Science of Discworld

If our distant ancestors had got themselves killed off by accident, would anything like us still be around? It seems very unlikely that creatures exactly like us would have turned up, because a lot of what makes us tick is parochials. But intelligence looks like a clear case of a universal, cephalopods evolved intelligence independently of mammals, and anyway, intelligence is such a generic trick. So it seems likely that some other form of intelligent life would have evolved instead, though not necessarily adhering to the same timetable. On an alternative Earth, intelligent crabs might invent a fantasy world shaped like a shallow bowl that rides on six sponges on the back of a giant sea urchin. Three of them could at this very moment be writing The Science of Dishworld.

Sorry. But it is true. But for a fall of rock here, a tidal pattern there, we wouldn't have been us. The interesting thing is that we almost certainly would have been something else.

THE FUTURE IS NEWT

HEX WAS THINKING HARD AGAIN. Running the little universe was taking much less time than k had expected. It more or less ran itself now, in fact. The gravity operated without much attention, rainclouds formed with no major interference and rained every day. Balls went around one another.

HEX didn't think it was a shame about the crabs going. HEX hadn't thought it was marvellous that the crabs had turned up. HEX thought about the crabs as something that had happened. But it had been interesting to eavesdrop on Crabbity, the way the crabs named themselves, thought about the universe (in terms of crabs), had legends of the Great Crab clearly visible in the Moon, passed on in curious marks the thoughts of great crabs, and wrote down poetry about the nobility and frailty of crab life, being totally accurate, as it turned out, on this last point.

HEX wondered: if you have life, then intelligence will arise somewhere. If you have intelligence, then extelligence will arise somewhere. If it doesn't, intelligence hasn't got much to be intelligent about. It was the difference between one little oceanic crustacean and an entire wall of chalk.

The machine also wondered if it should pass on these insights to the wizards, especially since they actually lived in one of the world's more interesting outcrops of extelligence. But HEX knew that its creators were infinitely cleverer than it was. And great masters of disguise, obviously.

The Lecturer in Recent Runes had designed a creature.

'Really, all we need is a basic limpet or whelk, to begin with,' he said, as they looked at the blackboard. 'We bring it back here where proper magic works, try a few growth spells, and then let Nature take its course. And, since these extinctions seem to be wiping out everything, it'll gradually become the dominant feature.'

'What's the scale again?' said Ridcully, critically.

'About two miles to the tip of the cone,' said the Lecturer. 'About four miles across the base.'

'Not very mobile, then,' said the Dean.

'The weight of the shell will certainly hamper it, but I imagine it should be able to move its own length in a year, perhaps two.'

'What'll it eat, then?'

'Everything else.'

'Such as...'

'Everything. I'd advise suction holes around the base here so that it can filter seawater for useful things like plankton.'

'Plankton being…?'

'Oh, whales, shoals offish and so on.'

The wizards looked long and hard at the huge cone-shaped object.

'Intelligence?' said Ridcully.

'What for?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'Ah.'

'It will withstand anything except a direct hit with a comet, and I estimate it'll have a lifespan of about 500,000 years.'

'And then it'll die?' said Ridcully.

'Yes. I estimate it will, by then, take it twenty-four hours and one second to absorb enough food to last it for twenty-four hours.'

'So after that it will be dead?'

'Yes.'

'Will it know?'

'Probably not.'

'Back to the drawing board, Senior Lecturer.'

Ponder sighed.

'It's no good ducking,' he said. 'That won't help. We're paying special attention to comets. We'll let you know in plenty of time.'

'You've got no idea what it was like!' said Rincewind, creeping along the beach. 'And the noise!'

'Have you seen the Luggage?'

'It certainly made my ears ring, I can tell you!'

'And the Luggage?'

'What? Oh ... gone. Have you looked at that side of the planet? There's a whole new set of mountain ranges!'

The wizards had let time run forward for a while after the strike. It made such a depressing mess of everything. Now, drawing on its bottomless reserves of bloodimindium, life was returning in strength. Crabs were already back although, here, at least, they didn't seem inclined to make even simple structures. Perhaps something in their souls told them it'd be a waste of time in the long run.

Rincewind mentally crossed them off the list. Look for signs of intelligence, the Archchancellor had said. As far as Rincewind was concerned, anything really intelligent would be keeping out of the way of the wizards. If you saw a wizard looking at you, Rincewind would advise, then you should walk into a tree or say 'dur?'.

All along the beaches, and out below the surf, everything was acting with commendable stupidity.

A soft sound made him look down. He'd almost stepped on a fish.

It was some way from the water line, and squirming across the mud towards a pool of brackish water.

A kind man by nature, Rincewind picked it up gingerly and carried it back to the sea. It flopped around in the shallows for a while and then, to his amazement, inched its way back on to the mud.

He put it back again, in deeper water this time.

Thirty seconds kter, it was back on the beach.

Rincewind crouched down, as the thing wiggled determinedly onwards.

'Would it help to talk to someone?' he said. 'I mean, you've got a good life out there in the sea, no sense in throwing it all away, is there? There's always a silver lining if you know where to look. Okay, okay, life's a beach. And you're a pretty ugly fish. But, you know, beauty is only sk- scale deep, and...'

'What's happening?' said Ponder's voice in his ear.

'I was talking to this fish,' said Rincewind.

'Why?'

'It keeps coming out of the water. It seems to want to go for whatever is the opposite of a paddle.'

'Well?'

'You told me to keep a look out for anything interesting.'

'The consensus here is that fish aren't interesting,' said Ponder. 'Fish are dull.'

'I can see bigger fish in the shallows,' said Rincewind. Terhaps it's trying to keep away from them?'

'Rincewind, fish are designed for living in water That's why they're fish. Go and find some crabs. And put the poor freakish thing back in the sea, for goodness' sake.'

'Perhaps a rethink is in order here,' said Ridcully.