Unseen Academicals

by Terry Pratchett

  ‘And,’ said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation), ‘he was training us yesterday and he never once said, “Get in there, lads, and tear their ’eads off ”.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the butler, who was making no friends as far as Glenda was concerned. ‘Humans don’t tear off heads, not like orcs.’

  An ‘Awk! Awk!’ echoed in the distance.

  ‘He’s been teaching us kinds of stuff you’d never think about,’ said the bledlow, ‘like playing the game with a blindfold on. Amazing stuff. More like filosopy than football, but damn good stuff.’

  ‘Tactical thinking and combat analysis is part of the orc make-up,’ said Nutt.

  ‘See! No one who uses make-up is going to tear your head off, right?’

  ‘Didn’t you meet my ex-wife?’ said the baker.

  ‘Well, I’d draw the line if you wore make-up,’ said the butcher to general amusement. ‘Being an orc is one thing, but we don’t want a funny one.’

  Glenda looked down at Nutt. He was crying.

  ‘My friends, I thank you for your trust in me,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you know, you’re like part of the team,’ said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation), whose smile almost managed to conceal his nervousness.

  ‘Thank you, Mister Nobbs, that means a lot to me,’ said Nutt, standing up.

  That was quite a complex movement.

  It stayed in Glenda’s mind for ever afterwards as a kind of slow-motion scene of bursting chains and cracking wood when Nutt stood up as though he had been restrained by cobwebs. Pieces of chain spun off and hit the wall. Padlocks broke. As for the couch, barely one piece remained attached to another. It dropped to the floor as so much firewood.

  ‘RUN FOR IT, LADS!’

  You would have needed some kind of special micrometer to work out which man said it first, but the stampede along the corridor was swift and over very quickly.

  ‘You know,’ said Trev, after a few moments’ silence, ‘at one point I thought this was all goin’ very well.’

  ‘Those women,’ said Glenda, ‘what were they?’

  Nutt stood forlornly in the wreckage; a length of chain slithered off him like a serpent and landed on the flagstones. ‘Them?’ he said. ‘They are the Little Sisters of Perpetual Velocity. They come from Ephebe. I think the name for their species is Furies. I think Ladyship sent them in case I tried to hurt anybody.’ The words came out without emphasis or emotion.

  ‘But you haven’t hurt anyone,’ said Glenda.

  ‘But they ran away,’ said Nutt, ‘because of what I am.’

  ‘Well, you know, they’re ordinary people,’ said Glenda. ‘They’re—’

  ‘Twits,’ said Trev.

  Nutt turned and walked down the opposite corridor, kicking off the remnants of wood and chain. ‘But the world is full of ordinary people.’

  ‘You can’t just let ’im go like that,’ said Juliet. ‘You just can’t. Look at ’im! ’e looks like ’e’s been kicked.’

  ‘I’m ’is boss, that’s my job,’ said Trev.

  Glenda caught Trev by the arm. ‘No, I’ll sort this out. Now, you listen to me, Trev Likely, under all that gab, you’re a decent sort, so I’ll tell you this: see Juliet over there? You know her, she works in the kitchens. You wrote her a lovely poem, didn’t you? Ever heard of Emberella? Everyone’s heard of Emberella. Well, you might not be my first choice for Prince Charming, but there’s probably plenty worse.’

  ‘What the hell are you talkin’ about?’ said Trev.

  ‘Juliet’s going to be leaving soon, isn’t that right, Jools?’

  Juliet’s face was a picture. ‘Well, er—’

  ‘And that’s because she’s been that girl in the papers.’

  ‘What, the shiny dwarf one? With a beard?’

  ‘That’s her!’ said Glenda. ‘She’s going to go off with the circus, well, you know what I mean. With the fashion show, at least.’

  ‘But she hasn’t got a beard,’ said Trev.

  Blushing, Juliet delved into her apron and to Glenda’s surprise produced the beard. ‘They let me keep it,’ she said, with a nervous giggle.

  ‘Right,’ said Glenda. ‘You say you love him. Trev, I don’t know whether you love her or not, time to make up your mind. You’re both grown up, well, strictly speaking, and so you better sort yourselves out, ’cos I don’t see any fairy godmothers around. As for Mister Nutt, he hasn’t got anyone.’

