Rincewind was back in the village. He was going to get out. He just had to
find a way. He picked up a newspaper off the stack on the pier and glanced
at it absentmindedly as he walked. Getting out wouldn't have been hard if
everything starting from the beer barrels up wasn't being outfitted as a
boat for the fight. He HAD to get out. There were storm clouds on the
horizon. There were always storm clouds on the horizon. But these looked
different. Malignant. Evil. No, the puzzle said the word had to be 8
letters. Sinister, that was it. He looked again. The storm was BIG.
The Orange agents had told him that this had once been arid, and that magic had made it a swamp.
Rincewind paused. THE ORANGE AGENTS. THEY could get him out of here!
He ran off towards the marines' base.
He had been so close in his logic. The key was not the Orange Agents, but the magic.
*
Uyidako was having one of THOSE days. One of the days when it's make-it or break-it time.
They might just make it.
The Pseudoagatean Rocket Batteries were nearing completion. There was a good chance they could be loaded by the time the war started.
By the time the war started. She laughed in her head. As if war was something that got updated daily in the newspapers.
Now where had Xu Chu gone?
*
Banking over the ocean was the Magnolia Guy, the Disc's most advanced glider.
It was possibly the only thing in the past decade of any major significance NOT thought up by Leonard of Quirm or an Ephebian philosopher. Its inventor was a florist in Sto Lat, who had invented it to drop payloads of insect- repellant on his cabbage crops when the root fly outbreaks got REALLY bad. Unfortunately, he was a lousy farmer and was forced to take up floristry. The invention may have killed the insects, but it by no means made him a better farmer. There's a moral in there somewhere.
The man flying it was, of course, the magnolia guy himself. He probably could have grown rich on sails of his gliding crop-powdering device, had it not been so fiendishly complicated that even Leonard of Quirm had given up on trying to simplify it.
It had been slightly redesigned for dropping a single object. All you had to do was pull lever 58-B instead of lever 87-Q when you went through the five-lever bombing sequence. Simple. The Magnolia Guy was also his code- name because, let's face the facts; you had no chance of getting a date when you told her your name was Thaddeus Dike. Thaddeus was well aware of this fact, and knew that Magnolia Guy wasn't much better, but he'd take it.
Strapped to the belly of the craft, which had disengaged from its pulling albatross some six hours ago and was still going strong, was the Little Bastard. The Little Bastard was the bomb. Usually there was more than one, and they could be fired in sequence. But today, there was only one. It was heavy, too. But the Magnolia Guy was built to take heavy weights. You needed a LOT of pesticide to kill some of the root fly strains that were emerging.
*
Rincewind was out in the Plain of the Pots now. He couldn't find the Orange Agents, and he was starting to go through his panic-prepping stage, in which he repeatedly told himself a) He wasn't going to die yet, and b) Don't pee your pants.
He heard voices, and ducked behind the nearest pot, which was twelve feet high and at least two or three inches thick. This would buy him about ten seconds if a conventional weapon were used on it, and about five if it was Ephebian Fire.
"I'm sure I heard someone come through here."
"Not possible. Let's go over there. I've got a shelter set up where we can see them, but they can't see us."
*
Ridcully was mulling the problem over in his head with a hammer. If someone was BUILT a Thaumic Bomb, and used it, why, they could-
"How big an area could they blow up?" he was calmer know since the terror had set in and washed away his anger.
"NOOKE, you mean?"
That was a word from the essay. It stood for Nice and Orderly Outright Killing of Everything.
"Yes, NOOKE. What will happen if that thing goes off?"
"Well, it should leave a nice big circular crater with a high random magic rating. NOOKE-ing would kill everything for a certain distance from the epicenter of the explosion, and make it uninhabitable for millennia to come."
"What's a millennia?"
"Oh, about three or four pounds," said Drumknott, who then exploded with cackling laughter. The others looked at him uneasily.
"It's a very long time. Anyway, it'd be like when the Sourcerors brought the world down on their heads years ago, and we had to start civilization all over again."
"Oh. So, how are we supposed to get out of here and save the world?"
"I have an idea." It was Eskarina Smith, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the hold and not saying much since she had been captured. Actually, she wasn't saying much since she had been knocked unconscious by the sailor who tried to carry her off to a private part of the ship to do private things, she was sure, when she had kicked him in the groin.
