Soul Music

where the student had been sitting.
    The tubing seemed to be alive.
    Ridcully leaned forward.
    It was full of ants.
    They scuttled along the tubing and through complex little spirals in their thousands. In the silence of the room, their bodies made a faint, continuous rustling.
    There was a slot level with the Archchancellor’s eyes. The word “In” was written on a piece of paper that had been pasted onto the glass.
    And on the bench was an oblong card which looked just the right shape to go in the slot. It had round holes punched in it.
    There were two round holes, then a whole pattern of round holes, and then a further two holes. On it, in pencil, someone had scribbled “2 + 2.”
    Ridcully was the kind of man who’d push any lever, just to see what it did.
    He put the card in the obvious slot…
    There was an immediate change in the rustling. Ants trailed in their thousands through the tubing. Some of them appeared to be carrying seeds…
    There was a small dull sound and a card dropped out of the other end of the glass maze.
    It had four holes in it.
    Ridcully was still staring at it when Ponder came up behind him, rubbing his eyes.
    “’s our ant counter,” he said.
    “Two plus two equals four,” said Ridcully. “Well, well, I never knew that.”
    “It can do other sums as well.”
    “You tellin’ me ants can count?”
    “Oh, no. Not individual ants…it’s a bit hard to explain…the holes in the cards, you see, block up some tubes and let them through others and…” Ponder sighed, “we think it might be able to do other things.”
    “Like what?” Ridcully demanded.
    “Er, that’s what we’re trying to find out…”
    “You’re trying to find out? Who built it?”
    “Skazz.”
    “And now you’re trying to find out what it does?”
    “Well, we think it might be able to do quite complicated math. If we can get enough bugs in it.”
    Ants were still bustling around the enormous crystalline structure.
    “Had a rat thingy, a gerbil or something, when I was a lad,” said Ridcully, giving up in the face of the incomprehendable. “Spent all the time on a treadmill. Round and round, all night long. This is a bit like that, yes?”
    “In very broad terms,” said Ponder carefully.
    “Had an ant farm, too,” said Ridcully, thinking faraway thoughts. “The little devils never could plow straight.” He pulled himself together. “Anyway, get the rest of your chums here right now.”
    “What for?”
    “A bit of a tutorial,” said Ridcully.
    “Aren’t we going to examine the music?”
    “In good time,” said Ridcully. “But first, we’re going to talk to someone.”
    “Who?”
    “I’m not sure,” said Ridcully. “We’ll know when he turns up. Or her.”

    Glod looked at their suite. The hotel owner had just left, after going through the “dis is der window, it really opens, dis is der pump, you get water out of it wit der handle here, dis is me waiting for some money” routine.
    “Well, that just about does it. That just about puts the iron helmet on it, that does,” he said, “We play Music With Rocks In all evening, and we’ve got a room that looks like this ?”
    “It’s homely,” said Cliff. “Looks, trolls don’t have much to do with der frills of life—”
    Glod looked toward his feet.
    “It’s on the floor and it’s soft,” he said. “Silly me for thinking it was a carpet. Someone fetch me a broom. No, someone fetch me a shovel. Then someone fetch me a broom.”
    “It’ll do,” said Buddy.
    He put down his guitar and stretched out on the wooden slab that was apparently one of the beds.
    “Cliff,” said Glod, “can I have a word?”
    He jerked a stubby thumb at the door.
    They conferred on the landing.
    “It’s getting bad,” said Glod.
    “Yep.”
    “He hardly says a word now when he’s not onstage.”
    “Yep.”
    “Ever met a zombie?”
    “I know a golem. Mr. Dorfl down in Long Hogmeat.”
    “Him? He’s a genuine zombie?”
    “Yep. Got a holy word on his head, I seen it.”
    “Yuk. Really? I buy sausages from him.”
    “Anyway…what about zombies?”
    “…you couldn’t tell from the taste, I thought he was a really good sausage maker…”
    “What was you saying about zombies?”
    “…funny how you can know someone for years and then find out they’ve got feet of clay…”
    “Zombies…” said Cliff patiently.
    “What? Oh. Yes. I mean he acts like one.” Glod recalled some of the zombies in Ankh-Morpork. “At least,