A sort of a Zoo Tale
Returning to the Ankh-Morpork City Zoo, by a roundabout route
Ponder Stibbons bent anxiously over the omniscope, seeking to remotely follow what the person on the other end was seeing. An indistinct voice crackled out of the air. In a high-magic environment like Unseen University, reception was poor and full of static crackling, although the person at the other end of the link was only a couple of hundred yards away, in the University kitchen pantries. The voice informed him the speaker was entering the danger area now. Guidance would be required as to the exact location of the item in question. Over.
"Responding. Over."
Ponder turned to confer with the university's butler, who was standing next to him behind the emergency crowd barriers the Watch had established. These held back a crowd of Wizards drawn to a disturbance, students, and University catering staff who were expressing gratitude for an impromptu break.
"Keep going straight down your current corridor. There will be a door marked Maximum Security Pantry. The problem is in there. Over."
The crackling static voice acknowledged him. A snatch of alien music drifted in and then out again, followed by the baffling words
"Cab sixty-nine? Are you able to pick up from Alma Street, Worseley, in ten minutes for Hope Hospital?"(1)
Omniscopes didn't work too well in an environment where even the stones of the buildings were saturated with centuries of natural and induced magic. All sort of things could break in. Ponder supposed it was some sort of healing mantra.
He risked another look round. A group of student Assassins had built a round tower of sandbags, three deep and two feet high. Like many prudent establishments near the river, Unseen University had a stock of ready sandbags against flooding. This could have other uses.
And there was Mrs Whitlow, arms akimbo, looking distinctly annoyed. She'd backed up the Head Chef in calling for the kitchens and butteries and pantries to be evacuated, after It had been discovered. She did not like disruptions to the smooth daily life of her University. An uncharacteristically sheepish looking Mustrum Ridcully had authorised expenditure on a resolution of the problem. Hence the Assassins.
Ponder saw an arm extend – at least, he suspected it was an arm – and very carefully push open a large oaken door reinforced with steel and octiron plates. The voice requested further guidance.
"On the shelf. To your immediate right. The single, er, item, three shelves down from the top – do you see it?"
The voice acknowledged. The omniscope view turned to a single ominous-looking bottle, its top stoppered and bound in place with steel wires, cold icy frosting on its exterior. The contents were a still, dark brown, oily fluid. It sat, ominously alone, on an otherwise cleared shelf.
"I see it...{{crackle}} And now on fabulous Radio Luxembourg 208! {{crackle}} Ponder, what is wrong withthis...{{crackle}} The groovy new tune from Golden Earring...{{crackle}} The device seems inert. I believe it will be possible to remove it. I am lifting it... now. {{crackle}}"
There was a series of loud explosive and percussive noises. Ponder winced. Then he realised it was supposed to be music. The noise eased into a low, insistent, bass rumble backed by drums.
"I could really do without the music, Ponder." said the voice. He saw the bottle, held steadily in one outstretched hand. The background shifted and rotated as the unseen speaker retraced their steps out of the pantry.
I've been drivin' all night, my hand's wet on the wheel... {{crackle, hiss}} I will ettempt to remove this device so it cen be safely be disposed of outside this building. Stend by. {{crackle, hiss, crackle}}It's my baby callin', said I need you here! And it's a half-past four and I'm shiftin' gear.
Ponder watched as the bottle made its slow, steady progress through the Great Hall to the outside door. He hoped this thing would resolve itself soon. Or the evening meal would be late. And that would annoy a lot of wizards. Who'd complain at him.
When she is lonely and the longing gets too much, She sends her comfort rainin' in from above...
And then there was...
Something that looked like an animated pepperpot came gliding out through the door. It was just over five feet tall and appeared to have no visible legs. The massed wizards went "aaaah" in anticipation of a not-too-delayed evening meal. The student Assassins sat or stood up straight as the apparition approached the minimal sandbag tower.
We got a thing that's called radar love...
"HEX? Can you do anything at all about this music that's breaking through?" Ponder inquired. He strongly suspected that HEX had a quirk for Roundworld Music With Rocks In. It had been something called Pink Floyd last time.
Ponder, like all Wizards, had seen stranger things in the University. Knowing what he was looking at was Johanna Smith-Rhodes in protective clothing modified from two sets of Dwarfish knockerman suits didn't make it any stranger.(2) He crossed his fingers as she moved, slowly and with care, to the sandbags. With her free hand, she beckoned a student. Chainmail rattled.
"Cushion. Now." she said. The student lowered a perfectly normal armchair cushion into the middle of the sandbagged enclosure. With infinite care, Johanna lowered the bottle onto it. She moved back.