  ‘She’s gonna leave the city?’ said Trev, realization dawning slowly through a male mind.

  ‘Oh, yes. For quite a long time, I suspect,’ said Glenda.

  She watched his face carefully. You haven’t got much learning and you haven’t opened a book in your life, Trevor Likely, but you are smart and you must know there is a wrong way and a right way to reply to what I have just told you.

  She watched the high-speed changes around his eyes as he thought, and then he said, ‘Well, that’s nice. It’s the kind of thing she’s always dreamed of. I’m very happy for her.’

  You cunning bastard, you actually got it right, Glenda thought. You’re not appearing to be thinking about yourself at all, ’cos you know I’d have no time for you if you were. And who knows, you might just be genuine. In fact, heavens help me, I think you are, but I’d pull all my own teeth out rather than tell you.

  ‘She likes you, you like her and I’ve made a lot of silly mistakes. The two of you, sort out what you want to do. And now, if I were you I’d run, before anyone else beats you to it. And can I offer you a word of advice, Trev? Don’t be smart, be clever.’

  Trev took Glenda by the shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Was that smart or clever?’

  ‘Get away with you, Trev Likely!’ she said, pushing him away, in the hope that he wouldn’t notice her blush. ‘And now I’m going to see where Mister Nutt has gone.’

  ‘I know where he’s gone,’ said Trev.

  ‘I thought I just told you two to go off and live happily ever after,’ said Glenda.

  ‘You won’t find ’im without me,’ said Trev. ‘I’m sorry, Glenda, but we like him too.’

  ‘Do you think we should tell somebody?’ said Juliet.

  ‘And what will they do?’ Glenda snapped. ‘It’ll just be like that lot back there. All hanging around in the hope that somebody will come up with an idea. Anyway,’ she added, ‘I’m sure the wizards upstairs know all about him. Oh yes, I bet they do.’

  She had to admit, ten minutes later, that Trev had been right. She probably wouldn’t have noticed the door on the other side of another cluttered, abandoned cellar. Light shone from under the door.

  ‘I followed ’im once,’ said Trev. ‘Everyone should have a place to call their own.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Glenda, and she pushed open the door. She might as well have opened an oven. There were candles of every size and every colour and many of them were burning.

  And in the middle of it was Nutt, sitting behind a ramshackle table, which was covered with candles. In front of him they burned in every colour. He was staring at them with a blank expression, and did not look up as they approached. ‘You know, I fear that I will never really get the hang of blue,’ he said, as if to the air. ‘Orange, of course, is ridiculously easy and red goes without saying and green is not difficult at all, but the best blue I could achieve, I have to admit, is very largely green . . .’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Glenda.

  ‘Do you mean, am I all right apart from being an orc?’ said Nutt, with a very small smile.

  ‘Well, yes, but that’s not really your fault.’

  ‘It can’t really be true, can it?’ said Trev.

  Glenda turned on him.

  ‘What good is it saying that?’ she said.

  ‘Well, they were supposed to have died out hundreds of years ago.’

  ‘Annihilated,’ said Nutt. ‘But some survived. I fear that when this oversight is revealed, there will be those who will endeavour to rectify the situation.’

&
nbsp; Trev looked blankly at Glenda. ‘He means he thinks they’re going to try to kill him,’ she said.

  Nutt stared at his candles. ‘I must accumulate worth. I must be helpful. I must be friendly. I must make friends.’

  ‘If anyone comes to hurt you,’ said Glenda, ‘I will kill them. I’m sure you won’t try to pull a leg off, but I might. Trev, this needs a woman’s touch.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  ‘That wasn’t clever, Trev Likely. No, Mister Nutt, you stay there,’ said Glenda, dragging Trev and Juliet back out into the corridor. ‘Off you go, I want to talk to him alone.’

  Nutt hung his head as she stepped back in. ‘I’m sorry I’m spoiling it for everyone,’ he said.

  ‘What’s happened to your claws, Mister Nutt?’

  He stretched out his arm and with a faint noise the claws extended.

