Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'And it's up to three shots,' said the Bursar. 'I'll have to order some more sandbags.'

He flicked through a heap of paper. A word caught his eye.

Reality.

He glanced at the handwriting that flowed across the page. It had a very small, cramped, deliberate look. Someone had told him that this was because Numbers Riktor had been an anal retentive. The Bursar didn't know what that meant, and hoped never to find out.

Another word was: Measurement. His gaze drifted upwards, and took in the underlined title: Some Notes on the Objective Measurement of Reality.

Over the page was a diagram. The Bursar stared at it.

'Found anything?' said the Archchancellor, without looking up.

The Bursar shoved the paper up the sleeve of his robe.

'Nothing important,' he said. Down below, the surf boomed on the beach. ( . . . and below the surface, the lobsters walked backwards along the deep, drowned streets . . . )

Victor threw another piece of driftwood on to the fire. It burned blue with salt.

'I don't understand her,' he said. 'Yesterday she was quite normal, today it's all gone to her head.'

'Bitches!' said Gaspode, sympathetically.

'Oh, I wouldn't go that far,' said Victor. 'She's just aloof.'

'Loofs!' said Gaspode.

'That's what intelligence does for your sex life,' said Don't-call-me-Mr-Thumpy. 'Rabbits never have that sort of trouble. Go, Sow, Thank You Doe.'

'You could try offering her a moushe,' said the cat. 'Preshent company exchepted, of course,' it added guiltily, trying to avoid Definitely-Not-Squeak's glare.

'Being intelligent hasn't done my social life any favours, either,' said Mr Thumpy bitterly. 'A week ago, no prob lems. Now suddenly I want to make conversation, and all they do is sit there wrinklin' their noses at you. You feel a right idiot.'

There was a strangulated quacking.

'The duck says, have you done anything about the book?' said Gaspode.

'I had a look at it when we broke for lunch,' said Victor.

There was another irritable quack.

'The duck says, yes, but what have you done about it?' said Gaspode.

'Look, I can't go all the way to Ankh-Morpork just like that,' snapped Victor. 'It takes hours! We film all day as it is!'

'Ask for a day off,' said Mr Thumpy.

'No-one asks for a day off in Holy Wood!' said Victor. 'I've been fired once, thank you.'

'And he took you on again at more money,' said Gaspode. 'Funny, that.' He scratched an ear. 'Tell him your contract says you can have a day off.'

'I haven't got a contract. You know that. You work, you get paid. It's simple.'

'Yeah,' said Gaspode. 'Yeah. Yeah? A verbal contract. It's simple. I like it.'

Towards the end of the night Detritus the troll lurked awkwardly in the shadows by the back door of the Blue Lias. Strange passions had wracked his body all day. Every time he'd shut his eyes he kept seeing a figure shaped like a small hillock. He had to face up to it. Detritus was in love.

Yes, he'd spent many years in Ankh-Morpork hitting people for money. Yes, it had been a friendless, brutalizing life. And a lonely one, too. He'd been resigned to an old-age of bitter bachelorhood and suddenly, now, Holy Wood was handing him a chance he'd never dreamed of.