The Last Continent

They went on looking. He cracked. Practically anyone will crack before a sheep cracks. A sheep hasn't got much that's crackable.

'Oh, hell, maybe I can rig up some kind of bucket and pulley arrangement,' he said. 'It's not as though I've got any appointments today.'

He was digging a bit further, in the hope of getting deep enough before the water ran away completely, when he heard someone whistling.

He looked up, through the legs of the sheep. A man was creeping down across the dried-up waterhole, whistling tunelessly between his teeth. He'd failed to notice Rincewind because his gaze was fixed so intently on the milling sheep. He dropped the pack he'd been carrying, pulled out a sack, sidled towards a sheep all by itself, and leapt. It barely had time to bleat.

As he was stuffing it into the sack a voice said: That probably belongs to someone, you know.'

The man looked around hurriedly. The voice was coming from a group of sheep.

'I reckon you could get into serious trouble, stealing sheep. You'll regret it later on, I'm sure. Probably someone really cares about that sheep. Come on, let it go.'

The man stared around wildly.

'I mean, think about it,' the voice went on. 'You've got this nice country here, parrots and everything, and you're going to spoil it all by stealing someone's sheep that they've worked so hard to grow. I bet you wouldn't like to be remembered as a sheep-stealer— Oh.'

The man had dropped the sack and was running away very fast.

'Well, you didn't have to waltz off like that, I was only trying to appeal to your better nature!' said Rincewind, pulling himself up out of the hole.

He cupped his hands. 'And you've forgotten your camping stuff!' he shouted, after the disappearing dust.

The sack baa-ed.

Rincewind picked it up, and a noise behind him made him look round. There was another man watching him from the back of a horse. He was glaring.

Behind him were three men wearing identical helmets and jerkins and humourless expressions that had 'watchman' written all over them in slow handwriting. And all three were pointing crossbows at him.

That bottomless feeling that he had once again wandered into something that didn't concern him and was going to find it hard to wander out again grew within Rincewind.

He tried to smile.

'G'day!' he said. 'No worries, eh? I must say I'm really glad to see you drongos and no two ways about it!'

Ponder Stibbons cleared his throat.

'Where would you like me to start?' he said. 'I could probably finish off the elephant...'

'How are you at slime?'

Ponder hadn't considered a future as a slime designer, but everyone had to start somewhere.

'Fine,' he said. Tine.'

'Of course, slime just splits down the middle,' said the god, as they walked along rows of glowing, life-filled cubes while beetles sizzled overhead. 'Not a lot of future in that, really. It works all right for lower lifeforms but, frankly, it's a bit embarrassing for the more complicated creatures and positively lethal for horses. No, sex is going to be very, very useful, Ponder. It'll keep everything on its toes. And that will give us time to work on the big project.'

Ponder sighed. Ah... he knew there had to be a big project. The big project. A god wasn't going to do all this sort of thing just to make life better for inflammable cows.

'Could I help with that?' he said. 'I'm sure I could make a contribution.'

'Really? I thought perhaps animals and birds would be more up your... up your...' The god waved his hands vaguely. 'Up whatever you walk on. Where you live.'

'Well, yes, but they're a bit limited, aren't they?' said Ponder.

The god beamed. There's nothing like being near a happy god. It's like giving your brain a hot bath.

'Exactly!' he said. 'Limited! The very word! Each one stuck in some desert or jungle or mountain, relying on one or two foods, at the mercy of every vagary of the universe and wiped out by the merest change of climate. What a terrible waste!'

'That's right!' said Ponder. 'What you need is a creature that is resourceful and adaptable, am I right?'

'Oh, very well put, Ponder! I can see you've turned up at just the right time!' A pair of huge doors swung open in front of them, revealing a circular room with a shallow pyramid of steps in the centre. At the summit was another cloud of blue mist, in which occasional lights flared and died.

The future unrolled in front of Ponder Stibbons. His eyes were so bright that his glasses steamed, that he could probably scorch holes in thin paper. Oh, right... what more could any natural philosopher dream of? He'd got the theories, now he could do the practice.

And this time it'd be done properly. To hell with messing up the future! That's what the future was for. Oh, he'd been against it, that was true, but it'd been... well, when someone else was thinking of doing it. But now he'd got the ear of a god, and maybe some intelligence could be applied to the task of creating intelligence.