  ‘Oh, well, that’s convenient,’ said Glenda. ‘At least that means you can change your shirt.’

  She thumped the table so the candles jumped. ‘And now, get up!’ she screamed. ‘You are supposed to be training the team, Mister Nutt, don’t you remember? You’re supposed to be going out there and showing them how to play the football!’

  ‘I must accumulate worth,’ said Nutt, staring at the candles.

  ‘Then train the team, Mister Nutt! How can you be so certain that the orcs were that bad in any case?’

  ‘We did terrible things.’

  ‘They,’ said Glenda. ‘They, not we, not you. And one thing I am certain of is that in a war no one is going to say that the other side is made up of very nice people. Now, how about you just run along to training? How hard can it be?’

  ‘You saw what happened,’ said Nutt. ‘It could be very bad indeed.’ He picked up a nearly blue candle. ‘I must think.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Glenda.

  She shut the door carefully behind her, walked a little way along the corridor and looked up at the dripping pipes. ‘I know someone is listening. I could hear the creaking pipes. Come out right now.’

  There was no reply. She shrugged and then hurried along the labyrinth until she reached the steps to the Library, ran up them and headed for the Librarian’s desk.

  As she approached it, his big grinning face appeared above it. ‘I want—’ she began.

  The Librarian rose slowly, put a finger to his lips and placed a book on the table in front of her. The three-letter title, silver on black, was ORC.

  He looked her up and down, as if trying to reach a conclusion, then opened the book, and turned the pages with exquisite care, given the thickness of those fingers, until he found the page he had been looking for. He held it up in front of her. There had been no time for breakfast today, but it’s still possible to throw up when there’s nothing left to throw. And if you needed to vomit, the woodcut held up beneath the Librarian’s hands would be a sure-fire medicine.

  He put the book down on the desktop, reached down again and produced a barely used handkerchief and, after some rummaging around, a glass of water.

  ‘I don’t have to believe that,’ said Glenda. ‘It’s a drawing. It’s not real.’

  The Librarian’s thumb went up and he nodded. He put the book under one arm and grabbed her with another and led her with surprising speed out of the door into the great maze of halls and corridors of the university.

  Their breathless journey finished in front of a door on which was painted ‘Department of Post-Mortem Communications’. The paint, however, had peeled somewhat and under the bright new title could just be made out the letters NECR and what could possibly be one half of a skull.

  The door opened – any door pushed by the Librarian would assuredly open. Glenda heard the clink of the catch falling on to the floor inside.

  In the middle of the floor that was revealed stood a hideous figure. Its horrifying countenance had less than the effect it might have done, because from it dangled a quite readable label that said ‘Boffo Novelty and Joke Emporium. Improved Necromancer’s Mask. Sale Price AM$3’. This was removed to reveal the more salubrious countenance of Dr Hix.

  ‘There really is no need to—’ he said, and then spotted the Librarian. ‘Oh, can I help you?’

  The Librarian held up the book and Dr Hix groaned. ‘That again,’ he said. ‘All right, what do you want?’

  ‘We’ve got an orc down in the cellars,’ said Glenda.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Dr Hix.

  The Librarian had a big face, but it nevertheless was not large enough to accommodate all of the surprise he wished to show. The head of the Department of Post-Mortem Communications shrugged and sighed. ‘Look,’ he said, as if weary of having to explain so often, and sighed again. ‘I am supposed to be the bad person as defined by university statute, right? I am supposed to listen at doors. Supposed to dabble in the black arts. I’ve got the skull ring. I’ve got the staff with the silver skull on it—’

  ‘And a joke-shop mask?’ said Glenda.

  ‘Quite serviceable as a matter of fact,’ said Hix, haughtily. ‘Rather more frightening than the original thing and washable, which is always a consideration in this department. Anyway, the Archchancellor was down here weeks ago, after the same stuff you are, I very much imagine.’

  ‘Were the orcs terrible creatures?’ said Glenda.

  ‘I think I can probably show you,’ said Hix.

  ‘This gentleman has already shown me the picture in the book,’ said Glenda.

  ‘Was it the one with the eyeballs?’