"Now." she said.
The students ran forward, bringing a relay of sandbags, which were stacked three-deep until the protective tower was seven feet tall.
"That will do, I think."
She took off the tall conical helmet and shook out long red hair. Holding the helmet in one hand, she moved off to join her students.
"Now we hev contained the thing, we need to work out how to safely dispose of it." she said, looking back to the tower of sandbags.
"You constructed the sangar very well end very quickly, by the way. Thet wes commendable."
Before anyone had a chance to reply or even respond, there was a sudden eruption of noise, fire and smoke. Windows rattled. Student Assassins and wizards dived for cover. Smoke and lurid red flame soared up from the chimney of sandbags; vaporised sandbag and baked sand erupted up into the sudden mushroom cloud that shot a hundred feet or so into the air above the university. As it ebbed down, nobody spoke. As baked dry sand pattered down all around her, Johanna, who hadn't moved a muscle, flicked her hair back from her face. She nodded, reflecting that combing this stuff out would take ages.
"Well, there's a bottle of Wow-Wow Sauce I won't see again in a hurry." Mustrum Ridcully said, almost mournfully. Johanna made a mental note to add the cost of a remedial session at Conina's hairdressing salon to the bill. With Guild tax.
"Now we've sorted that out, Arch-chancellor." Mrs Whitlow said, in a meaningfully carrying voice. "We can perhaps get back to business?"
"What? Oh yes, Mrs Whitlow. Everything safe now, m'dear? Good. Kitchen staff can return to work! Crack on, people, First Dinner's already ten minutes late!"
The University catering staff hastily knocked out pipes and cigarettes and ran back to work. Nobody wanted to keep wizards late for meals.
"Erch-chencellor." Johanna said. "I brought my cless out here to essist in the safe disposal of a dangerous explosive substence. By now they will hev missed high dinner et the Guild. I'm sure you can find room et table for these students?"
"Of course, m'dear." Ridcully hastily agreed. "Least we can do, nobeless obliges, and all that."
"Gut!" she said. "Cless, whet hev we learnt today?"
Her class in Applied Exothermic Alchemy, all older Assassin students on the Black Track, picked up alertly.
"That Wow-Wow Sauce is very dangerous, miss?"
"Ja." she replied. "Exceedingly so, end the older and more unstable it gets, the more dangerous it becomes."
She turned to Ridcully. He shuffled his feet, abashed under her frank gaze.
"Well.. you know. That was a bottle I brought here when I first became Arch-chancellor. Well over ten years ago now. I can't think how, but it was, er, overlooked. Until earlier today."
"You did the correct thing, sir. I em proud to say the Guild of Essessins now hes the expertise to safely deal with such things end neutralise them in controlled detonations. End we are learning. Ell the time!"
She beckoned her students forwards, and ducked inside the knockerman suit, her head disappearing completely. Four students lifted it high enough for her to be able to scramble out from underneath.
"You have now witnessed the velue of correct protective clothing when dealing with rogue exothermic devices." she said, conversationally. Her students nodded. Johanna timed her next remark perfectly.
"Of course, the Dwarfs from whom I obtained this bespoke suit elso told me a little Dwarf-lore." she said. "One of the purposes of the knockerman suit is to ensure thet if an explosion, such as thet generated by a twelve-year old bottle of Wow-Wow Sauce, were to heppen while I em holding the bottle, there would be enough of me left inside the suit to justify a coffin et my funeral. Es we Essessins ere nothing if not considerate people, it would spare a clean-up squed heving to scrape me off the walls and ceiling. It keeps things reletively neat end tidy."(2)
She watched her students go pale, and cheerfully added:
"This suit would be no protection egainst blest demage end concussive injury et point-blenk range. It does, however, protect egainst fire end flame end gives a degree of protection if the blest is some distence eway, es you all witnessed."
She smiled.
"I will be running field exercises soon, where each of you will have the opportunity to wear this suit end witness a nearby explosion. If you keep your heads, it will be safe. Now. Efter you essist in clearing up. You ere ebout to be shown hospitelity by Wizerds. I counsel you to remember thet you ell hev physical ectivity tomorrow. Therefore do not over-indulge et table. Cell this a prectical test in self-discipline end restraint."
She would have said more, but a university bledlow lumbered cautiously towards her holding a message. He saluted, lobster-faced.
"Miss Smith-Rhodes of the Guild of Assassins?" he said, un-necessarily. "Message for you, miss. Relayed from Filigree Street."
Johanna took the clacks message with thanks. She read it, and frowned.
