Jingo

speed. The pedalling can be somewhat tiresome, but with three of us we should be able to get up to some quite satisfactory accelerations. It’s amazing what you can do when you imitate nature, I just wish my flying exp—Oh…where did you go…?”
    It would be difficult to establish what part of satisfactorily accelerating nature the watchmen were trying to imitate, but it was a part which tended to get stuck in doors a lot.
    They stopped struggling and began to back into the room.
    “Ah, sergeant,” said Lord Vetinari, entering in front of them. “And Corporal Nobbs, too. Leonard has explained everything to you?”
    “You can’t ask us to go in that thing, sir! It’ll be suicide!” said Colon.
    The Patrician brought his hands together in front of his lips in the manner of someone praying, and sucked air thoughtfully.
    “No. No, I think you are wrong,” he said at last, as if reaching a conclusion on some complex metaphysical conundrum. “I think that, in all probability, going into that thing would be a valiant and possibly rewarding deed. I would venture to suggest that, in fact, it is not going that would be suicidal. But I would appreciate your views.”
    Lord Vetinari was not a heavily built man and, these days, he walked with the aid of an ebony cane. No one could remember seeing him handle a weapon, and a flash of unaccustomed insight told Sergeant Colon that this was not in fact a comforting thought at all. They said he’d been educated at the Assassins’ School, but no one remembered what weapons he’d learned. He’d studied languages. And suddenly, with him in front of you, this didn’t seem like the soft option.
    Sergeant Colon saluted, always a useful thing to do in an emergency such as this, and shouted: “Corporal Nobbs, why aren’t you in the…the metal sinking fish thing?”
    “Sarge?”
    “Let’s see you get up them steps, lad…hup hup hup…”
    Nobby scrambled up the ladder and disappeared. Colon saluted again. You could usually tell his nervousness by the smartness of his salute. You could have cut bread with this one.
    “Ready to go, sah !” he shouted.
    “Well done, sergeant,” said Vetinari. “You’re displaying exactly those special qualities I’m looking for—”
    “—’ ere, sarge ,” came a metallic voice from the belly of the fish, “ there’s all chains and cogwheels in here. What’s this do ?” The big auger in front of the thing started to squeak round.
    Leonard appeared from behind the fish.
    “I think we should all get in,” he said. “I’ve lit the candle that’ll burn down and sever the string that’ll release the weight that’ll pull the blocks out.”
    “Er…what is this thing called?” said Colon, as he followed the Patrician up the ladder.
    “Well, because it is submersed in a marine environment I’ve always called it the Going-Under-The-Water-Safely Device,” said Leonard, behind him. * “But usually I just think of it as the Boat.”
    He reached behind him and shut the lid.
    After a moment any listener in the boathouse would have heard a complicated clonk as bolts slid into place.
    The candle burned down and severed the string that released the weight that pulled the blocks out and, slowly at first, the Boat slid down the rails and into the dark water which, after a second or two, closed over it with a gloop.

    No one took any notice of Angua as she trotted up the gangplank. The important thing, she knew, was to look at home. No one bothered a large dog that looked as though it knew where it was going.
    People were milling about on deck in the manner peculiar to nonsailors on board ship, not sure of what they should be doing or where they should refrain from doing it. Some of the more stoic ones had made little camps, defining with bundles and pieces of cloth tiny areas of private property. They reminded Angua of the bicolored drainpipes and microscopically delineated household boundaries in Money Trap Lane, yet another way of drawing a line in the sand. This is Mine, and that is Yours. Trespass on Mine, and you’ll get Yours.
    There were a couple of guards standing on either side of the door to the cabins. They hadn’t been told to stop dogs.
    Scents led down below. She could smell the dogs and a strong odor of cloves.
    At the end of the narrow passage a door was ajar. She forced it open with her nose and looked around.
    The dogs were lying on a rug on one side of a large cabin. Other dogs might have barked, but these