Science of Discworld

OOK: A SPACE ODYSSEY

RINCEWIND SAT IN A CORNER of the High Energy Magic building. It was deserted at the moment. News had got around that the project was really being ended this time, and wizards had drifted away to lunch.

The round world spun in its protective globe and also, by means of a physics only a wizard might understand, in a space that was infinite only on the inside.

'Poor old bloody place,' he said, to the world in general. 'Never really stood a chance, did you.'

'Ook.'

It was a small grunt, from the other side of the huge room. Rincewind wandered over, and found the Librarian peering into the omniscope.

'Oh, they've got sticks now,' said Rincewind, looking down at a ragged party of apes. 'And a lot of good it'll do them, too.'

'Ook?'

'The lizards had sharp shells on the end of theirs, and are they around today? I don't think so. And the crabs were doing well. Even the blobs were trying to make a go of things. There were some bear sort of things that looked promising. Doesn't matter. One winter the snow doesn't melt, next thing there's a two-mile wall of ice lam­inating you to the bedrock. Or there's a funny light in the sky and then you're trying to breathe burning water.' He shook his head wearily. 'Nice place, though. Nice colours. Particularly good hori­zons, once you get used to them. Lots of dullness, punctuated by short periods of death.'

'Ook?' said the Librarian.

'Well, maybe they do look a bit like you,' said Rincewind. 'Most of the lizards looked a bit like the Bursar. Maybe it's just coincidence. Everything has to look like something, after all. As above, so below.'

In the omniscope, some distance behind the ape clan, something lean and powerful was tracking them in the long grass.

'Eeek!'

The Librarian thumped on the desk.

'Sorry. It's not up to me. "Live and let live", you know that's always been my motto. Well, "let me live", really, but that's almost the same thing.'

Hands waving wildly over his head, which only happened when he was really in a hurry, the Librarian ran out of the room.

Rincewind caught him up as he entered the main building, and then trotted along after him as the ape wound his way through the university's less salubrious regions, the realm of broom cupboards, old storerooms and the studies of the very much lesser members of staff. Even using all the shortcuts, it still took quite a while to reach the office of the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, with the name 'Rincewind' written on it in chalk.

The orangutan flung the door back and knuckled purposefully towards the big stack of boxes.

'Er ... that's the rock collection,' said Rincewind. 'Er ... I was filing them ... er ... they belong to the University, I really don't think you should be throwing them out like that...'

'Ook!'

The Librarian straightened up, bearing aloft a couple of large rocks that Rincewind recognized as noduley, sharp, brittle, unfriendly rocks.

'Er ... why are you ...' Rincewind began.

The Librarian walked across to the Luggage and gave it a kick. The lid opened obediently, and the rocks were thrown inside. The ape went back for more flints.

'Er ...' said Rincewind, but left it at that. This did not seem to be a time to raise objections.

He had to run after the Librarian and the Luggage all the way back to the High Energy Magic Building. By the time he got there, the ape was pounding heavily on one of HEX's keyboards.

Rincewind tried again.

'Er ... should you be ...'

He was interrupted by the rattle of the machine's writing device.

It spelled out: +++ New Suit Parameters Accepted +++

On the far side of the room, where the skeletal virtually-there suits flicked on the verge of non-existence, one changed shape. The shoulders widened. The arms grew longer. The legs shortened…

+++ Adjustment Complete. On You It Looks Good +++

Rincewind backed away as the Librarian, cradling a large flint nodule in each arm, stepped in the magic circle and began to shim­mer as the suit enclosed him.

'You're not going to interfere, are you?' said Rincewind.

'Ook?'

'No, no, that's fine, fine, no problem at all,' said Rincewind. It is never wise to argue with an ape holding a rock. 'It's about time someone did.'

The Librarian flickered, and became a ghost in the air.

Rincewind stood alone in the empty room, whistling nervously. In its alcove, HEX began to sparkle, as it always did when it was try­ing to allow a wizard to interact with the project.

'Blast!' said Rincewind at last, striding over to the suits. 'He's bound to muck it up ...'

Lightning fried the evening sky, turning it purple and pink.

Above the little hollow in the cliff, where the tribe clustered and flinched, a sleek black shadow moved like an extension of the night. It wasn't hurrying. Dinner wasn't going anywhere. When the light­ning faded its eyes gleamed for a while.

Something grabbed its tail. It spun around, snarling, and a fist extended on the end of a very long arm hit it right between the eyes, lifting it off the ledge.

It landed heavily on the ground, jerked for a moment, and lay still.

The ape horde scattered around the rocks, screaming, and then stopped to look back.

The big cat didn't move.

Another bolt of lighting hit the ground nearby, and a dead tree exploded into flame. Against the violet corona of the storm, red in the light of the burning tree, a huge figure stood holding a large stone in the crook of each arm.

As Rincewind said, it was a vision you were unlikely to forget.

Rincewind couldn't eat here. Well, not in the usual, definitive way. He thought he could probably manipulate lumps of food into his mouth, but since the food would technically remain in a different universe to his, he was afraid it might drop straight through him, to general embarrassment and the puzzlement of spectators.

Besides, he didn't feel like flame-grilled leopard.

The Librarian had been working furiously. He'd turned the area into a boot camp for people who were barely upright and wouldn't know what to do with a boot anyway. The apemen had taken to fire quite quickly, after a few misdirected attempts to eat it or have sex with it, and several of them had progressed to setting fire to them­selves.

They'd learned cookery, too, initially on one another.

Rincewind sighed. He'd seen species come, and he'd seen them go, and this one could only have been put on the world for enter­tainment value. They had the same approach to life as clowns, with the same touch of cheerful viciousness.

The Librarian had progressed to lessons in flint-knapping, using the flints brought in via the Luggage. They'd certainly picked up the idea of hitting rocks against other rocks, or anything else in range. Sharp edges intrigued them.

Finally Rincewind wandered over to the Librarian and tapped him on the shoulder.

'We've been here all day,' he said. 'We'd better get back.'

The orangutan nodded, and stood up. 'Ook.'

'You think it'll work?'

'Ook!'

Rincewind looked back at the apemen. One of them was indus­triously hacking at the corpse of the cat again.

'Really? But they're just like ... hairy parrots.'

'Eek ook.'

'Well ... yes. That's true.' Rincewind took a final look at the horde. Two of them were squabbling over the meat. Monkey see, monkey do ...

'I'm glad it was you who said that,' he said.

Less than a Discworld second had passed by the time they returned. By the time they looked in the omniscope, several fires were already visible on the night side of the world.

The Librarian looked pleased. 'Oook,' he said.

Progress means smoke. But Rincewind was not entirely con­vinced. Most of the fires were forests.