  Glenda found the memory only too vivid. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Oh, there’s worse than that,’ said Hix happily. ‘And I suppose you want the proof?’ He half turned his head. ‘Charlie?’ A skeleton walked out through black curtains at the far end of the room. It was holding a mug. There was something curiously depressing about the slogan on said mug, which ran: ‘Necromancers Do It All Night’.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ said Dr Hix.

  ‘I’m not,’ Glenda said, terrified to her insteps. ‘I’ve seen the insides of a slaughterhouse. It’s part of the job and, anyway, he’s polished.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ the skeleton articulated.

  ‘But “Necromancers Do It All Night”? That’s a bit pathetic, isn’t it? I mean, don’t you think it’s trying a bit too hard?’

  ‘It was hard enough to get that one made,’ said Dr Hix. ‘We’re not the most popular department in the university. Charlie, the young lady wants to know about orcs.’

  ‘Again?’ said the skeleton, handing the mug to the doctor. It had a rather hoarse voice, but on the whole far less dreadful than it might have been. Apart from anything else, his bones were, well, apart from anything else, and floated in the air as if they were the only visible parts of an invisible body. The jaw moved as Charlie went on: ‘Well, I think we’ve still got the memory in the sump ’cos, you remember, we called it up for Ridcully. I haven’t got round to wiping it yet.’

  ‘Memory of what?’ said Glenda.

  ‘It’s a kind of magic,’ said Hix loftily. He continued. ‘It would take too long to explain.’

  Glenda didn’t like this. ‘Let’s have it in a nutshell, then.’

  ‘Okay. We’re now quite certain that what we call the passage of time is in fact the universe being destroyed and instantly rebuilt in the smallest instant of eventuality that it is possible to have. While the process is instant at every point, nevertheless to renew the whole Universe takes approximately five days, we believe. Interestingly enough—’

  ‘Can I have it in a smaller nut?’

  ‘So you don’t want to hear about Houseman’s theory of the Universal Memory?’

  ‘Possibly the size of a walnut,’ said Glenda.

  ‘Very well, then, can you imagine this: current thinking is that the old universe is not destroyed in the instant the new universe is created, a process which, incidentally, has been happening an untold billion number of times since I have been talking—’

  ‘Yes, I can believe that. Ca
n we try for a pistachio?’ said Glenda.

  ‘Copies of the universe are kept. We don’t know how, we don’t know where, and it beats the hell out of me trying to imagine how it all works. But we’re finding that it is sometimes possible to, er, read this memory in certain circumstances. How am I doing in terms of nut dimensions?’

  ‘You’ve got some kind of magic mirror?’ said Glenda flatly. ‘That’s it, if you want the size of a pine nut,’ said Hix.

  ‘Pine nuts are actually seeds,’ said Glenda smugly. ‘So, what you’re saying is that everything that happens stays happened somewhere and you can look at it if you have the knowing?’

  ‘That is a magnificent distillation of the situation,’ said Hix. ‘Which is incredibly helpful while at the same time inaccurate in every possible way. But, as you put it, we use a’ – and here he gave a little shudder – ‘magic mirror, as you put it. We recently looked at the battle of Orc Deep for the Archchancellor. That was the last known battle in which the race known as orcs were deployed.’

  ‘Deployed?’ said Glenda.

  ‘Used,’ said Hix.

  ‘Used? And you can find something like that in the total history of everything there has ever been?’

  ‘Ahem. It helps to have an anchor,’ said Hix. ‘Something that was present. And all I am going to tell you, young lady, is that there was a piece of a skull found on that battlefield, and since it was a skull that firmly puts it into the responsibility of my department.’ He turned to the Librarian. ‘It’s okay to show her, isn’t it?’ he said. The Librarian shook his head. ‘Good. That means I can do it, then, under university statute. A certain amount of surreptitious disobedience is demanded of me. We have it set up on an omniscope. Since my colleague is so certain that I should not be doing this, he will not mind if I do. It’s only a very brief fragment of time, but it did impress the Archchancellor, if impress is the right word.’

  ‘I just want to get something clear,’ said Glenda. ‘You can actually disobey the orders of someone like the Archchancellor?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Hix. ‘I am under instruction to do so. It is expected of me.’