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'They use small shutter boxes, that's all. You can't see Tower 2 from here - the University's in the way.' Moist stared, hypnotized, at the lights. 'I wondered why that old stone tower on the way to Sto Lat wasn't used when the Trunk was built? It's in the right place.'
'The old wizard tower? Robert Dearheart used it for his first experiments, but it's a bit too far and the walls aren't safe and if you stay in there for more than a day at a time you go mad. It's all the old spells that got into the stones.' There was silence and then they heard Moist say, in a slightly strangled voice: 'If you could get on to the Grand Trunk tomorrow, is there anything you could do to slow it down?'
'Yes, but we can't,' said Undecided Adrian. 'Yes, but if you could?'
'Well, there's something we've been thinking about,' said Mad Al. 'It's very crude.'
'Will it knock out a tower?' said Moist. 'Should we be telling him about this?' said Sane Alex. 'Have you ever met anyone else that Killer had a good word for?' said Mad Al. 'In theory it could knock out every tower, Mr Lipwig.'
'Are you insane as well as mad?' said Sane Alex. 'He's government!'
'Every tower on the Trunk?' said Moist. 'Yep. In one go,' said Mad Al. 'It's pretty crude.'
'Really every tower?' said Moist again. 'Maybe not every tower, if they catch on,' Mad Al admitted, as if less than wholesale destruction was something to be mildly ashamed of. 'But plenty. Even if they cheat and carry it to the next tower on horseback. We call it . . . the Woodpecker'. 'The woodpecker?'
'No, not like that. You need, sort of, more of a pause for effect, like . . . the Woodpecker! '. . . the Woodpecker,' said Moist, more slowly. 'You've got it. But we can't get it on to the Trunk. They're on to us'
'Supposing I could get it on to the Trunk?' said Moist, staring at the lights. The towers themselves were quite invisible now. 'You? What do you know about clacks codes?' said Undecided Adrian. 'I treasure my ignorance,' said Moist. 'But I know about people. You think about being cunning with codes. I just think about what people see—' They listened. They argued. They resorted to mathematics, while words sailed through the night above them. And Sane Alex said: 'All right, all right. Technically it could work, but the Trunk people would have to be stupid to let it happen.'
'But they'll be thinking about codes,' said Moist. 'And I'm good at making people stupid. It's my job.'
'I thought your job was postmaster,' said Undecided Adrian. 'Oh, yes. Then it's my vocation.' The Smoking Gnu looked at one another. 'It's a totally mad idea,' said Mad Al, grinning. 'I'm glad you like it,' said Moist. There are times when you just have to miss a night's sleep. But Ankh-Morpork never slept; the city never did more than doze, and would wake up around 3 a.m. for a glass of water. You could buy anything in the middle of the night. Timber? No problem. Moist wondered whether there were vampire carpenters, quietly making vampire chairs. Canvas? There was bound to be someone in the city who'd wake up in the wee small hours for a wee and think, 'What I could really do with right now is one thousand square yards of medium grade canvas!' and, down by the docks, there were chandlers open to deal with the rush. There was a steady drizzle when they left for the tower. Moist drove the cart, with the others sitting on the load behind him and bickering over trigonometry. Moist tried not to listen; he got lost when maths started to get silly. Killing the Grand Trunk . . . Oh, the towers would be left standing, but it would take months to repair them all. It'd bring the company down. No one would get hurt, the Gnu said. They meant the men in the towers. The Trunk had become a monster, eating people. Bringing it down was a beguiling idea. The Gnu were full of ideas for what could replace it - faster, cheaper, easier, streamlined, using imps specially bred for the job . . . But something irked Moist. Gilt had been right, damn him. If you wanted to get a message five hundred miles very, very fast, the Trunk was the way to do it. If you wanted to wrap it in a ribbon, you needed the Post Office. He liked the Gnu. They thought in a refreshingly different way; whatever curse hung around the stones of the old tower surely couldn't affect minds like theirs, because they were inoculated against madness by being a little bit crazy all the time. The clacks signallers, all along the Trunk, were . . . a different kind of people. They didn't just do their job, they lived it. But Moist kept thinking of all the bad things that could happen without the semaphore. Oh, they used to happen before the semaphore, of course, but that wasn't the same thing at all. He left them sawing and hammering in the stone tower, and headed back to the city, deep in thought.
