The Last Continent

island, man,” said Ridcully. “All we’ve seen is birds, a few little squeaky things and a load of insects. You don’t get big fierce animals on islands you can practically throw a stone across. He must’ve just…felt a bit carefree. It’s a bit hot for boots here, anyway.”
    “So why haven’t we seen him?”
    “Hah! He’s probably lying low,” said the Dean. “Ashamed to face us. Keeping a nice sunny island in your study is against University rules.”
    “Is it?” said Ponder. “I’ve never seen it mentioned. How long has it been a rule?”
    “Ever since I’ve had to sleep in a freezing bedroom,” said the Dean, darkly. “Pass the bread-and-butter-pudding fruit, will you?”
    “Ook,” said the Librarian.
    “Ah, nice to see you your old shape, old chap,” said Ridcully. “Try and keep it up for longer this time, eh?”
    “Ook.”
    The Librarian was sitting behind a pile of fruit. Normally he wouldn’t question such a perfect piece of positioning, but now even the bananas were bothering him. There was the same sensation of wrongness . There were long yellow ones, and stubby ones, and red ones, and fat brown ones—
    He stared at the remains of the fish. There was a big silver one, and a fat red one, and a small gray one, and a flat one a bit like a plaice—
    “Obviously some sorcerer landed here and wanted to make the place more homely,” the Senior Wrangler was saying, but he sounded far off. The Librarian was counting.
    The plum-pudding plant, the custard-squash vine, the chocolate coconut—He turned his head to look at the trees. And now he knew what he was looking for, he couldn’t see it anywhere.
    The Senior Wrangler stopped talking as the ape scrambled to his knuckles and sped back to the high-tide line. The wizards watched in silence as he scrabbled through the heaped-up seashells. He came back with a double handful, which he dropped triumphantly in front of the Archchancellor.
    “Ook!”
    “What’s that, old chap?”
    “ Ook !”
    “Yes, very pretty, but what’s—”
    “OOK!”
    The Librarian seemed to remember what kind of intellects he was dealing with. He held up a finger and looked at Ridcully enquiringly. “Ook?”
    “Still not quite with you—”
    Two fingers went up. “Ook ook?”
    “Not sure I fully—”
    “Ook ook ook!”
    Ponder Stibbons looked at the three fingers now raised. “I think he’s counting, sir.” The Librarian handed him a banana.
    “Ah, the old ‘How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?’ game,” said the Dean. “But usually we all have to have a bit more to drink first—”
    The Librarian waved his hand at the fish, at the meal, at the shells and at the background of trees. One finger stabbed at the sky.
    “Ook!”
    “It’s all one to you?” said Ridcully. “It’s one big place? It’s one to remember?”
    The Librarian opened his mouth again, and then sneezed.
    A very large red seashell lay on the sand.
    “Oh, dear,” said Ponder Stibbons.
    “That’s interesting,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “He’s turned into quite a good specimen of the giant conch. You can get a marvelous sound out of one of them if you blow in the pointy end…”
    “Volunteers?” said the Dean, almost under his breath.
    “Oh, dear,” said Ponder again.
    “What’s up with you?” said the Dean.
    “There’s only one,” said Ponder. “That’s what he was trying to tell us.”
    “One what?” said Ridcully.
    “Of everything, sir. There’s only one of everything.”
    It was, he thought later, a good dramatic line. People ought to have looked at one another in growing and horrified realization and said things like, “By George, you know, he’s right!” But these were wizards, capable of thinking very big thoughts in very small chunks.
    “Don’t be daft, man,” said Ridcully. “There’s millions of the damn shells, for a start.”
    “ Yes , sir, but look, they’re all different , sir. All the trees we found…there was only one of each sort, sir. Lots of banana trees, but they all produce different types of bananas. There was only one cigarette tree, wasn’t there?”
    “Lots of bees, though,” said Ridcully.
    “But only one swarm,” said Ponder.
    “ Millions of beetles,” said the Dean.
    “I don’t think I’ve seen two alike , sir.”
    “Well, that’s interesting ,” said Ridcully, “but I don’t see—”
    “One of anything doesn’t work , sir,” said Ponder. “It can’t breed.”
    “Yes, but