Feet of Clay

possible and collapsed on a chair in the waiting salon.
    Minutes went past.
    You didn’t knock on the Patrician’s door. He summoned you in the certain knowledge that you would be there.
    Vimes sat back, enjoying a moment’s peace.
    Something inside his coat went: “Bing bing bingley bing!”
    He sighed, pulled out a leather-bound package about the size of a small book, and opened it.
    A friendly yet slightly worried face peered up at him from its cage.
    “Yes?” said Vimes.
    “11 A.M . Appointment with the Patrician.”
    “Yes? Well it’s five past now.”
    “Er. So you’ve had it, have you?” said the imp.
    “No.”
    “Shall I go on remembering it or what?”
    “No. Anyway, you didn’t remind me about the College of Arms at ten.”
    The imp looked panic-stricken.
    “That’s Tuesday, isn’t it? Could’ve sworn it was Tuesday.”
    “It was an hour ago.”
    “Oh.” The imp was downcast. “Er. All right. Sorry. Um. Hey, I could tell you what time it is in Klatch, if you like. Or Genua. Or Hunghung. Any of those places. You name it.”
    “I don’t need to know the time in Klatch.”
    “You might,” said the imp desperately. “Think how people will be impressed if, during a dull moment of the conversation, you could say ‘Incidentally, in Klatch it’s an hour ago.’ Or Bes Pelargic. Or Ephebe. Ask me. Go on. I don’t mind. Any of those places.”
    Vimes sighed inwardly. He had a notebook. He took notes in it. It was always useful. And then Sybil, gods bless her, had brought him this fifteen-function imp which did so many other things, although as far as he could see at least ten of its functions consisted of apologizing for its inefficiency in the other five.
    “You could take a memo,” he said.
    “Wow! Really? Gosh! OK. Right. No problem.”
    Vimes cleared his throat. “See Corporal Nobbs re: time-keeping; also re: Earldom.”
    “Er…sorry, is this the memo?”
    “Yes.”
    “Sorry, you should have said ‘memo’ first. I’m pretty certain it’s in the manual.”
    “All right, it was a memo.”
    “Sorry, you have to say it again.”
    “Memo: See Corporal Nobbs re: time-keeping; also re: Earldom.”
    “Got it,” said the imp. “Would you like to be reminded of this at any particular time?”
    “The time here?” said Vimes, nastily. “Or the time in, say, Klatch?”
    “As a matter of fact, I can tell you what time it—”
    “I think I’ll write it in my notebook, if you don’t mind,” said Vimes.
    “Oh, well, if you prefer, I can recognize handwriting,” said the imp proudly. “I’m quite advanced.”
    Vimes pulled out his notebook and held it up. “Like this?” he said.
    The imp squinted for a moment. “Yep,” it said. “That’s handwriting, sure enough. Curly bits, spiky bits, all joined together. Yep. Handwriting. I’d recognize it anywhere.”
    “Aren’t you supposed to tell me what it say?”
    The demon looked wary. “Says?” it said. “It’s supposed to make noises?”
    Vimes put the battered book away and shut the lid of the organizer. Then he sat back and carried on waiting.
    Someone very clever—certainly someone much cleverer than whoever had trained that imp—must have made the clock for the Partrician’s waiting room. It went tick-tock like any other clock. But somehow, and against all usual horological practice, the tick and the tock were irregular. Tick tock tick…and then the merest fraction of a second longer before…tock tick tock…and then a tick a fraction of a second earlier than the mind’s ear was now prepared for. The effect was enough, after ten minutes, to reduce the thinking processes of even the best-prepared to a sort of porridge. The Patrician must have paid the clockmaker quite highly.
    The clock said quarter past eleven.
    Vimes walked over to the door and, despite precedent, knocked gently.
    There was no sound from within, no murmur of distant voices.
    He tried the handle. The door was unlocked.
    Lord Vetinari had always said that punctuality was the politeness of princes.
    Vimes went in.

    Cheery dutifully scraped up the crumbly white dirt and then examined the corpse of the late Father Tubelcek.
    Anatomy was an important study at the Alchemists’ Guild, owing to the ancient theory that the human body represented a microcosm of the universe, although when you saw one opened up it was hard to imagine which part of the universe was small and purple and went blomp-blomp when you prodded it. But in any case you