The Science of Discworld II

dear,’ said Ridcully.
    â€˜It’s hard to follow, but there appear to be about four main gods on this continent,’ said the Dean. ‘Loosely associated.’
    â€˜Big beards in the sky?’ said Ridcully.
    â€˜A couple, yes.’
    â€˜Clearly a morphic memory of ourselves, then,’ said Ridcully.
    â€˜It’s hard to tell, with religions,’ said the Dean. ‘But at least they preserved the idea that books were important and that reading and writing were more than just a skive for people too weedy to hack at one another with swords.’
    â€˜Any of these religious places still around?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘Would it be useful to drop in, explain that we are, in fact, the creators of this universe, and put them right on a few points?’
    There was silence. And then Ponder said, in his best talking-to-superiors voice: ‘I believe, sir, that this world is no different from our own in its attitude to apparent human beings who turn up and say that they’re a god.’
    â€˜We wouldn’t get special treatment?’
    â€˜Not of the sort you have in mind, sir, no,’ said Ponder. ‘Besides, the places in this country appear to have been closed down by a recent monarch. I’m not sure I understand it all, but it appears to have been some kind of cost-cutting exercise.’
    â€˜Downsizing of redundant units, re-allocation of staff, that sort of thing?’ said Ridcully.
    â€˜Yes, sir,’ said Ponder. ‘And a few murders, some torturing, that sort of thing.’
    â€˜But probably nothing, I’m sure, that couldn’t be sorted out by getting everyone to go and run around in the woods shooting paint at one another,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, innocently.
    â€˜I shall ignore that, Runes,’ said Ridcully. ‘Now, gentlemen, we are supposed to be thinkers. We haven’t got magic. We can be moved in time and space, according to Hex. And we’ve got big sticks. What can we do?’
    â€˜A message has arrived,’ said Hex.
    â€˜From Lancre? That’s quick!’
    â€˜Yes. The message is unsigned. It is: THEOSTRY.’
    Hex spelled it out. Ponder wrote it down in his notebook.
    â€˜What does that mean?’ Ridcully looked up at his wizards.
    â€˜Looks a bit religious to me,’ said the Dean. ‘Rincewind? This sort of thing is right up your street, isn’t it?’
    Rincewind looked at the word. Really, when you came to think of it, his whole life was a crossword puzzle …
    â€˜The clacks people charge by the word, don’t they?’ he said.
    â€˜Yes, it’s scandalous,’ said Ridcully. ‘Five pence a word, on the long-distance trunk!’
    â€˜And this was sent back by an old woman in Lancre, where as far as I recall the chicken is the basic unit of currency?’ said Rincewind. ‘Not much money for fancy messages, then. It looks to me like a simple anagram of … THE STORY …’
    â€˜I think it means “change the story”,’ said Ponder, without looking up. ‘At a saving of five pence.’
    â€˜We tried changing it!’ said the Dean.
    â€˜Change it in a different way, perhaps? At a different time?’ said Ponder. ‘We’ve got L-space. We ought to be able to get some guidance from books written in different futures—’
    â€˜Ook!’
    â€˜I’m sorry, sir, but the library rules don’t apply here!’ said Ponder.
    â€˜Look at it this way, old chap,’ said Ridcully, to the angry Librarian. ‘The rules do of course apply here, everyone can see that, and we wouldn’t dream of asking you to interfere with the nature of causality in the normal way of things. It’s just that the nature of causality on this world is such that, if any libraries survive the next thousand years without being used for lighting fires or uncomfortable toilet paper, they’re due to be destroyed in a fireball and/or entombed in ice. Dr Dee’s wonderful books which you like so much, with their many delicate illustrations of completely useless magical circles and rather interesting mathematical cyphers, will go the way of the, the …’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Someone give me the name of something that’ll be going completely extinct,’ he demanded.
    â€˜People,’ said Rincewind.
    There was silence.
    Then the Librarian said: ‘Ook