The Science of Discworld Revised Edition

up on, but you wouldn’t want to
live
here. If anything’s got off, the best of luck to them.’
    He waved a finger at the rat, who was watching them suspiciously. Underneath them, the ground trembled again.
    ‘See him?’ he said. ‘We
know
what’s going to happen. In a million years or so his kids are going to be saying, wow, what a great world the Big Rat made for us. Or it’ll be the turn of the jellyfish, or something that’s still bobbing around under the sea that we don’t even know about yet! There’s no
future
here! No, that’s wrong … I mean there’s always a future, but it belongs to someone else. You know what chalk’s made of here? Dead animals! The actual
rock
is made of dead animals! There were some …’
    Even in his overheated state, he paused. It probably wasn’t a good idea to remind people about the apes. A vague, suspicious guilt was nudging him.
    ‘There were these creatures,’ he said, ‘and they were using limestone caves. Limestone’s made from ancient blobs, I saw it being made, like snow in the water … and these creatures are living in the bones of their ancestors! Really! This place … this place is a kaleidoscope. You smash it up, wait a moment, and there’s another pretty pattern. And another one. And another o …’ He stopped. And sagged. ‘Could I have a glass of water, please?’
    ‘That was a very … interesting speech,’ said Ponder.
    ‘A point of view, certainly,’ said Ridcully.
    The other wizards had, however, lost interest. They usually did, if the speeches were not given by them.
    ‘Shall I tell you something else?’ said Rincewind, a little more calmly. ‘This world is an anvil.
Everything
here is between a rock and a hard place. Every single thing on it is the descendant of creatures that have survived everything the world could throw at them. I just hope they never get angry …’
    The Senior Wrangler and the Dean had ambled towards a huge yellow cylinder. The word ‘MAETNANS’ was painted in large black letters on the side.
    ‘Hey, you chaps!’ the Dean shouted. ‘There’s something
talking
in here …’
    The inside of the cylinder reminded the wizards of a lighthouse. There was a spiral staircase; shaped cupboards lined the walls. Lights glowed dimly, whole constellations of them. Certainly the builders of this thing had discovered magic.
    The ‘A-L-A-A-M’ word still blinked on and off in the air.
    ‘I wish that wretched thing would stop,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
    The light vanished. The sound stopped.
    ‘They’ve probably invented demons,’ said the Dean airily. ‘Listen … hello.’
    A pleasant female voice said, ‘Elevator Unstable.’
    ‘Oh,
magic
,’ said Ridcully flatly. ‘Well, we know how to deal with magic . We want to go up in the magic box, voice.’
    ‘Do we?’ said Ponder.
    ‘Anything better than staying in this gloomy place,’ said Ridcully. ‘It’d be quite an interestin’ experience, too. We’ll take one last look the world and then, well … frankly, that’s it.’
    ‘Instability Rising’, said the voice. It did not sound worried by the news.
    ‘What did it say?’ said the Dean. ‘Sounded like name of a place.’
    ‘Very good, very good,’ said Ridcully. ‘Now let’s be going shall we?’
    The pattern of lights moved. Then the voice said, as if it’d been thinking it over, ‘Emerjansi Override.’
    The door slid shut. The cylinder jerked. Shortly afterwards, some pleasant music started, and didn’t really get on anyone’s nerves for several minutes.
    The rat watched the thing rise up the cables in the centre of the pyramid.
    The ground shook again.
    Slowly, the web around the world came apart.
    Ice walls had attacked some of the cable moorings on the ground, but instability was already there, working inexorably as it had done for the past few weeks, turning little movements into big movements.
    Slowly, one cable broke free from its pyramid, glowing red-hot as it was jerked through the atmosphere, flailing across the sky.
    Around the curve of the world, the others danced and groaned …
    When the end finally came, it took only a day. The lines folded around the centre of the world, writhing incandescently across hundreds of miles of snow. The necklace tore apart far above. Some bits drifted away. Others spun gently towards the surface, to impact hours later.
    A ring of fire burned for a while around the equator.
    And then the cold returned.
    As the wizards said, it would all