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“O, I dunno if I could do that,” said the creator. “It's causality regulations. I'd have the Inspector down on me like a ton of, a ton of, a ton of weight,” he added. “I could probably knock you up a really spongy bog. Or quicksand's very popular at the moment. I could do you a complete quicksand with marsh and swamp en suite, no problem.”
“!” said Rincewind. “You're going to have to speak up a bit, I'm sorry. Wait a moment.” There was another harmonious twanging noise.
When Rincewind opened his eyes he was standing on a beach. So was Eric. The creator
floated nearby.
There was no rushing wind. He hadn't go so much as a bruise.
“I just wedged a thingy in the velocities and positions,” said the creator, noticing his expression. “Now: what was it you were saying?”
“I rather wanted to stop plunging to my death,” said Rincewind.
“Oh. Good. Glad that's sorted out, then.” The creator looked around distractedly. “You haven't seen my book around, have you? I thought I had it in my hand when I started.” He sighed. “Lose me own head next. I done a whole world once and completely left out the fingles. Not one of the buggers. Couldn't get 'em at the time, told myself I could nip back when they were in stock, completely forgot. Imagine that. No-one spotted it, of course, because obviously they just evolved there and they didn't know there ought to be fingles, but it was definitely causing them deep, you know, psychological problems. Deep down inside they could tell there was something missing, sort of thing.”
The creator pulled himself together.
“Anyway, I can't hang about all day,” he said. “Like I said, I've got a lot of jobs on.”
“Lots?” said Eric. “I thought there was only one.”
“Oh, no. There's masses of them,” said the creator, beginning to fade away. “That's quantum mechanics for you, see. You don't do it once and have done. No, they keep on branching off. Multiple choice they call it, it's like painting the - painting the - painting something very big that you have to keep on painting, sort of thing. It's all very well saying you just have to change one little detail, but which one, that's the real bugger. Well, nice to have met you. If you need any extra work, you know, an extra moon or something - ”
“Hey!”
The creator reappeared, his eyebrows raised in polite surprise.
“What happens now?” said Rincewind.
“Now? Well, I imagine there'll be some gods along soon. They don't wait long to move in, you know. Like flies around a - flies around a - like flies. They tend to be a bit highspirited to start with, but they soon settle down. I suppose they take care of all the people, ekcetra.” The creator leaned forward. “I've never been good at doing people. Never seem to get the arms and legs right.” He vanished.
They waited.
“I think he's really gone this time,” said Eric, after a while. “What a nice man.”
“You certainly understand a lot more about why the world is like it is after talking to him,” said Rincewind.
“What're quantum mechanics?”
“I don't know. People who repair quantums, I suppose.”
Rincewind looked at the egg and cress sandwich, still in his hand. There was still no mayonnaise in it, and the bread was soggy, but it would be thousands of years before there was another one. There had to be the dawn of agriculture, the domestication of animals, the evolution of the breadknife from its primitive flint ancestry, the development of dairy technology - and, if there was any desire to make a proper job of it, the cultivation of olive trees, pepper plants, salt pans, vinegar fermentation processes and the techniques of elementary food chemistry - before the world would see another on like it. It was unique, a little white triangle full of anachronisms, lost and all alone in an unfriendly world,
He bit it anyway. It wasn't very nice.
“What I don't understand,” said Eric, “is why we are here.”
“I take it that isn't a philosophical question,” said Rincewind, “I take it you mean: why are we here at the dawn of creation on this beach which has hardly been used?”
“Yes. That's what I meant.”
Rincewind sat down on a rock and sighed. “I think it's pretty obvious, isn't it?” he said. “You wanted to live forever.”
“I didn't say anything about travelling in time,” said Eric. “I was very clear about it so there'd be no tricks.”
“There isn't a trick. The wish is trying to be helpful. I mean, it's pretty obvious when you think about it. `Forever` means the entire span of space and time. Forever. For Ever. See?”
“You mean you have to sort of start at Square One?” “Precisely.” “But that's no good! It's going to be years before there's anyone else around!” “Centuries,” corrected Rincewind gloomily. "Millennia. Iains. And then there's going to
