The Science of Discworld II Page 4

  7 Not hand and glove, the fit isn’t that close.

  THREE

  JOURNEY INTO L-SPACE

  IT WAS THREE HOURS LATER, in the cool of Unseen University. Not much had changed in the High Energy Magic building, except that a screen had been set up to show the output of Ponder’s iconograph projector.

  ‘I don’t see why you need it,’ said Rincewind. ‘There’s only the two of us.’

  ‘Ook,’ agreed the Librarian. He was annoyed at having been woken from a doze in his library. It had been a very gentle awakening, since no one wakes up a 300lb orangutan roughly (twice, at least) but he was still annoyed.

  ‘The Archchancellor says that we’ve got to be more organised about these things,’ said Ponder. ‘He says it’s no use just shouting out “Hey, I’ve got a great idea!” These things have got to be presented properly. Are you ready?’

  The very small imp that ran the projector raised a tiny thumb.

  ‘Very well,’ said Ponder. ‘First slide. This is the Roundworld as it currently—’

  ‘It’s the wrong way up,’ said Rincewind.

  Ponder looked at the image.

  ‘It’s a ball,’ he snarled. ‘It’s floating in space. How can it be the wrong way up?’

  ‘That crinkly continent should be at the top.’

  ‘Very well!’ snapped Ponder. ‘Imp, turn it around. Right? Satisfied?’

  ‘It’s the right way up but now it’s the wrong way arou—’ Rincewind began.

  There was a thwack as Ponder’s pointer stick smacked into the screen. ‘This is the Roundworld!’ he snapped. ‘As it exists at present! A world covered in ice! But time on Roundworld is subordinate to time in the real world! All times in Roundworld are accessible to us, in the same way that all pages in a book, though consecutive, are accessible to us! I have ascertained that the Faculty are on Roundworld but not in what appears to be the present time! They are several hundred million years in the past! Which is, from our point of view, perfectly capable of also being the present! I don’t know how they got there! It should not be physically possible! Hex has located them! We have to assume that they can’t get back the way they came! However – next slide please!’

  Click!

  ‘It’s the same one,’ said Rincewind. ‘But now it’s sideways—’

  ‘A globe has no sideways!’ said Ponder. There was a tinkle of breaking glass from the direction of the projector, and some very small cursing.

  ‘I just thought you wanted to do it properly,’ murmured Rincewind. ‘Anyway, this is going to be about L-space, isn’t it? I know it is. You know it is.’

  ‘Yes, but I don’t say that yet! I’ve got another dozen slides to come!’ gasped Ponder. ‘And a flow chart!’

  ‘But it is, isn’t it,’ said Rincewind wearily. ‘I mean, they say they’ve found other wizards. That means libraries. That means you can get there through L-space.’

  ‘I was going to say that’s how we can get there,’ said Ponder.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Rincewind. ‘That’s why I thought I’d take the opportunity of saying “you” at this early juncture.’

  ‘How can there be wizards on Roundworld?’ said Ponder. ‘When we know magic doesn’t work there?’

  ‘Search me,’ said Rincewind. ‘Ridcully did say they’re useless.’

  ‘And why can’t the faculty come back by themselves? They were able to send the bottle! That must have used magic, surely?’

  ‘Why not just go and ask them?’ said Rincewind.

  ‘You mean by homing in on the distinctive biothaumic signature of a group of wizards?’

  ‘Well, I was thinking of waiting until something dreadful happened and you going to have a look in the wreckage,’ said Rincewind. ‘But the other stuff would probably work.’

  ‘The omniscope locates them in approximately the 40,002,730,907th century,’ said Ponder, staring at the globe. ‘I can’t get an image. But if we can find a way to the nearest library—’

  ‘Ook!’ said the Librarian. And then he ooked some more. He ooked at length, with an occasional eek. Once he thumped his fist on the table. He didn’t need to thump the table a second time. There wasn’t, at that point, much in the way of table left to thump.

