'Dollar each for these and a dollar-fifty for the next batch.'
'Two dollar.'
'All right, all right, two dollars each. That's ten dollars the lot, right?'
'Right.'
'And that's cutting my own throat.' Chalky tossed the box aside. It bounced on the floor and the lid came off. Some time later a small, greyish-brown mongrel dog, on the prowl for anything edible, limped into the workshop and sat peering into the box for a while. Then it felt a bit of an idiot and wandered off. Ridcully hammered on the door of the High Energy Magic Building as the city clocks were striking two. He was supporting Ponder Stibbons, who was asleep on his feet. Ridcully was not a quick thinker. But he always got there eventually. The door opened and Skazz's hair appeared. 'Are you facin' me?' said Ridcully. 'Yes, Archchancellor.'
'Let us in, then, the dew's soaking through me boots.' Ridcully looked around as he helped Ponder in. 'Wish I knew what it was that keeps you lads working all hours,' he said. 'I never found magic that interesting when I was a lad. Go and fetch some coffee for Mr Stibbons here, will you?
And then get your friends.' Skazz bustled off and Ridcully was left alone, except for the slumbering Ponder. 'What is it they do?' he said. He never really tried to find out. Skazz had been working at a long bench by one wall. At least he recognized the little wooden disc. There were small oblong stones ranged on it in a couple of concentric circles, and a candle lantern positioned on a swivelling arm so that it could be moved anywhere around the circumference. It was a travelling computer for druids, a sort of portable stone circle, something they called a 'kneetop'. The Bursar had sent off for one once. It had said For the Priest In a Hurry on the box. He'd never been able to make it work properly and now it was used as a doorstop. Ridcully couldn't see what they had to do with magic. After all, it wasn't much more than a calendar and you could get a perfectly good calendar for 8p. Rather more puzzling was the huge array of glass tubes behind it. That was where Skazz had been working; there was a litter of bent glassware and jars and bits of cardboard where the student had been sitting. The tubing seemed to be alive. Ridcully leaned forward. It was full of ants. They scuttled along the tubing and through complex little spirals in their thousands. In the silence of the room, their bodies made a faint, continuous rustling. There was a slot level with the Archchancellor's eyes. The word 'In' was written on a piece of paper that had been pasted onto the glass. And on the bench was an oblong of card which looked just the right shape to go in the slot. It had round holes punched in it. There were two round holes, then a whole pattern of round holes, and then a further two holes. On it, in pencil, someone had scribbled '2 x 2'. Ridcully was the kind of man who'd push any lever, just to see what it did. He put the card in the obvious slot . . . There was an immediate change in the rustling. Ants trailed in their busy way through the tubing. Some of them appeared to be carrying seeds . . . There was a small dull sound and a card dropped out of the other end of the glass maze. It had four holes in it. Ridcully was still staring at it when Ponder came up behind him, rubbing his eyes. ''S our ant counter,' he said. 'Two plus two equals four,' said Ridcully. 'Well, well, I never knew that.'
'It can do other sums as well.'
'You tellin' me ants can count?'
'Oh, no. Not individual ants . . . it's a bit hard to explain . . . the holes in the cards, you see, block up some tubes and let them through others and . . .' Ponder sighed, 'we think it might be able to do other things.'
'Like what?' Ridcully demanded. 'Er, that's what we're trying to find out . . .'
'You're trying to find out? Who built it?'
'Skazz.'
'And now you're trying to find out what it does?'
'Well, we think it might be able to do quite complicated maths. If we can get enough bugs in it.' Ants were still bustling around the enormous crystalline structure. 'Had a rat thingy, a gerbil or something, when I was a lad,' said Ridcully, giving up in the face
of the incomprehensible. 'Spent all the time on a treadmill. Round and round, all night long. This is a bit like that, yes?'
'In very broad terms,' said Ponder carefully. 'Had an ant farm, too,' said Ridcully, thinking faraway thoughts. 'The little devils never could plough straight.' He pulled himself together. 'Anyway, get the rest of your chums here right now.'
'What for?'
'A bit of a tutorial,' said Ridcully. 'Aren't we going to examine the music?'
'In good time,' said Ridcully. 'But first, we're going to talk to someone.'
'I'm not sure,' said Ridcully. 'We'll know when he turns up. Or her.' Glod looked at their suite. The hotel owners had just left, after going through the 'dis is der window, it really opens, dis is der pump, you get water out of it wit der handle here, dis is me waiting for some money' routine. 'Well, that just about does it. That just about puts the iron helmet on it, that does,' he said. 'We play Music With Rocks In all evening, and we've got a room that looks like this?'
'It's homely,' said Cliff. 'Look, trolls don't have much to do with de frills of life-' Glod looked towards his feet. 'It's on the floor and it's soft,' he said. 'Silly me for thinking it was a carpet. Someone fetch me a broom. No, someone fetch me a shovel. Then someone fetch me a broom.'
'It'll do,' said Buddy. He put down his guitar and stretched out on the wooden slab that was apparently one of the beds. 'Cliff,' said Glod, 'can I have a word?' He jerked a stubby thumb at the door. They conferred on the landing. 'It's getting bad,' said Glod. 'Yep.'
'He hardly says a word now when he's not on stage.'
'Yep.'
'Ever met a zombie?'
'I know a golem. Mr Dorfl down in Long Hogmeat.'
'Him? He's a genuine zombie?'
'Yep. Got a holy word on his head, I seen it.'
'Yuk. Really? I buy sausages from him.'