Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett [87]
“They’re not really alike,” said Gaffer. “Each one’s a bit different, see? And so people’s eyes see a lot of little slightly different pictures very fast and their eyes think they’re watching something move.”
Dibbler took his cigar out of his mouth. “You mean it’s all a trick?” he said, astonished.
“Yeah, that’s right.” The handleman chuckled and reached for the paste pot.
Dibbler watched in fascination.
“I thought it was all a special kind of magic,” he said, a shade disappointed. “Now you tell me it’s just a big Find-the-Lady game?”
“Sort of. You see, people don’t actually see any one picture. They see a lot of them at once, see what I mean?”
“Hey, I got lost at see there.”
“Every picture adds to the general effect. People don’t see, sorry, any one picture, they just see the effect caused by a lot of them moving past very quickly.”
“Do they? That’s very interesting,” said Dibbler. “Very interesting indeed.” He flicked the ash from his cigar toward the demons. One of them caught it and ate it.
“So what would happen,” he said slowly, “if, say, just one picture in the whole click was different.”
“Funny you should ask,” said Gaffer. “It happened the other day when we were patching up Beyond the Valley of the Trolls. One of the apprentices had stuck in just one picture from The Golde Rush and we all went around all morning thinking about gold and not knowing why. It was as if it’d gone straight into our heads without our eyes seeing it. Of course, I took my belt to the lad when we spotted it, but we’d never have found out if I hadn’t happened to look at the click slowly.”
He picked up the paste brush again, squared up a couple of strips of film, and fixed them together. After a while he became aware that it had gone very quiet behind him.
“You all right, Mr. Dibbler?” he said.
“Hmm? Oh.” Dibbler was deep in thought. “Just one picture had all that effect?”
“Oh, yes. Are you all right, Mr. Dibbler?”
“Never felt better, lad,” Dibbler said. “Never felt better.”
He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s you and me have a little chat, man to man,” he added. “Because, you know…” he laid a friendly hand on Gaffer’s shoulder, “…I’ve a feeling that this could be your lucky day.”
And in another alleyway Gaspode sat muttering to himself.
“Huh. Stay, he says. Givin’ me orders. Jus’ so’s his girlfriend doesn’t have to have a horrid smelly dog in her room. So here’s me, man’s best friend, sittin’ out in the rain. If it was rainin’, anyway. Maybe it ain’t rainin’, but if it was rainin’, I’d be soaked by now. Serve him right if I just upped and walked away. I could do it, too. Any time I wanted. I don’t have to sit here. I hope no one’s thinkin’ I’m sittin’ here because I’ve been told to sit here. I’d like to see the human who could give me orders. I’m sittin’ here ’cos I want to. Yeah.”
Then he whined for a bit and shuffled into the shadows, where there was less chance of being seen.
In the room above, Victor was standing facing the wall. This was humiliating. It had been bad enough bumping into a grinning Mrs. Cosmopilite on the stairs. She had given him a big smile and a complicated, elbow-intensive gesture that, he felt certain, sweet little old ladies shouldn’t know.
There were clinks and the occasional rustle behind him as Ginger got ready for bed.
“She’s really very nice. She told me yesterday that she had had four husbands,” said Ginger.
“What did she do with the bones?” said Victor.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Ginger, sniffing. “All right, you can turn around now. I’m in bed.”
Victor relaxed, and turned round. Ginger had drawn the covers up to her neck and was holding them there like a besieged garrison manning the barricades.
“You’ve got to promise me,” she said, “that if anything happens, you won’t try to take advantage of the situation.”
Victor sighed. “I promise.”
“It’s just that I’ve got a career to think about, you see.”
“Yes, I see.”
Victor sat by the lamp and took the book out of his pocket.
“I’m not trying to be ungrateful