People were milling about on deck in the manner peculiar to non-sailors on board ship, not sure of what they should be doing or where they should refrain from doing it. Some of the more stoic ones had made little camps, defining with bundles and pieces of cloth tiny areas of private property. They reminded Angua of the bi-coloured drainpipes and microscopically delineated household boundaries in Money Trap Lane, showing yet another way of drawing a line in the sand. This is Mine, and that is Yours. Trespass on Mine, and you’ll get Yours.
There were a couple of guards standing on either side of the door to the cabins. They hadn’t been told to stop dogs.
Scents led down below. She could smell the other dogs and a strong odour of cloves.
At the end of the narrow passage a door was ajar. She forced it open with her nose and looked around.
The dogs were lying on a rug on one side of a large cabin. Other dogs might have barked, but these just turned their beautiful heads towards her, sighted down the length of their noses and examined her carefully.
A narrow bed beyond them was half concealed by silk hangings. 71-hour Ahmed was bending over it, but he turned when she entered.
He glanced towards the dogs and gave her a puzzled look. Then, to her amazement, he sat down on the deck in front of her.
‘And who do you belong to?’ he said in perfect Morporkian.
Angua wagged her tail. There was someone in the bed, she could smell them, but they wouldn’t be a problem. Jaw muscles strong enough to sever someone’s neck help you to feel relaxed in most situations.
Ahmed patted her on the head. Very few people have ever done that to a werewolf without having to get people to cut up their meals for them in future, but Angua had learned self-control.
Then he stood up and went to the door. She heard him say something to someone outside, and then he came back into the room and smiled at her.
‘I go, I come back…’
He opened a small cupboard and took out a jewelled dog collar. ‘You shall have a collar. Oh, and here is some food,’ he added, as a servant brought in some bowls. ‘“Knick-knack, paddywack, give a dog a bone” is a rhyme I hear your Ankh-Morpork children sing, but a paddywack is a ball of gristle suitable only for animal food and who knows what part of the animal is its knick-knack…’
The plate was put in front of Angua. The other dogs stirred, but Ahmed snapped a word at them and they settled back again.
The food was… dog food. In Ankh-Morpork terms, it meant something that you wouldn’t even put in a sausage, and there are very few things that a man with a big enough mincer cannot put in a sausage.
The little central human part of her was revolted, but the werewolf drooled at the sight of every glistening tube and wobbly fat bit—
It was on a silver plate.
She looked up. Ahmed was watching her carefully.
Of course, the royal dogs were treated like kings, all those diamond collars… It didn’t have to mean he knew—
‘Not hungry?’ he said. ‘Your mouth says you are.’
Something snapped around her neck as she spun around to bite. Her teeth closed on a mouthful of greasy cloth but that wasn’t as important as the pain.
‘His Highness has always liked fine collars on his dogs,’ said 71-hour Ahmed, through the red mist. ‘Rubies, emeralds… and diamonds, Miss Angua.’ His face came down level with hers. ‘Set in silver.’
‘… A crucial factor, I have always found, is NOT the size of the forces. It is the positioning and commitment of reserves, the bringing of power to a point…’
Vimes tried to concentrate on Tacticus. But there were two distractions. One was that the grinning face of 71-hour Ahmed looked out at him from every line. The other was his watch, which he had propped up against the Dis-organizer. It was powered by actual clockwork and was much more reliable. And it never needed feeding. It ticked quietly. As far as it was concerned, he could forget his appointments. He liked it.
The second hand was just curving towards the top of the minute when he heard someone coming up the stairs.
‘Come in, captain,’ said Vimes. There was a snigger from the box.
Carrot’s face was pinker than normal.
‘Something’s happened to Angua,’ said Vimes.
The high colour drained from Carrot’s face. ‘How did you know that?’
Vimes firmly closed the lid on the sniggering demon. ‘Let’s call it intuition, shall we? I’m right, am I?’
‘Yes, sir! She went aboard a Klatchian boat and now it’s sailing! She hasn’t come off!’
‘What the hell did she go on board for?’
‘We were after Ahmed! And he looked as if he was taking someone with him, sir. Someone ill, sir!’
‘He’s left? But the diplomats are still—’
Vimes stopped. There was, if you didn’t know Carrot, something wrong with the situation. There were people who, when their girlfriend was spirited away on a foreign ship, would have dived into the Ankh, or at least run briskly along the crust, leapt aboard and dealt out merry hell on a democratic basis. Of course, at a time like this that would be a dumb thing to do. The sensible approach would be to let people know, but even so—
But Carrot really did believe that personal wasn’t the same as important. Of course, Vimes believed the same thing. You had to hope that when push came to shove you’d act the right way. But there was something slightly creepy about someone who didn’t just believe it, but lived their life by it. It was as unnerving as meeting a really poor priest.
Obviously, it was a consideration that if someone had captured Angua you knew that the rescue you were going to probably wouldn’t be hers.
But…
The gods alone knew what would happen if he left now. The city had gone war mad. Big things were happening. At a time like this, every cell in his body was telling him that the Commander of the Watch had Responsibilities…
He drummed his fingers on the desk. In times like this, it was vital to make the right decision. That was what he was paid for. Responsibility…
He ought to stay here, and do the best he could.
But… history was full of the bones of good men who’d followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.
His eyes went from Carrot to the Dis-organizer and then to the tottering mounds of paperwork on his desk.
Blow that! He was a thief-taker! He’d always be a thief-taker! Why lie?
‘Damned if I’ll let Ahmed get back to Klatch!’ he said, standing up. ‘Fast boat, was it?’
‘Yes, but it looked pretty heavy in the water.’
‘Then maybe we can catch it up before it goes very far—’
As he hurried forward he had, just for a second, the strange sensation that he was two people. And this was because, for the merest fraction of a second, he was two people. They were both called Samuel Vimes.
To history, choices are merely directions. The Trousers of Time opened up and Vimes began to hurtle down one leg of them.
And, somewhere else, the Vimes who made a different choice began to drop into a different future.
They both darted back to grab their Dis-organizers. By the most outrageous of freak chances, quite uniquely, in this split second of decision, they each got the wrong one.
And sometimes the avalanche depends on one snowflake. Sometimes a pebble is allowed to find out what might have happened — if only it had bounced the other way.