'Not much about,' said Ridcully, leaning against a trunk. 'Can I smoke my pipe here, Stibbons?'
'Since technically you'll be smoking in the High Energy Building, yes, sir.'
Rincewind apparently struck a match on the tree trunk. 'Amazing,' he said.
'That's odd, sir,' said Ponder. 'I didn't think there would be any proper trees yet.'
'Well, here they are,' said Ridcully. 'And I can see at least another three more ...'
Rincewind had already started to run. The fact that nothing can harm you is no reason for not being scared. An expert can always find a reason for being scared.
The fact that the nearest trunk had toenails was a good one.
From among the ferns above, a large head appeared on the end of too much neck.
'Ah,' said Ridcully calmly. 'Still bloody lizards, I see.'
Ponder was working the Rules again. Now they read:
THE RULES
1 Things fall apart, but centres hold
2 Everything moves in curves
3 You get balls
4 Big balls tell space to bend
5 There are no turtles anywhere
(after this one he'd added Except ordinary ones)
6 Life turns up everywhere it can
7 Life turns up everywhere it can't
8 There is something like narrativium
9 There may be something called bloodimindium (see rule 7)
10...
He stopped to think. Behind him, a very large lizard killed and ate a slightly smaller one. Ponder didn't bother to turn around. They'd been watching lizards for more than a hundred million years, all day, in fact, and even the Dean was giving up on them.
'Too well adapted,' he said. 'Nopressure on them, you see,'
'They're certainly very dull,' said Ridcully. 'Interesting colours, though.'
'Brain the size of a walnut and some of them think with their backsides,' said the Senior Wrangler.
'Your type of people, Dean,' said Ridcully.
'I shall choose to ignore that, Archchancellor,' said the Dean coldly.
'You've been interfering again, haven't you,' Ridcully went on. 'I saw you pushing some of the small lizards out of that tree.'
'Well, you've got to admit that they look a bit like birds,' said the Dean.
'And did they learn to fly?'
'Not in so many words, no. Not horizontally.'
'Eat, fight, mate and die,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'Even the crabs were better than this. Even the blobs made an effort. When they come to write the history of this world, this is the page everyone will skip. Terribly dull lizards, they'll be called. You mark my words.'
'They have stayed around for a hundred million years, sir,' said Rincewind, who felt he had to stand up for non-achievers.
'And what have they done? Is there a single line of poetry? A building of any sort? A piece of simple artwork?'
'They've just not died, sir.'
'Not dying out is some kind of achievement, is it?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'Best kind there is, sir.'
'Pah!' said the Dean. 'All they prove is that species go soft when there's nothing happening! It's nice and warm, there's plenty to eat ... it's just the sea without water. A few periods of vulcanism or a medium-sized comet would soon have them sitting up straight and paying attention.'
The air shimmered and Ponder Stibbons appeared.
'We have intelligence, gentlemen,' he said.
'I know,' said the Dean.
'I mean, the omniscope has found signs of developing intelligence. Twice, sir.'
The herd was big. It was made up of large, almost hemispherical creatures, with faces that had all the incisive cogitation of a cow.
Much smaller creatures were trotting along at the edges. They were dark, scrawny and warbled to one another almost without cease.
They also carried pointed sticks.
'Well ...' Ridcully began, dismissively.
'They're herding them, sir!' said Ponder.
'But wolves chase sheep ...'
'Not with pointy sticks, sir. And look there ...'
One of the beasts was towing a crude travois, covered with leaves. Several herders were lying on it. They were pale around the muzzles.
'Are they sick, d'you think?' said the Dean.
'Just old, sir.'
'Why'd they want to slow themselves down with a lot of old people?'
Ponder dared a short pause before answering.
'They're the library, sir. I suppose. They can remember things. Places to hunt, good waterholes, that sort of thing. And that means they must have some sort of language.'
'It's a start, I suppose,' said Ridcully.
'Start, sir? They've nearly done it all!' Ponder put his hand to his ear. 'Oh ... and HEX says there's more, sir. Er ... different.'
'How different?'
'In the sea again, sir,'
'Aha,' said the Senior Wrangler.
In fact on the sea was more accurate, he had to admit. The colony they found stretched for miles, linking a chain of small rocky islands and sandbanks as beads on a chain of tethered driftwood and rafts of floating seaweed.
The creatures inhabiting it were another type of lizard. Still extremely dull, the wizards considered, compared to some of the others. They weren't even an interesting colour and they had hardly any spikes. But they were ... busy creatures.
'That seaweed ... does it look sort of regular to you?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, as they drifted over a crude wall. They're not farming, are they?'
'I think ...' Ponder looked down. The water washed over the wall of rocks. 'It's a big cage for fish. The whole lagoon. Er ... I think they've built the walls like that so the tide lets the fish come in and then they're stuck when it goes down.'
Lizards turned their heads as the semi-transparent men floated past, but seemed to treat them as no more than passing shadows.
'They're harnessing the power of the sea?' said Ridcully. 'That's clever.'
Lizards were diving at the far side of the lagoon. Some were busy around rock pools on one of the lower islands. Small lizards swam in the shallows. Along one stretch of driftwood walkways, strips of seaweed were drying in the breeze. And over everything was a yip-yipping of conversation. And it was conversation, Ponder decided. Animals didn't wait for other animals to finish. Nor did wizards, of course, but they were a breed apart.
A little way away, a lizard was carefully painting the skin of another lizard, using a twig and some pigments in half-shells. The one doing the painting was wearing a necklace of different shells, Ponder realized.
'Tools,' he murmured. 'Symbols. Abstract thought. Things of value ... is this a civilization, or are we merely tribal at the moment?'
'Where's the sun?' said the Senior Wrangler. 'It's always so hazy, and it's hard to get used to directions here. Wherever you point, it's at the back of your own head.'
Rincewind pointed towards the horizon, where there was a red glow behind the clouds.
'I call it Widdershins,' he said. 'Just like at home.'
'Ah. The sun sets Widdershins.'
'No. It doesn't do anything,' said Rincewind. 'It stays where it is. The horizon comes up.'
'But it doesn't fall on us?'
'It tries to, but the other horizon drags us away before it happens.'
'The more time I spend on this globe, the more I feel I should be holding on to something,' the Dean muttered.