The discworld sailed through space, a slab of rock perched upon the back of the four giant elephants who in turn strode ponderously, like a giant daisy chain, around the back of great A'tuin the turtle. The turle flew serenely through space as only a creature with a head the size of a moon can. The discworld was about as improbable a place as it was possible to imagine. The fact that it could exist at all was probably because it was founded on a space time flaw of biblical proportions, a place where the fundamental constraints imposed by the universe were eroded. It's very existence was constantly being questioned, even by it's own denizens.
Does the falling of a tree in the forest make a noise if there no one is there to hear it? Would the discworld exist if there were no one on board to conceive of it?
Questions like that had entertained philosophers throughout the ages, and probably went a long way toward explaining why philosophers all seemed to give up bathing and then take to hanging around on the top of obscure mountains where their emaciated bodies gradually fail through a combination of malnutrition and exposure. Do they find answers? Do they find enlightenment? Does the question have any relevance to this story?
Probably not…
But if the discworld is improbable, what then do we make of the people who live there?
Let's take one. Let's take… That one!
Even on a place as obscurely improbable as the discworld, the genius of Leonard De Quirm took the whole concept of improbability to new levels. Ideas occurred to him with such frequency and his genius employed so randomly that it had finally forced the world to act against him lest he cause the downfall of whole civilisations. What price the liberty of one man when the lives and sanity of so many were at such risk?
The extent of the danger posed by Leonard De Quirm is perhaps best illustrated by considering the occasion when it occurred to him just how the underlying and fundamental nature of space and time might be described and manipulated.
The story began innocently enough.
No… that is not true, there was nothing innocent about the way the story began at all…
*
Something that carried the appearance of a stone ring (but certainly wasn't since it was composed of exotic matter which as a negative energy density and a propensity for making physicists tear their hair out) rotated slowly within the confines of its stone shroud. The ring was about twenty centimetres thick and approximately five metres in diameter. If it was stone, it should have left a sizeable dent in the timber floor. It wasn't but then appearances can be deceiving.
If anyone measured the rocks density, they would have quickly realised that it should have left a sizeable dent in space-time, not just the floor.
It did neither. That should have been a clue to the portentous nature of this new thing that had just been created on the discworld.
The ring stopped and a hieroglyph engraved chevron clicked into place at the periphery. The ring began moving again.
While the ring rotated slowly, to the accompaniment of a rumble like a grinding wheel lazily crushing cornhusks, the sound echoed throughout the otherwise expectantly silent room giving it a new and dangerous foreboding. The ring's rotation continued remorselessly until a sixth hieroglyphic from among those engraved into the circumference of the giant stony toroid, dropped into place, forming a pattern that ancient Egyptians might have recognised. The key mechanism surrounding the giant circular stone locked with a robust click.
There was a pregnant pause. It endured just long enough to lend the kind of 'air of expectancy', that you would expect from any Creator who had a flair for the dramatic.
Then…
A burst of cloud rocketed five metres into the room; swirled malignantly for a second before it retreated equally quickly to become a shimmering interface suspended inside the stone ring. It looked like the surface of a swimming pool, except it was vertical, and didn't slosh on the floor.
"It works," said Leonard De Quirm. His face developed a self-satisfied smirk. "My Hole-through-space-so people-can-travel-to-other-stars machine works."
A genius Leonard might be, but naming things was not among his many skills.
He clapped his hand together thoughtfully.
"Lord Vetenari will be interested in seeing this," he added, which was a masterful piece of understatement.
Happily unaware of the chaos he had wrought, Leonard set off across a garden that B.S. Johnson had bequeathed to a previous Patrician of Anhk Morpork. It was just as well that B.S. Johnson died young, so that the discworld was protected from more of his monstrosities. It was such a pity that his death had to be accelerated through public necessity and the contribution of human intervention, but we won't dwell on that. As it was, his short life left a legacy of brilliantly conceived, but fatally flawed creations scattered throughout the Sto Plains and the other cities surrounding the greatest of all cities; Ankh Morpork.
Leonard De Quirm strode confidently across the garden; his path pointed more or less directly toward where Haverlock Vetenari was playing with his scruffy old dog.
