The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett [34]
“Obviously some sorcerer landed here and wanted to make the place more homely,” the Senior Wrangler was saying, but he sounded far off. The Librarian was counting.
The plum-pudding plant, the custard-squash vine, the chocolate coconut—He turned his head to look at the trees. And now he knew what he was looking for, he couldn’t see it anywhere.
The Senior Wrangler stopped talking as the ape scrambled to his knuckles and sped back to the high-tide line. The wizards watched in silence as he scrabbled through the heaped-up seashells. He came back with a double handful, which he dropped triumphantly in front of the Archchancellor.
“Ook!”
“What’s that, old chap?”
“Ook!”
“Yes, very pretty, but what’s—”
“OOK!”
The Librarian seemed to remember what kind of intellects he was dealing with. He held up a finger and looked at Ridcully enquiringly. “Ook?”
“Still not quite with you—”
Two fingers went up. “Ook ook?”
“Not sure I fully—”
“Ook ook ook!”
Ponder Stibbons looked at the three fingers now raised. “I think he’s counting, sir.” The Librarian handed him a banana.
“Ah, the old ‘How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?’ game,” said the Dean. “But usually we all have to have a bit more to drink first—”
The Librarian waved his hand at the fish, at the meal, at the shells and at the background of trees. One finger stabbed at the sky.
“Ook!”
“It’s all one to you?” said Ridcully. “It’s one big place? It’s one to remember?”
The Librarian opened his mouth again, and then sneezed.
A very large red seashell lay on the sand.
“Oh, dear,” said Ponder Stibbons.
“That’s interesting,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “He’s turned into quite a good specimen of the giant conch. You can get a marvelous sound out of one of them if you blow in the pointy end…”
“Volunteers?” said the Dean, almost under his breath.
“Oh, dear,” said Ponder again.
“What’s up with you?” said the Dean.
“There’s only one,” said Ponder. “That’s what he was trying to tell us.”
“One what?” said Ridcully.
“Of everything, sir. There’s only one of everything.”
It was, he thought later, a good dramatic line. People ought to have looked at one another in growing and horrified realization and said things like, “By George, you know, he’s right!” But these were wizards, capable of thinking very big thoughts in very small chunks.
“Don’t be daft, man,” said Ridcully. “There’s millions of the damn shells, for a start.”
“Yes, sir, but look, they’re all different, sir. All the trees we found…there was only one of each sort, sir. Lots of banana trees, but they all produce different types of bananas. There was only one cigarette tree, wasn’t there?”
“Lots of bees, though,” said Ridcully.
“But only one swarm,” said Ponder.
“Millions of beetles,” said the Dean.
“I don’t think I’ve seen two alike, sir.”
“Well, that’s interesting,” said Ridcully, “but I don’t see—”
“One of anything doesn’t work, sir,” said Ponder. “It can’t breed.”
“Yes, but they’re only trees, Stibbons.”
“Trees need males and females too, sir.”
“They do?”
“Yes, sir. Sometimes they’re different bits of the same tree, sir.”
“What? You sure?”
“Yes, sir. My uncle grew nuts, sir.”
“Keep it down, boy, keep it down! Mrs. Whitlow might hear you!”
Ponder was taken aback. “What, sir? But…well…she is Mrs. Whitlow, sir…”
“What’s that got to do with the price of feet?”
“I mean…presumably there was a Mr. Whitlow, sir?”
Ridcully’s face went wooden for a moment and his lips moved as he tried out various responses. Finally he settled, weakly, for: “That’s as maybe, but it all sounds pretty mucky to me.”
“I’m afraid that’s nature for you, sir.”
“I used to like walking through the woods on a nice spring morning, Stibbons. You mean to say the trees were at it like knives the whole time?”
Ponder’s horticultural knowledge found itself a little exhausted at this point. He tried to remember what he could about his uncle, who’d spent most of his life up a ladder.
“I, er, think camel-hair brushes are sometimes involved—” he began, but Ridcully