Lord Downey seated him self in Vimes' office and regarded the pile of unattended paper that filled his in-tray with the supercilious air of someone who employed a secretary so that he didn't have to deal with such mundane matters. He could think that way. It wasn't as though his guild members were exactly busy. The disc's political stability in the century of the fruit bat hadn't provided them with an overload. They were getting quite selective, the assassins, in the work that they undertook - other than the occasional attempt on Vimes' life, what with the bounty that had been set, the temptation got to some people. They had to try it on. So he had time to get his paperwork done.
If Vimes hired a secretary, they would find themselves investigating crime scenes within a few days, so it would make no difference to the way the office operated, but Downey wasn't to learn that.
Besides, if Vimes had time to do his paper work, he would probably find another job to do in any case.
Vimes and Downey exchanged pleasantries for a few moments, mouthing inanities that did not require either of them to pay attention to what was being said. In Vimes' case that involved grinding his teeth and trying not to smash the man's face in. The number of assassins he had been forced to fish out of the little traps Vimes built into his home and office was a constant source of annoyance to Vimes. He had developed a deep-seated aversion to the assassins and it was firmly focussed on the head of the organisation.
Politics ruled, of course, and Vimes had to deal with the man as much as he detested doing so. He made sure his feelings on the matter were known. It was more fun that way. Downey was aware of the antipathy, was more acutely aware of how personal it was and that made him quite uncomfortable. He was more accustomed to the good-old-boy mentality that went with the sort of education passed on from one unsuspecting generation to the next by such institutions as the Assassin's guild school. In that mode of interaction th dance of small talk was all part of the game.
Raised on the streets of Ankh Morpork, Vimes had never developed the attitude that allowed people like Downey to hire bodyguards, whose sole role it was to die so that someone else, namely Downey, might survive the game of hired assassin. There was a certain degree of two-faced-ness avout the whole thing that rankled Vimes.
"The Guilds will have to be notified," Lord Downey said into the uncomfortable silence that followed the inanities. "If only because we'll need to elect a new, acting Patrician to meet the delegation from Uberwald."
Vimes had been the delegate who went to Uberwald to attend the funeral for Low King of the Dwarfs. The place was a feudal nightmare filled with people from the stories that kept people awake at night. The place was governed - if you could call it that - by the vampire, the werewolves and the dwarfs.
Vimes was uncomfortably aware of how delicate the diplomatic situation in Ankh Morpork might become if the Patrician was missing. The idea that some of the delegates from Uberwald meeting some one, no matter how well qualified, other than the officially ratified head of state in Ankh Morpork did not bear considering.
"I thing something like that can wait until we establish that he's actually dead," Vimes told Downey cuttingly. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."
Sometimes it's not possible to dismiss ideas with words. Sometimes ideas have a life of their own.
Conversation lapsed while Downey and Vimes considered the down side implications behind that simple statement uttered by Samuel Vimes.
Despite the many attempts that had been made, Havelock Vetinari had always proved notoriously difficult to remove from office.
Brute force had failed dismally, back when one prominent member of Ankh Morpork society had summonsed a dragon. It had terrorised the town for a while, and even managed - temporarily - to unseat the Patrician but then it had unaccountably found other interests.
Assassination by gonne had not been successful either. Although to be fair, a few drops of the Vetinari blood had been spilled in the plot devised by the previous head of the Assassin's guild during his final moments before madness and a good man's blade had claimed him.
Subtle poisoning hadn't removed Vetenary from office, and neither had the kidnapping and the substitution of a double to implicate Vetenary in the attempted murder of his secretary.
The man had proved almost indestructible and remarkably duplicitous throughout that time.
The idea that someone might actually have managed to kill Vetenari was a difficult idea to swallow.
"I don't normally believe in coincidence," Vimes told Downey. He waved his cigar about. "But I think I can make a distinction in this case. The thing at the end of the secret passageway off the side of Vetenary's office is one thing. That had the look of the alchemists - or perhaps the wizards - about it. Either of them will explain it, or get rid of it. That can be dealt with. It's the sudden appearance of gonnes in the city that worries me. That is another thing altogether. How did they get here? And where did they come from? Did someone else come upon the means to manufacture them?"
"All I can tell you is that it was not through the Assassin's guild," Downey denied. "You have the men who carried them. Haven't they told you where they got them from?" He finished indignantly.
