Terry Pratchett - The Truth

'Are you suggesting that prawns could travel by semaphore?' said the Chief Priest. I suppose that you might be able to flick them from--'

'I was endeavouring to point out the fact that information is also bought and sold,' said Lord Vetinari. 'And also that what was once considered impossible is now quite easily achieved. Kings and lords come and go and leave nothing but statues in a desert, while a couple of young men tinkering in a workshop change the way the world works.'

He walked over to a table on which was spread out a map of the world. It was a workman's map; this is to say, it was a map used by someone who needed to refer to it a lot. It was covered with notes and markers.

'We've always looked beyond the walls for the invaders,' he said. 'We always thought change came from outside, usually on the point of a sword. And then we look around and find that it comes from the inside of the head of someone you wouldn't notice in the street. In certain circumstances it may be convenient to remove the head, but there seem to be such a lot of them these days.'

He gestured towards the busy map.

'A thousand years ago we thought the world was a bowl,' he said. 'Five hundred years ago we knew it was a globe. Today we know it is flat and round and carried through space on the back of a turtle.' He turned and gave the High Priest another smile. 'Don't you wonder what shape it will turn out to be tomorrow?'

But a family trait of all the Ridcullys was not to let go of a thread until you've unravelled the whole garment.

'Besides, they have these little pincer things, you know, and would probably hang on like--'

'What do?'

'Prawns. They'd hang on to--'

'You are taking me rather too literally, your reverence,' said Vetinari sharply.

'Oh.'

'I was merely endeavouring to indicate that if we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat.'

It'll end in trouble, my lord,' said Ridcully. He'd found it a good general comment in practically any debate. Besides, it was so often true.

Lord Vetinari sighed. In my experience, practically everything does,' he said. That is the nature of things. All we can do is sing as we go,'

He stood up. 'However, I will pay a personal visit to the dwarfs in question,' He reached out to ring a bell on his desk, stopped, and with a smile at the priest moved his hand instead to a brass and leather tube that hung from two brass hooks. The mouthpiece was in the shape of a dragon.

He whistled into it, and then said, 'Mr Drumknott? My coach, please,'

'Is it me,' said Ridcully, giving the new-fangled speaking tube a nervous glance, 'or is there a terrible smell in here?'

Lord Vetinari gave him a quizzical look and glanced down.

There was a basket just underneath his desk. In it was what appeared to be, at first glance and certainly at first smell, a dead dog. It lay with all four legs in the air. Only the occasional gentle expulsion of wind suggested that some living process was going on.

'It's his teeth,' he said coldly. The dog Wuffles turned over and regarded the priest with one baleful black eye.

'He's doing very well for a dog of his age,' said Hughnon, in a desperate attempt to climb a suddenly tilting slope. 'How old would he be now?'

'Sixteen,' said the Patrician. 'That's over a hundred in dog years.'

Wuffles dragged himself into a sitting position and growled, releasing a gust of stale odours from the depths of his basket.

'He's very healthy,' said Hughnon while trying not to breathe. 'For his age, I mean. I expect you get used to the smell.'

'What smell?' said Lord Vetinari.

'Ah. Yes. Indeed,' said Hughnon.

As Lord Vetinari's coach rattled off through the slush towards Gleam Street it may have surprised its occupant to know that, in a cellar quite near by, someone looking very much like him was chained to the wall.

It was quite a long chain, giving him access to a table and chair, a bed, and a hole in the floor.

Currently he was at the table. On the other side of it was Mr Pin. Mr Tulip was leaning menacingly against the wall. It would be clear to any experienced person that what was going on here was 'good cop, bad cop' with the peculiar drawback that there were no cops. There was just an apparently endless supply of Mr Tulip.

'So... Charlie,' said Mr Pin, 'how about it?'

'It's not illegal, is it?' said the man addressed as Charlie.

Mr Pin spread his hands. 'What's legality, Charlie? Just words on paper. But you won't be doing anything wrong.'

Charlie nodded uncertainly. 'But ten thousand dollars doesn't sound like the kind of money you get for doing something right,' he said. 'Not for just saying a few words,'

'Mr Tulip here once got even more money than that for saying just a few words, Charlie,' said Mr Pin soothingly.

'Yeah, I said, "Give me all the --ing cash or the girl gets it,"' said Mr Tulip.

'Was that right?' said Charlie, who seemed to Mr Pin to have a highly developed death wish.

'Absolutely right for that occasion, yes,' he said.

'Yes, but it's not often people make money like that,' said the suicidal Charlie. His eyes kept straying to the monstrous bulk of Mr Tulip, who was holding a paper bag in one hand and, in the other hand, a spoon. He was using the spoon to ferry a fine white powder to his nose, his mouth and once, Charlie would have sworn, his ear.

'Well, you are a special man, Charlie,' said Mr Pin. 'And afterwards you will have to stay out of sight for a long time.'

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'Yeah,' said Mr Tulip, in a spray of powder. There was a sudden strong smell of mothballs.

'All right, but why did you have to kidnap me, then? One minute I was locking up for the night, next minute - bang! And you've got me chained up.'

Mr Pin decided to change tack. Charlie was arguing too much for a man in the same room as Mr Tulip, especially a Mr Tulip who was halfway through a bag of powdered mothballs. He gave him a big friendly smile.

'There's no point in dwelling on the past, my friend,' he said. 'This is business. All we want is a few days of your time, and then you end up with a fortune and - and I believe this is important, Charlie - a lifetime in which to spend it.'

Charlie was turning out to be very stupid indeed.

'But how do you know I won't tell someone?' he insisted.

Mr Pin sighed. 'We trust you, Charlie.'

The man had run a clothes shop in Pseudopolis. Small shopkeepers had to be smart, didn't they? They were usually sharp as knives when it came to making just the right amount of wrong change. So much for physiognomy, thought Mr Pin. This man could pass for the Patrician even in a good light, but while by all accounts Lord Vetinari would have already worked out all the nasty ways the future could go, Charlie was actually entertaining the idea that he was going to come out of this alive and might even outsmart Mr Pin. He was actually trying to be cunning. He was sitting a few feet away from Mr Tulip, a man trying to snort crushed moth repellant, and he was trying guile. You almost had to admire the man.

'I'll need to be back by Friday,' said Charlie. 'It'll all be over by Friday, will it?'

~blk~

The shed that was now leased by the dwarfs had in the course of its rickety life been a forge and a laundry and a dozen other enterprises, and had last been used as a rocking-horse factory by someone who had thought something was the Next Big Thing when it was by then one day away from becoming the Last Big Flop. Stacks of half-finished rocking horses that Mr Cheese had

38

been unable to sell for the back rent still filled one wall all the way to the tin roof. There was a shelf of corroding paint tins. Brushes had fossilized in their jars.

The press occupied the centre of the floor, with several dwarfs at work. William had seen presses. The engravers used them. This one had an organic quality, though. The dwarfs spent as much time changing the press as they did using it. Extra rollers appeared, endless belts were threaded into the works. The press grew by the hour.