The Science of Discworld Revised Edition

animal?’
    ‘I’m sure it’s a plant.’
    ‘Isn’t it … walking … rather fast?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen a plant walking before.’
    The wizardery of UU was filtering back in the building as the news got around. The senior members of the faculty were clustered around the omniscope, explaining to one another, now that the impossible had happened, that of course it had been inevitable.
    ‘All those cracks under the sea,’ said the Dean. ‘And the volcanoes, of course. Heat’s bound to build up over time.’
    ‘That doesn’t explain all the different shapes, though,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘I mean, the whole sea looks like somebody had just turned over a very big stone.’
    ‘I suppose the blobs had time to consider their future when they were under the ice,’ said the Dean. ‘It suppose you could think of it as a very long winter evening.’
    ‘I vote for lavatories,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    ‘Well, I’m sure we all do,’ said Ridcully. ‘But why at this point?’
    ‘I mean that the blobs were … you know … excusing themselves for millions and millions of years, then you’re get a lot of, er, manure …’ the Lecturer ventured.
    ‘A shitload,’ said the Dean.
    ‘Dean! Really!’
    ‘Sorry, Archchancellor.’
    ‘… and we know dunghills absolutely teem with life …’ the Lecturer went on.
    ‘They used to think that rubbish heaps actually generated rats,’ said Ridcully. ‘Of course, that was just a superstition. It’s really seagulls. But you saying life is, as it were, advancing by eating dead men’s shoes? Or blobs, in this case. Not shoes, of course, because they didn’t have any feet. And wouldn’t have been bright enough to invent shoes even if they did. And even if they had been, they couldn’t have done. Because there was, at that time, nothing from which shoes might be made. But apart from that, the metaphor stands.’
    ‘There still
are
blobs in there,’ said the Dean. ‘There’s just lots of other things, too.’
    ‘Any of it lookin’ intelligent?’ said Ridcully.
    ‘I’m not certain how we’d spot that at this stage …’
    ‘Simple. Is anything killing something it doesn’t intend to eat?’
    They stared into the teeming broth.
    ‘Bit hard to define intentions, really,’ said the Dean, after a while.
    ‘Well, does anything look as if it is
about
to become intelligent?’
    They watched again.
    ‘That thing like two spiders joined together?’ said the Senior Wrangler after a while. ‘It looks very thoughtful.’
    ‘I think it looks very dead.’
    ‘Look, I can see how we can settle this whole evolution business once and for all,’ said Ridcully, turning away. ‘Mister Stibbons, can H EX use the omniscope to see if anything changes into anything else?’
    ‘Over a moderately sized area, I think he probably can, sir.’
    ‘Get it to pay attention to the land,’ said the Dean. ‘Is there anything happening on the land?’
    ‘There’s a certain greenishness, sir. Seaweed with attitude, really.’
    ‘That’s where the interesting stuff will happen, mark my words. I don’t know what this universe is using for narrativium, but land’s where we’ll see any intelligent life.’
    ‘How do you define intelligence?’ said Ridcully. ‘In the long term, I mean.’
    ‘Universities are a good sign,’ said the Dean, to general approval.
    ‘You don’t think that perhaps fire and the wheel might be more universally indicative?’ said Ponder carefully.
    ‘Not if you live in the water,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘The sea’s the place here, I’ll be bound. On this world practically nothing happens on the land.’
    ‘But in the water everything’s eating each other!’
    ‘Then I’ll look forward to seeing what happens to the last one served,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
    ‘No, when it comes to universities, the land’s the place,’ said the Dean. ‘Paper won’t last five minutes under water. Wouldn’t you say so, Librarian?’
    The Librarian was still staring into the omniscope.
    ‘Ook,’ he said.
    ‘What’s that he said?’ said Ridcully.
    ‘He said “I think the Senior Wrangler might be right”,’ said Ponder, going over to the omniscope. ‘Oh … look at
this
…’
    The creature had at least four eyes and ten tentacles. It was using some of the tentacles to manœuvre a slab of rock against another slab.
    ‘It’s building a bookcase?’ said Ridcully.
    ‘Or possibly a crude rock