked heavenward, sighed deeply and then said:

'O! that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!'[1]

'Is everything all right?' I asked.

'Or that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!'[2]

'I'll make a cup of tea,' said my mother, who had an instinct for these sorts of things. 'Would you like a slice of Battenberg, Mr Hamlet?'

'O God! O God! How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable — yes, please — Seem to me all the uses of this world!'[3]

She nodded and moved off.

'What's up?' I asked Emma as Hamlet strutted around the living room, beating his head in frustration and grief.

'Well, we went to see Hamlet at the Alhambra.'

'Crumbs!' I muttered. 'It — er — didn't go down too well, I take it?'

'Well,' reflected Emma, as Hamlet continued his histrionics around the living room, 'the play was okay apart from Hamlet shouting out a couple of times that Polonius wasn't meant to be funny and Laertes wasn't remotely handsome. The management weren't particularly put out — there were at least twelve "Hamlets" in the audience and they all had something to say about it.'

'Fie on't! O fie!' continued Hamlet, ''tis an unweeded garden, That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely—!'[4]

'No,' continued Emma, 'it was when we and the twelve other Hamlets went to have a quiet drink with the play's company afterwards that things turned sour. Piarno Keyes — who was playing Hamlet — took umbrage at Hamlet's criticisms of his performance; Hamlet said his portrayal was far too indecisive. Mr Keyes said Hamlet was mistaken, that Hamlet was a man racked by uncertainty. Then Hamlet said he was Hamlet so should know a thing or two about it; one of the other "Hamlets" disagreed and said he was Hamlet and thought Mr Keyes was excellent. Several of the "Hamlets" agreed and it might have ended there but Hamlet said that if Mr Keyes insisted on playing Hamlet he should look at how Mel Gibson did it and improve his performance in the light of that.'

'Oh dear.'

'Yes,' said Emma, 'oh dear. Mr Keyes flew right off the handle. "Mel Gibson?" he roared. "Mel ****ing Gibson? That's all I ever ****ing hear these days!" and he then tried to punch Hamlet on the nose. Hamlet was too quick, of course, and had his bodkin at Keyes' throat before you could blink, so one of the other "Hamlets" suggested a Hamlet contest. The rules were simple: they all had to perform the "To be or not to be" soliloquy and the drinkers in the tavern gave them points out often.'

'And—?'

'Hamlet came last.'

'Last? How could he come last?'

'Well, he insisted on playing the soliloquy less like an existential question about life and death and the possibility of an afterlife, and more as if it were about a post-apocalyptic dystopia where crossbow-wielding punks on motorbikes try to kill people for their gasoline.'

I looked across at Hamlet, who had quietened down a bit and was looking through my mother's video collection for Olivier's Hamlet to see whether it was better than Gibson's.

'No wonder he's hacked off.'

'Here we go!' said my mother, returning with a large tray of tea things. 'There's nothing like a nice cup of tea when things look bad!'

'Humph,' grunted Hamlet, staring at his feet. 'I don't suppose you've got any of that cake, have you?'

'Especially for you!' My mother smiled, producing the Battenberg with a flourish. She was right, too. After a few cups and a slice of cake, Hamlet was almost human again.

I left Emma and Hamlet arguing with my mother over whether they should watch Olivier's Hamlet or Great Croquet Sporting Moments on the television and went to sort some washing in the kitchen. I stood there trying to figure out just what sort of brain-scrubbing technique Goliath had used on me to get me to sign their forgiveness release. Oddly, I was still getting pro-Goliath flashbacks. In absent moments I felt they weren't so bad, then had to consciously remind myself that they were. On the plus side there was a possibility that Landen might be reactuallsed, but I didn't know when it would happen, or how.

I was just getting round to wondering whether a cold soak might remove ketchup stains better than a hot wash when there was a light crackling sound in the air like crumpled cellophane. It grew louder and green tendrils of electricity started to envelop the Kenwood mixer, then grew stronger until a greenish glow like St Elmo's fire was dancing around the microwave. There was a bright light and a rumble of thunder as three figures started to materialise into the kitchen. Two of them were dressed in body armour and holding ridiculously large blaster-type weapons; the other figure was tall and dressed in jet-black high-collared robes which hung to the floor on one side and buttoned tightly up to his throat on the other. He had a pale complexion, high cheekbones and a small and very precise goatee. He stood with his arms crossed and was staring at me with one eyebrow raised imperiously. This was truly a tyrant among tyrants, a cruel galactic leader who had murdered billions in his never-ending and inadequately explained quest for total galactic domination. This . . . was Emperor Zhark.

'Do you have to do that?' I asked.

'Do what?' replied the emperor.

'Make such a pointlessly dramatic entrance. And what are those two goons doing here?'

'Who said that?' said a muffled voice from inside the opaque helmet of one of his minders. 'I can't see a sodding thing in here.'

'Who's a goon?' said the other.

Zhark laughed, ignoring them both. 'It's a contractual thing. I've got a new agent who knows how to properly handle a character of my quality. I have to be given a minimum of eighty words' description at least once in any featured book, and at least twice in a book a chapter has to end with my appearance.'