Book 8 - Page 43 (1/2)

“Not with your lucky arrow,” said n.o.bby.

' “That's right. But, just out of interest, how far down is it, d'you think?” said Colon.

“About thirty feet, I'd say. Give or take.”

“Thirty feet.” Colon nodded slowly. “That's what I'd reckon. And it's deep, is it?”

“Very deep, I've heard.”

“I'll take your word for it. It looks pretty mucky. I'd hate to have to jump in it.”

Carrot slapped him cheerfully on the back, nearly pus.h.i.+ng him over, and said, “What's up, Sarge? Do you want to live for ever?”

“Dunno. Ask me again in five hundred years.”

“It's a good job we've got your lucky arrow, then!” said Carrot.

“Hmm?” said Colon, who seemed to be in a miserable daydream world of his own.

“I mean, it's a good job we've got a last desperate million-to-one chance to rely on, or we'd really be in trouble!” “Oh, yes,” said n.o.bby sadly. “Lucky old us.”

The Patrician lay back. A couple of rats dragged a cus.h.i.+on under his head.

“Things are rather bad outside, I gather,” he said.

“Yes,” said Vimes bitterly. “You're right. You're the safest man in the city.”

He wedged another knife in a crack in the stones and tested his weight carefully, while Lord Vetinari looked on with interest. He'd managed to get six feet off the floor and up to a level with the grille.

Now he started to hack at the mortar around the bars.

...

The Patrician watched him for a while, and then took a book off the little shelf beside him. Since the rats couldn't read the library he'd been able to a.s.semble was a little baroque, but he was not a man to ignore fresh knowledge. He found his bookmark in the pages of Lacemaking Through the Ages, and read a few pages.

After a while he found it necessary to brush a few crumbs of mortar off the book, and looked up.

“Are you achieving success?” he inquired politely.

Vimes gritted his teeth and hacked away. Outside the little grille was a grubby courtyard, barely lighter than the cell. There was a midden in one corner, but currently it looked very attractive. More attractive than the dungeon, at any rate. An honest midden was preferable to the way Ankh-Morpork was going these days. It was probably allegorical, or something.

He stabbed, stabbed, stabbed. The knife blade tw.a.n.ged and shook in his hand.

...

The Librarian scratched his armpits thoughtfully. He was facing problems of his own.

He had come here full of rage against book thieves and that rage still burned. But the seditious thought had occurred to him that, although crimes against books were the worst kind of crimes, revenge ought, perhaps, to be postponed.

It occurred to him that, while of course what humans chose to do to one another was all one to him, there were certain activities that should be curtailed in case the perpetrators got over-confident and started doing things like that to books, too.

The Librarian stared at his badge again, and gave it a gentle nibble in the optimistic hope that it had become edible. No doubt about it, he had a Duty to the captain.

The captain had always been kind to him. And the captain had a badge, too.

Yes.

There were times when an ape had to do what a man had to do ...

The orangutan threw a complex salute and swung away into the darkness.

...

The sun rose higher, rolling through the mists and stale smoke like a lost balloon.

The rank sat in the shade of a chimney stack, waiting and killing time in their various ways. n.o.bby was thoughtfully probing the contents of a nostril, Carrot was writing a letter home, and Sergeant Colon was worrying.

After a while he s.h.i.+fted his weight uneasily and said, “I’ve fought of a problem,”

“Wa.s.sat, Sarge?” said Carrot.

Sergeant Colon looked wretched. “Weeell, what if it's not a million-to-one chance?” he said.

n.o.bby stared at him.

“What d'you mean?” he said. “Well, all right, last desperate million-to-one chances always work, right, no problem, but. . . well, it's pretty wossname, specific. I mean, isn't it?” “You tell me,” said n.o.bby. “What if it's just a thousand-to-one chance?” said Colon agonisedly. “What?”

“Anyone ever heard of a thousand-to-one shot coming up?”

Carrot looked up. “Don't be daft, Sergeant,” he said. “No-one ever saw a thousand-to-one chance come up. The odds against it are-” his lips moved- “millions to one.” “Yeah. Millions,” agreed n.o.bby. “So it'd only work if it's your actual million-to-one chance,” said the sergeant. “I suppose that's right,” said n.o.bby. “So 999,943-to-one, for example-” Colon began. Carrot shook his head. “Wouldn't have a hope. No-one ever said, 'It's a 999,943-to-one chance but it might just work.' ”

They stared out across the city in the silence of ferocious mental calculation.

“We could have a real problem here,” said Colon eventually.

Carrot started to scribble furiously. When questioned, he explained at length about how you found the surface area of a dragon and then tried to estimate the chances of an arrow hitting any one spot. “Aimed, mind,” said Sergeant Colon. “I aim. ” n.o.bby coughed.

“In that case it's got to be a lot less than a million-to-one chance,” said Carrot. “It could be a hundred-to-one. If the dragon's flying slowly and it's a big spot, it could be practically a certainty.” Colon's lips shaped themselves around the phrase,

It's a certainty but it might just work. He shook his head. “Nah,” he said.

“So what we've got to do, then,” said n.o.bby slowly, “is adjust the odds ...”