Thief of Time

At the lip of the valley the water from the stream plunged over a cliff in a fall so long that it landed as a sort of rain. Susan pulled herself onto a rock, and settled down to wait.

“It is a long way to Ankh-Morpork,” said Unity.

“We'll have a lift,” said Susan. The first stars were already coming out.

“The stars are very pretty,” said Unity.

“Do you really think so?”

“I am learning to. Humans believe they are.”

“The thing is… I mean, there's times when you look at the universe and you think, ‘What about me?’ and you can just hear the universe replying, ‘Well, what about you?’”

Unity appeared to consider this.

“Well, what about you?” she said.

Susan sighed. “Exactly.” She sighed again. “You can't think about just one person while you're saving the world. You have to be a cold, calculating bastard.”

“That sounded as if you were quoting somebody,” said Unity. “Who said that?”

“Some total idiot,” said Susan. She tried to think of other things, and added, “We didn't get all of them. There's still Auditors down there somewhere.”

“That will not matter,” said Unity calmly. “Look at the sun.”

“Well?”

“It is setting.”

“And…?”

“That means time is flowing through the world. The body exacts its toll Susan. Soon my—my former colleagues, bewildered and fleeing, will become tired. They will have to sleep.”

“I follow you, but—”

“I am insane. I know this. But the first time it happened to me I found such horror that I cannot express it. Can you imagine what it is like? For an intellect a billion years old, in a body which is an ape on the back of a rat that grew out of a lizard? Can you imagine what comes out of the dark places, uncontrolled?”

“What are you telling me?”

“They will die in their dreams.”

Susan thought about this. Millions and millions of years of thinking precise, logical thoughts—and then humanity's murky past drops all its terrors on you in one go. She could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.

“But you didn't,” she said.

“No. I think I must be… different. It is a terrible thing to be different, Susan. Did you have romantic hopes in connection with the boy?”

The question came out of nowhere and there was no defence. Unity's face showed nothing but a kind of nervous concern.

“No,” said Susan. Unfortunately, Unity did not seem to have mastered some of the subtleties of human conversation, such as when a tone of voice means “Stop this line of inquiry right now or may huge rats eat you by day and by night.”

“I confess to strange feelings regarding his… self that was the clockmaker. Sometimes, when he smiled, he was normal. I wanted to help him, because he seemed so closed in and sad.”

“You don't have to confess to things like that,” Susan snapped. “How do you even know the word romantic, anyway?” she added.

“I found some books of poetry.” Unity actually looked embarrassed.

“Really? I've never trusted it,” said Susan. Huge, giant, hungry rats.

“I found it most curious. How can words on a page have a power like that? There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,” said Unity sadly.

Susan felt a stab of guilt. It wasn't Unity's fault, after all. People learn things as they grow up, things that never get written down. And Unity had never grown up.

“What are you going to do now?” she said.

“I do have a rather human ambition,” said Unity.

“Well, if I can help in any way…”

It was, she realized later, one of those phrases like “How are you?” People were supposed to understand that it wasn't a real question. But Unity hadn't learned that, either.

“Thank you. You can indeed help.”

“Uh, fine, if—”

“I wish to die.”

And, galloping out of the sunset, some riders were approaching.

Tick

Small fires burned in the rubble, brightening the night. Most of the houses had been completely destroyed, although, Soto considered, the word “shredded” was much more accurate.

He was sitting by the side of the street, watching carefully, with his begging bowl in front of him. There were of course far more interesting and complex ways for a History Monk to avoid being noticed, but he'd adopted the begging bowl method ever since Lu-Tze had shown him that people never see anyone who wants them to give him money.

He'd watched the rescuers drag the bodies out of the house. Initially they'd thought that one of them had been hideously mutilated in the explosion, until it had sat up and explained that it was an Igor and in very good shape for an Igor, at that. The other he'd recognized as Dr Hopkins of the Guild of Clockmakers, who was miraculously unharmed.

Soto did not believe in miracles, however. He was also suspicious about the fact that the ruined house was full of oranges, that Dr Hopkins was babbling about getting sunlight out of them, and that his sparkling little abacus was telling him that something enormous had happened.

He decided to make a report and see what the boys at Oi Dong said.