Science of Discworld III

at the garden.
    Worms, thousands of them, out there under the soft rain, turning the detritus of winter into loam, building the soil. How … convenient.
    The ploughs of God, he thought, and winced. It was the harrows of God that plagued him now.
    Strange how the rustle of the rain sounds very much like people whispering …
    At which point, he became aware of the beetle. It was climbing up the inside of the window, a green and blue tropical jewel.
    There was another one, higher up, banging fruitlessly against the pane.
    One landed on his head.
    The air filled up with the rattle and slither of wings. Entranced, Darwin turned to look at the glowing cloud in the corner of the room. It was forming a shape …
    It is always useful for a university to have a Very Big Thing. It occupies the younger members, to the relief of their elders (especially ifthe VBT is based at some distance from the seat of learning itself) and it uses up a lot of money which would otherwise only lie around causing trouble or be spent by the sociology department or, probably, both. It also helps in pushing back boundaries, and it doesn’t much matter what boundaries these are, since as any researcher will tell you it’s the pushing that matters, not the boundary.
    It’s a good idea, too, if it’s a bigger VBT than anyone else’s and, in particular, since this was Unseen University, the greatest magical university in the world, if it’s a bigger one than the one those bastards are building at Braseneck College.
    ‘In fact,’ said Ponder Stibbons, Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, ‘theirs is really only a QBT, or Quite Big Thing. Actually, they’ve had so many problems with it, it’s probably only a BT!’
    The senior wizards nodded happily.
    ‘And ours is certainly bigger, is it?’ said the Senior Wrangler.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Stibbons. ‘Based on what I can determine from chatting to the people at Braseneck, ours will be capable of pushing boundaries twice as big up to three times as far.’
    ‘I hope you haven’t told them that,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘We don’t want them building a … a … an EBT!’
    ‘A what, sir?’ said Ponder politely, his tone saying, ‘I know about this sort of special thing and I’d rather you did not pretend that you do too.’
    ‘Um … an Even Bigger Thing?’ said Runes, aware that he was edging into unknown territory.
    ‘No, sir,’ said Ponder, kindly. ‘The next one up would be a Great Big Thing, sir. It’s been postulated that if we could ever build a GBT, we would know the mind of the Creator.’
    The wizards fell silent. For a moment, a fly buzzed against the high, stone-mullioned window, with its stained-glass image of Archchancellor Sloman Discovering the Special Theory of Slood, and then, after depositing a small flyspeck on Archchancellor Sloman’s nose, exited with precision though a tiny hole in one pane whichhad been caused two centuries ago when a stone had been thrown up by a passing cart. Originally the hole had stayed there because no one could be bothered to have it fixed, but now it stayed there because it was traditional.
    The fly had been born in Unseen University and because of the high, permanent magical field, was far more intelligent that the average fly. Strangely, the field never had this effect on wizards, perhaps because most of them were more intelligent than flies in any case.
    ‘I don’t think we want to do that, do we?’ said Ridcully.
    ‘It might be considered impolite,’ agreed the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
    ‘Exactly how big would a Great Big Thing be?’ said the Senior Wrangler.
    ‘The same size as the universe, sir,’ said Ponder. ‘Every particle of the universe would be modelled within it, in fact.’
    ‘Quite big, then …’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘And quite hard to find room for, I should imagine.’
    ‘Undoubtedly, sir,’ said Ponder, who had long ago given up trying to explain Big Magic to the rest of the senior faculty.
    ‘Very well, then,’ said Archchancellor Ridcully. ‘Thank you for your report, Mister Stibbons.’ He sniffed. ‘Sounds fascinatin’. And the next item: Any Other Business.’ He glared around the table. ‘And since there is no other busi—’
    ‘Er …’
    This was a bad word at this point. Ridcully did not like committee business. He certainly did not like any other business.
    ‘Well, Rincewind?’ he said, glaring down the length of the table.
    ‘Um …’ said Rincewind. ‘I