"Cless, I have to leave." she said. "A situation hes erisen concerning my responsibilities elsewhere. It is pest the end of the School day, but you ere all senior students end I know I cen trust you to return to your dorms et the eppropriate time. Do not let me down, end thenk you for your essistence. Enjoy your dinner here, but do not overindulge. Professor Stibbons, I need your edvice."
She walked off, Ponder joining her. She gave him the message to read.
"Verity Pushpram?" he said, raising an eyebrow in surprise.
"Ja. It is perplexing, es she is no stranger to things thet ere brought up in fishing nets. She hes seen strange things come out of the sea, but she normally finds people prepared to eat them. If she hes esked for my edvice, then this is a strange fish indeed! Come with me, Ponder? This intrigues me. Very much so."
Johanna had a working relationship with Verity Pushpram, who through marriage had a half-share in a small fishing fleet. She had grown quietly rich with a fishmongering business she had built in her own right. While her knowledge of edible aquatic life was second to none and she had built up a broad knowledge base, every so often something swam, crawled, scuttled or slithered into her catch-nets that she couldn't identify or ascertain the edibility of. If it was something that not even the city's Agatean community would care to put into its squishi,(3) Verity would try to keep it alive, or at least fresh, so that the Zoo or the Animal Management Unit could put a name to it. Johanna had acquired a few interesting aquarium specimens this way, as well as dealing with occasional occupational hazards such as Deep Sea Bloatfish or Irritable Squid that periodically appeared.
Ponder, reasoning that he could pick up a pizza later, cheerfully agreed. He called a cab from Arts Gratia, charging it to the University's account. Fifteen minutes later, they were at Pearl Dock, where fishing boats back from the long trek into the safer parts of the Circle Sea (4) unloaded their catch. Verity had a gutting and preparation business here, a long cold shed on the dockside. She welcomed Johanna warmly, one professional woman to another. They had built a mutual understanding over the years. Anything caught that was new and not edible went to the aquariums at the Zoo, if it was still alive, for evaluation and examination. If it was alive, bloody dangerous and irritable, it was segregated off and went either to the Zoo or the Assassins' Guild's Animal Management Unit, that had safe containment facilities. The Maximum Security Aquarium at the AMU was a thing of specialised wonder. (5)
"Hi, Johanna!" Verity said, moving her head slightly from side to side so as to keep her at least in half-focus. Johanna shook bits of University out of her hair.
"Bit of a beng et the university." she explained. "I wes stending closer to it than I would have liked. Got a hair-brush?"
"And a lot more. Rowena, would you fetch a hairbrush? There's one in the office. Thanks!" Verity said. "Come and look at this..."
Johanna and Ponder were led down the gutting and packing lines, staffed by men and women of several species who were industriously at work. Fish guts were being trucked off either for Harry King's compostors, or to sell as speciality food for gnolls and goblins. Nothing got wasted.
Trying to disregard the pervading fishy smell, Ponder was relieved when they were led into a side-store where a huge metal tank sat in a vat of ice.
Verity's office clerk, a respectable-looking woman in her thirties, scuttled in with the desired hair-brush. Johanna stood by the tank, thoughtfully cleaning sand, grit and University out of her long red hair, looking to Ponder's eyes like a better class of mermaid dressed in khaki uniform. He wondered about the blue luminescence and wanted to step forward for a better view of what was inside. But instincts of caution honed by a University education stopped him. Besides, he'd had some truly bowel-clenching moments in Johanna's company, as she hunted, tracked, and trapped some interesting examples of Nature's bounty and variety. He wasn't going to look until she said it was safe. To her interpretation of the meaning of the word "safe", anyway.
"Hes the creature displayed eny signs of hostility, Verity?" she asked, finishing her hair. She'd used the time to get a feel for what she was dealing with, and how whatever was inside the tank would react to the proximity of a human. She did not feel any obvious signs of fright or anger. No intensity of noise, as of a shark threshing round inside a very small tank, maddened by the smell of blood and chum in a fish-packing shed, and willing to go for the first meat it saw.
Verity Pushpram shook her head.
"With this thing – things – you wouldn't normally expect aggression, Johanna." she said. "Well... they tend to slam the shell shut on anyone who gets their fingers inside looking for pearls. But that's as vicious as they normally get."
Johanna stepped forward, raised her head to the level of the tall deep tank, and looked inside. Ponder heard her whistle and exclaim "Jislaik!" . At the same time, the bright blue radiance increased, reflecting on the inside of the ceiling. He reached for a thaumometer.
"Well, I've never seen them thet colour before." she said, thoughtfully. "Step up end take a look, Ponder, it's perfectly safe!"
