Interesting Times

causing an extra node to appear in the transfers at a point equidistant to the other two as prediction in Flume’s Third Equation, and Turffe’s Law would see to it that the distortion would stabilize in such a way as to create three separate points, each moving a roughly equal mass one jump around the triangle. I’m not sure why the third mass arrived here at such speed, but I think the increased velocity might have been caused by the sudden creation of the node. Of course, it might have been going quite fast anyway. But I shouldn’t think it is cooked in its natural state.”
    “Do you know,” said Ridcully, “I think I actually understood some of that? Certainly some of the shorter words.”
    “Oh, it’s perfectly simple,” said the Bursar brightly. “We sent the…dog thing to Hunghung. Rincewind was sent to some other place. And this creature was sent here. Just like Pass the Parcel.”
    “You see?” said Ridcully to Stibbons. “You’re using language the Bursar can understand. And he’s been chasing the dried frog all morning.”
    The Librarian staggered into the hall under the weight of a large atlas.
    “Oook.”
    “At least you can show us where you think our man is,” said Ridcully.
    Ponder took a ruler and a pair of compasses out of his hat.
    “Well, if we assume Rincewind was in the middle of the Counterweight Continent,” he said, “then all we need do is draw—”
    “Oook!”
    “I assure you, I was only going to use pencil—”
    “ Eeek .”
    “All we have to do is imagine , all right, a third point equidistant from the other two…er…that looks like somewhere in the Rim Ocean to me, or probably over the Edge.”
    “Can’t see that thing in the sea,” said Ridcully, glancing up at the recently laminated corpse.
    “In that case, it must have been in the other direction—”
    The wizards crowded round.
    There was something there.
    “’S not even properly drawn in,” said the Dean.
    “That’s because no one’s sure it really exists,” said the Senior Wrangler.
    It floated in the middle of the sea, a tiny continent by Discworld standards.
    “‘XXXX,’” Ponder read.
    “They only put that on the map because no one knows what it’s really called,” said Ridcully.
    “And we’ve sent him there,” said Ponder. “A place that we’re not even certain exists? ”
    “Oh, we know it exists now,” said Ridcully. “Must do. Must do. Must be a pretty rich land, too, if the rats grow that big.”
    “I’ll go and see if we can bring—” Ponder began.
    “Oh, no,” said Ridcully firmly. “No, thank you very much. Next time it might be an elephant whizzing over our heads, and those things make a splash. No. Give the poor chap a rest. We’ll have to think of something else…”
    He rubbed his hands together. “Time for dinner, I feel,” he said.
    “Um,” said the Senior Wrangler. “Do you think we were wise to light that string when we sent the thing back?”
    “Certainly,” said Ridcully, as they strolled away. “No one could say we didn’t return it in exactly the same state as it arrived…”

    Hex dreamed gently in its room.
    The wizards were right. Hex couldn’t think.
    There weren’t words, yet, for what it could do.
    Even Hex didn’t know what it could do.
    But it was going to find out.
    The quill pen scritched and blotted its way over a fresh sheet of paper and drew, for no good reason, a calendar for the year surmounted by a rather angular picture of a beagle, standing on its hind legs.

    The ground was red, just like at Hunghung. But whereas that was a kind of clay so rich that leaving a chair on the lawn meant that you had four small trees by nightfall, this ground was sand that looked as if it had got red by being baked in a million-year summer.
    There were occasional clumps of yellowed grass and low stands of gray-green trees. But what there was everywhere was heat.
    This was especially noticeable in the pond under the ghost gums. It was steaming.
    A figure emerged from the clouds, absentmindedly picking the burnt bits off his beard.
    Rincewind waited until his own personal world had stopped spinning and concentrated on the four men who were watching him.
    They were black with lines and whorls painted on their faces and had, between them, about two square feet of clothing.
    There were three reasons why Rincewind was no racist. He’d ended up in too many places too suddenly to develop that kind of mind. Besides, if he’d thought about