Discworld 26 - The Thief of Time (21 page)

 
 
  
'The boy? Hah. Tell me, miss... why are we talking about he?'
Tick
Lady LeJean was being strong.
She'd never realized how much humans were controlled by their bodies. The thing nagged
night and day. It was always too hot, too cold, too empty, too full, too tired...
The key was discipline, she was sure. Auditors were immortal. If she couldn't tell her body
what to do, she didn't deserve to have one. Bodies were a major human weakness.
Senses, too. The Auditors had hundreds of senses, since every possible phenomenon had to
be witnessed and recorded. She could find only five available now. Five ought to be easy to
deal with. But they were wired directly into the rest of the body! They didn't just submit
information, they made demands!
She'd walked past a stall selling roasted meats and her mouth had started to drool! The sense
of smell wanted the body to eat without consulting the brain! But that wasn't the worst of it!
The brain itself did its own thinking!
That was the hardest part. The bag of soggy tissue behind the eyes worked away
independently of its owner. It took in information from the senses, and checked it all against
memory, and presented options. Sometimes the hidden parts of it even fought for control of
the mouth! Humans weren't individuals, they were, each one, a committee!
Some of the other members of the committee were dark and red and entirely uncivilized.
They had joined the brain before civilization; some of them had got aboard even before
humanity. And the bit that did the joined-up thinking had to fight, in the darkness of the
brain, to get the casting vote!
After little more than a couple of weeks as a human, the entity that was Lady LeJean was
having real trouble.
Food, for example. Auditors did not eat. They recognized that feeble life forms had to
consume one another to obtain energy and body-building material. The process was
astonishingly inefficient, however, and her ladyship had tried assembling nutrients directly
out of the air. This worked, but the process felt... What was the word? Oh, yes... creepy.
Besides, part of the brain didn't believe it was getting fed and insisted that it was hungry. Its
incessant nagging interfered with her thought processes and so, despite everything, she'd had
to face up to the whole, well, the whole orifices business.
The Auditors had known about these for a long time. The human body appeared to have up to
eight of them. One didn't seem to work and the rest appeared to be multi-functional, although
surprisingly there seemed to be only one thing that could be done by the ears.
Yesterday she'd tried a piece of dry toast.
It had been the single worst experience of her existence.

 
 
  
It had been the single most intense experience of her existence.
It had been something else, too. As far as she could understand the language, it had been
enjoyable.
It seemed that the human sense of taste was quite different from the sense as employed by an
Auditor. That was precise, measured, analytical. But the human sense of taste was like being
hit in the mouth by the whole world. It had been half an hour of watching fireworks in her
head before she remembered to swallow.
How did humans survive this?
She'd been fascinated by the art galleries. It was clear that some humans could present reality
in a way that made it even more real, that spoke to the viewer, that seared the mind... but
what could possibly transcend the knowledge that the genius of an artist had to poke alien
substances into his face? Could it be that humans had got used to it? And that was only the
start. . .
The sooner the clock was finished, the better. A species as crazy as this couldn't be allowed to
survive. She was visiting the clockmaker and his ugly assistant every day now, giving them
as much help as she dared, but they always seemed one vital step away from completion-
Amazing! She could even lie to herself! Because another voice in her head, which was part of
the dark committee, said, 'You're not helping, are you? You're stealing parts and twisting
parts... and you go back every day because of the way he looks at you, don't you?'
Parts of the internal committee that were so old they didn't have voices, only direct control of
the body, tried to interfere at this point. She tried in vain to put them out of her mind.
And now she had to face the other Auditors. They would be punctual.
She pulled herself together. Water had taken to running out of her eyes lately for no reason at
all. She did the best she could with her hair, and made her way to the large drawing room.
Greyness was already filling the air. In this space, there was not room for too many Auditors,
but that did not really matter. One could speak for all.
Lady LeJean found the corners of her mouth turned up automatically as nine of them
appeared. Nine was three threes, and the Auditors liked threes. Two would keep an eye on the
other one. Each two would keep an eye on each other one. They don't trust themselves, said
one of the voices in her head. Another voice cut in: It's we, we don't trust ourselves. And she
thought: Oh, yes. We, not they. I must remember I'm a we.
An Auditor said, Why is there no further progress?
The corners of the mouth turned down again.
'There have been minor problems of precision and alignment,' said Lady LeJean. She found
that her hands were rubbing themselves together slowly, and wondered why. She hadn't told
them to.