"You do?"
"Yes. But it won't be easy. All we have to do is kill twenty or thirty of the Pseudoagateans and take over the ship."
*
The glider banked over Bes Pelargic at a high enough altitude to escape detection.
The fleet pulled closer toward Switch' Off, the last open point on Ting Ling not held by the Agateans or their Pseudoagatean allies. Of course, the island of Fappondo with its provincial capitol of Valin Tine would still be free, but their will would be broken.
The Orange Agents were actually off getting drunk in one of the bars in Switch' Off.
Vetinari pursed his hands at his desk and wondered where Drumknott was.
Rincewind inched out from behind his jar, saw a look long stick insect looking at him, lost his resolve and DID pee his pants.
The luggage ambled along the ocean floor. It was getting really pissed.
Uyidako wondered where Xu Chu was.
The Haddox was finished with the plating process and was moved out of the way for the next boat to be overhauled.
The Animo theatre sat silent. Some soldiers started prying the roof up with claw hammers to use as boat shielding.
Leonard of Quirm suddenly had the brilliant idea of making a box machine with little pumps in the front, which would dispense the beverage of your choice when you inserted a quarter.
And Lord Hong sat in his boat. He had finished his meeting a few hours back and was sailing for Pseudoagatea, where we would be watching the battle from a distance.
*
Rincewind bolted through the door of the Switch' Off semaphore office. The man standing there was, according to his nametag, the Sonar Zuckerman he'd heard about earlier. He was a man in his twenties, tops, who wore glasses, and was drinking what Rincewind recognized from various marketplaces as a Berry High-high.
"Quick, I need to send a semaphore to Ankh-Morpork."
Sonar set down his Thigh-high. "You can't."
"What do you mean, I can't."
"Well, I was just checking the semaphore tower, and-"
"Yes, I know, you found a semaphore saying we're all going to die."
"Well, yes, but not only that. The guy was shot dead lying slumped over at his post. They all were, in all the towers. They're all dead. Besides, the only way to signal across the ocean is with a huge mirror, and I bet that's been smashed too. We're isolated.
There was a pause. "So we're trapped."
"Yes sir. Would you like a Thigh-high?"
Pause. Rincewind had actually gotten through half of a Thigh-high once, before whoever had been chasing him then had caught up, and he had liked it."
"Sure."
They drank to the brevity of human life.
*
The Orange agents had told him that this had once been arid, and that magic had made it a swamp.
Rincewind paused. THE ORANGE AGENTS. THEY could get him out of here!
He ran off towards the marines' base.
He had been so close in his logic. The key was not the Orange Agents, but the magic.
*
Uyidako was having one of THOSE days. One of the days when it's make-it or break-it time.
They might just make it.
The Pseudoagatean Rocket Batteries were nearing completion. There was a good chance they could be loaded by the time the war started.
By the time the war started. She laughed in her head. As if war was something that got updated daily in the newspapers.
Now where had Xu Chu gone?
*
Banking over the ocean was the Magnolia Guy, the Disc's most advanced glider.
It was possibly the only thing in the past decade of any major significance NOT thought up by Leonard of Quirm or an Ephebian philosopher. Its inventor was a florist in Sto Lat, who had invented it to drop payloads of insect- repellant on his cabbage crops when the root fly outbreaks got REALLY bad. Unfortunately, he was a lousy farmer and was forced to take up floristry. The invention may have killed the insects, but it by no means made him a better farmer. There's a moral in there somewhere.
The man flying it was, of course, the magnolia guy himself. He probably could have grown rich on sails of his gliding crop-powdering device, had it not been so fiendishly complicated that even Leonard of Quirm had given up on trying to simplify it.
It had been slightly redesigned for dropping a single object. All you had to do was pull lever 58-B instead of lever 87-Q when you went through the five-lever bombing sequence. Simple. The Magnolia Guy was also his code- name because, let's face the facts; you had no chance of getting a date when you told her your name was Thaddeus Dike. Thaddeus was well aware of this fact, and knew that Magnolia Guy wasn't much better, but he'd take it.
Strapped to the belly of the craft, which had disengaged from its pulling albatross some six hours ago and was still going strong, was the Little Bastard. The Little Bastard was the bomb. Usually there was more than one, and they could be fired in sequence. But today, there was only one. It was heavy, too. But the Magnolia Guy was built to take heavy weights. You needed a LOT of pesticide to kill some of the root fly strains that were emerging.
*
Rincewind was out in the Plain of the Pots now. He couldn't find the Orange Agents, and he was starting to go through his panic-prepping stage, in which he repeatedly told himself a) He wasn't going to die yet, and b) Don't pee your pants.
He heard voices, and ducked behind the nearest pot, which was twelve feet high and at least two or three inches thick. This would buy him about ten seconds if a conventional weapon were used on it, and about five if it was Ephebian Fire.
"I'm sure I heard someone come through here."
"Not possible. Let's go over there. I've got a shelter set up where we can see them, but they can't see us."
*
Ridcully was mulling the problem over in his head with a hammer. If someone was BUILT a Thaumic Bomb, and used it, why, they could-
"How big an area could they blow up?" he was calmer know since the terror had set in and washed away his anger.
"NOOKE, you mean?"
That was a word from the essay. It stood for Nice and Orderly Outright Killing of Everything.
"Yes, NOOKE. What will happen if that thing goes off?"
"Well, it should leave a nice big circular crater with a high random magic rating. NOOKE-ing would kill everything for a certain distance from the epicenter of the explosion, and make it uninhabitable for millennia to come."
"What's a millennia?"
"Oh, about three or four pounds," said Drumknott, who then exploded with cackling laughter. The others looked at him uneasily.
"It's a very long time. Anyway, it'd be like when the Sourcerors brought the world down on their heads years ago, and we had to start civilization all over again."
"Oh. So, how are we supposed to get out of here and save the world?"
"I have an idea." It was Eskarina Smith, who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the hold and not saying much since she had been captured. Actually, she wasn't saying much since she had been knocked unconscious by the sailor who tried to carry her off to a private part of the ship to do private things, she was sure, when she had kicked him in the groin.
"You do?"
"Yes. But it won't be easy. All we have to do is kill twenty or thirty of the Pseudoagateans and take over the ship."
*
The glider banked over Bes Pelargic at a high enough altitude to escape detection.
The fleet pulled closer toward Switch' Off, the last open point on Ting Ling not held by the Agateans or their Pseudoagatean allies. Of course, the island of Fappondo with its provincial capitol of Valin Tine would still be free, but their will would be broken.
The Orange Agents were actually off getting drunk in one of the bars in Switch' Off.
Vetinari pursed his hands at his desk and wondered where Drumknott was.
Rincewind inched out from behind his jar, saw a look long stick insect looking at him, lost his resolve and DID pee his pants.
The luggage ambled along the ocean floor. It was getting really pissed.
Uyidako wondered where Xu Chu was.
The Haddox was finished with the plating process and was moved out of the way for the next boat to be overhauled.
The Animo theatre sat silent. Some soldiers started prying the roof up with claw hammers to use as boat shielding.
Leonard of Quirm suddenly had the brilliant idea of making a box machine with little pumps in the front, which would dispense the beverage of your choice when you inserted a quarter.
And Lord Hong sat in his boat. He had finished his meeting a few hours back and was sailing for Pseudoagatea, where we would be watching the battle from a distance.
*
Rincewind bolted through the door of the Switch' Off semaphore office. The man standing there was, according to his nametag, the Sonar Zuckerman he'd heard about earlier. He was a man in his twenties, tops, who wore glasses, and was drinking what Rincewind recognized from various marketplaces as a Berry High-high.
"Quick, I need to send a semaphore to Ankh-Morpork."
Sonar set down his Thigh-high. "You can't."
"What do you mean, I can't."
"Well, I was just checking the semaphore tower, and-"
"Yes, I know, you found a semaphore saying we're all going to die."
"Well, yes, but not only that. The guy was shot dead lying slumped over at his post. They all were, in all the towers. They're all dead. Besides, the only way to signal across the ocean is with a huge mirror, and I bet that's been smashed too. We're isolated.
There was a pause. "So we're trapped."
"Yes sir. Would you like a Thigh-high?"
Pause. Rincewind had actually gotten through half of a Thigh-high once, before whoever had been chasing him then had caught up, and he had liked it."
"Sure."
They drank to the brevity of human life.
*