Vimes wasn't inclined to share that story with Downey, not before he had a chance to hear it from the horse's mouth. This appointment with the head of the Assassin's guild had been made before Vimes had become aware of the stargate hiding on the other side of the wall behind Vetenary's office wall. This situation was developing an omminous momentum of it's own and Vimes was starting to harbour concerns.
"If even there was going to be a means of successfully assassinating Vetenary it was going involve the use of a gonne," Vimes thought out loud.
"So that means it has to be the assassins," Downey said. "Is that what you're implying?"
"It has something to do with that thing in Vetenary's secret chamber," Vimes countered. "They're related."
Downey seized the conversational opportunity. "Since the Wizards are responsible for this situation," Downey suggested, "shouldn't you be speaking with them?"
"You're suggesting that whatever is on the other side of that portal, it supplied men with gonnes." Which thought had also occurred to Vimes, but he was not so enamoured of that concept. In Vimes' experience machines and magic didn't mix. You either worked with one or you worked with the other.
"It's one valid theory."
"Tentacles," Vimes stated. "That is what we normally expect to see when something like that opens up on the disc. Gonnes are somewhat too impersonal for the things that come through from the dungeon dimensions. Gonnes are a uniquely human thing."
"The wizards are involved," Downey offered. "I'm sure of that."
Vimes sat back. "Perhaps," he conceded, "On the surface it does look that way." Vimes said the last carefully, as though tasting the idea. Inwardly he felt differently about the idea. Ha, there, he thought, I've learnt one of the tricks of diplomacy. How to lie without actually doing so. Downey seemed mollified. Vimes decided to mull him a bit more. "Mistrum Ridcully and I have an appointment. With a few more facts at my disposal, I might be able to come to the same conclusion that you've drawn, so quickly, but only after I've had a chance to speak with him," and then because he couldn't help himself, Vimes added, "since I don't have the benefit of your intuition on this matter. Must have something to do with the Assassin's guild education I hear everyone raving about."
*
Lord Downey had left, and had only been gone from Vimes' office for only a few minutes before Carrot brought one of the prisoners in to replace him. He sat in the same chair and looked around thoughtfully.
Bwfore dealing with this new problem, there were other matters to attend to. Vimes poked his head out through the office door and found Nobby in the hallway. He was sort of sidling away as though he was worried that hanging around up here in Pseudopolis Yard might be a good way to find another job and the fewer pople who saw him up there the better. It didn't work.
"Nobby," Vimes suggested.
Nobby stopped, he looked like a small furry creature in the headlights of a transcontinental haulage truck. "Yes, Mr Vimes."
"Go round up Mistrum Ridcully and have him meet me at the Patrician's secret compartment."
Nobby could handle that. He nodded once and was gone.
Vimes stepped back into his office and re-took his seat. While he did that Vimes took the time to assess the man sitting opposite from him, savour his first impressions of the man and realised that he was doing the same thing to Sam Vimes. The prisoner watched him with the air of a man summing up another and not yet sure what sort of conclusion to reach. If some one drew a line on the desk it might well mark the boundary of a mirror.
The prisoner was an interesting sight. He carried himself with the sort of hard won poise of either a street fighter or a military man, Vimes concluded after watching him and his bearing. Long term military, Vimes decided in the end. And it was a conclusion that left Vimes with a chill. Because it meant more politics!
So, which of their 'friendly' neighbouring powers had dispatched a team of mercenaries into the city? He wasn't going to find out by guessing. It was only through asking questions and assessing the information supplied - using a few of those good old fashioned policeman's instincts - that he might be able to reach any sort of conclusions.
The prisoner sat in the chair provided and waited for Vimes to begin. The man was much the same age as Sam Vimes, his face was lined through worry; his hair was greying with the passing of hard years. O'Neill and Vimes might have been mirror images of each other. They both wore expressions like seven days of bad weather. It was like a sad sack contest between the champions of two continents.
Carrot's report listed the prisoner's name as Jack O'Neill.
"I have this problem," Vimes told Jack O'Neill.
O'Neill had looked around Vimes' office and recognised it for what it was. It was the same sort of office that O'Neill had back in SGC. One that was only used to collect the mail, and fill out reports, when he remembered to do it. It was the office of a busy man with things to do at the front lines. It was a field office in a permanent building.