 
 
  
Auditors had never needed body language, so they didn't understand it.
One said, What is the nature of-?
But another one cut in with, Why are you dwelling in this building? The voice was tinted with
suspicion.
'The body requires one to do things that cannot be done on the street,' said Lady LeJean, and,
because she'd got to know something about Ankh-Morpork, she added, 'at least, on many
streets. Also, I believe the servant of the clockmaker is suspicious. I have allowed the body to
yield to gravity, since that is what it was designed for. It is as well to give the appearance of
humanity.'
One, and it was the same one, said, And what is the meaning of these?
It had noticed the paints and the easel. Lady LeJean wished fervently that she'd remembered
to put them away.
The one said, You are making an image with pigments?
'Yes. Very badly, I am afraid.'
One said, For what reason?
'I wished to see how humans do it.'
One said, That is simple: the eye receives the input, the hand applies the pigment.
'That's what I thought, but it appears to be much more complex than that-'
The one who had raised the question of the painting drifted towards one of the chairs and
said, And what is this?
'It is a cat. It arrived. It does not appear to wish to depart.'
The cat, a feral ginger tom, flicked a serrated ear and curled up in a tighter ball. Anything that
could survive in Ankh-Morpork's alleys, with their abandoned swamp dragons, dog packs
and furriers' agents, was not about to open even one eye for a bunch of floating nightdresses.
The one who was now getting on Lady LeJean's nerves said: And the reason for its presence?
'It appears to tolerate the company of hu- of apparent humans, asking nothing in return but
food, water, shelter and comfort,' said Lady LeJean. 'This interests me. Our purpose is to
learn, and thus I have, as you can see, begun.' She hoped it sounded better to them than it did
to her.
One said, When will the clock problems you spoke of be resolved?
'Oh, soon. Very soon. Yes.'

 
 
  
The one that was beginning to terrify Lady LeJean said, We wonder: is it possible that you
are slowing the work in some way?
Lady LeJean felt a prickling on her forehead. Why was it doing that?
'No. Why should I slow the work? There would be no logic to it!'
One said, Hmm.
And an Auditor did not say 'Hmm' by accident. 'Hmm' had a very precise meaning.
It went on: You are making moisture on your head.
'Yes. It's a body thing.'
One said, Yes. And that, too, had a very specific and ominous meaning.
One said, We wonder if too long in a solid body weakens resolve. Also, we find it hard to see
your thoughts.
'Body again, I am afraid. The brain is a very imprecise instrument.' Lady LeJean got control
of her hands at last.
One said, Yes.
Another said, When water fills a jug, it takes the shape of the jug. But the water is not the jug,
nor is the jug the water.
'Of course,' said Lady LeJean. And, inside, a thought that she hadn't known she was thinking,
a thought that turned up out of the darkness behind the eyes, said: We are surely the most
stupid creatures in the universe.
One said, It is not good to act alone.
She said, 'Of course.' And once again a thought emerged from the darkness: I'm in trouble
now.
One said, And therefore you will have companions. No blame attaches. One should never be
alone. Together, resolve is strengthened.
Motes began to twinkle in the air.
Lady LeJean's body backed away automatically and, when she saw what was forming, she
backed it away further. She had seen humans in all states of life and death, but seeing a body
being spun out of raw matter was curiously disquieting when you were currently inhabiting a
similar one. It was one of those times when the stomach did the thinking, and thought it
wanted to throw up.
Six figures took shape, blinked and opened their eyes. Three of the figures were male, three
were female. They were dressed in human-sized equivalents of the Auditors' robes.

 
 
  
The remaining Auditors drew back, but one said, They will accompany you to the
clockmaker; and matters will be resolved today. They will not eat or breathe.
Hah! thought one of the little voices that made up Lady LeJean's thinking.
One of the figures whimpered.
'The body will breathe,' said her ladyship. 'You will not persuade it that air is not required.'
She was aware of the choking noises.
'You are thinking, yes, we can exchange necessary materials with the outside world, and this
is true,' she went on. 'But the body does not know that. It thinks it is dying. Let it breathe.'
There was a series of gasps.
'And you will feel better shortly,' said her ladyship, and was enthralled to hear the inner voice
think: These are your jailers, and you are already stronger than them.
One of the figures felt its face with a clumsy hand and, panting, said, 'Whom do you speak to
with your mouth?'
'You,' said Lady LeJean.
'Us?'
'This will take some explaining-'
'No,' said the Auditor. 'Danger lies that way. We believe the body imposes a method of
thought on the brain. No blame attaches. It is a... malfunction. We will accompany you to the
clockmaker. We will do this now.'
'Not in those clothes,' said Lady LeJean. 'You will frighten him. It may lead to irrational
actions.'
There was a moment of silence. The Auditors-made-flesh looked hopelessly at one another.
'You have to talk with your mouth,' Lady LeJean prompted. 'The minds stay inside the head.'
One said, 'What is wrong with these clothes? It is a simple shape found in many human
cultures.'
Lady LeJean walked to the window. 'See the people down there?' she said. 'You must dress in
appropriate city fashions.'
Reluctantly the Auditors did so, and, while they retained the greyness, they did give
themselves clothes that would pass unnoticed in the street. Up to a point, anyway.
'Only those of female appearance should wear dresses,' Lady LeJean pointed out.

