Terry Pratchett - The Science of Discworld I

'Not just blobs, there's all sorts of stuff! Some of it's wiggling ...'

'Is that a plant or is it an animal?'

'I'msure it's a plant.'

'Isn't it... walking ... rather fast?'

'I don't know I've never seen a plant walking before.'

The wizardery of UU was filtering back in the building as the news got around. The senior members of the faculty were clustered around the omniscope, explaining to one another, now that the impossible had happened, that of course it had been inevitable.

'All those cracks under the sea,' said the Dean. 'And the volca­noes, of course. Heat's bound to build up over time.'

'That doesn't explain all the different shapes, though,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'I mean, the whole sea looks like somebody had just turned over a very big stone.'

'I suppose the blobs had time to consider their future when they were under the ice,' said the Dean. 'It suppose you could think of it as a very long winter evening.'

'I vote for lavatories,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'Well, I'm sure we all do,' said Ridcully. 'But why at this point?'

'I mean that the blobs were ... you know ... excusing themselves for millions and millions of years, then you're get a lot of, er, manure ...'the Lecturer ventured.

'A shitload,' said the Dean.

'Dean! Really!'

'Sorry, Archchancellor.'

'... and we know dunghills absolutely teem with life ...' the Lecturer went on.

'They used to think that rubbish heaps actually generated rats,' said Ridcully. 'Of course, that was just a superstition. It's really seagulls. But you saying life is, as it were, advancing by eating dead men's shoes? Or blobs, in this case. Not shoes, of course, because they didn't have any feet. And wouldn't have been bright enough to invent shoes even if they did. And even if they had been, they couldn't have done. Because there was, at that time, nothing from which shoes might be made. But apart from that, the metaphor stands.'

'There still are blobs in there,' said the Dean. 'There's just lots of other things, too.'

'Any of it lookin' intelligent?' said Ridcully.

'I'mnot certain how we'd spot that at this stage ...'

'Simple. Is anything killing something it doesn't intend to eat?'

They stared into the teeming broth.

'Bit hard to define intentions, really,' said the Dean, after a while.

'Well, does anything look as if it is about to become intelligent?'

They watched again.

'That thing like two spiders joined together?' said the Senior Wrangler after a while. 'It looks very thoughtful.'

'I think it looks very dead.'

'Look, I can see how we can settle this whole evolution business once and for all,' said Ridcully, turning away. 'Mister Stibbons, can HEX use the omniscope to see if anything changes into anything else?'

'Over a moderately sized area, I think he probably can, sir.'

'Get it to pay attention to the land,' said the Dean. 'Is there any­thing happening on the land?'

'There's a certain greenishness, sir. Seaweed with attitude, really.'

'That's where the interesting stuff will happen, mark my words. I don't know what this universe is using for narrativium, but land's where we'll see any intelligent life.'

'How do you define intelligence?' said Ridcully. 'In the long term, I mean.'

'Universities are a good sign,' said the Dean, to general approval.

'You don't think that perhaps fire and the wheel might be more universally indicative?' said Ponder carefully.

'Not if you live in the water,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'The sea's the place here, I'll be bound. On this world practically noth­ing happens on the land.'

'But in the water everything's eating each other!'

'Then I'll look forward to seeing what happens to the last one served,' said the Senior Wrangler.

'No, when it comes to universities, the land's the place,' said the Dean. 'Paper won't last five minutes under water. Wouldn't you say so, Librarian?'

The Librarian was still staring into the omniscope.

'Ook,' he said.

'What's that he said?' said Ridcully.

'He said "I think the Senior Wrangler might be right",' said Ponder, going over to the omniscope. 'Oh ... look at this ...'

The creature had at least four eyes and ten tentacles. It was using some of the tentacles to manoeuvre a slab of rock against another slab.

'It's building a bookcase?' said Ridcully.

'Or possibly a crude rock shelter,' said Ponder Stibbons.

'There we are, then,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Personal prop­erty. Once something is yours, of course you want to improve it. The first step on the road to progress.'

'I'm not sure it's got actual legs,' said Ponder.

'The first slither, then,' said the Senior Wrangler, as the rock slipped from the creatures tentacles. 'We should help it,' he added firmly. 'After all, it wouldn't be here if it wasn't for us.'

'Hold on, hold on,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'It's only making a shelter. I mean, the Bower Bird builds intricate nests, doesn't it? And the Clock Cuckoo even builds a clock for its mate, and no one says they're intelligent as such.'

'Obviously not,' said the Dean. 'They never get the numerals right, the clocks fall apart after a few months, and they generally lose two hours a day. That doesn't sound like intelligence to me. '

'What are you suggesting, Runes?' said Ridcully.

'Why don't we send young Rincewind down again in that virtu-ally-there suit? With a trowel, perhaps, and an illustrated manual on basic construction?'

'Would they be able to see him?'

'Er ... gentlemen ...' said Ponder, who had been letting the eye of the omniscope drift further into the shallows.

'I don't see why not,' said Ridcully.

'Er ... there's a ... there's ...'

'It's one thing to push planets around over millions of years, but at this level we couldn't even give our builder down there a heavy pat on the back,' said the Dean. 'Even if we knew which part of him was his back.'

'Er ... something's paddling, sir! Something's going for a paddle, sir!'

It was probably the strangest cry of warning since the famous 'Should the reactor have gone that colour?' The wizards clustered around the omniscope.

Something had gone for a paddle. It had hundreds of little legs.

Rincewind was in his new office, filing rocks. He'd worked out quite a good system, based on size, shape, colour and twenty-seven other qualities including whether or not he felt that it was a friendly sort of rock.

With careful attention to cross-referencing, he reckoned that dealing with just those rocks in this room would take him at least three quiet, blessed years.

And he was therefore surprised to find himself picked up bodily and virtually carried towards the High Energy Magic building holding, in one hand, a hard square light grey rock and, in the other hand, a rock that appeared to be well disposed to people.

'Is this yours ?'roared Ridcully, stepping side to reveal the omniscope.

The Luggage was now bobbing contently a few metres offshore.

'Er ...' said Rincewind. 'Sort of mine.'

'So how did it get there?'

'Er ... it's probably looking for me,' said Rincewind. 'Sometimes it loses track.'

'But that's another universe!' said the Dean.

'Sorry.'

'Can you call it back?'

'Good heavens, no. If I could call it back, I'd send it away.'

'Sapient pearwood is meta-magical and will track its owner absolutely anywhere in time and space,' said Ponder.

'Yes, but not this bit!' said Ridcully.

'I don't recall "not this bit" ever being recorded as a valid sub­set of "time and space", sir,' said Ponder. 'In fact, "not this bit" has never even been accepted as a valid part of any magical invocation, ever since the late Funnit the Foregetful tried to use it as a last-minute addition to his famously successful spell to destroy the entire tree he was sitting in.'