  ‘He says only very senior librarians can use L-space,’ said Rincewind, as the Librarian folded his arms. ‘He was quite emphatic. He says it’s not to be treated like some kind of magic funfair ride.’

  ‘But it’s an order from the Archchancellor!’ said Ponder. ‘There isn’t any other way to get there!’

  The Librarian looked a little uncertain at that. Rincewind knew why. It was hard to be an orangutan in Unseen University, and the only way the Librarian had been able to deal with it was by acknowledging Mustrum Ridcully as the alpha male, even though the Archchancellor seldom climbed up to a high place on the rooftops and called mournfully over the city at dawn. This meant that, unlike the other wizards, he found it very hard to shrug off an archchancelloric command. It was a direct, fang-revealing, chest-beating challenge.

  Rincewind had an idea.

  ‘If we put the globe in the Library,’ he said to the ape, ‘then that would mean that even though you are travelling in L-space you would not be taking Mr Stibbons anywhere outside the Library. I mean, the globe would be inside the library, so even though you’d wind up in the globe, you really wouldn’t have travelled very far at all. A few feet, maybe. The globe’s only infinite on the inside, after all.’

  ‘Well, Rincewind, I am impressed,’ said Ponder, while the Librarian looked perplexed. ‘I’d always thought of you as rather stupid, but that was a remarkable piece of verbal reasoning. If we put the globe down right on the Librarian’s desk, say, then the whole journey would take place inside the library, right?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Rincewind, who was prepared to overlook ‘rather stupid’ in view of this unexpected praise.

  ‘And it’s perfectly safe in the library, after all …’

  ‘Big thick walls. Very safe place,’ Rincewind agreed.

  ‘So, put like that, no harm will come to us,’ said Ponder.

  ‘There you go with the “us” again,’ said Rincewind, backing away.

  ‘We’ll find them and bring them back!’ said Ponder. ‘How hard can it be?’

  ‘It can be incredibly hard! There’s elves there! You know elves! They are dangerous! Drop your guard for a moment and they can control your mind!’

  ‘They chased me through some woods once,’ said Ponder. ‘They are very frightening. I remember writing that down in my diary.’

  ‘You wrote down in your diary that you were scared?’

  ‘Yes. Why not? Don’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t got a big enough diary. But it makes no sense! There’s nothing on the Roundworld that elves would be interested in! They like to have … slaves. And we’ve never seen anything evolve that’s bright enough to be a slave.’

  ‘You might have missed something,’ said Ponder.

  ‘No, I say you, you say we,’ said Rincewind.

  They both stared at the globe.

  ‘Look, it’s like having a pot plant,’ said Ponder. ‘If it has greenfly, you try to squash them.’

  ‘I never do that,’ said Rincewind. ‘Greenfly may be small, but there’s a lot of them …’

  ‘It was a metaphor, Rincewind,’ said Ponder, wearily.

  ‘… I mean, supposing they decide to gang up?’

  ‘Rincewind, you are the only other person here who knows anything at all about Roundworld. You will come with us or … or … I’ll tell the Archchancellor about the seven buckets.’

  ‘How do you know about the seven buckets?’

  ‘And I’ll explain to him how all of your jobs could easily be done by a simple set of instructions for Hex, too. It’d take me about, oh, thirty seconds. Let’s see …

  # Rincewind

  SUB WAIT

  WAIT

  RETURN

  Or possibly

  RUN RI
NCEWIND’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that!’ said Rincewind. ‘Would you?’

  ‘Certainly. Now, are you coming? Oh, and bring the Luggage.’

  Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass, and on that simple equation rests the whole of L-space. It is via L-space that all books are connected (quoting the ones before them, and influencing the ones that come after). But there is no time in L-space. Nor is there, strictly speaking, any space. Nevertheless, L-space is infinitely large and connects all libraries, everywhere and everywhen. It’s never further than the other side of the bookshelf, yet only the most senior and respected librarians know the way in.

