The Last Continent

Ponder. “You saw how quickly it changed, didn’t you?”
    “Well?” said the Dean.
    “That can’t be natural.”
    “ You’re the one who says things naturally change into other things, Mister Stibbons.”
    “But not that fast!”
    “Have you ever seen any of this evolution happening?”
    “Well, of course not, no one has ever—”
    “There you are, then,” said Ridcully, in a closing-the-argument voice. “That might be the normal speed. As I said, it makes perfect sense. There’s no point in turning into a bird a bit at a time, is there? A feather here, a beak there…You’d see some damn stupid creatures wandering around, eh?” The other wizards laughed. “Our monster probably simply thought, Oh, there’s too many of them, perhaps I’d better turn into something they’d like.”
    “Enjoy,” said the Dean.
    “Sensible survival strategy,” said Ridcully. “Up to a point.”
    Ponder rolled his eyes. These things always sounded fine when he worked them out in his head. He’d read some of the old books, and sit and think for ages , and a little theory would put itself together in his head in a row of little shiny blocks, and then when he let it out it’d run straight into the Faculty and one of them, one of them, would always ask some bloody stupid question which he couldn’t quite answer at the moment. How could you ever make any progress against minds like that? If some god somewhere had said, “Let there be light,” they’d be the ones to say things like “Why? The darkness has always been good enough for us .”
    Old men, that was the trouble. Ponder was not totally enthusiastic about the old traditions, because he was well into his twenties and in a moderately important position and therefore, to some of the mere striplings in the University, a target. Or would have been, if they weren’t getting that boiled eyeball feeling by sitting up all night tinkering with Hex.
    He wasn’t interested in promotion, anyway. He’d just be happy if people listened for five minutes, instead of saying, “Well done, Mister Stibbons, but we tried that once and it doesn’t work,” or, “We probably haven’t got the funding,” or, worst of all, “You don’t get proper fill-in-nouns these days—remember old ‘nickname’ ancient-wizard-who-died-fifty-years-ago-who-Ponder-wouldn’t-possibly-be-able-to-remember? Now there was a chap who knew his fill-in-nouns.”
    Above Ponder, he felt, were a lot of dead men’s shoes. And they had living men’s feet in them, and were stamping down hard.
    They never bothered to learn anything, they never bothered to remember anything apart from how much better things used to be, they bickered like a lot of children and the only one who ever said anything sensible said it in orangutan.
    He prodded the fire viciously.
    The wizards had made Mrs. Whitlow a polite rude hut out of branches and big woven leaves. She bade them goodnight and demurely pulled some leaves across the entrance behind her.
    “A very respectable lady, Mrs. Whitlow,” said Ridcully. “I think I’ll turn in myself, too.”
    There were already one or two sets of snores building up around the fire.
    “I think someone ought to stand guard,” said Ponder.
    “Good man,” muttered Ridcully, turning over.
    Ponder gritted his teeth and turned to the Librarian, who was temporarily back in the land of the bipedal and was sitting gloomily wrapped in a blanket.
    “At least I expect this is a home from home for you, eh, sir?”
    The Librarian shook his head.
    “Would you be interested in hearing what else is odd about this place?” said Ponder.
    “Ook?”
    “The driftwood. No one listens to me, but it’s important . We must have dragged loads of stuff for the fire, and it’s all natural timber, do you notice that? No bits of plank, no old crates, no tatty old sandals. Just…ordinary wood.”
    “Ook?”
    “That means we must be a long way off the normal shipping…oh, no…don’t…”
    The Librarian wrinkled his nose desperately.
    “Quickly! Concentrate on having arms and legs! I mean living ones!”
    The Librarian nodded miserably, and sneezed.
    “Awk?” he said, when his shape had settled down again.
    “Well,” said Ponder sadly. “At least you’re animate. Possibly rather large for a penguin, though. I think it’s your body’s survival strategy. It keeps trying to find a stable shape that works.”
    “Awk?”
    “Funny it can’t seem to do anything about the red