Reluctantly, he stepped forwards, and lifted his head up with infinite caution.
The water was a radiant blue, illuminated from somewhere underneath. It took a while for Ponder to realise what he was looking at. Then he saw it: a bed of bright electric-blue oysters. One large one, flanked by maybe thirty little ones. They were the source of the blue luminescence. Even the mother-of-pearl of their shells was a livid iridescent electric blue colour.
"One of the boats was fishing out along the Circle Sea coast around the mouth of the Quire". Verity said. "The skipper was trawling an oyster bed we discovered out that way – technically in Quirm as it was a little way upstream, but if anyone official asks, Johanna, it was the coastal waters on the Ankh-Morpork side."
"Well, so long es we know exactly where." Johanna said. "The secret's safe with me for Customs purposes. End they normelly do not read scientific papers. Most of the Wetch hev difficulty with the long words in the talk bubbles in comics."
They grinned, understanding each other.
Ponder, still trying to make sense of what he was looking at, heard Johanna and Verity reaching an agreement behind him.
… They are certainly of scientific interest...
...Usually you can sell anything to somebody. In this city somebody's going to eat it.(7) But I can't see a market for those. Anywhere.
...A new species. They will certainly be of interest. I will esk Ponder to check them for megic...
Ponder belatedly looked at the thaumometer. He activated it, and frowned at the readings he was getting. They didn't make sense...
...they're yours if you want them, Johanna.
...Thenk you. I will make the usual donation to the Fishermens' Benevolent Fund. I know there are many widows end orphans.
...will you take them away soon? People here get a bit restive about strange things that come up in nets. Remember the last time, with the squid? (8)
will send some golems with a tenk. I will move these for study end isolation et the Zoo or the Unit.
"Whet are you getting, Ponder?" she asked him, looking over his shoulder.
"It's a really confused signal, Johanna. It's a little bit God, a little bit residual magic, as if something big happened anything up to a thousand years ago and I'm getting the echoes. My best guess is some sort of god or other supernatural entity created these, for whatever reason, then got bored and abandoned them."
"Bloody Gods." Verity said. "Typical of them." She paused, and nodded towards an all-purpose shrine in the corner of the gutting shed. "Except you, Libertina, who gives fishermen calm seas and good catches. And you, Cephut, who keeps the gutting knives sharp, and you, Anoia, who makes sure the knife drawer doesn't jam, and the one whose name begins with D, who doesn't intervene on behalf of the fish..."
Discworld religion was complex. It was no fun running a fishmongers if Dagon, the Fish God, were liable to turn up to express concern about what humans were doing to His people with nets and gutting knives. Libertina, Lady of the Sea, usually kept him placated, though. But you never knew. His name was never spoken by those in fishing or the seafood trade, in much the same way that gamblers studiously avoided invoking the Lady.
Johanna patted her arm, kindly.
"We hev the same problems ebout the God of Evolution." she said, sympathetically. "The lest Creationist who came to the Zoo caught a lightning bolt. The smell of singed hair lingers!"(9)
Johanna, if she believed in any Gods at all, as opposed to merely accepting that they existed, was a follower of the God of Evolution. He visited the Zoo now and again. She had thought it prudent to issue him a lifetime's free pass and to inform the Gate that Gods get in for free. He sometimes manifested in the Beetle House and Entomology, observing the creatures which to him were the pinnacle of Creation and sometimes shyly asking Johanna about the intricacies of sexual reproduction. Johanna had sighed resignedly and discussed chromosomes and zygote exchange with her God. It was all part of a day's work for the jobbing zoologist on the Discworld.
"Do you want to, you know, round up a Golem or two to move them?" Ponder prompted her. "Perhaps the University's Zoo Station might be the obvious place? With magic involved, and magic we don't know about yet, it might be prudent. The Arch-Chancellor might raise demarcation issues if you were to move them to Assassins' Guild premises, and with respect, you're not exactly equipped to deal with magic in the same way we are."
Johanna considered this. It made sense. She didn't want to plant a magical time-bomb in the Guild's Animal Management Unit. Lord Downey was generally easy-going and allowed his Assassins a lot of local autonomy in their respective areas of expertise, but she had also heard about being called to the Master's office for a sherry and a compulsory almond slice. Her friend Joan Sanderson-Reeves, the Guild school's Domestic Science teacher and one who believed the best way to a client's heart was through his dinner plate, made the almond slices for the Guild Master. One wouldn't exactly kill her, but she'd become intimately acquainted with the back of the privvy door for a day or two. And the specimens would be at the Zoo, albeit in the University's School of Para, Crypto, Pseudo and Trans-Dimensional Zoology research department.
