Unseen Academicals

Ridcully frowned. ‘Did you just make that up?’

‘No, sir. Charlie Drinkie came up with it at Brazeneck. It’s a shorter way of saying 15,000 iterations to the first negative blit. And it’s a lot easier to remember.’

‘So people you know at Brazeneck send you stuff?’ said Ridcully.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Ponder.

‘For free?’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Ponder, looking surprised. ‘The free sharing of information is central to the pursuit of natural philosophy.’

‘And so you tell them things, do you?’

Ponder sighed. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘I don’t think I approve of that,’ said Ridcully. ‘I’m all for the free sharing of information, provided it’s them sharing their information with us.’

‘Yes, sir, but I think we’re rather hampered by the meaning of the word “sharing”.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Ridcully began and stopped. A sound so quiet that they had barely noticed it had stopped. The Cabinet of Curiosity had folded itself up and was once again just a piece of wooden furniture in the centre of the room, but as they looked at it its two front doors opened and a brown ball dropped on to the floor and bounced with a sound like gloing! Ridcully marched over and picked it up, turning it in his hands.

‘Interesting,’ he said, slamming it towards the floor. It bounced up past his head, but he was quick enough to catch it on the way down. ‘Remarkable,’ he said. ‘What do you think of this, Stibbons?’ He flicked the ball into the air and kicked it hard across the room. It came back towards Ponder, who, to his own amazement, caught it.

‘Seems to have a life of its own.’ Ponder dropped it on to the floor and tried a kick.

It flew.

Ponder Stibbons was the quintessential, all-time holder of the one-hundred-metre note from his auntie, which also asked for him to be excused all sporting activities on account of his athlete’s ear, erratic stigmatism, a grumbling nose and a revolving spleen. By his own admission, he would rather run ten miles, leap a five-bar gate and climb a big hill than engage in any athletic activity.

The ball sang to him. It sang gloing!

A few minutes later, he and Ridcully walked back to the Great Hall, occasionally bouncing the ball on the flagstones. There was something about the sound of gloing! that made you want to hear it again.

‘You know, Ponder, I think you’ve been doing it all wrong. There are more things in Heaven and Disc than are dreamed of in our philosophies.’

‘I expect so, sir. I don’t have many things in my philosophies.’

‘It’s all about the ball,’ said Ridcully, slamming it down hard on the flagstones again and catching it. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll bring it here and see what happens. You gave the ball a mighty kick, Mister Stibbons, and yet you are, by your own admission, a wet and a weed.’

‘Yes, sir, and a wuss, and I am proud of the appellation. I’d better remind you, Archchancellor, that the thing mustn’t spend too long outside the Cabinet.’

Gloing!

‘But we could make a copy, couldn’t we?’ said Ridcully. ‘It’s only leather stitched together, probably protecting a bladder of some sort. I bet any decent craftsman could make another one for us.’

‘What, now?’

‘The lights never go off on the Street of Cunning Artificers.’

By now, they were back in the Great Hall and Ridcully looked around until his gaze lighted on two figures pushing a trolley laden with candles. ‘You lads, to me!’ he shouted. They stopped pushing the trolley and walked over to him. ‘Mister Stibbons here would like you to run an errand for him. It’s of considerable importance. Who are you?’

‘Trevor Likely, guv.’

‘Nutt, Archchancellor.’

Ridcully’s eyes narrowed. ‘Yes … Nutt,’ he said, and thought about the spells in his pocket. ‘The candle dribbler, yes? Well, you can make yourselves useful. Over to you, Mister Stibbons.’

Ponder Stibbons held out the ball. ‘Have you any idea what this is?’

Nutt took it out of his hands and bounced it on the tiles a couple of times.

Gloing! Gloing!

‘Yes. It appears to be a simple sphere, although technically I believe it to be, in actual fact, a truncated icosahedron, made by stitching together a number of pentagons and hexagons of tough leather, and stitching means holes and holes let the air leak … Ah, there is lacing just here, you see? There must be some internal bladder — animal, probably. A balloon, as it were, for lightness and elasticity, encapsulated by leather, simple and elegant.’ He handed the ball back to Ponder, who was open-mouthed.

‘Do you know everything, Mister Nutt?’ he said with the sarcasm of a born pedagogue.

Nutt’s reply was concentrated and there was a lengthy pause before he said, ‘I’m not sure about a lot of the detail, sir.’

Ponder heard a snigger behind him and felt himself redden. He’d been cheeked, by a dribbler, even if Nutt was the most incontinently erudite one he’d ever encountered.

‘Do you know where a copy of this may be made?’ said Ridcully loudly.

‘I expect so,’ said Nutt. ‘I believe dwarf rubber will be our friend here.’