The Science of Discworld III - Darwin's Watch

1. ANY OTHER BUSINESS

IT WAS RAINING. THIS WOULD, of course, be good for the worms.

Through the trickles that coursed down the window Charles Darwin stared at the garden.

Worms, thousands of them, out there under the soft rain, turning the detritus of winter into loam, building the soil. How... convenient.

The ploughs of God, he thought, and winced. It was the harrows of God that plagued him now.

Strange how the rustle of the rain sounds very much like people whispering ...

At which point, he became aware of the beetle. It was climbing up the inside of the window, a green and blue tropical jewel.

There was another one, higher up, banging fruitlessly against the pane.

One landed on his head.

The air filled up with the rattle and slither of wings. Entranced, Darwin turned to look at the glowing cloud in the corner of the room. It was forming a shape ... It is always useful for a university to have a Very Big Thing. It occupies the younger members, to the relief of their elders (especially if the VBT is based at some distance from the seat of learning itself) and it uses up a lot of money which would otherwise only lie around causing trouble or be spent by the sociology department or, probably, both. It also helps in pushing back boundaries, and it doesn't much matter what boundaries these are, since as any researcher will tell you it's the pushing that matters, not the boundary.

It's a good idea, too, if it's a bigger VBT than anyone else's and, in particular, since this was Unseen University, the greatest magical university in the world, if it's a bigger one than the one those bastards are building at Braseneck College.

`In fact,' said Ponder Stibbons, Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, `theirs is really only a QBT, or Quite Big Thing. Actually, they've had so many problems with it, it's probably only a BT!'

The senior wizards nodded happily.

`And ours is certainly bigger, is it?' said the Senior Wrangler.

`Oh, yes,' said Stibbons. `Based on what I can determine from chatting to the people at Braseneck, ours will be capable of pushing boundaries twice as big up to three times as far.'

'I hope you haven't told them that,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. `We don't want them building a ... a ... an EBT!'

`A what, sir?' said Ponder politely, his tone saying, `I know about this sort of special thing and I'd rather you did not pretend that you do too.'

`Um ... an Even Bigger Thing?' said Runes, aware that he was edging into unknown territory.

`No, sir,' said Ponder, kindly. `The next one up would be a Great Big Thing, Sir. It's been postulated that if we could ever build a GBT, we would know the mind of the Creator.'

The wizards fell silent. For a moment, a fly buzzed against the high, stone-mullioned window, with its stained-glass image of Archchancellor Sloman Discovering the Special Theory of Slood, and then, after depositing a small flyspeck on Archchancellor Sloman's nose, exited with precision though a tiny hole in one pane which had been caused two centuries ago when a stone had been thrown up by a passing cart. Originally the hole had stayed there because no one could be bothered to have it fixed, but now it stayed there because it was traditional.

The fly had been born in Unseen University and because of the high, permanent magical field, was far more intelligent than the average fly. Strangely, the field never had this effect on wizards, perhaps because most of them were more intelligent than flies in any case.

`I don't think we want to do that, do we?' said Ridcully.

`It might be considered impolite,' agreed the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

`Exactly how big would a Great Big Thing be?' said the Senior Wrangler.

`The same size as the universe, sir,' said Ponder. `Every particle of the universe would be modelled within it, in fact.'

`Quite big, then ...'

`Yes, Sir.'

`And quite hard to find room for, I should imagine.'

`Undoubtedly, sir,' said Ponder, who had long ago given up trying to explain Big Magic to the rest of the senior faculty.

`Very well, then,' said Archchancellor Ridcully. `Thank you for your report, Mister Stibbons.' He sniffed. `Sounds fascinatin'. And the next item: Any Other Business.' He glared around the table. `And since there is no other busi-'

`Er ...

This was a bad word at this point. Ridcully did not like committee business. He certainly did not like any other business.

`Well, Rincewind?' he said, glaring down the length of the table.

`Um ...' said Rincewind. `I think that's Professor Rincewind, Sir?'

`Very well, professor,' said Ridcully. `Come on, it's past time for Early Tea.'

`The world's gone wrong, Archchancellor.'

As one wizard, everyone looked out at what could be seen of the world through Archchancellor Sloman Discovering the Special Theory of Slood.

`Don't be a fool, man,' said Ridcully. `The sun's shining! It's a nice day!'

`Not this world, sir,' said Rincewind. `The other one.'

`What other one?' said the Archchancellor, and then his expression changed.

`Not-' he began.

`Yes, sir,' said Rincewind. `That one. It's gone wrong. Again.' Every organisation needs someone to do those jobs it doesn't want to do or secretly thinks don't need doing. Rincewind had nineteen of them now, including Health and Safety Officer[2].

It was as Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography that he was responsible for the Globe. These days, it was on his desk out in the gloomy cellar passage where he worked, work largely consisting of waiting until people gave him some cruel and unusual geography to profess.

`First question,' said Ridcully, as the faculty swept along the dank flagstones. `Why are you working out here? What's wrong with your office?'

`It's too hot in my office, sir,' said Rincewind. `You used to complain it was too cold!'

`Yes, Sir. In the winter it is. Ice freezes on the walls, sir.' `We give you plenty of coal, don't we?'

`Ample, Sir. One bucket per day per post held, as per tradition. That's the trouble, really. I can't get the porters to understand. They won't give me less coal, only no coal at all. So the only way to be sure of staying warm in the winter is to keep the fire going all summer, which means it's so hot in there that I can't work in - don't open the door, sir!'

Ridcully, who'd just opened the office door, slammed it again, and wiped his face with a handkerchief.

`Snug,' he said, blinking the sweat out of his eyes. Then he turned to the little globe on the desk behind him.

It was about a foot across, at least on the outside. Inside, it was infinite; most wizards have no problem with facts of this sort. It contained everything there was, for a given value of `contained everything there was', but in its default state it focused on one tiny part of everything there was, a small planet which was, currently, covered in ice.

Ponder Stibbons swivelled the omniscope that was attached to the base of the glass dome, and stared down at the little frozen world. Just debris at the equator,' he reported. `They never built the big skyhook thing that allowed them to leave[3]. There must have been something we missed.'

`No, we sorted it all out,' said Ridcully. `Remember? All the people did get away before the planet froze.'

`Yes, Archchancellor,' said Stibbons. `And, then again, no.'

`If I ask you to explain that, would you tell me in words I can understand?' said Ridcully.

Ponder stared at the wall for a moment. His lips moved as he tried out sentences. `Yes,' he said at last. `We changed the history of the world, sending it towards a future where the people could escape before it froze. It appears that something has happened to change it back since then.'

`Again? Elves did it last time!'[4]

'I doubt if they've tried again, sir.'

`But we know the people left before the ice,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He looked from face to face, and added uncertainly, `Don't we?'

`We thought we knew before,' said the Dean, gloomily.

`In a way, sir,' said Ponder. `But the Roundworld universe is somewhat ... soft and mutable. Even though we can see a future happen, the past can change so that from the point of view of Roundworlders it doesn't. It's like ... taking out the last page of a book and putting a new one in. You can still read the old page, but from the point of view of the characters, the ending has changed, or ... possibly not.'

Ridcully slapped him on the back. `Well done, Mr Stibbons! You didn't mention quantum even once!' he said.

`Nevertheless, I suspect it may be involved,' sighed Ponder.