What could you say to a dead copper? What would he want said?
Ah…
He leaned closer. ‘Carcer’s going to bloody swing for this,’ he said, and stood back.
Behind him, Sweeper coughed theatrically. ‘Ready, your
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grace?’ he said.
‘Ready enough,’ said Vimes.
‘We were telling you about the armour,’ said Sweeper. ‘It’ll-‘
‘The thing is, commander,’ Qu interrupted, ‘that you and this fellow Carcer and all the clothes and possessions you arrived with form an elongated transtime anomaly, which is under considerable tension.’
Vimes turned and looked at Sweeper.
‘It’s very, very hard to move things out of the time where they belong but it takes much less effort to move them back to where they were,’ Sweeper translated.
Vimes carried on staring.
‘Everything really, really wants to stay where it should be,’
Sweeper tried.
‘You’re right there,’ said Vimes.
‘All we do is… grease the way,’ said Sweeper. ‘We give a little push, and it’ll all snap back. And away you go. Have you had anything to eat this morning?’
‘No!’
‘Shouldn’t be too messy, then,’ said Sweeper. When Vimes looked puzzled he went on: ‘Undigested food. It’ll stay here, you see.’
‘You mean it’ll come tearing out of-‘
‘No, no, no,’ said Qu, quickly. ‘You won’t notice. But a nourishing meal when you get back would be a good idea.’
‘And the armour stays here?’
Qu beamed. ‘Yes, your grace. Everything. Eyepatch, socks, everything.’
‘Boots, too?’
‘Yes. Everything.’
‘What about my drawers?’
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‘Yes, those too. Everything.’
‘So I’ll arrive in the nuddy?’
‘The one costume that’s in fashion anywhere,’ said Sweeper, grinning.
‘Then why did all my armour arrive with me when I came?’
said Vimes. ‘And damn Carcer had his knives, that’s for sure!’
Qu opened his mouth, but Sweeper answered faster.
‘It takes a thousand steps to get to the top of a mountain but one little hop’ll take you all the way back to the bottom,’ he said.
‘Okay?’
‘Well, I suppose it makes sen-‘ Vimes began.
‘That isn’t how it works at all, Lu-Tze!’ wailed Qu.
‘No,’ said Sweeper, ‘but it’s another good lie. Look,
commander, we don’t have a damn great thunderstorm and we don’t have enough stored time. This is a field operation. It’s the best we can do. We’ll get you back, and your prisoner, although you almost certainly won’t arrive in the same place, ‘cos of quantum. It’s hard enough making sure you don’t arrive two hundred feet in the air, believe me. Pushing all your clothes as well, when they belong here, that just takes too much power.
Now, are you ready? You need to go back to where you were standing. Get to Carcer as soon as you can. You must grab him, otherwise he’ll stay behind.’
‘Okay, but I’ve changed lots of things!’ said Vimes.
‘Leave that to us,’ said Sweeper.
‘What about Keel?’ said Vimes, walking away with reluctance.
‘Don’t worry. We told you at the temple. We’ll put him in your armour. He’ll have died in battle.’
‘Make sure nothing happens to young Sam!’ said Vimes, as Qu carefully prodded him into position. The little stone columns began to spin.
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‘We will!’
‘Make sure Reg Shoe gets a decent burial!’
‘We will!’
‘Not too deep, he’ll be wanting to come out again in a few hours!’
Qu gave him a last prod. ‘Goodbye, commander!’ Time came back.
Ned was looking at him. ‘What happened just then, sarge?
You blurred.’
‘You only get one question, Ned,’ said Vimes, fighting the moment of nausea. ‘Now, let’s show Snapcase where the line’s drawn, shall we? Let’s finish it-‘
They charged, the men falling in behind them.
Vimes remembered in slow motion. Some of Carcer’s men ran at the sight of them, some raised their hastily reclaimed weapons, and Carcer stood there and grinned. Vimes headed for him, ducking and weaving through the fight.
The man’s expression changed as Vimes approached. Vimes was speeding up, shouldercharging and thrusting other bodies away. Carcer raised his sword and took a stance, but there was no room for finesse in the melee and Vimes closed like a bull, knocking the sword up and grabbing Carcer by the throat.
‘You’re nicked, my ol’ chum,’ he said. And then it all went black.
He felt, later on, that there should have been more to it. There should have been rushing blue tunnels, or flashes, or the sun should have shot round and round the sky. Even pages tearing off a calendar and fluttering away would have been something.
