Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

There were crowds outside the university; there were crowds, even now, queuing to get into the Hippo. The sound of a hundred thousand people at one purpose rose like the buzz of a distant swarm.

Glenda went back to the sanctuary of the Night Kitchen and tried to pass some time by doing some baking, but the dough fell from her fingers.

‘Are you upset?’ said Juliet.

‘I hope we’re going to win,’ said Glenda.

‘Well, of course we’re going to win,’ said Juliet.

‘That’s all very well up until the time we lose,’ said Glenda. ‘Yes, who’s that?’

The door was pushed open and Pepe stepped in, looking smarter than usual. ‘Hello, ladies,’ he said. ‘Got a little message for you. How was you expecting to watch the match?’

‘Just so long as we can get close,’ said Glenda.

‘Tell you what, then,’ said Pepe. ‘Madame has got the best seats in the stadium. Nothing underhand, just open and above-board bribery. Shatta has got to be seen out and about, you see? Got to keep micromail in the public eye.’

‘I’d love to!’ Juliet shouted. And even Glenda found that her automatic, unthinking cynicism was letting her down.

‘There will be sherry,’ said Pepe.

‘Will there be anyone famous there?’ said Juliet.

Pepe walked over and prodded her gently in the chest and said, ‘Yes. You, miss. Everyone wants to see Jewels.’

It seemed as if the clocks turned backwards. All Watch leave had been suspended, but it was hard to see what crime there could be in streets where nobody could move. A flood of humanity, well, mostly humanity, poured towards the stadium, bounced off it and overflowed and backfilled more and more of the city. The game was in the Hippo, the crowd stretched back to Sator Square and eventually the pressure of so many eyeballs on the hands of so many clocks moved time forwards.

Only the team, and Trev, remained in the Great Hall, everyone else having left much earlier in a fruitless attempt at securing a seat. They milled around aimlessly prodding the ball to one another until Ponder, Nutt and the Archchancellor turned up.

‘Well, big day, lads!’ said Ridcully. ‘Looks like there’s going to be a nice day for it as well. They’re all over there waiting for us to give them a show. I want you to approach this in the best traditions of Unseen University sportsmanship, which is to cheat whenever you are unobserved, though I fear that the chance of anyone being unobserved today is remote. But in any case, I want you all to give it one hundred and ten per cent.’

‘Excuse me, Archchancellor,’ said Ponder Stibbons. ‘I understand the sense of what you are saying, but there is only one hundred per cent.’

‘Well, they could give it one hundred and ten per cent if they tried harder,’ said Ridcully.

‘Well, yes and no, sir. But, in fact, that would mean that you had just made the one hundred per cent bigger while it would still be one hundred per cent. Besides, there is only so fast a man can run, only so high a man can jump. I just wanted to make the point.’

‘Good point, well made,’ said Ridcully, dismissing it instantly. He looked around at the faces. ‘Ah, Mister Likely, I suppose there is nothing I can do that would get you on to the team? Dave Likely’s boy playing for Unseen Academicals would be a bit of a feather in our cap. And I see my colleague Professor Rincewind has humorously already put a white one in his.’

‘Well, sir, you know how I’m fixed,’ Trev mumbled.

‘Your old mum,’ said Ridcully, nodding understandingly.

‘I promised her,’ said Trev. ‘I know she’s passed away, but I’m certain that she still watches over me, sir.’

‘Well, that’s nice and does you credit. Is there anything else that can be said? Let me think. Oh yes, gentlemen–Mrs Whitlow, as is her wont on these occasions, has organized her maids to dress up in appropriate costume and cheer us on from the sidelines.’ His face was a blank mask as he continued. ‘Mrs Whitlow unaccountably takes an enthusiastic and uncharacteristically athletic part in these things. There will be high kicking, I am told, but if you are careful where you let your gaze fall, you should see nothing that will upset you too much.’

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Rincewind. ‘Is it true that some of the men in Ankh-Morpork United are just a bunch of thugs from the Shove?’

‘That might be a bit harsh,’ Ridcully began.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Trev, ‘that is quite true. I would say about half of them are honest cloggers and the rest of them are bastards.’

‘Well, I’m sure we will overcome,’ said Ridcully jovially.

‘I would also like to make a few comments before we leave, sir,’ said Nutt. ‘A few words of advice, perhaps? In these few days I have taught you everything I know, even if I do not know how I know it. As you know, I am an orc and whatever else we were, we were team players. You are playing, therefore, not as individuals, but as a team. I think it was Von Haudenbrau who said—’

‘I don’t think we’ve got very much time to get through the crowds,’ said Ridcully, who had been expecting this. ‘Thank you, Mister Nutt, but I really think we ought to get going.’

Those watching from above would have seen the cramped streets of the city waver as the red caterpillar that was the Unseen Academicals made its way to the ground. There were cheers and there were boos and because this was Ankh-Morpork, usually the cheers and the booing were done alternately by everyone concerned.

By the time Lance-Constable Bluejohn of the Watch and two other trolls had forcibly prised open the gates against the pressure of bodies, the noise was just one great hammer of sound. The troll officers opened a path for them with the forethought and delicacy that has made police crowd control such a byword. It led to a fenced-off and heavily guarded area, in the centre of which was the Archchancellor formerly known as Dean, the entire team of Ankh-Morpork United and His Grace the Duke of Ankh, Commander of the City Watch, Sir Samuel Vimes, with a face like a bad lunch. ‘What the hell are you clowns proposing to do to my city?’ he demanded and looked up at Vetinari in his box in the middle of the stand. He raised his voice. ‘I’ve been grafting like mad this last month on getting the KV Accord sorted out and it turns out that just when the dwarfs and the trolls are shaking hands and being jolly good pals, you lot are starting another KV of your very own.’

‘Oh, come now, Sam,’ said Ridcully. ‘It’s only a jolly day out.’

‘People are queueing up at the gates,’ said Vimes. ‘The actual city gates. How much of this is magical?’

‘None, Sam, as far as we’re aware. There will be no magic used during the game, this has been discussed and agreed and the D—’ Ridcully swallowed hard. ‘The Archchancellor of Brazeneck University is making himself responsible for thaumic damping of the stadium.’

‘Then let me tell you this,’ said the commander. ‘None of my men will set a foot on the field of play, no matter what happens. Do I make myself clear?’

‘As crystal, Sam.’

‘Sorry, Archchancellor, for now I am Commander of the City Watch, not Sam, if it’s all the same to you,’ said Vimes. ‘The whole damn city is an accident waiting to—no, an accident that already has happened and anything that goes bad will get worse very quickly. I’m not going to have it said that the Watch were the problem. Honestly, Mustrum, I really would have expected better from you.’

‘That will be Archchancellor,’ said Ridcully coldly.

‘As far as I’m concerned,’ said Vimes, ‘this is a scuffle between rival gangs. Do you know what my job is, Archchancellor? It’s to keep the peace, and for two pins, I’d arrest the whole boiling of ya, but his lordship won’t have it.’