Elasticated String Theory
I'm beset with minor buggerations at the moment. (Except for you, Lady Adarah, you're always a delight), There's the little matter of my being barred from all BBC messageboards as "AgProv" to contest and fight. Something to do with annoying influential people by asking difficult questions in public. They really don't like that. In two days time we go on holiday, so I really wanted a few hours of unbroken time to bash on with "Slipping Between Worlds".
Instead, in a manner akin to Coleridge waking from a drugged stupor with three hundred lines of "Kublai Khan" to write down before he forgot, I get two paragraphs into the latest chapter before the Man From Porlock ended up on my doorstep and, like Coleridge, I had to host him. And offer him tea.
So here's a short, based on incidental detail in the new Pratchett book, "I shall Wear Midnight." Enjoy.
Ponder Stibbons was faced with a problem. He wasn't a jealous research wizard. To him, the idea that within Unseen University there was an intellect even greater than his was a thing to be celebrated, not feared or to be envious of. Besides, HEX could do with another superior human brain to talk to, after Adrian Turnipseed had defected to Brazeneck. It would take some of the load off his shoulders.
But as he looked down at the emaciated, stick-like figure on the bed, he seriously wondered if it was going to be kind to submit Simon to the intensity of academic life and the Faculty. He turned to one of the two other people in the room.
"Despite appearances, he's fit." said Doctor Lawn. "Physically, he's a mess. It's as if the Gods have dumped everything on him at once, and from what you and Miss…Professor…Smith have told me, he's never been a well man?"
"Ever since he first arrived here, nearly thirty years ago now." Ponder said. He had spent time with the University records.
"He was perhaps fifteen or sixteen then. And even then, he had multiple allergies and ailments that were making his life a misery."
He gave Professor Smith a sideways look, but she nodded encouragingly at him as if she was happy for him to speak, for now. She reminded him a lot of the witch he'd met in Lancre: she was a younger version of Esmerelda Weatherwax, sparely built, with a fine bone structure in her face and eyes that could laser a hole in six inches of octiron. He wondered if being trained by Mistress Weatherwax as a witch did that to a girl.
"Simon's sponsor into the profession was Vice-Chancellor Treatle. Unfortunately he was killed during the War of the Sourceror, and the office has remained empty ever since. We know he was abducted into the Dungeon Dimensions and forced to work for the Things…" (1)
The figure on the bed, who had been watching them with alert intelligent eyes, started making earnest and determined finger sign. Professor Smith bent forward, said "I'm listening, Simon!" in a surprisingly gentle voice, and watched his fingers intently.
"He was rescued by Professor Smith and restored to us. At first we thought he had somehow been cured or lost his physical afflictions, but they gradually returned over the following years until, unfortunately, this is the condition he is in."
Doctor Lawn nodded.
"He needs round-the-clock care" he said. "A team of nurses to look after him. The University, you say, is happy to pay for this?"
"Yes, Doctor. Professor Smith gave up her own academic career to care for him – and to transcribe his thinking onto paper, so that it isn't lost – and I believe we are at a stage now where while she has done marvellously, she needs the help. She just cannot look after him on her own any more."
"And the University gets to publish his original thinking." Doctor Lawn said, drily. "So everyone benefits.".
"Indeed, Doctor. And your recommendation is…"
"At the very least, a wheelchair that meets his needs. And you believe your thinking machine, HEX, can give him a voice again?"
"He needs that, sir. Only Professor Smith can interpret his words at present."
Eskarina Smith smiled, humourlessly.
"I will, of course, vet the nurses you employ." she said. "And I still require a controlling voice in interpreting and publishing his words. Simon and I have been together now for nearly thirty years. He trusts me, and I'm not leaving him now."
"Of course." said Ponder. "We've been adapting a wheelchair for him. It belonged to a now deceased wizard. It's not ideal, but it will serve as a starting point until we can build something lighter and more modern. "
The wheelchair had formerly belonged to the wizard Windle Poons.(2) Cleaned, refurbished, stripped down and rebuilt, the day arrived when two sturdy Bledlows, with infinite care, lifted the frail Simon into it. His head lolled and the only functioning part of him appeared to be his right arm and hand, but Eskarina fussed quietly over him, adjusting and refining and altering settings with infinite care.
Several things were new: an omniscope fragment in a frame acted as a permanent link to HEX, the university's thinking machine, and a large box had been attached where Simon's right hand could reach it.
"Simon?" Ponder said, gently. "We've charged the wheelchair with motion spells, so all you have to do is think a direction and it will respond AAAARGH!"
Ponder hopped away on one foot, the wheelchair having sped painfully over his other one as Simon thought the "Forward!" command. Everyone gave him a wide berth as he worked out "Left!" "Right!" "Halt!", "Brake!" and "Reverse!" , but he was soon in charge of his new mobility.
"If you ever feel the magic ebbing" Ponder said, hopping along, "run it round to the HEM for a recharge. Now the box here. It contains an imp who is bred to recognise the letters as you key them in. It will then either speak your words for you or relay them to HEX as you choose."
++ I H¾EAR YOYU++ said a disembodied mechanical voice.
"You'll soon get the hang of it." Ponder assured him. Simon typed on.
++THANK YOYU PROFFESSOR STIBBONS.++ IT IS GO¼OD TO HAV¿E A VOICE AGAIN.++
Simon sped off down a corridor. A passing wizard dived aside to evade the mass of the wheelchair, which was no less frightening than when Windle Poons had been in charge of it.
Eskarina wiped a discreet tear from her cheek.
"Thank you, Professor Stibbons" she said gravely.
"I expect this must free you up to do your own research again?" Ponder inquired, politely.
"Transcribing Simon's ideas on elasticated string theory was intellectually provocative. It was worth setting my own work aside for." she assured him. "And even if this doesn't last very long before he… goes, then at least we gave him his dignity back in his last few months."
She composed herself again.
"Now I need to speak to his nurses. Just so they know what's expected of them." she said, firmly.
Simon returned down the corridor, bowling over another wizard or two..
++THIS IS QUITE EXIHLERATING. ++BUT I AM GETTING THIS URGE TO RESEARCH LITTLE-KNOWN ASPECTS OF RAIN-MAKING CEREMONIES IN KUAN?++
"I think that belongs to the previous owner of the chair, Simon. It was his academic speciality." Eskarina said, gently.
Feeling a dull throb in his right foot, Ponder wondered what sort of monster he'd helped to create…
(1) See Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett.
(2) Refer to Moving Pictures and Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett.