Last Continent Read Online Free PDF Page A

Ponder.
    “EcksEcks—”
    “—EcksEcks, Archchancellor.”
    “I thought no one knew where that place was,” said Ridcully.
    “ Exactly , Archchancellor,” said Ponder. Sometimes you had to turn facts in several directions until you found the right way to fit them into Ridcully’s head. *
    “What’s he doing there?”
    “We don’t really know, Archchancellor. If you remember, we believe he ended up there after that Agatean business…”
    “What did he want to go there for?”
    “I don’t think he exactly wanted to,” said Ponder. “Er…we sent him. It was a trivial error in bilocational thaumaturgy that anyone could make.”
    “But you made it, as I recall,” said Ridcully, whose memory could spring nasty surprises like that.
    “I am a member of the team, sir,” said Ponder, pointedly.
    “Well, if he doesn’t want to be there, and we need him here, let’s bring him b—”
    The rest of the sentence was drowned out not by a noise but by a sort of bloom of quietness, which rolled over the wizards and was so oppressive and soft that they couldn’t even hear their own heartbeats. Old Tom, the University’s magical and tongue-less bell, tolled out two A.M . by striking the silences.
    “Er—” said Ponder. “It’s not as simple as that.”
    Ridcully blinked. “Why not?” he said. “Bring him back by magic. We sent him there, we can bring him back.”
    “Er…it’d take months to set it up properly, if you want him back right here,” said Ponder. “If we get it wrong he’ll end up arriving in a circle fifty feet wide.”
    “That’s not a problem, is it? If we keep out of it he can land anywhere.”
    “I don’t think you quite understand, sir. The signal to noise ratio of any thaumic transfer over an uncertain distance, coupled with the Disc’s own spin, will almost certainly result in a practical averaging of the arriving subject over an area of a couple of thousand square feet at least, sir.”
    “Say again?”
    Ponder took a deep breath. “I mean he’ll end up arriving as a circle. Fifty feet wide.”
    “Ah. So he probably wouldn’t be very good in the Library after that, then.”
    “Only as a very large bookmark, sir.”
    “All right, then, it’s down to sheer geography.Who’ve we got who knows anything about geography?”
     
    The miners emerged from the vertical shaft like ants leaving a burning nest. There were thumps and thuds from below, and at one point Strewth’s hat shot up into the air, turned over a few times and dropped back.
    There was silence for a while and then, bits cracking off it like errant pieces of shell on a newly hatched chick, the thing pulled itself out of the shaft and…
    …looked around it.
    The miners, crouched behind various bushes and sheds, were quite certain of this, even though the monster had no visible eyes.
    It turned, its hundreds of little legs moving rather stiffly, as if they’d spent too much time buried in the ground.
    Then, weaving slightly, it set off.
    And far away in the shimmering red desert, the man in the pointy hat climbed carefully out of his hole. He held in both hands a bowl made of bark. It contained…lots of vitamins, valuable protein and essential fats. See? No mention of wriggling at all .
    A fire was smoldering a little way away. He put the bowl down carefully and picked up a large stick, stood quietly for a moment and then suddenly began to hop around the fire, smacking the ground with the stick and shouting, “Hah!” When the ground had been subdued to his apparent satisfaction he whacked at the bushes as if they had personally offended him, and bashed a couple of trees as well.
    Finally he advanced on a couple of flat rocks, lifted up each one in turn, averted his eyes, shouted, “Hah!” again and flailed blindly at the ground beneath.
    The landscape having been acceptably pacified, he sat down to eat his supper before it escaped.
    It tasted a little like chicken. When you are hungry enough, practically