Same bat fic, same bat author, same bat disclaimer.

* * *

Mustrum Ridcully looked up from his newspaper. He was getting sick of the newspaper, because all it wrote about any more was the war in Pseudoagatea, a small country on the far Rimwards side of the Counterweight Continent. What it basically said was that there were now two dozen countries involved and Ephebie and the Agatean Empire had actually sent troops. He set down the paper with a sigh and looked at the wizard across the table, which was Ponder Stibbons.

"Yes, Arch chancellor. It's quite interesting."

"Why are they doing it?"

"Well, the Counterweight Continent is mostly Agatean Empire territory. However, on the far Rimwards side of it are two islands and a strip of land. The larger island, Ting ling, is half owned by the Empire, half by the Pseudoagateans. The smaller island is all Pseudoagatea."

"Fascinating. Would you pass the marmalade, Bursar?"

"You know, a cucumber is thirty percent green."

"The marmalade, Bursar."

"Well there's no need to get waterlogged about it!"

"Thank you."

"You know, Arch chancellor, we could actually look in on the war, if you want."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've wired in a new magic mirror on Hex, and I think you'll find it works much better than that crystal ball we were fighting with last time we tried to see the Counterweight Continent."

"Really. Well, I suppose that would be interesting."

* * *

Rincewind was having a really good day. The Librarian had given him a piece of taffy which had cemented his jaw shut, the floor was a mess, and the janitor was away, and they'd actually let him sweep it up without interruptions. The room with the Thinking Machine Hex was a mess as Hex clanked away and occasionally sprouted new parts Rincewind was certain weren't there a minute ago. At one point a large metal bar shot out of the depths and stuck itself in the ceiling. And that had been the high of the adventure so far. The Luggage was asleep in one corner, its lid flapping up and down as in snored. Rincewind sighed happily with boredom. Suddenly, the little quill on the front of the machine began to scribble.

+++Warning: quantum ribbon muffin+++

"Huh?"

+++Ribbon detected. Expulsion procedure activated+++

"Mmm." Rincewind slid back to the wall and made himself as flat as possible. Suddenly, a long piece of rope with a weight on the end shot out of the top of Hex, clanged off the pipe still stuck in the ceiling, wrapped itself around Rincewind's broom, and then reeled it back in.

"Mmmm!" Rincewind rushed over to Hex and wandered into the maze of tubing, looking for the broom. He was going to need it, or else they were going to make him do something Interesting. Two people walked into the room.

"Well, here we go, Arch chancellor, Hex."

"I've seen it before, Stibbons. Show me this mirror."

Ponder Stibbons went over to Hex and pulled a green lever. A mirror about a foot on a side rose out of some tubing, then seemed to flicker, and went black, reflecting nothing. At the top was a flickering little white line, flashing on and off.

"Interesting, but I haven't seen anything yet."

"No, Arch chancellor, you haven't." Ponder grabbed hold of two valve wheels below the mirror, and turned them, then pulled another lever. On the mirror appeared:

+++Welcome to the Distant Disc Display interface. You have entered the coordinates for: Switch'off, Pseudoagatea. If this is correct, pull the blue lever. If not, pull the red lever+++_

"What's that triple D stuff about?"

"Oh, I've working on it for months." Ponder swelled with pride. "I preprogrammed it with punch cards for certain locations, and with them in, we can pinpoint any spot on the Disc."

"Interesting. What else can it do?"

"With pinpoint precision, we can send things back and forth with better accuracy than before."

"So this sort of thing could supersede the Semaphore?"

"Not likely. It's very temperamental. There are all sorts of parts it took me ages to create, and there are a few I'm not sure I can make again. Look at this, for example." He pointed to a large brown feather that was entwined with a piece of wire running from a fishing rod to a small hole in a block of wood. "This is the feather of the Farrell Duck, which was declared extinct in the year of the Indecisive Mule. We have a stuffed bird, but lost it in a magic loop along with five students and one classroom. It's been cut off from the rest of the universe, but may latch on again at some point. They will be missed. At any rate, this feather is the only one of its kind in the university, and possibly the Disc. Until I find a more common replacement, don't go anywhere near that feather."

"Right."

"Ahem. Sorry. So, to connect with Switch' Off, I will pull the blue lever and-" the black screen with white letters was suddenly replaced with the scene of a busy town square. Auriental people rushed back and forth, occasionally stopping to talk to each other.

"Wow. So we can send things there, also?"

"Certainly. Got anything that looks about the weight of that cart?"

"How about this?" Ridcully grabbed a discarded wooden box and pulled it forward.

"Yes, that'll do." Ponder reached up on Hex and pointed something that looked like a crossbow at the box."

"Mmmm!"

"Huh?"

"Wasn't me, Stibbons. Get on with the experiment."

"Okay. So if I push this-" the crossbow's tip began to glow green. Suddenly, there was a clang from inside Hex, and Rincewind vaulted over the highest glass tube, broom in hand. He ran into the box and tipped it over. The crossbow went off, and for an instant Rincewind glowed green, and then he, the box, and the broom were gone.

"Oh-" But Ponder was interrupted again, this time by the arrival of a large cart filled with rice, which appeared moving and crashed into Hex, breaking levers and shattering tubes.

"Damn!" said Ridcully with satisfaction. "That was interesting. Now how do we bring back Rincewind and give-" he squinted at the mirror- "the angry peasant who is whaling the stuffing out of him back his cart?"

But Ponder was on he his knees next to the cart "We can't. The feather has been ruined." And he held up two halves of what might, by a stretch of imagination, have once been a feather.

And, as Ridcully looked back up, the mirror, which was still in tact, faded until it was just a mirror again.