The Last Continent

up. Then it sneezed.
    “Ah, back with us again, Librarian,” Ridcully went on, as the orangutan sprawled in the sand. “Help him up, please, Mister Stibbons. A word to the rest of you, please. If you’ll excuse us a moment, Mrs. Whitlow? Faculty meeting…”
    The wizards went into a huddle.
    “It was tomato sauce, all right?” said the Dean hurriedly. “I just happened to be having a snack in bed and you know how that stuff stains!”
    “I’m sure we’re not at all interested in the state of your sheets, Dean,” said Ridcully.
    “No, indeed,” said the Senior Wrangler brightly.
    “Not us,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, slapping the Dean on the back.
    “We have to get back,” said Ridcully. “We can’t spend the night alone with Mrs. Whitlow. It wouldn’t be decent.”
    “I don’t see why anyone should make a fuss about a bit of tomato sauce. I at least cleaned all the beans off—”
    “Well, we’re not actually alone, are we? Not as such,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “I mean, there’s seven of us, not including the Librarian.”
    “Yes, but we’re all alone together ,” said Ridcully urgently. “There could be Talk.”
    “What about?” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, who sometimes lagged behind.
    “ You know,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Seven men and one woman…It doesn’t bear thinking about…”
    “Well, I for one will certainly veto any suggestion about ordering another six women,” said the Chair firmly.
    “Perhaps the hole will open again?” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “I doubt it,” said Ridcully. “Ponder says that our coming through probably altered the thaumostatic balance. What do you think, Dean?”
    “Just tomato sauce,” said the Dean. “It could have happened to anyone.”
    “I meant about our being marooned on this island,” said Ridcully. “Any ideas, anyone? We must tackle this as a team.”
    “What shall we tell Mrs. Whitlow?” whispered the Senior Wrangler. “She thinks this is a prank .”
    “Senior Wrangler, we are elderly, wise and experienced wizards,” said Ridcully. “ Students are prankers.”
    “Pranksters, possibly,” mumbled Ponder Stibbons.
    “Whatever. We do not indulge in pranks .”
    “With us it’s a fully fledged gold-embossed cock-up or nothing,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    “I don’t see why people are making such a fuss about a bit of tomato sauce that hardly even shows up,” muttered the Dean.
    “No one brought any suitable spells?” said Ridcully.
    “At four in the morning? For the beach?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Of course not.”
    “Then we shall have to fall back on our own resources. There’s bound to be a ship along sooner or later. The point is , gentlemen,” he added, “that we are the product of a university education. I’m quite sure primitive people have no difficulties surviving in a place like this, and think of all the things we have that our rude forefathers lacked.”
    “Mrs. Whitlow, for a start,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
    “She wouldn’t put up with rudeness of any sort,” the Senior Wrangler agreed.
    “Do you know anything about boats, Dean? I believe you got a Brown for rowing when you were slimmer,” said Ridcully. “Please note that this question did not raise the matter of sheets in any way.”
    “Well, indeed, boat-building is not a difficult task,” said the Dean, surfacing. “Even primitive people can build boats, and we are civilized men, after all.”
    “Then you’re head of the Boat-Building Committee,” said Ridcully. “Senior Wrangler can help you. The rest of you fellows had better see if there’s any fresh water. And food. Knock down a few coconuts. That sort of thing.”
    “And what will you do, Archchancellor?” said the Senior Wrangler nastily.
    “I shall be the Protein Acquisition Committee,” said Ridcully, waving his fishing rod.
    “You going to stand here and fish again? What good’s that going to do?”
    “It might result in a fish dinner, Senior Wrangler.”
    “Has anyone got any tobacco?” said the Dean. “I’m dying for a smoke.”
    The wizards went off about their tasks, complaining and blaming one another.
    And just inside the forest, in the leafy debris, roots unfolded and a number of very small plants began to grow like hell…

    “This is the last continent,” said Scrappy. “It was…put together last, and…differently.”
    “Looks pretty old to me,”