"OK." she said. "Good plen, Ponder. I'll clecks the Zoo for a couple of golems end a covered tenk on a hendcert. You might want to add a couple of lines to edvise Bruce?"
Doctor Bruce Berwin, a Fourecksian wizard, ran the University's detached premises at the Zoo. He had a lifetime's experience of dealing with both mundane and magical animal species. Although some of his handling methods... she sighed. Fourecksians shared a lot of characteristics with Rimwards Howondalandians. Both were citizens of former Ankh-Morporkian colonies who had been born and raised in inhospitable places with lots of interesting wildlife. And who had inculcated a bloody-minded "sod-you" attitude of independence and self-reliance. She just wished he didn't make such an un-necessary show of dealing with crocodiles and alligators. (10)
(1) Because taxi radio control can randomly break into even the best-shielded of communication devices. It's a multiversal law of nature.
(2) This is a piece of black humour used by British Army bomb disposal officers concerning the protective clothing they wear when dealing with IED's. Northern Ireland and later Afghanistan has given them lots of practical experience.
(3) Squishi is like sushi, only with more tentacles sticking out from the seaweed and rice roll. And don't ask about the seaweed they use.
(4) Far enough out to be safely away from the effluvium and detritus washed out by the Ankh. Nobody wanted to fish there, although the prawns and lobsters and shellfish were amazing. The problem was what they ate, as any good kosher fishmonger will tell you. But not so far out that Klatchian pirates could see them. The Dogged Bank was a place for men.
(5) All universities with an aquatic interest develop a working relationship with fishermen. If something interesting comes up in a net, especially one that could be a little bit unprofitable and disruptive, the fishing boats know who will call and collect. University collections have been founded on this informal relationship. It was how academia discovered that the coaelecanth was still alive and thriving quite a few million years after its presumed extinct-by date. (6)
(6) Of course, on the Discworld, this sort of thing is held to be down to irresponsible dumping of magical waste, or else the activities of History Monks.
(7) Verity Pushpram cleaned up both ways on oysters and shellfish. Humans valued oysters, whelks and mussels for the tasty seafood content. Trolls valued them for the nutritious content of the yummy outer shells once the yucky organic goo inside had been removed. Fishmongers and seafood restaurants happily served both consumer groups with a desired delicacy.
(8) There had been an incident with some very agitated and truculent squid that a trawler had swept up. A bedraggled and ink-soaked crew had brought them in, unloaded them into a holding tank, and Johanna had been called, prudently bringing an escort of Golem zookeepers. She had then, considering the catch, had a moment of intuition, of the sort that distinguishes an excellent zoologist from a merely good one. Looking into the disconcertingly intelligent eyes of the squid, and dodging a spray of black ink, she had ordered pens and paper to be provided. These had been snatched from her hands and an unsteady hand, or rather tentacle, had scribbled in its own ink MadaM. WE reaLly Mst pRoTest at this Inkonveenience! And thus, Discworld marine zoology had learnt of the existence of the Literate Squid, a species that had a certain intelligence, certainly did not lack ink, and needed only pen and waterproof paper to express itself. As far as Johanna was concerned, this beat dolphins hands-down and did not come from a creature that grinned all the time. Squid tend to have a hangdog defeatist expression that suggests the worst has already happened. And they can't stand bloody dolphins either, bunch of superior mammalian bastards, giving themselves airs and graces just because they can feed milk to live-born young. Literate Squid are now contributing a significant body of literature for the delight and edification of a certain sort of researcher, although most of it consists of complaints about dolphins and bloody killer whales, and don't get us started about calamari. It beats trying to interpret high-pitched dolphin squeaking any day of the week.
(9) Constable Visit of the Watch. Who had declaimed loudly about the wonders of Om's creation and how the pernicious and un-Omly doctrine of evolution was conclusively disproven by the majester of Om's eight-day creation that was in abundance all around in this Zoo, and would anyone like a pamphlet? He had said these fateful words in the Beetle House, a place containing The Evolution God's eyes, ears and feelers on Disc. Retribution had been swift. Fortunately for Visit, the God of Evolution is liberally-minded, and intends his lightning bolts to be corrective rather than terminal: all the pamphlets in Visit's hands had been burnt to a cinder, though, and he had to take a couple of days' sick leave.
(10) The Department's name changed frequently in accordance with the necessarily shifting nature of the subject matter, which was hard to pin down. Although a sign on the door emphasised We Don't Do Shoggoths, OK?