 
 
  
A hovering grey shape said, Warning. Danger. The one calling itself Lady LeJean may give
unsafe advice. Warning.
'Understood,' said one of the incarnate ones. 'We know the way. We will lead.'
It walked into the door.
The Auditors clustered around the door for a while, and then one of them glared at Lady
LeJean, who smiled.
'Doorknob,' she said.
The Auditor turned back to the door, stared at the brass knob, and then looked the door up
and down. It dissolved into dust.
'Doorknob was simpler,' said Lady LeJean.
Tick
There were big mountains around the Hub. But the ones towering above the temple didn't all
have names, because there were simply too many of them. Only gods have enough time to
name all the pebbles on a beach, but gods don't have the patience.
Copperhead was small enough to be big enough to have a name. Lobsang awoke and saw its
crooked peak, towering above the lesser local mountains, outlined against the sunrise.
Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink
and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthusiastic
amateur who'd never looked at a real sunset. This was one of those sunrises. It was the kind
of sunrise a man looks at and says, 'No real sunrise could paint the sky Surgical Appliance
Pink.'
Nevertheless, it was beautiful.[15]
Lobsang was half covered in a pile of dry bracken. There was no sign of the yeti.
It was springtime here. There was still snow, but with the occasional patch of bare soil and a
hint of green. He stared around, and saw leaves in bud.
Lu-Tze was standing some way off, gazing up into a tree. He didn't turn his head as Lobsang
approached.
'Where's the yeti?'
'He wouldn't go further than this. Can't ask a yeti to leave snow,' whispered Lu-Tze.
'Oh,' whispered Lobsang. 'Er, why are we whispering?'
'Look at the bird.'

 
 
  
It was perched on a branch by a fork in the tree, next to what looked like a birdhouse, and
nibbling at a piece of roughly round wood it held in one claw.
'Must be an old nest they're repairing,' said Lu-Tze. 'Can't have got that advanced this early in
the season.'
'Looks like some kind of old box to me,' said Lobsang. He squinted to see better. 'Is it an old
... clock?' he added.
'Look at what the bird is nibbling,' suggested Lu-Tze.
'Well, it looks like... a crude gearwheel? But why-'
'Well spotted. That, lad, is a clock cuckoo. A young one, by the look of it, trying to build a
nest that'll attract a mate. Not much chance of that... See? It's got the numerals all wrong and
it's stuck the hands on crooked.'
'A bird that builds clocks? I thought a cuckoo clock was a clock with a mechanical cuckoo
that came out when-'
'And where do you think people got such a strange idea from?'
'But that's some kind of miracle!'
'Why?' said Lu-Tze. 'They barely go for more than half an hour, they keep lousy time and the
poor dumb males go frantic trying to keep them wound.'
'But even to-'
'Everything happens somewhere, I suppose,' said Lu-Tze. 'Not worth making too much of a
fuss. Got any food left?'
'No. We finished it last night,' said Lobsang. He added, hopefully, 'Er ... I heard tell that
really advanced monks can live on the, er, life force in the actual air itself...'
'Only on the planet Sausage, I expect,' said Lu-Tze. 'No, we'll skirt Copperhead and find
something in the valleys on the other side. Let's go, there's not much time.'
But time enough to watch a bird, thought Lobsang as he let the world around him become
blue and fade, and the thought was comforting.
It was easier going without the snow on the ground, provided he avoided the strange
resistance offered by bushes and long grass. Lu-Tze walked on ahead, looking oddly
colourful and unreal against the faded landscape.
They went past the entrance to dwarf mines, but saw no one above ground. Lobsang was glad
of that. The statues he had seen in the villages yesterday weren't dead, he knew, but merely
frozen at a different speed of time. Lu-Tze had forbidden him to go near anyone, but he
needn't have bothered. Walking around the living statues was invasive, somehow. It made it
worse when you realized that they were moving, but very, very slowly...