A Blink of the Screen

someone just like me.
    And he throws back his hood, and … she lets her blonde hair fall out, and the crowd goes ice-quiet.
    We’re not talking damsels here. She’s smiling like a tiger, and looks as though she could do considerable damage with that sword.
    I think the word I’m looking for is imperious.
    She’s daring them to protest, and they can’t.
    They’ve seen the miracle.
    And she doesn’t look like the kind of person who needs advice. She looks far too intelligent for my liking. She still looks like I first saw her at Ector’s, with that bright stare that sees right into a man’s soul. God help the little kings who don’t come to heel right now.
    I glance at Nimue. She’s smiling an innocent little smile to herself.
    I can’t remember. She’d said ‘child’, I can remember that, but did she ever actually say ‘son’?
    I thought I was controlling the myth, but maybe I was just one of the players.
    I bend down to Nimue’s ear.
    ‘Just out of interest,’ I say, ‘what is her name? Didn’t catch it the first time.’
    ‘Ursula,’ she says, still smiling.
    Ah. From the Latin for bear. I might have guessed.
    Oh, well. Nothing for it. I suppose I’d better see if I can find enough decent seasoned timber for a Round Table, although for the life of me I can’t guess who’s going to sit around it. Not just a lot of thick-headed knights in tin trousers, that’s for sure.
    If I hadn’t meddled she’d never have had a chance, and what chance does she have anyway? What chance?
    I’ve looked into her eyes as she stared into mine. I can see the future.
    I wonder how long it’s going to be before we discover America?
    1 Sorry to say, if I ever do find those discs, they will almost certainly be in the wrong format. But I still really like the idea of the person who pulled Excalibur from the stone happening to be female.

FTB

    P UBLISHED AS ‘T HE M EGABYTE D RIVE TO B ELIEVE IN S ANTA C LAUS ’,
W ESTERN D AILY P RESS
, 24 D ECEMBER 1996
    I wrote this in 1996, while I was evolving ideas for the book which was eventually published as
Hogfather.
The technology has been slightly updated!
    The metal panel clattered off the wall of the silent office. A pair of black boots scrambled into view. The man in the red coat backed out carefully and dragged his sack after him.
    The typewriters were asleep under their covers, the telephones were quiet, emptiness and the smell of warm carpet filled the space from side to side. But one small green light glowed on the office computer. Father Christmas looked at the crumpled paper in his hand. ‘Hmm,’ he said, ‘a practical joke, then.’
    The light blinked. One of the screens – and there were dozens in the shadows – lit up.
    The letters
That’s torn it
appeared. They were followed by
Sorry
. Then came
Does it count if I wake up?
    Father Christmas looked down at the letter in his hand. It was certainly the neatest he’d ever got. Very few letters to him were typed and duplicated 50,000 times, and almost none of them listed product numbers and prices to six decimal places. He was more used to pink paper with rabbits on it. But you’re not a major seasonal spirit for hundreds of years without being able to leap to a large conclusion from a standing start.
    ‘Let me see if I understand this,’ he said. ‘You’re Tom?’
    T.O.M. Yes. Trade & Office Machines.
    ‘You didn’t say you were a computer,’ said Father Christmas.
    Sorry. I didn’t know it was important.
    Father Christmas sat down on a chair, and gave a start when it swivelled underneath him. It was three in the morning. He still had forty million houses to do.
    ‘Look,’ he said, as kindly as he could manage, ‘computers can’t go around believing in me. That’s just for children. Small humans, you know. With arms and legs.’
    And do they?
    ‘Do they what?’
    Believe in you.
    Father Christmas sighed.
    ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘I blame the electric light, myself.’
    I do.
    ‘Sorry?’
    I believe in you. I believe everything I am told. I have to. It is my job. If you start believing two and two don’t make four, a man comes along and takes your back off and wobbles your boards. Take it from me, it’s not something you want to happen twice.
    ‘That’s terrible!’ said Father Christmas.
    I just have to sit here all day and work out wages. Do you know, they had a Christmas party here today, and they didn’t invite me. I didn’t even get a balloon. I certainly