A pile of paper threatened to fall off the desk and onto the floor. Captain Carrot eyed the pile with wary interest from his position partially behind the desk.
The intimidating presence of Sergeants Detritus and Angua rested either side of the door. O'Neill ignored them. After dealing with the Goa'uld, the hulking presence of a stone troll filling half the room was nothing unusual as far as threats went.
"The Patrician disappears," Vimes stated, "and you appear almost simultaneously…" Vimes waited for a response. He folded his hands on the desk and leant onto his elbows. No answer was forthcoming so he continued. "And in the middle of it all, I find a…thing, that looks like it's the short-cut to the dungeon dimensions that the wizards have been threatened to create since the turtle was an egg."
O'Neill conceded one quick nod as an answer.
"But the thing doesn't smell right," Vimes continued. He tapped his forefinger on the desk. "There's nothing crawling around on fifty foot tentacles chewing up the city. We haven't experienced the sudden loss of hundreds of innocent young women. Most of all, the University Librarian is sitting calmly in the Mended Drum drinking from a glass the size of a bucket as though nothing was happening. That sort of thing just does not go on in this town when the creatures from dungeon dimensions are loose. So I'm left with the other possibility. That you are just a man, just as you appear, but somehow you are responsible for today's confusion. That the thing in the Patrician's palace is a man made thing. Do you have any comments?"
O'Neill shifted in his chair and then frowned at Vimes. "I have no idea what you're talking about," O'Neill said, pretending to be confused. "Mostly." He was actually wondering what had happened to Samantha since she had been guarding their retreat and this guy had seen the stargate and hadn't mentioned her presence. "My team are nothing more than an exploratory team, almost ambassadors from another place."
"Angua," Vimes suggested. She stepped forward and placed three gonnes on the desk. "I believe these are yours," Vimes said to O'Neill.
O'Neill made a show of looking at them closely before he nodded slowly.
"That one was fired," Angua said and pointed to one of the gonnes. "It also smelled of the one called Daniel Jackson. This one," she looked significantly at O'Neill and then pointed to another of the gonnes. "Was yours. It has not been fired for some days."
How did she know that? O'Neill wondered. She was right, but how did she know?
"I have a thing about gonnes," Vimes said softly. "They kill people. They have no other purpose."
"That's true of every weapon," O'Neill said.
"No," Vimes said carefully. "Some weapons are a deterrent. They are large and visible and personal and they say, 'I have a weapon, don't try it on.' This," he said and tapped one of the gonnes, "is a thing that can kill from hiding, from a long way away, without means to know that the attempt is coming. It's not the same thing at all."
Vimes climbed to his feet and walked to the window of his office. Beneath the window he could see the repair made after the last hole was left in the roof of Pseudopolis yard during the most recent failed assassination attempt. The new tiles stood out from the rest of the tiles by their heightened colour and lack of pigeon droppings.
"You claim to be an ambassador," Vimes suggested carefully. "And you come bearing those. You want to explain that?"
No, O'Neill didn't want to explain that.
"Well…" Vimes prompted.
"We came through that gate…" O'Neill began.
"The thing in the Patrician's palace," Vimes clarified.
"Yeah. They're all over the galaxy and we're exploring them. The guns are for our protection, you never know what might be on the other side."
"Galaxy…?" Vimes queried. Not disc, he thought.
"Yeah."
Vimes pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and then squeezed his eyes shut. He turned away from the window and regarded his prisoner from a position leaning against the windowsill.
"The gonne was fired…" Vimes suggested.
"Was it pointed at anyone?"
"No," Vimes conceded that one.
"So what are we here for? Does this watch of yours wait until after the brawls over and arrest the unconscious, or what?"
That was a telling blow. Vimes almost flinched. Once upon a time the watch had done just that. They used to be called the Watch because that's what they did. They watched.
Vimes reached a decision. "Come with me," he said to O'Neill. "There's something that you might be able to explain to me."
"Can I bring my team?" O'Neill asked hurriedly. In a battle, you should take advantage of every opening to drive home a dagger, and he was in no doubt that this conversation was a verbal fencing match.
