First he found the capstone, which had shattered, its electrum sheathing peeling away. In its descent from the pyramid it had hit the statue of Hat the Vulture-Headed God, bending it double and giving it an expression of mild surprise.
A faint groan sent him tugging at the wreckage of a tent. He tore at the heavy canvas and unearthed IIb, who blinked at him in the gray light.
“It didn’t work, dad!” he moaned. “We’d almost got it up there, and then the whole thing just sort of
twisted!
”
The builder lifted a spar off his son’s legs.
“Anything broken?” he said quietly.
“Just bruised, I think.” The young architect sat up, wincing, and craned to see around.
“Where’s Two-ay?” he said. “He was higher up than me, nearly on the top—”
“I’ve found him,” said Ptaclusp.
Architects are not known for their attention to subtle shades of meaning, but IIb heard the lead in his father’s voice.
“He’s not dead, is he?” he whispered.
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure. He’s alive. But. He’s moving—he’s moving…well, you better come and see. I think something quantum has happened to him.”
You Bastard plodded onward at about 1.247 meters per second, working out complex conjugate coordinates to stave off boredom while his huge, plate-like feet crunched on the sand.
Lack of fingers was another big spur to the development of camel intellect. Human mathematical development had always been held back by everyone’s instinctive tendency, when faced with something really complex in the way of triform polynomials or parametric differentials, to count fingers. Camels started from the word go by counting
numbers
.
Deserts were a great help, too. There aren’t many distractions. As far as camels were concerned, the way to mighty intellectual development was to have nothing much to do and nothing to do it with.
He reached the crest of the dune, gazed with approval over the rolling sands ahead of him, and began to think in logarithms.
“What’s Ephebe like?” said Ptraci.
“I’ve never been there. Apparently it’s ruled by a Tyrant.”
“I hope we don’t meet him, then.”
Teppic shook his head. “It’s not like that,” he said. “They have a new Tyrant every five years and they do something to him first.” He hesitated. “I think they
ee-lect
him.”
“Is that something like they do to tomcats and bulls and things?”
“Er.”
“You know. To make them stop fighting and be more peaceful.”
Teppic winced. “To be honest, I’m not sure,” he said. “But I don’t think so. They’ve got something they do it with, I think it’s called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man, one—” He paused. The political history lesson seemed a very long while ago, and had introduced concepts never heard of in Djelibeybi or in Ankh-Morpork, for that matter. He had a stab at it, anyway. “One man, one vet.”
“That’s for the eelecting, then?”
He shrugged. It might be, for all he knew. “The point is, though, that everyone can do it. They’re very proud of it. Everyone has—” he hesitated again, certain now that things were amiss—“the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It’s a very enlightened civilization.”
Ptraci gave this some consideration.
“And that’s a mocracy, is it?”
“They invented it in Ephebe, you know,” said Teppic, feeling obscurely that he ought to defend it.
“I bet they had trouble exporting it,” said Ptraci firmly.
The sun wasn’t just a ball of flaming dung pushed across the sky by a giant beetle. It was also a boat. It depended on how you looked at it.
The light was wrong. It had a flat quality, like water left in a glass for weeks. There was no joy to it. It illuminated, but without life; like bright moonlight rather than the light of day.
But Ptaclusp was more worried about his son.
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?” he said.
His other son bit his stylus miserably. His hand was hurting. He’d tried to touch his brother, and the crackling shock had taken the skin off his ringers.
“I might,” he ventured.
“Can you cure it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What
is
it, then?”
“Well, dad. When we were up on the pyramid…well, when it couldn’t flare…you see, I’m sure it twisted around…time, you see, is just another dimension…um.”
Ptaclusp rolled his eyes. “None of that architect’s talk, boy,” he said. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I think he’s dimensionally maladjusted, dad. Time and space has got a bit mixed up for him. That’s why he’s moving sideways all the time.”
Ptaclusp IIb gave his father a brave little smile.
“He
always
used to move sideways,” said Ptaclusp.
