‘Really?’ said Ridcully, fascinated.
‘Very hard thing to steer, lightning. Mostly we waited until a thunderbolt happened to hit some poor soul and then spake in a voice of thunder and said it was his fault for being a sinner. I mean, they were bound to have done something, weren’t they?’ The god blew his nose again. ‘Quite depressing, really. Anyway . . . I suppose the rot set in when I tried to see if it was possible to breed a more inflammable cow.’
He looked at the questioning expressions.
‘Burnt offerings, you see. Cows don’t actually burn all that well. They’re naturally rather soggy creatures and frankly everyone was running out of wood.’
They carried on staring at him. He tried again.
‘I really couldn’t see the point of the whole business, to tell you the truth. Shouting, smiting, getting angry all the time . . . don’t think anyone was getting anything out of it, really. But the worst part . . . You know the worst part? The worst part was that if you actually stopped the smiting, people wandered off and worshipped someone else. Hard to believe, isn’t it? They’d say things like, “Things were a lot better when there was more smiting,” and, “If there was more smiting, it’d be a lot safer to walk the streets.” Especially since all that’d really happened was that some poor shepherd who just happened to be in the wrong place during a thunderstorm had caught a stray bolt. And then the priests would say, “Well, we all know about shepherds, don’t we, and now the gods are angry and we could do with a much bigger temple, thank you.” ‘
‘Typical priestly behaviour,’ sniffed the Dean.
‘But they often believed it!’ the god almost wailed. ‘It was really so depressing. I think that before we made humanity, we broke the mould. There’d be a bad weather front, a few silly shepherds would happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and next thing you know it was standing room only on the sacrificial stones and you couldn’t see for the smoke.’ He had another good blow on a piece of Ponder’s handkerchief that had so far remained dry. ‘I mean, I tried. God knows I tried, and since that’s me, I know what I’m talking about. “Thou Shall Lie Down Flat in Thundery Weather,” I said. “Thou Shalt Site the Midden a Long Way from the Well,” I said. I even told them, “Thou Shalt Really Try to Get Along with One Another.”‘
‘Did it work?’
‘I can’t say for sure. Everyone was slaughtered by the followers of the god in the next valley who told them to kill everyone who didn’t believe in him. Ghastly fellow, I’m afraid.’
‘And the flaming cows?’ said Ridcully.
‘The what?’ said the god, sunk in misery.
‘The more inflammable cow,’ said Ponder.
‘Oh, yes. Another good idea that didn’t work. I just thought, you know, that if you could find the bit in, say, an oak tree which says “Be inflammable” and glue it into the bit of the cow which says “Be soggy” it’d save a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, that produced a sort of bush that made distressing noises and squirted milk, but I could see the principle was sound. And frankly, since my believers were all dead or living in the next valley by then I thought, to hell with it all, I’d come back here and get to grips with it and do it all more sensibly.’ He brightened up a bit. ‘You know, it’s amazing what you get if you break even the common cow down into very small bits.’
‘Soup,’ said Ridcully.
‘Because, sooner or later, everything is just a set of instructions,’ the god went on, apparently not listening.
‘That’s just what I’ve always said!’ said Ponder.
‘Have you?’ said the god, peering at him. ‘Well, anyway . . . that’s how it all began. I thought it would be a much better idea to create creatures that could change their own instructions when they needed to, you see . . .’
‘Oh, you mean evolution,’ said Ponder Stibbons.
‘Do I?’ The god looked thoughtful. ‘ “Changing over time . . .” Yes, that’s actually quite a good word, isn’t it? Evolution. Yes, I suppose that’s what I do. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working properly.’
Beside him, there was a pop. The little plant had fruited. Its pod had sprung open and there appeared to be, bunched up like a chrysanthemum, a fresh white hankie.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘That’s the sort of thing I’m up against. Everything is so completely selfish about it.’ He took the handkerchief in an absent-minded way, blew his nose on it, crumpled it up, and dropped it on the ground.