"No," Vimes said, then he thought better of his first reaction. "Detritus, Carrot, come with me. Angua, round up," he checked a note on his desk. "Bring Daniel Jackson and Teal'c along, wait a bit after us, give us say about half an hour, enough time so Carrot and I can talk with Mr O'Neill first. Then meet us there."
Angua nodded as though she knew where 'there' was. O'Neill had a pretty good idea where there was as well.
*
Ponder Stibbons was young and bright and the head of the High Energy Magic Department of Unseen University. He had graduated to the position immediately after the completion of his degree in thaumalocical science and he now headed up a group of like minded scholars in their endeavours to understand the fundamental nature of the threadbare piece of space-time that surrounded the discworld. They were the guys who explored the edge of the known world of magic and most of what they did couldn't be describe by the language of the day, so they were forced to make up a lot of words. After a while it made their conversations almost indecipherable.
Beside him stood the towering figure of Mistrum Ridcully, the Arch-chancellor of the same institution. He was huge man with a great deal too many huge dinners inside him. He had a personality to match his robust appearance. Ruddy faced and out going, he was the sort of man who thought that any long walk through the woods should have the express aim of killing something furry. That was the life. And in his opinion of the rest of life was simple. You got on with it. You confronted it and you marched forward. Sideways was not a direction.
IN the background stood Nobby, or rather Nobby drifted from place to place, handing things and trying not to break anything. The huge thing in the corner was making him nervous and he was looking to gather a few things for their own protection and then get out of there. Discretion got the better of him, and that said a lot about how much the sight of that thing in the corner had disturbed him. Nobby bolted.
Stibbons and Ridcully stood shoulder to shoulder and they contemplated the glowing maw of the stargate from their vastly differing perspective. Neither of them noticed Nobby's departure, their attention being dominated by the thing in the corner.
"It certainly has the look of the dungeon dimensions about it," Ridcully offered. "It even has runes carved into the stone. Look, they go all the way around."
"Yes," agreed Stibbons carefully. It didn't pay to get too technical with the Arch-chancellor and he was having difficulty framing what he had to say in such a way that it wouldn't be misconstrued. He made his first try, carefully selecting his phrasing and then hazarded, "It looks more like something that the alchemists might make," he said.
"Nonsense man," Ridcully said affably. "If the alchemists made this there'd be a colossal charcoal covered hole in the wall, and this whole area would be full of smoke. No this is more the sort of work that a sorcerer might create."
Stibbons had to concede the truth of that. Whatever this thing was, it worked, and that automatically suggested the alchemists weren't involved, except…
"There was always that business with the moving pictures," Stibbons said. "That worked."
'For a while', went unspoken between them. Until the dungeon dimensions had broken through and ravished the city. That's what happened when amateurs fiddled with magic. Ravished virgins and crumbled ruins… and hard to clean up slimy tentacles that were always left behind.
Stibbons and Ridcully regarded the stargate again. Their expression mirrored one another, both pensively thoughtful. If the alchemists weren't involved, they both seemed to be thinking, then it was a sorcerer, and that suggested an eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son. Wizards were recruited from the eighth son of an eighth son. A sorcerer was a wizard squared. Something like that would have been obvious no matter where it occurred on the disc world.
It had happened once before in the lifetime of the current occupants of the higher offices within the wizard's hierarchy, with disastrous results.
You might call such a person a sorcerer, but in reality it was a 'sourcerer', the operative part was the 'source' part. They became a source of magic and that could be a bad thing - a really bad thing. It certainly had been a really bad thing the last time it happened, and it was only recently that the wizards had lived down that little faux par.
It was by far the most compelling reason for the celibacy of wizards. Let them breed and they'd all have eight sons and the rest of the discworld would be a very unhappy place.
"What do you suppose we should do with it?" Stibbons asked. "We could take it back to our lab and let the team have a look at it."
"Ah… No," decided Ridcully instantly. He had visions. His hand shook at the idea.
*
William De Worde and Saccharissa represented Ankh Morpork's premier - and only - surviving newspaper, The Times. In fact, honesty would suggest that they were the Ankh Morpork Times. Other's might set the type, and take the iconographs and perform all those administrative tasks, but when it came to copy, headlines and editorial work, they were the whole deal.
They waited patiently in the lobby of Pseudopolis Yard. There was a story in this lot and they were determined to get to The Truth of the matter.