  From inside, L-space looked to Rincewind like a library designed by someone who did not have to worry about time, budget, strength of materials or physics. There are some laws, though, that are coded into the very nature of the universe, and one is: There Is Never Enough Shelf Space.1

  He turned and looked back. They’d entered L-space by walking through what had looked like a solid wall of books. He knew it was a solid wall, he’d taken books off those shelves before now. You had to be a very senior Librarian indeed to know in what precise circumstances you could step straight through it.

  He could still see the library through the gap, but it faded from view as he watched. What remained was books. Mountains of books. Hills and valleys of books. Perilous precipices of books. Even in what passed for the sky, which was a sort of blue grey, there was a distant suggestion of books. There is never enough shelf space, anywhere.

  Ponder was carrying a considerable amount of magical equipment. Rincewind, being a more experienced traveller, was carrying as little weight as possible. Everything else was being carried by the Luggage, which looked like a sea chest but with a number of pink, human-like and fully operational feet.

  ‘Under the rules of the Roundworld, magic can’t work,’ said Ponder, as they followed the Librarian. ‘Won’t the Luggage stop existing?’

  ‘It’s worth a try,’ said Rincewind, who felt that owning a semi-sapient and occasionally homicidal box on legs reduced his opportunities to make live friends, ‘but it doesn’t usually worry about rules. They bend round it. Anyway, it’s already been there before, for a very long time, without any damage. To the Luggage, anyway.’

  The walls of books shifted as the wizards approached; in fact, each step radically changed the nature of the bookscape which was in any case, said Ponder, a mere metaphorical depiction created by their brains to allow them to deal with the unimaginable reality. The shifting perspective would have given most people a serious headache at least, but Unseen University had rooms where the gravity moved around during the course of a day, one corridor of infinite length and several windows that only existed on one side of their walls. Life at UU reduced your capacity for surprise by quite a lot.

  Occasionally the Librarian would stop, and sniff at the books nearest to him. At last he said ‘ook’, quietly, and pointed to another stack of books. There were, drawn gently on the spine of an old leather-bound volume, some chalk marks.

  ‘Librarian-sign,’ said Rincewind. ‘He’s been here before. We’re close to Roundworld book-space.’

  ‘How could he—’ Ponder began, and then said: ‘Oh. I see. Er … Roundworld exists in L-space even before we created it? I mean yes, obviously I know that’s true, but even so—’

  Rincewind took a book from a pile near him. The cover was brightly coloured and made of paper, suggesting an absence of cows on the originating world, and had the title: Sleep Well My Lovely Falcon. The words inside made even less sense.

  ‘It might not have been worth our trouble,’ he said.

  The Librarian said ‘ook’, which Rincewind understood as ‘I’m going to get into real trouble with the Secret Masters of the Library for this day’s work’.

  Then the ape appeared to triangulate on the bookscape around him, and knuckled forward, and vanished.

  Ponder looked at Rincewind. ‘Did you see how he did that?’ he said, and then a hairy red arm appeared out of the air and jerked him off his feet. A moment later the same thing happened to Rincewind.

  It wasn’t much of a library, but Rincewind knew how this worked. Two books were a library – for a lot of people, two books were an enormous library. But even one book could be a library, if it was a book that made a big enough dimple in L-space. A book with a title like 100 Ways with Broccoli was unlikely to be one such, whereas The Relationship Between Capital and Labour might be, especially if it had an appendix on making explosives. The deeply magical and interminably ancient volumes in the Library of UU strained the fabric of L-space like a baby elephant on a worn-out trampoline, leaving it so thin that the Library was a potent and easy portal.

  Sometimes, though, even one book could do that. Even one line. Even one word, in the right place and the right time.

  The room was large, panelled and sparsely furnished. Quite a lot of paperwork was strewn on a desk. Quill pens lay by an inkwell. A window looked out on to broad gardens, where it was raining. A skull lent a homely touch.

  Rincewind leaned down and tapped it.

  ‘Hello?’ he said. He looked up at the others.

