Thief of Time - Terry Pratchett [129]
The reassuring rumble of the Procrastinators now filled the cave. Lu-Tze could feel the time flows in the air. It was invigorating, like the smell of the sea. I ought to spend more time down here, he thought.
“He broke history and repaired it,” said Susan. “Cause and cure. That makes no sense!”
“Not in four dimensions,” said Unity. “In eighteen, it’s all perfectly clear.”
“And now, may I suggest you ladies leave by the back way?” said Lu-Tze. “People are going to come running down here in a minute and it’s all going to get very excitable. Probably best if you aren’t around.”
“What will you do?” said Susan.
“Lie,” said Lu-Tze happily. “It’s amazing how often that works.”
—ick
Susan and Unity stepped out of a door in the rock and took the path that led through rhododendron groves out of the valley. The sun was touching the horizon and the air was warm, although there were snowfields quite close by.
At the lip of the valley the water from the stream plunged over a cliff in a fall so long that it landed as a sort of rain. Susan pulled herself onto a rock and settled down to wait.
“It is a long way to Ankh-Morpork,” said Unity.
“We’ll have a lift,” said Susan. The first stars were already coming out.
“The stars are very pretty,” said Unity.
“Do you really think so?”
“I am learning to. Humans believe they are.”
“The thing is…I mean, there’s times when you look at the universe and you think ‘What about me?’ and you can just hear the universe replying, ‘Well, what about you?’”
Unity appeared to consider this.
“Well, what about you?” she said.
Susan sighed. “Exactly.” She sighed again. “You can’t think about just one person while you’re saving the world. You have to be a cold, calculating bastard.”
“That sounded as if you were quoting somebody,” said Unity. “Who said that?”
“Some total idiot,” said Susan. She tried to think of other things and added, “We didn’t get all of them. There’re still Auditors down there somewhere.”
“That will not matter,” said Unity calmly. “Look at the sun.”
“Well?”
“It is setting.”
“And…?”
“That means time is flowing through the world. The body exacts its toll, Susan. Soon my—my former colleagues, bewildered and fleeing, will become tired. They will have to sleep.”
“I follow you, but—”
“I am insane. I know this. But the first time it happened to me I found such horror that I cannot express it. Can you imagine what it is like? For an intellect a billion years old, in a body which is an ape on the back of a rat that grew out of a lizard? Can you imagine what comes out of the dark places, uncontrolled?”
“What are you telling me?”
“They will die in their dreams.”
Susan thought about this. Millions and millions of years of thinking precise, logical thoughts—and then humanity’s murky past drops all its terrors on you in one go. She could almost feel sorry for them. Almost.
“But you didn’t,” she said.
“No. I think I must be…different. It is a terrible thing to be different, Susan. Did you have romantic hopes in connection with the boy?”
The questions came out of nowhere and there was no defense. Unity’s face showed nothing but a kind of nervous concern.
“No,” said Susan. Unfortunately, Unity did not seem to have mastered some of the subtleties of human conversation, such as when a tone of voice means “stop this line of inquiry right now or may huge rats eat you by day and by night.”
“I confess to strange feelings regarding his…self that was the clockmaker,” said Unity. “Sometimes, when he smiled, he was normal. I wanted to help him, because he seemed so closed in and sad.”
“You don’t have to confess to things like that,” Susan snapped. “How do you even know the word romantic, anyway?” she added.
“I found some books of poetry.” Unity actually looked embarrassed.
“Really? I’ve never trusted it,” said Susan. Huge, giant, hungry rats.
“I found it most curious. How can words on a page have a power like that? There is no doubt that being human is incredibly difficult and cannot be mastered in one lifetime,” said Unity sadly.
Susan felt a stab of