The voice of the Patrician of Ankh Morpork, arguably the most powerful man on the entire world, carried across the garden to Leonard De Quirm. "Fetch Wuffles," he said. He threw the stick and then noticed Leonard's approach. "Is it ready yet?" he called.
Leonard could hardly wait to give him the news.
*
"It just appeared sir," Samantha Carter said, while craned her head around so she could look over her shoulder at General Hammond. Her short blonde hair was in disarray from the attention of fingers that she pushed through it frequently during the previous few minutes. She creased her even features into an earnest expression and tried to convey just the right impression of earnest competence with the touch of deference that a brilliant scientist needed to carry off in order to prevent lay-commanding officers from feeling intimidated.
The commanding officer of the Stargate operation descended from his command position and hovered behind her chair like a stocky vulture. General Hammond was average height and more than average girth. His uniform covered his barrel like body almost as though it was sown together around him instead of buttoned. It probably was.
"We were making a routine search through that quadrant," Carter reported in that stilted way the characterised military speak, she tapped the computer screen with one badly manicured finger, "and there it was. A new stargate."
Hammond looked over her shoulder and grunted. The expression on the face of his billiard ball head turned serious. "We've never seen a stargate just appear before Doctor. Does this suggest that the Gou'ld are active in that region?"
Carter shook her head. "I don't know sir. I don't think any of us could answer that for you." Carter waved in the general direction of the other scientific staff who occupied the room.
Until that point every eye in the room was trained on their conversation. After Carter's remark, all eyes swung away from them at remarkable speed and studiously struggled to find something else to do.
General Hammond looked around the room and all he saw was general confusion. It was a circus. It was a chaotic babble and froth of computer equipment and harried military personnel. It was his command. And all of them were studiously avoiding eye-contact. While he cast his eye over the technical support team beneath his command, all that sat between General Hammond and the plethora of electronic displays was the back of a lot of heads; no one seemed to be prepared to even risk a glance his way.
"We'll have to send an investigating team," he rumbled to no one in particular. "Is the rest of SG-1 available?"
"I believe so sir," Carter agreed amicably. Around the room there was a certain relaxing of posture, almost as though everyone was glad it was someone else who was gong to be given the task of finding out who was capable of putting a new stargate into the circuit. Because, let's face it, everyone in that room knew that the worthy people of the SGC had not a hope of being able to create a stargate themselves. It took real technology to do that and out there was someone who had just done it.
"Get Jack O'Neill off his butt and tell him to come and see me."
*
Lord Vetinari stood beside Leonard De Quirm. The Patrician's posture had much in common with a large skinny crane while he contemplated the circular construct that Leonard De Quirm had presented with such a flourish. Vetinari would have frowned - if there was anyone else in the room able to catch the non-verbal communication that it contained. It would be wasted on Leonard. He could analyse it and draw it with remarkable alacrity, but understand it…? No, not a hope.
"I'm impressed," Vetenary said carefully, "but I find it hard to reconcile this machine with my request for a printing engine that can automatically decode encrypted text."
Vetenary had long since given up trying to keep Leonard focussed on one concept at a time. He brain made more leaps and changes in direction than pinball game.
"Oh sorry," Leonard apologised profusely. "I finished that earlier and forgot to tell you. It's over there by the aerating-milk-for-making-frothy-coffee machine."
They both contemplated the coffee machine and woud have purred if they had more gene complexes in common with cats. A silent debate ensued. It was not as though another expresso wouldn't make their eyeballs float in their heads, (except that it probably would) oh no. It was just that lately Vetenary had taken to visiting Leonard much more frequently than had been his previous want, just for the coffee.
To think that the expresso machine might have been lost to the world if the death sentence had been carried out on Leonard De Quirm. Lord Vetenary shook his head.
Leonard De Quirm pointed at the stargate. "This idea occurred to me while I was assembling the code engine. I just had to follow up on it."
Vetenary examined Leonard more closely and tried once again to understand the manner of the man's thinking. It was a wasted effort as usual. When inspiration was being handed out on the disc world, it all seemed to bottleneck in the head of Leonard De Quirm. Leonard could be dangerous if he ever turned his attention to human beings instead of natural science and mechanisms.