Sergeant Colon occupied the front desk and he had been the first Watch officer to impede their progress. The tableau was a familiar one to all three of them.
William tapped his notebook against his left hand. He and Sacharissa exchanged an exasperated glance.
Sergeant Angua appeared, stepping elegantly down the stairs. She took one look at the tableau occupied by William and Fred, drew the correct conclusion and then blocked the entrance to the cells.
William cursed his poor luck. Colon had almost given in under an onslaught of De Worde word chopping and obscure obstruction of the truth. William had just about convinced Colon that Mr Vimes had allowed William and Sacharissa to come into the watch house and assist with the investigations. It was only one small step from there to be allowed access to the prisoners, and then that woman had come down the stairs and suddenly he had lost all the ground he had claimed from Fred.
"The city wants to know…" William started.
"I don't think so," Angua said softly. It was a voice with a sub sonic rumble that could only signal spine-numbing terror if a carrnivore should happen to be the kind of animal that made it. Just as well it came from some one as physically harmless in appearance as Angua, William thought. Except there was the chain mail she was wearing. She didn't wear a sword. Affirmative action? He hardly thought so. Her bearing was much too predatory for that. There was a rumour that the watch employed a werewolf. Once upon a time William had suspected Nobby, but just lately he had shifted the focus of his suspicion.
"I need to follow up," William persisted. "The article in the Times left so much unanswered.
"It said altogether too much," Angua replied laconically.
"We need to tie up those loose ends."
"Lord Downey and his minions have been snooping around have they?" Angua retorted. Perhaps a sword wasn't necessary. The words 'biting sarcasm' came to mind. And edged smile.
"Well, yes, if you must know," William conceded.
"Asking you about the article on the fight in the Drum?" Edged? William asked himself. Perhaps vulpine was closer to the truth.
"Well, yes." William figured if he could keep her talking there was a chance that he might be able to guide the conversation his way. It worked so often it was worth trying every time.
Angua folded her arms under her breastplate. "Do you know what a gonne is Mr De Worde?"
He tested the word with his mouth, silently. He even spelt it correctly. "No I can't say that I do," he conceded.
"Well the members of the watch know just what it is, and the assassins guild do as well. We'd like to be sure that the alchemists and the cunning artificers don't ever find out. Does that make any sense to you?"
Way too much for William's comfort. "Can I quote you on that?" he said, but in reality his mind was racing. Whatever a gonne was it was the key to this situation.
"So long as you attribute the quote to Sir Samuel Vimes," Angua replied. Her smile widened. Were those teeth pointed? William wasn't sure, and that was a worry in itself.
"Ah then perhaps not," he decided.
"Now if you don't mind Mr De Worde. I think you and I are done here."
*
Saccharissa was once a demure, innocent girl. She had worked in her fathers printing business, helping him with the engraving so that he could print things for people who had a need for paper copies of things. They made a living, they were not in danger of getting rich, but they got by.
Then she met William De Worde, and while he was not the most boisterous of rabble-rousers he was something far worse, he was a terrier with a Uzi. His weapons were the pen and the ink and the printing press.
The characteristics that defined William De Wordee was the sort of combination that was necessary to release the inner Saccharissa, the one that had been sitting on the sidelines screaming, "Go for it!" and "What are ya, yellow?" and other priceless motivating mantras.
Now, after only a few months together, they made a matched set. He was the man who not only saved the Patrician from the most recent plot brought against him, but had stood up to his own father at the same time. Sometimes the latter is much more difficult than the former.
She had been one of the tools that had been instrumental in his triumph. She did not have the same embodied personal demons to overcome. Her demons were far more ephemeral, being the perception and the inertia of an entire society in which she was raised, one where she was constrained into a role that was patently unsuited to her personality, simply by an accident of gender. It was a far more competent villain to battle than the mere presence of a difficult father image.
William and Sacharissa waited on the corner, just outside the Pseudopolis Yard entrance and looked back up the steps at the now closed front door. "I'll follow them," she offered.
William nodded. It mirrored his thinking. "I'll send Otto along. I think we might need pictures."
Saccharrisa nodded and left him so she could hide in the shadow of the building. William set off in the direction of the Times' offices. He had a story to uncover and shadows to cast aside with the brilliant glare of The Truth.