‘It’s from the Dungeon Dimensions!’ said the Dean. ‘Cream the basket!’{35}
The Archchancellor laid a steadying hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t be daft. Dungeon Things have a lot more tentacles and things. They don’t look made.’
They turned at the sound of another trolley. It rattled unconcernedly down a side passage, stopped when it saw or otherwise perceived the wizards, and did a creditable impression of a trolley that had just been left there by someone.
The Bursar crept up to it.
‘It’s no use you looking like that,’ he said. ‘We know you can move.’
‘We all seed you,’ said the Dean.
The trolley maintained a low profile.
‘It can’t be thinking,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. ‘There’s no room for a brain.’
‘Who says it’s thinking?’ said the Archchancellor. ‘All it does is move. Who needs brains for that? Prawns move.’
He ran his fingers over the metalwork.
‘Actually, prawns are quite intell—’ the Senior Wrangler began.
‘Shut up,’ said Ridcully. ‘Hmm. Is this made, though?’
‘It’s wire,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘Wire’s something that you have to make. And there’s wheels. Hardly anything natural’s got wheels.’
‘It’s just that up close, it looks—’
‘—all one thing,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who had knelt down painfully to inspect it the better. ‘Like one unit. Made all in one lump. Like a machine that’s been grown. But that’s ridiculous.’
‘Maybe. Isn’t there a sort of cuckoo in the Ramtops that builds clocks to nest in?’ said the Bursar.
‘Yes, but that’s just courtship ritual,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes airly. ‘Besides, they keep lousy time.’
The trolley leapt for a gap in the wizards and would have made it expect that the gap was occupied by the Bursar, who gave a scream and pitched forward into the basket. The trolley didn’t stop but rattled onwards, towards the gates.
The Dean raised his staff. The Archchancellor grabbed it.
‘You might hit the Bursar,’ he said.
‘Just one small fireball?’
‘It’s tempting, but no. Come on. After it.’
‘Yo!’
‘If you like.’
The wizards lumbered in pursuit. Behind them, as yet unnoticed, a whole flock of Archchancellor’s swearwords fluttered and buzzed. And Windle Poons was leading a small deputation to the Library.
The Librarian of Unseen University knuckled his way hurriedly across the floor as the door shook to a thunderous knocking.
‘I know you’re in there,’ came the voice of Windle Poons. ‘You must let us in. It’s vitally important.’
‘Oook.’
‘You won’t open the doors?’
‘Oook!’
‘Then you leave me no choice …’
Ancient blocks of masonry moved aside slowly. Mortar crumbled. Then part of the wall fell in, leaving Windle Poons standing in a Windle Poons-shaped hole. He coughed on the dust.
‘I hate having to do that,’ he said. ‘I can’t help feeling it’s pandering to popular prejudice.’
The Librarian landed on his shoulders. To the orangutan’s surprise, this made very little difference. A 300-pound orangutan usually had a noticeable effect on a person’s rate of progress, but Windle wore him like a collar.
‘I think we need Ancient History,’ he said. ‘I wonder, could you stop trying to twist my head off?’
The Librarian looked around wildly. It was a technique that normally never failed.
Then his nostrils flared.
The Librarian hadn’t always been an ape. A magical library is a dangerous place to work, and he’d been turned into an orangutan as a result of a magical explosion. He’d been a quite inoffensive human, although by now so many people had come to terms with his new shape that few people remembered it. But with the change had come the key to a whole bundle of senses and racial memories. And one of the deepest, most fundamental, most borne-in-the-bone of all of them was to do with shapes. It went back to the dawn of sapience. Shapes with muzzles, teeth and four legs were, in the evolving simian mind, definitely filed under Bad News.
A very large wolf had padded through the hole in the wall, followed by an attractive young woman. The Librarian’s signal input was temporarily fused.
‘Also,’ said Windle, ‘it is just possible that I could knot your arms behind you.’
‘Eeek!’
‘He’s not an ordinary wolf. You’d better believe it.’
‘Oook?’
Windle lowered his voice. ‘And she might not technically be a woman,’ he added.
The Librarian looked at Ludmilla. His nostrils flared again. His brow winkled.
‘Oook?’
‘All right, I may have put that rather clumsily. Do let go, there’s a good fellow.’
The Librarian released his grip very cautiously and sank to the floor, keeping Windle between himself and Lupine.
Windle brushed mortar fragments off the remains of his robe.
‘We need to find out,’ he said, ‘about the lives of cities. Specifically, I need to know—’
There was a faint jangling noise.
A wire basket rolled nonchalantly around the massive stack of the nearest bookcase. It was full of books. It stopped as soon as it realised that it had been seen and contrived to look as though it had never moved at all.
‘The mobile stage,’ breathed Windle Poons.
The wire basket tried to inch backwards without appearing to move. Lupine growled.
‘Is that what One-Man-Bucket was talking about?’ said Ludmilla. The trolley vanished. The Librarian grunted, and went after it.
‘Oh, yes. Something that would make itself useful,’ said Windle, suddenly almost manically cheerful. ‘That’s how it’d work. First, something that you’d want to keep, and put away somewhere. Thousands wouldn’t get the right conditions, but that wouldn’t matter, because there would be thousands. And then the next stage would be something that would be handy, and get everywhere, and no-one would ever think it had got there by itself. But it’s all happening at the wrong time!’
‘But how can a city be alive? It’s only made up of dead parts!’ said Ludmilla.
‘So’re people. Take it from me. I know. But you are right, I think. This shouldn’t be happening. It’s all this extra life force. It’s … it’s tipping the balance. It’s turning something that isn’t really real into a reality. And it’s happening too early, and it’s happening too fast …’
There was a squeal from the Librarian. The trolley erupted from another row of shelves, wheels a blur, heading for the hole in the wall, with the orangutan hanging on grimly with one hand and flapping behind it like a very flat flag.
The wolf leapt.
‘Lupine!’ shouted Windle.
But from the days when the first caveman rolled a slice of log down a hill, canines have also had a deep racial urge to chase anything on wheels. Lupine was already snapping at the trolley.
His jaws met on a wheel. There was a howl, a scream from the Librarian, and ape, wolf and wire basket ended up in a heap against the wall.
‘Oh, the poor thing! Look at him!’
Ludmilla rushed across the floor and knelt down by the stricken wolf.
‘It went right over his paws, look!’
‘And he’s probably lost a couple of teeth,’ said Windle. He helped the Librarian up. There was a red glow in the ape’s eyes. It had tried to steal his books. This was probably the best proof any wizard could require that the trolleys were brainless.