Vetenary shook his head at that concept. If Leonard ever did turn to politics, then Lord Vetinari might have to reconsider his odd patronage.
Vetinari regarded the stargate again. "What use is it?"
"We could visit other stars, see other worlds, meet other people. The ideas and the culture we could exchange."
Lord Vetinari contemplated a host of other possibilities, ones that Leonard would not have understood if he tried for a million years. The possibilities were endless. Or rather they all had ends - violent messy ones.
He shuddered and wondered if perhaps the world might have gotten by without the expresso machine after all.
*
At about the geometric centre of the disorganised shambles left in the SGC rec-room, Jack O'Neill picked three more letters from the box beside the scrabble board and placed them on the letter rack in front of him. The S was upside down. He tilted his head and then decided it made little difference if he left it that way. He could still tell that it was an S even if it was upside down. He thought that was pretty cool. He now had S, E, R, E, N, I, and Y. He had a look at the board. He frowned. The only opening where he could use all of those letters was a T. He shook his head, damn, still nothing that he could build on. Jack O'Neill had a face that might one day have resembled McGyver from that old eighty's TV show that no one would admit to watching, but that was years ago and time marches on. A lot of the marching had been over O'Neil's face and the craggy visage that was left behind after time's boots finished their work hovered between distinguished and disgruntled.
Opposite from O'Neill sat a large dark hued man named improbably Teal'c and he frowned with much more skill at his collection of seven letters. Teal'c was a huge dark man with a shaven head, a serious outlook and a Gou'ld embryo snuggled into his nervous system. The latter was a constant source of consternation to Teal'c. It greatly impeded his potential promotional prospects, but he was leaning to live with the thing. He didn't have much choice really. If they tried to remove the thing from his nervous system he would die. Stuff happens. The only outward signs of the infestation were the hole in his abdomen when the snake like head of the thing could occasionally come out to play. Oh and of course there was the subtle addition of the gold tattoo on his forehead that was used by the Gou'ld as his badge of identification. It said slave in giant hieroglyphics. The embossing on his forehead looked like the knot in the grain of a teak log whenever he frowned. That was a lot. He seemed to have just three expressions, confused frown, arched eyebrow questioningly and impassive guard face.
"I am still not convinced that "dweeb" is a legitimate word," Teal'c commented.
"Of course it is, scores me thirty three," O'Neill said hurriedly.
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c called over his shoulder.
Daniel Jackson looked up from the book that covered half of his face from view. He wore his curious face. Jackson was a nerdish sort of man. His hair was always coffuired and worn just slightly too long for his current military occupation. The glasses he wore gave him a bookish appearance that said a great deal of truth about him. He looked reproachfully at O'Neill over the book he was reading, and then shifted his glance to the other player. His eyes peered questioningly over his glasses at Teal'c.
"You are an expert in human linguistics," Teal'c asked levelly. "The word "dweeb" is that…?"
"Of course it is Jackson," O'Neill interjected.
"Well, strictly speaking…" Jackson began.
"Shut up Jackson," O'Neill ordered. O'Neill was a Colonel and used to having his commands obeyed. Jackson was a civilian and was used to being able to argue with the checkout operator over the price of marked down goods whenever he felt like it. Words to that effect lined up on his tongue and prepared to march forth.
The PA scratched significantly. Conversation stopped. "SG1, please report to General Hammond," came the voice through the public address system.
"Oh, damn. Will they never leave us alone?" O'Neill asked rhetorically. He quickly gathered up his letters and tossed them back into the box before Teal'c folded the board and placed it on top of the scattered letters. He then lowered the lid carefully into place.
Jackson held the door. The three of them walked out of the rec room and hustled to their impromptu meeting. On the table beside the now closed scrabble box they had left behind a piece of paper. It had been ruled into columns. At the head of each column, a label had been scrawled. They read: 'Teal'c and O'Neill. Beneath a column of crossed out numbers were the totals; 234 and 145 respectively.
The book that had so engrossed Daniel Jackson's full attention fell from the table and landed on the floor so the cover was visible to the next observer. He had not placed it properly on the surface in his rush to leave with the rest of the team. The title was revealed; it was 'The adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, adapted from the screen by Alan Dean Forster.'