Chapter Thirteen
The Edge of the Envelope In which we learn the Theory of Baize-Space — Devious Collabone - The Grand Trunk Burns — So Sharp You'll Cut Yourself— Finding Miss Dearheart - A Theory of Disguise - Igor Moveth On - 'Let This Moment Never End' - A Brush with the Trunk - The big sail unfurls - The Message is Received Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, levelled his cue and took careful aim. The white ball hit a red ball, which rolled gently into a pocket. This was harder than it looked because more than half of the snooker table served as the Archchancellor's filing system,* and indeed to get to the hole the ball had to pass through several piles of paperwork, a tankard, a skull with a dribbly candle on it and a lot of pipe ash. It did so. * Ridcully practised the First Available Surface method of filing. 'Well done, Mr Stibbons,' said Ridcully. 'I call it baize-space,' said Ponder Stibbons proudly. Every organization needs at least one person who knows what's going on and why it's happening and who's doing it, and at UU this role was filled by Stibbons, who often wished it wasn't. Right now he was present in his position as Head of Inadvisably Applied Magic, and his long-term purpose was to see that his department's budget went through on the nod. To this end, therefore, a bundle of thick pipes led from under the heavy old billiard table, out through a hole in the wall and across the lawn into the High Energy Magic building, where - he sighed - this little trick was taking up 40 per cent of the rune-time of Hex, the University's thinking engine. 'Good name,' said Ridcully, lining up another shot. 'As in phase-space?' said Ponder, hopefully. 'When a ball is just about to encounter an obstacle that is not another ball, you see, Hex moves it into a theoretical parallel dimension where there is unoccupied flat surface and maintains speed and drag until it can be brought back to this one. It really is a most difficult and intricate piece of unreal-time spell casting—'
'Yes, yes, very good,' said Ridcully. 'Was there something else, Mr Stibbons?' Ponder looked at his clipboard. 'There's a polite letter from Lord Vetinari asking on behalf of the city whether the University might consider including in its intake, oh, twenty-five per cent of less able students, sir?' Ridcully potted the black, through a heap of university directives. 'Can't have a bunch of grocers and butchers telling a university how to run itself, Stibbons!' he said firmly, lining up on a red. 'Thank them for their interest and tell them we'll continue to take one hundred per cent of complete and utter dullards, as usual. Take 'em in dull, turn 'em out sparklin', that's always been the UU way! Anythin' else?'
'Just this message for the big race tonight, Archchancellor.'
'Oh, yes, that thing. What should I do, Mr Stibbons? I hear there's heavy betting on the Post Office.'
'Yes, Archchancellor. People say the gods are on the side of Mr Lipwig.'
'Are they betting?' said Ridcully, watching with satisfaction as the ball rematerialized on the other side of a neglected ham sandwich. 'I don't think so, sir. He can't possibly win.'
'Was he the fella who rescued the cat?'
'That was him, sir, yes,' said Ponder. 'Good chap. What do we think of the Grand Trunk? Bunch of bean-crushers, I heard. Been killin' people on those towers of theirs. Man in the pub told me he'd heard the ghosts of dead signallers haunt the Trunk. I'll try for the pink.'
'Yes, I've heard that, sir. I think it's an urban myth,' said Ponder. 'They travel from one end of the Trunk to the other, he said. Not a bad way to spend eternity, mark you. There's some splendid scenery up in the mountains.' The Archchancellor paused, and his big face screwed up in thought. 'Haruspex's Big Directory of Varying Dimensions,' he said at last. 'Pardon, Archchancellor?'
'That's the message,' said Ridcully. 'No one said it had to be a letter, eh?' He waved a hand over the tip of the cue, which grew a powdering of fresh chalk. 'Give them a copy each of the new edition. Send 'em to our man in Genua . . . what's his name, thingummy, got a funny name . . . show him the old Alma Pater is thinkin' of him.'
'That's Devious Collabone, sir. He's out studying Oyster Communications in a Low Intensity Magical Field for his B.Thau.'
'Good gods, can they communicate?' said Ridcully. 'Apparently, Archchancellor, although thus far they're refusing to talk to him.'
'Why'd we send him all the way out there?'
'Devious H. Collabone, Archchancellor?' Ponder prompted. 'Remember? With the terrible halitosis?'
'Oh, you mean Dragonbreath Collabone?' said Ridcully, as realization dawned. 'The one who could blow a hole in a silver plate?'
'Yes, Archchancellor,' said Ponder patiently. Mustrum Ridcully always liked to triangulate in on new information from several positions. 'You said that out in the swamps no one would notice? If you remember, we allowed him to take a small omniscope.'
'Did we? Far-thinking of us. Call him up right now and tell him what's going on, will you?'
