The Last Continent

'Nope. He's just the man who carries the sack that contains the whole universe.'

'A leather sack?'

'Sounds like him,' the kangaroo agreed.

The whole universe in one small sack?'

'Yep.'

Rincewind settled back. 'I'm glad I'm not religious,' he said. 'It must be very complicated.'

After another five minutes he began to snore. After half an hour he moved his head slightly. The kangaroo didn't seem to be around.

With almost super-Rincewind speed he was upright and scrambling up the fallen rocks, over the lip of the cave and into the dark oven of the night.

He sighted on a random star and got into his stride, ignoring the bushes that lashed at his bare legs.

Hah!

He Was not going to be found wanting when duty called. He did not intend to be found at all.

In the cave the water in the pool rippled under the starlight, the expanding circles lapping against the sand.

On the wall was an ancient drawing of a kangaroo, in white and red and yellow. The artist had tried to achieve on stone what might better have been attempted with eight dimensions and a large particle accelerator; he'd tried to include not just the kangaroo now but also the kangaroo in the past, and the kangaroo in the future and, in short, not what the kangaroo looked like but what the kangaroo was.

Among other things, as it faded, it was grinning.

Among the complexities that made up the intelligent biped known to the rest of the world as Mrs Whitlow was this: there was no such thing as an informal meal in Mrs Whitlow's world. If Mrs Whitlow made sandwiches even just for herself she would put a sprig of parsley on the top. She placed a napkin on her lap to drink a cup of tea. If the table could have a vase of flowers and a placemat with a tasteful view of something nice, so much the better.

It was unthinkable that she should eat a meal balanced on her knees. In fact it was unthinkable to think of Mrs Whitlow as having knees, although the Senior Wrangler had to fan himself with his hat occasionally. So the beach had been scoured to find enough bits of driftwood to make a very rough table, and some suitable rocks to use as seats.

The Senior Wrangler dusted one off with his hat. 'There we are, Mrs Whitlow...'

The housekeeper frowned. 'Ai'm really sure it's Not Done for the staff to eat with the gentlemen,' she said.

'Be our guest, Mrs Whitlow,' said Ridcully.

'Ai really can't. It does not Do to get ideas above one's station,' said Mrs Whitlow. 'Ai would never be able to look you in the face again, sir. Ai hope Ai know my Place.'

Ridcully looked blank for a moment, and then said quietly: 'Faculty meeting, gentlemen?'

The wizards went into another huddle a little way along the beach.

'What are we supposed to do about that?'

'I think it's very commendable of her. Her world is Below Stairs, after all.'

'Yes, very well, but it's not as if there're any stairs on this island.'

'Could we build some?'

'We can't let the poor woman sit off by herself somewhere, that is my point.'

'We spent ages on that table!'

'And did you notice something about the driftwood, Archchancellor?'

'Looked like perfectly ordinary wood to me, Stibbons. Branches, treetrunks and whatnot.'

That's the strange thing, sir, because—'

'It's very simple, Ridcully. I hope that, as gentlemen, we know how to treat a woman—'

'Lady.'

'Let me just say that was unnecessarily sarcastic, Dean,' said Ridcully. 'Very well. If the Prophet Ossory won't go to the mountain, the mountain must go to the Prophet Ossory. As they say in Klatch.'

He paused. He knew his wizards.

'I believe, in fact, that it's in Omnia that—' Ponder began.

Ridcully waved a hand. 'Something like that, anyway.'

And that is why Mrs Whitlow dined alone at the table, while the wizards sat around the fire a little way away, except that very frequently one of them would lumber over to offer her some choice bit of nature's bounty.

It was obvious that starvation would not be a problem on this island, although dyspepsia and gout might be.

Fish was the main course. Frenzied searching had failed to locate a steak bush so far but had found, in addition to numerous more conventional fruits, a pasta bush, a sort of squash that contained something very much like custard and, to Ridcully's disgust, a pineapple-like plant the fruit of which was, when the husk had been stripped away, a large plum pudding.

'Obviously it's not really a plum pudding,' he protested. 'We just think it's like a plum pudding because it tastes exactly like a... plum pudding...' His voice trailed off.

'It's got plums and currants in it,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Pass the custard squash, will you?'

'My point is that we only think they look like currants and plums—'