His son sighed. “Yes, dad,” he said. “But that was just normal. All accountants move like that. Now he’s moving sideways because that’s like, well, it’s like Time to him.”
Ptaclusp frowned. Drifting gently sideways wasn’t IIa’s only problem. He was also flat. Not flat like a card, with a front, back and edge—but flat from any direction.
“Puts me exactly in mind of them people in the frescoes,” he said. “Where’s his depth, or whatever you call it?”
“I think that’s in Time,” said IIb, helplessly. “Ours, not his.”
Ptaclusp walked around his son, noting how the flatness followed him. He scratched his chin.
“So he can walk in Time, can he?” he said slowly.
“That may be possible, yes.”
“Do you think we could persuade him to stroll back a few months and tell us not to build that bloody pyramid?”
“He can’t communicate, dad.”
“Not much change
there
, then.” Ptaclusp sat down on the rubble, his head in his hands. It had come to this. One son normal and stupid, one flat as a shadow. And what sort of life could the poor flat kid have? He’d go through life being used to open locks, clean the ice off windscreens, and sleeping cheaply in trouser-presses in hotel bedrooms.
*
Being able to get under doors and read books without opening them would not be much of a compensation.
IIa drifted sideways, a flat cut-out on the landscape.
“Can’t we do
anything
?” he said. “Roll him up neatly, or something?”
IIb shrugged. “We could put something in the way. That might be a good idea. It would stop anything worse happening to him because it, er, wouldn’t have time to happen in. I think.”
They pushed the bent statue of Hat the Vulture-Headed God into the flat one’s path. After a minute or two his gentle sideways drift brought him up against it. There was a fat blue spark that melted part of the statue, but the movement stopped.
“Why the sparks?” said Ptaclusp.
“It’s a bit like flarelight, I think.”
Ptaclusp hadn’t got where he was today—no, he’d have to correct himself—hadn’t got to where he had been last night without eventually seeing the advantages in the unlikeliest situations.
“He’ll save on clothing,” he said slowly. “I mean, he can just paint it on.”
“I don’t think you’ve quite got the idea, dad,” said IIb wearily. He sat down beside his father and stared across the river to the palace.
“Something going on over there,” said Ptaclusp. “Do you think they’ve noticed the pyramid?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s moved around ninety degrees, after all.”
Ptaclusp looked over his shoulder, and nodded slowly.
“Funny, that,” he said. “Bit of structural instability there.”
“Dad, it’s a pyramid! We should have flared it! I
told
you! The forces involved, well, it’s just too—”
A shadow fell across them. They looked around. They looked up. They looked up a bit more.
“Oh, my,” said Ptaclusp. “It’s Hat, the Vulture-Headed God…”
Ephebe lay beyond them, a classical poem of white marble lazing around its rock on a bay of brilliant blue—
“What’s that?” said Ptraci, after studying it critically for some time.
“It’s the sea,” said Teppic. “I told you, remember. Waves and things.”
“You said it was all green and rough.”
“Sometimes it is.”
“Hmm.” The tone of voice suggested that she disapproved of the sea but, before she could explain why, they heard the sound of voices raised in anger. They were coming from behind a nearby sand dune.
There was a notice on the dune.
It said, in several languages: A
XIOM
T
ESTING
S
TATION
.
Below it, in slightly smaller writing, it added: C
AUTION-UNRESOLVED
P
OSTULATES
.
As they read it, or at least as Teppic read it and Ptraci didn’t, there was a twang from behind the dune, followed by a click, followed by an arrow zipping overhead. You Bastard glanced up at it briefly and then turned his head and stared fixedly at a very small area of sand.
A second later the arrow thudded into it.
Then he tested the weight on his feet and did a small calculation which revealed that two people had been subtracted from his back. Further summation indicated that they had been added to the dune.
“What did you do that for?” said Ptraci, spitting out sand.
“Someone fired at us!”
“I shouldn’t think so. I mean, they didn’t know we were here, did they? You needn’t have pulled me off like that.”