‘I’m sorry about the boat,’ he continued. ‘It was a bit of a rush job, you see. I just didn’t want anyone upsetting everything, but I really don’t believe in smiting, so I thought that since you wanted to leave here I should help you do so as soon as possible. I think I did rather a good job, in the circumstances. It’ll find new land automatically, I think. So why didn’t you go?’
‘The bare naked lady on the front was a bit of a giveaway,’ said Ridcully.
‘The what?’ The god peered in the direction of the boat. ‘These eyes are not particularly efficient . . . Oh, dear, yes. The figure. Morphic bloody resonance again. Will you stop doing that!’
The handkerchief plant had just put forth another fruit. The god narrowed his eyes, pointed his finger and incinerated it.
As one man the wizards stepped back.
‘I stop concentrating for five minutes and everything loses any sense of discipline,’ said the god. ‘Everything wants to make itself damn useful! I can’t think why!’
‘Sorry? Am I getting this right? You’re a god of evolution!’ said Ponder.
‘Er . . . is that wrong?’ said the god anxiously.
‘But it’s been happening for ages, sir!’
‘Has it? But I only started a few years ago! Do you mean someone else is doing it?’
‘I’m afraid so, sir,’ said Ponder. ‘People breed dogs for fierceness and racehorses for speed and . . . well, even my uncle can do amazing things with his nuts, sir—’
‘And everyone knows that you can cross a river with a bridge, ahaha,’ said Ridcully.
‘Can you?’ said the god of evolution seriously. ‘I’d have thought that you simply get some very soggy wood. Oh dear.’
Ridcully winked at Ponder Stibbons. Gods were often not good at humour, and this one was even worse than Ridcully.
‘We’re back in time, Mister Stibbons,’ he said. ‘It may not have happened already yet, eh?’
‘Oh. Yes,’ said Ponder.
‘Anyway, two gods of evolution wouldn’t be a bad thing, would they?’ said Ridcully. ‘Makes it a lot more interestin’. The one who’s best at it would win.’
The god stared at him with his mouth open. Then he shut it just enough to mouth Ridcully’s words to himself, snapped his fingers, and vanished in a puff of little white lights.
‘Now you’ve done it,’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
‘No cake for you,’ said the Bursar.
‘All I said was the one who’s best at it would win,’ said Ridcully.
‘Actually, he didn’t look upset,’ said Ponder. ‘He looked as if he’d suddenly realized something.’
Ridcully looked up at the small mountain in the centre of the island, and appeared to reach a decision.
‘All right, we’ll leave,’ he said. The reason this island’s so odd is that some rather daft god is messing around with it. That’s a pretty good explanation as far as I’m concerned.’
‘But, sir—’ Ponder began.
‘See that little vine just by the Senior Wrangler there? It’s only been growing for the last ten minutes,’ said the Dean.
It looked like a small cucumber vine, except that the fruits were yellow and oblong.
‘Pass me your penknife, Mister Stibbons,’ said Ridcully.
Ridcully sliced the fruit in half. It wasn’t fully ripe yet, but the pattern of pink and yellow squares was clearly visible, surrounded by a layer of something sticky and sweet.
‘But I only thought about that cake ten minutes ago!’ said the Senior Wrangler.
‘Seems perfectly logical to me,’ said Ridcully, ‘I mean, here we are, wizards, we move about, we want to leave the island . . . What will we take with us? Anyone?’
‘Food, obviously,’ said Ponder. ‘But—’
‘Right! If I was a vegetable, I’d want to make myself useful in a hurry, yes? No good hanging around for a thousand years just growing bigger seeds! No fear! All those other plants might come up with a better idea in the meantime! No, you see an opportunity and you go for it! There might not be another boat along for years!’
‘Millennia,’ said the Dean.
‘Even longer,’ Ridcully agreed. ‘Survival of the fastest, eh? So I suggest we load up and go, gentlemen.’