The Science of Discworld II - The Globe

25. PARAGON OF VEGETABLES

The wine-dark sea lapped the distant shore. Nice country, Rincewind thought. A bit like Ephebe.

Grapes, olives, honey and fish and sunshine.

He turned back to his group of proto-actors. They were having difficulty grasping the idea.

'Like the priests do in the temples?' said a man. 'Is that what you mean?'

'Yes, but you can ... expand the idea,' said Rincewind. 'You can pretend to be the gods. Or anything else.'

'Wouldn't we get into trouble?'

'Not if you did it respectfully,' said Rincewind. 'And people would ... sort of see the gods. Seeing is believing, eh? Besides, children pretend to be other people all the time.'

'But that is childish play,' said the man.

'People might pay to see you,' said Rincewind. There was an immediate increase in interest.

Human-shaped creatures were the same everywhere, Rincewind thought; if you got money for doing it, it had to be worth doing.

'Just gods?' said a man.

'Oh, no. Anything at all,' said Rincewind. 'Gods, demons, nymphs, shepherds—'

'No, I couldn't do a shepherd,' said the possible thespian. 'I'm a carpenter. I don't know shepherding.'

'But you know godding?'

'Well, yeah, that's just ... thundering and shouting and that kind of thing. Being a decent shepherd takes years of work.'

'You can't expect us to act like people,' said another man. 'That wouldn't be right.'

'It's not respectful,' said a third man.

Yes, we mustn't change things, thought Rincewind. The elves like that thinking. We mustn't change things, in case they end up different. Poor old Phocian ...

'Well, can you do trees?' he said. He was vaguely aware that actors warmed up by pretending to be trees, amongst other things, and this presumably prevented wooden performances.

'Trees are all right,' said a man. They're quite magical. But it wouldn't be respectful to our friend over there to ask us to be carpenters.' 'All right, then, trees. That's a start. Now, stretch out your

—' There was a roll of thunder and a goddess appeared. Her hair was in golden ringlets, her white robe flapped in the breeze, and there was an owl on her shoulder. The men ran away.

'Well, my little trickster,' said the goddess, 'and what are you teaching them?'

Rincewind clapped a hand over one eye for a moment. 'That owl's stuffed,' he said. 'You can't fool me! No animals stay around elves without going mad!'

The image of the goddess wavered as the Queen tried to maintain control, but glamour is susceptible to disbelief.

'Oh, so brave?' she said, defaulting to her usual appearance. She turned at a creaking noise behind her. The Luggage had tiptoed up and opened its lid.

'That doesn't frighten me,' she said.

'Really? It frightens me,' said Rincewind. 'Anyway, I'm simply brushing up their acting skills.

Absolutely no problem there, is there? You should love these people. There's dryads, nymphs, satyrs, centaurs, harpies and big giants with one eye, unless that's a joke about sex I haven't fully understood yet. They believe in all of them and none of them exist! Except possibly the one-eyed giant, that one's a bit of a puzzler.'

'We have seen their performances,' said the Queen. 'They are not respectful of their gods.'

'But seeing is believing, isn't it? And you must admit, they've got a lot of gods. Dozens.'

He gave her a friendly smile, while hoping that she was keeping away from the local cities. They had a lot of temples in them, and shrines all over the place, but they also had a number of men who, while taking care to invoke the gods on every occasion, then appeared to expound ideas that didn't seem to have any place for gods in them, except as observers or decoration. But the actors liked playing gods ...

'You're up to something,' said the Queen. 'Everywhere we look, you wizards are teaching people art. Why?'

'Well, it's a rather drab planet,' said Rincewind.

'Everywhere we go, they're telling stories,' said the Queen, still slowly circling. 'They're filling the sky with pictures, too.'

'Oh, the constellations?' said Rincewind. 'They don't change, you know. Not like at home.

Amazing. I tried getting one tribe to name that big one - you know, with what looks like a belt - I thought if they ended up calling it the Bursar, and that group of little stars off to the right became The Dried Frog Pills, it'd be a nice souvenir of our visit—'

'You're frightened of me, aren't you,' said the Queen. 'All you wizards are frightened of women.'

'Not me!' said Rincewind. 'Women are less likely to be armed!'

'Yes you are,' the Queen insisted, moving closer. 'I wonder what your deepest desire is?'

Not to be here right now would be favourite, Rincewind thought.

'I wonder what I could give you,' said the Queen, caressing Rincewind's cheek.

'Everyone knows that anything you get from the elves is gone by morning,' said Rincewind, trembling.

'Yet many things are transient but pleasurable,' said the Queen, moving rather too close. 'What is it you want, Rincewind?'

Rincewind shuddered. There was no way he could lie.

'Potatoes,' he said.

'Tuberous vegetables?' said the Queen, her brows knitting in puzzlement.

'Well, yes. They've got them on one of the other continents, but they're not what I'd call spuds, and Ponder Stibbons says that if we left things as they were then by the time they've been brought over to this continent and bred up a bit it'd be the end of the world. So we thought we ought to ginger up the creativity level a bit.'

'And that's it? That's why all you wizards are doing all this? Just to accelerate the breeding of a vegetable?

'The vegetable, thank you,' said Rincewind. 'And you did ask. The potato, in my opinion, is the crown of the vegetable kingdom. There's roast potatoes, jacket potatoes, boiled potatoes, fried potatoes, curried potatoes—'

'Just for a stupid tuber?'

'— potato soup, potato salad, potato pancakes —'

'All this for something that doesn't even see daylight!'

'—mashed potato, chipped potato, stuffed potato—'

The Queen slapped Rincewind's face. The Luggage bumped into the back of her legs. It wasn't entirely sure what was happening here. There were some things humans did that could be misinterpreted.

'Do you not think I could give you something better than a potato?' she demanded.

Rincewind looked puzzled.

'Are we talking about a sour cream topping with chives?' he said.

Something fell out of Rincewind's robe as he shifted uneasily. The Queen grabbed it.

'What's this?' she said. 'There's writing all over it!'

'It's just a script,' said Rincewind, still thinking about potatoes. 'A sort of story of a play,' he added. 'Nothing important at all. People going mad and getting killed, that sort of thing. And a glowworm.'

'I recognise this script! It's from the future of this world. Why would you carry it around? What is so special? Hah, are there potatoes in it?'

She leafed through the pages, as if she could read.

'This must be important!' she snapped. And vanished.

One solitary page slid down to the ground.

Rincewind bent down and picked it up. Then he shouted hotly at the empty air: 'I suppose a packet of crisps is out of the question?'