Teppic conceded this, rather reluctantly, and eased himself cautiously up the sliding surface of the dune. The voices were arguing again:
“
Give in
?”
“
We simply haven’t got all the parameters right
.”
“
I know what we haven’t got all right
.”
“
What is that, pray?
”
“
We haven’t got anymore bloody tortoises. That’s what we haven’t got
.”
Teppic carefully poked his head over the top of the dune. He saw a large cleared area, surrounded by complicated ranks of markers and flags. There were one or two buildings in it, mostly consisting of cages, and several other intricate constructions he could not recognize. In the middle of it all were two men—one small, fat and florid, the other tall and willowy and with an indefinable air of authority. They were wearing sheets. Clustered around them, and not wearing very much at all, was a group of slaves. One of them was holding a bow.
Several of them were holding tortoises on sticks. They looked a bit pathetic, like tortoise lollies.
“Anyway, it’s cruel,” said the tall man. “Poor little things. They look so sad with their little legs waggling.”
“It’s logically impossible for the arrow to hit them!” The fat man threw up his hands. “It shouldn’t do it! You must be giving me the wrong type of tortoise,” he added accusingly. “We ought to try again with faster tortoises.”
“Or slower arrows?”
“Possibly, possibly.”
Teppic was aware of a faint scuffling by his chin. There was a small tortoise scurrying past him. It had several ricochet marks on its shell.
“We’ll have one last try,” said the fat man. He turned to the slaves. “You lot—go and find that tortoise.”
The little reptile gave Teppic a look of mingled pleading and hope. He stared at it, and then lifted it up carefully and tucked it behind a rock.
He slid back down the dune to Ptraci.
“There’s something really weird going on over there,” he said. “They’re shooting tortoises.”
“Why?”
“Search me. They seem to think the tortoise ought to be able to run away.”
“What, from an arrow?”
“Like I said. Really weird. You stay here. I’ll whistle if it’s safe to follow me.”
“What will you do if it
isn’t
safe?”
“Scream.”
He climbed the dune again and, after brushing as much sand as possible off his clothing, stood up and waved his cap at the little crowd. An arrow took it out of his hands.
“Oops!” said the fat man. “Sorry!”
He scurried across the trampled sand to where Teppic was standing and staring at his stinging fingers.
“Just had it in my hand,” he panted. “Many apologies, didn’t realize it was loaded. Whatever will you think of me?”
Teppic took a deep breath.
“Xeno’s the name,” gasped the fat man, before he could speak. “Are you hurt? We did put up warning signs, I’m sure. Did you come in over the desert? You must be thirsty. Would you like a drink? Who are you? You haven’t seen a tortoise up there, have you? Damned fast things, go like greased thunderbolts, there’s no stopping the little buggers.”
Teppic deflated again.
“Tortoises?” he said. “Are we talking about those, you know, stones on legs?”
“That’s right, that’s right,” said Xeno. “Take your eyes off them for a second, and
vazoom!
”
“Vazoom?” said Teppic. He knew about tortoises. There were tortoises in the Old Kingdom. They could be called a lot of things—vegetarians, patient, thoughtful, even extremely diligent and persistent sex-maniacs—but never, up until now, fast. Fast was a word particularly associated with tortoises because they were not it.
“Are you sure?” he said.
“Fastest animal on the face of the Disc, your common tortoise,” said Xeno, but he had the grace to look shifty. “Logically, that is,” he added.
*
.
The tall man gave Teppic a nod.
“Take no notice of him, boy,” he said. “He’s just covering himself because of the accident last week.”
“The tortoise
did
beat the hare,” said Xeno sulkily.
“The hare was
dead
, Xeno,” said the tall man patiently. “Because you shot it.”
“I was aiming at the tortoise. You know, trying to combine two experiments, cut down on expensive research time, make full use of available—” Xeno gestured with the bow, which now had another arrow in it.
“Excuse me,” said Teppic. “Could you put it down a minute? Me and my friend have come a long way and it would be nice not to be shot at again.”