The Fifth Elephant

'Well, the man can speak, but it'll be a little while before he can climb back on a cart again. Apart from that, it's all run-of-the-mill stuff.'

'Nothing more about the Scone theft?'

'Not really. Lots of accusations in the dwarf community, but no one really knows anything. Like you say, sir, we'll probably know more when it goes bad.'

'Any word on the street?'

'Yes, sir. It's "Halt", sir. Sergeant Colon painted it at the top of Lower Broadway. The carters are a lot more careful now. Of course, someone has to shovel the manure off every hour or so.'

'This whole traffic thing is not making us very popular, captain.'

'No, sir. But we aren't popular anyway. And at least it's bringing in money for the city treasury. Er... there is another thing, sir.'

'Yes?'

'Have you seen Sergeant Angua, sir?'

'Me? No. I was expecting her to be here.' Then Vimes noticed just the very edge of concern in Carrot's voice. 'Something wrong?'

'She didn't turn up for duty last night. It wasn't full moon, so it's a bit... odd. Nobby said she was rather concerned about something when they were on duty the other day.'

Vimes nodded. Of course, most people were concerned about something if they were on duty with Nobby. They tended to look at clocks a lot.

'Have you been to her lodgings?'

'Her bed hadn't been slept in,' said Carrot. 'Or her basket, either,' he added.

'Well, I can't help you there, Carrot. She's your girlfriend.'

'She's been a bit worried about the future, I think,' said Carrot.

'Um, you... she... the, er, werewolf thing?' Vimes stopped, acutely embarrassed.

'It preys on her mind,' said Carrot.

'Perhaps she's just gone somewhere to think about things.' Like how on earth could she go out with a young man who, magnificent though he was, blushed at the idea of a packet of Sonkies.

'That's what I hope, sir,' Carrot said. 'She does that sometimes. It's really quite stressful, being a werewolf in a big city. I know we'd have heard if she'd run into any trouble—'

There was the sound of a harness outside, and the rattle of a coach. Vimes was relieved. Seeing Carrot worried was so unusual that it had the shock of the unfamiliar.

'Well, we'll have to go without her,' he said. 'I want to be kept in touch about everything, captain. A fake Scone going missing a week or two before a big dwarf coronation—that sounds like another shoe is about to drop and it might just hit me. And while you're about it, put the word out that I'm to be sent anything about Sonky, will you? I don't like mysteries. The clacks do a skeleton service as far as Uberwald now, don't they?'

Carrot brightened up. 'It's wonderful, sir, isn't it? In a few months they say we'll be able to send messages all the way from Ankh-Morpork to Genua in less than a day!'

'Yes indeed. I wonder if by then we'll have anything sensible to say to each other.'

Lord Vetinari stood at his window watching the semaphore tower on the other side of the river. All eight of the big shutters facing him were blinking furiously—black, white, white, black, white...

Information was flying into the air. Twenty miles behind him, on another tower in Sto Lat someone was looking through a telescope and shouting out numbers.

How quickly the future comes upon us, he thought.

He always suspected the poetic description of Time like an ever-rolling stream. Time, in his experience, moved more like rocks... sliding, pressing, building up force underground and then, with one jerk that shakes the crockery, a whole field of turnips mysteriously slips sideways by six feet.

Semaphore had been around for centuries, and everyone knew that knowledge had a value, and everyone knew that exporting goods was a way of making money. And then, suddenly, someone realized how much money you could make by exporting to Genua by tomorrow things known in Ankh-Morpork today. And some bright young man in the Street of Cunning Artificers had been unusually cunning.

Knowledge, information, power, words... flying through the air, invisible...

And suddenly the world was tap-dancing on quicksand.

In that case, the prize went to the best dancer.

Lord Vetinari turned away, took some papers from a desk drawer, walked to a wall, touched a certain area, and stepped quickly through the hidden door that noiselessly swung open.

Beyond was a corridor, lit by borrowed light from high windows and paved with small flagstones. He walked forward, hesitated, said 'No, this is Tuesday,' and moved his descending foot so that it landed on a stone that in every respect appeared to be exactly the same as its fellows.

Anyone overhearing his progress along the passages and stairs might have caught muttered phrases on the lines of 'The moon is waxing...' and 'Yes, it is before noon.' A really keen listener would have heard the faint whirring and ticking inside the walls.

A really keen and paranoid listener would have reflected that anything Lord Vetinari said aloud even while he was alone might not be totally worth believing. Not, certainly, if your life depended on it.