  ‘Well, the one in the Dean’s office can sing comic songs,’ he said defensively. He stared at the paperwork on the desk. It was covered in symbols which had a magical look, although he didn’t recognise any of them. On the other side of the room, the Librarian was leafing through one of the books. Strangely, they weren’t on shelves. Some were neatly piled, others locked in boxes, or at least in boxes that were locked until the Librarian tried to lift the lid.

  Occasionally he pursed his lips and blew a disdainful raspberry.

  ‘Ook,’ he muttered.

  ‘Alchemy?’ said Rincewind. ‘Oh dear. That stuff never works.’ He lifted up what looked like a small leather hatbox, and removed the lid. ‘This is more like it!’ he said, and pulled out a ball of smoky quartz. ‘Our man is definitely a wizard!’

  ‘This is very bad,’ said Ponder, staring at a device in his hand. ‘Very, very bad indeed.’

  ‘What is?’ said Rincewind, turning around quickly.

  ‘I’m reading a very high glamour quotient,’ said Ponder.

  ‘There’s elves here?’

  ‘Here? The place is practically elvish!’ said Ponder. ‘The Archchancellor was right.’

  All three explorers stood quietly. The Librarian’s nostrils flared. Rincewind sniffed, very cautiously.

  ‘Seems okay to me,’ he said, at last.

  Then a man in black entered the room. He came in quickly, opening the door no more than necessary, in a kind of aggressive sidle, and stopped in astonishment. Then his hand flew to his belt and he drew a thin, businesslike sword.

  He saw the Librarian. He stopped. And then it was really all over, because the Librarian could unfold his arm very fast and, importantly, there was a fist like a sledgehammer on the end of it.

  As the dark figure slid down the wall, the crystal sphere in Rincewind’s hand said: ‘I believe I now have enough information. I advise departure from this place at a convenient opportunity and in any case before this gentleman awakes.’

  ‘Hex?’ said Ponder.

  ‘Yes. Let me repeat my advice. Lack of absence from this place will undoubtedly result in metal entering the body.’

  ‘But you’re talking via a crystal ball! Magic doesn’t work here!’

  ‘Don’t argue with a voice saying “run away”!’ said Rincewind. ‘That’s good advice! You don’t question it! Let’s get out of here!’

  He looked at the Librarian, who was sniffing along the bookshelves with a puzzled expression.

  Rincewind had a sense for the universe’s tendency to go wrong. He didn’t leap to conclusions, he plunged headlong towards them.

  ‘You’ve brought us out through a one-way door, haven’t you …’ he said.

  ‘Oook!’

  ‘Well, how long will it take to find the way in?’

  The Librarian shrugg
ed and returned his attention to the shelves.

  ‘Leave now,’ said the crystal Hex. ‘Return later. The owner of this house will be useful. But leave before Sir Francis Walsingham wakes up, because otherwise he will kill you. Steal his purse from him first. You will need money. For one thing, you will need to pay someone to give the Librarian a shave.’

  ‘Oook?’

  1 Others found by research wizards include Objects In The Rear View Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, No User Serviceable Parts Inside and, of course, May Contain Nuts.

  FOUR

  THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE

  THE CONCEPT OF L-SPACE, short for ‘Library-space’, occurs in several of the Discworld novels. An early example occurs in Lords and Ladies, a story that is mostly about elvish evil. We are told that Ponder Stibbons is Reader in Invisible Writings, and this phrase deserves (and gets) an explanation:

  The study of invisible writings was a new discipline made available by the discovery of the bi-directional nature of Library-space. The thaumic mathematics are complex, but boil down to the fact that all books, everywhere, affect all other books. This is obvious: books inspire other books written in the future, and cite books written in the past. But the General Theory1 of L-space suggests that, in that case, the contents of books as yet unwritten can be deduced from books now in existence.

  L-space is a typical example of the Discworld habit of taking a metaphorical concept and making it real. The concept here is known as ‘phase space’, and it was introduced by the French mathematician Henri Poincaré about a hundred years ago to open up the possibility of applying geometrical reasoning to dynamics. Poincaré’s metaphor has now invaded the whole of science, if not beyond, and we will make good use of it in our discussion of the role of narrativium in the evolution of the mind.