Carrot laid out the golem on a table. 'Start, then,' he said. 'Rebuild him. Use as much of the old clay as you can, understand?'

'How can it work when its lights're out?' said Detritus, still puzzled by this mission of mercy.

'He said the clay remembers!'

The sergeant shrugged.

'And give him a tongue,' said Carrot.

Igneous looked shocked. 'I won't do dat,' he said. 'Everybody know it blasphemy if golems speak.'

'Oh, yeah?' said Detritus. He strode across the warehouse to the group of statues and glared at them. Then he said, 'Whoops, here's me accident'ly trippin' up, ooo, dis is me grabbin' a statchoo for support, oh, der arm have come right off, where can I put my face... and what is dis white powder what I sees here with my eyes accident'ly spillin' on der floor?'

He licked a finger and gingerly tasted the stuff.

'Slab,' he growled, walking back to the trembling Igneous. 'You tellin' me about blasphemy, you sedimentr'y coprolith? You doin' what Captain Carrot say right now or you goin' out of here in a sack!'

'Dis is police brutality...' Igneous muttered.

'No, dis is just police shoutin'!' yelled Detritus. 'You want to try for brutality it okay wit' me!'

Igneous tried to appeal to Carrot. 'It not right, he got a badge, he puttin' me in fear, he can't do dis,' he said.

Carrot nodded. There was a glint in his eye that Igneous should have noticed. 'That's correct,' he said. 'Sergeant Detritus?'

'Sir?'

'It's been a long day for all of us. You can go off duty.'

'Yessir!' said Detritus, with considerable enthusiasm. He removed his badge and laid it down carefully. Then he started to struggle out of his armour.

'Look at it like this,' said Carrot. 'It's not that we're making life, we're simply giving life a place to live.'

Igneous finally gave up. 'Okay, okay,' he muttered. 'I doin' it. I doin' it.'

He looked at the various lumps and shards that were all that remained of Dorfl, and rubbed the lichen on his chin.

'You got most of the bits,' he said, professionalism edging resentment aside for a moment. 'I could glue him together wit' kiln cement. Dat'd do the trick if we bakes him overnight. Lessee... I reckon I got some over dere...'

Detritus blinked at his finger, which was still white with the dust, and sidled over to Carrot. 'Did I just lick dis?' he said.

'Er, yes,' said Carrot.

'T'ank goodness for dat,' said Detritus, blinking furiously, d hate to believe dis room was really full of giant hairy spide... weeble weeble sclup ...

He hit the floor, but happily.

'Even if I do it you can't make it come alive again,' muttered Igneous, returning to his bench. 'You won't find a priest who's goin' to write der words for in der head, not again.'

'He'll make up his own words,' said Carrot.

'And who's going to watch the oven?' said Igneous. 'It's gonna take 'til breakfast at least...

'I wasn't planning on doing anything for the rest of tonight,' said Carrot, taking off his helmet.

Vimes awoke around four o'clock. He'd gone to sleep at his desk. He hadn't meant to, but his body had just shut down.

It wasn't the first time he'd opened bleary eyes there. But at least he wasn't lying in anything sticky.

Tags: Terry Pratchett Discworld Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net