But it was just the blackness of the deepest sleep, followed by pain as he hit the floor.
Vimes felt arms reach down and haul him to his feet. He shook them off as soon as he was upright, and focused, through
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the bleary mist, on the face of Captain Carrot.
‘Good to see you, sir. Oh, dear-‘
‘I’in fine,’ croaked Vimes, through a throat that felt stuffed with sand. ‘Where’s Carcer?’
‘You’ve got a nasty cut on-‘
‘Really? I’in amazed,’ growled Vimes. ‘Now, where the hell is Carcer?’
‘We don’t know, sir. You just appeared in midair and landed on the floor. In a lot of blue light, sir!’
‘Ah,’ muttered Vimes. ‘Well, he’s come back somewhere.
Somewhere close, probably.’
‘Right, sir, I’ll tell the men to-‘
‘No, don’t,’ said Vimes. ‘He’ll keep. After all, where’s he going to go?’
He wasn’t too sure of his legs. They felt as though they belonged to someone with a very poor sense of balance.
‘How long was I… away?’ he said. Ponder Stibbons stepped forward.
‘About half an hour, your grace. Er, we have, er, hypothesized that there was some temporal disturbance, which, coupled with the lightning stroke and a resonance in the standing wave of the Library, caused a spacetime rupture-‘
‘Yeah, it felt something like that,’ said Vimes hurriedly. ‘Half an hour, did you say?’
‘Did it feel longer?’ said Ponder, taking out a notebook.
‘A bit,’ Vimes conceded. ‘Now, has anyone here got a pair of drawers I-‘
I can see your house from up here…
That was Carcer. He liked you to stew, to use your
imagination.
And Vimes had said: where’s he going to go?
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‘Captain, I want you and every man you can spare, every damn man, to get up to my house right now, understand,’ he said. ‘Just do it. Just do it now.’ He turned to Ridcully.
‘Archchancellor, can you get me there faster?’
‘The Watch wants magical assistance?’ said the
Archchancellor, taken aback.
‘Please,’ said Vimes.
‘Of course, but you realize that you have no clothes on-‘
Vimes gave up. People always wanted explanations. He set off, overruling the jelly in his legs, running out of the octangle and across the lawns until he reached the University’s Bridge of Size, where he sped past Nobby and Colon who were drawn into the wake of watchmen running to keep up.
On the other side of the bridge was the garden known as the Wizard’s Pleasaunce. Vimes ploughed through it, twigs
whipping at his bare legs, and then he was out and on to the old towpath, mud splashing up over the blood. Then right and a left, past amazed bystanders, and then there were the catshead cobbles of Scoone Avenue under his feet and he found the wind to accelerate a little. He didn’t slow until he reached the gravel drive, and almost collapsed at the front door, hanging on to the bell pull.
There were hurrying feet, and the door was wrenched open.
‘If you’re not Willikins,’ growled Vimes, focusing, ‘there’s going to be trouble!’
‘Your grace! Whatever has happened to you?’ said the butler, pulling him into the hall.
‘Nothing!’ said Vimes. ‘Just get me a fresh uniform, nice and quietly, and don’t let Sybil know-‘
He read everything in the way the butler’s face changed.
‘What’s happened to Sybil?’
Willikins backed away. A bear would have backed away.
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‘Don’t go up there, sir! Mrs Content says it’s… all rather difficult, sir. Things aren’t, um, happening quite right…’
‘Is the child born?’
‘No sir, aapparently not, sir. It’s rather… Mrs Content says she’s trying everything but maybe we… ought to send for the doctors, sir.’
‘For a childbirth?’
Willikins looked down. After twenty unflappable years as butler, he was shaking now. No one deserved a confrontation with Sam Vimes at a time like this.
‘Sorry, sir…’
‘No!’ snapped Vimes. ‘Don’t send for a doctor. I know a doctor! And he knows all about… this sort of thing! He’d better!’
He ran back outside in time to see a broomstick touch down on the lawn, piloted by the Archchancellor himself.
‘I thought I’d better come along anyway,’ said Ridcully. ‘Is there anything-‘
Vimes swung himself on to it before the wizard could get off.
‘Take me to Twinkle Street. Can you do that?’ he said. ‘It’s…
important!’
‘Hang on, your grace,’ said Ridcully, and Vimes’s stomach dropped into his legs as the stick climbed vertically. He made a small mental note to promote Buggy Swires and buy him the buzzard he’d always wanted. Anyone prepared to do this every day for the good of the city couldn’t be paid too much.