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She fell burning through the atmosphere of this new world. The heat burned away the cocoon that had allowed Her to survive those thousands of years in the cold, merciless vacuum of space. She was now a shooting star of bright light across the sky seen only by a small handful of beings who happened to be awake in the dead of night and looking at the right part of the heavens. Then She smashed into the ground with a tremendous impact that created a smoking crater and the smell of burning cabbage. She was intact and unhurt. She had survived her millennium long sojourn among the stars and now She had a new world to explore, to dominate and to conquer. There was no time to waste and so She began to produce the drones that would be sent out to explore and report back to Her. Soon, this world would be Hers and Her rule would not be a gentle one.

* * *

Commander Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch sat behind his desk in his office in Pseudopolis Yard and scowled at the “woman” in front of him. He had mentally inserted those quotation marks around her gender and then mentally cursed himself for doing that. People couldn’t help being what they were born, but it wasn’t always easy to remember that. It hadn’t been made easier by the meeting he had had with Lord Vetinari three days ago.

“I can’t help but notice there is one category that seems unrepresented in the Watch,” the Patrician had said in his most polite voice.

Vimes hated that voice since it made him feel like he was back in school again being asked where his slate was. He had rather doubted that Vetinari would like his response that he had broken it over Nubber Dickens’ head for calling him a brown noser any more than his teacher had. “I don’t know what you mean,” he had replied scrunching up his face in thought. “We have dwarves by the bushel, trolls by the quarry, a werewolf, a golem, a vampire, an Igor and Buggy Squires is a pixie. We’ve even got a zombie with Reg Shoe, though some days he isn’t quite all there on account of some parts falling off. I know Nobby has a letter, certifying he is human, but I think that’s largely because no other species wants to claim him, including the goblins and we hired our first goblin last month. Whistling In The Dark Woods is showing promise of being a good copper.”

“I fail to notice any women in that recitation,” Vetinari had said with a sigh.

“Women?” Vimes had said in a truly puzzled voice. “You know Angua and she is a Captain and then there is Sally and Cheery Littlebottom. I think some of the other dwarves are female, but its not considered polite to ask the gender behind the beard. You just notice a bit of lipstick or a few frills on their iron boots and you wonder, but you aren’t allowed to actually ask or they might decide to use that axe with a ribbon tied around the handle to object.”

“Let me be more specific,” Vetinari had replied. “I am quite aware of the individuals you have mentioned, but they are first and foremost a werewolf, a vampire and a dwarf. I quite fail to see any human females among the Watch.”

“Of course there are,” Vimes had replied. “There is …,” and he had ground to a halt and realized that no, there wasn’t anyone. Anyone who took one look at Angua or Sally could tell they were female, though with the dwarves as he had pointed out, it was a little trickier.

That conversation with Vetinari had brought him to this moment and his scowl. He had put up posters saying the Watch was looking for more female officers and had even ran an ad in the Times. The problem was that the “woman” in front of him didn’t solve his problem. Oh she was female, so she met half his requirement, but not the part about being human so very much. It started with the sunglasses and what was behind them. They were very dark sun glasses since without them, one look from a Gorgon would turn a person to stone. Just for a moment, Vimes wondered what a Gorgon’s gaze would do to a troll who was basically stone to start with, but it seemed impolite to ask that question. The second very noticeable thing about the “woman” was her bright yellow hair scarf. Well, he supposed it was technically a “snake scarf” since Gorgons had snakes in place of hair and wore the scarf in cities to cover them up, since a mass of writhing snakes on someone’s head tended to be just a little off putting for most people. The scarf helped a bit, but you couldn’t help but notice something was moving around under it. That must make any romantic moments even more tense than they could so often already be with humans.

“Why do you want to join the Watch Miss …,” damn Carrot had given him a paper with her name on it, but the bloody thing had been swallowed by the more voracious papers on his desk.

“Melody,” supplied the Gorgon. “To be honest Commander, there aren’t many, if any people in this city who want to hire a Gorgon. It isn’t even a fetish that the Seamstress Guild has any call for and according to Mrs. Palm, they get some rather unusual requests from their clients.”

“I bet they bloody well do,” muttered Vimes. “Look Miss, er do you have a last name? I don’t know much about Gorgons other than what everyone thinks they know. I can’t have one of my officers turning civilians into stone. I must admit that it would be tempting sometimes when they come around complaining about their neighbor’s dog peeing on their lawn and wanting me to throw them in jail for it, but I generally just get Detritus to loom over them until they leave.”

“No last name sir, sorry about that,” replied Melody. “I’m afraid that a lot of things about Gorgons are a mystery even to Gorgons. We are always born in threes, from eggs in some remote cave. We are born knowing our names, rather than anyone giving them to us. My sisters are Harmony and Beatrice.”

“Beatrice?” repeated Vimes with a frown. “One of those names doesn’t quite belong does it?”

“Er, Beatrice is a bit of a rebel for a Gorgon sir. Her real name is Beat, but she didn’t like it.”

Vimes found himself becoming fascinated with the whole topic of Gorgons despite himself. “But eggs have to come from somewhere don’t they? I mean if you get pregnant,” he blushed as he said the word, but ploughed on. “Do you um lay eggs?”

“No Gorgon has ever got pregnant sir,” replied Melody matter-of-factly. “There are no male Gorgons to start with and as for us being sexually compatible with other species, that has to my knowledge never come up.”

“Yes, I imagine turning hard as stone wouldn’t help in this case,” and then Vimes caught the possible double meaning of what he had said and blushed some more. “Er, you know what I mean,” he added weakly.

“Yes sir,” replied Melody who had heard all the jokes before a thousand times and at least this man had just stumbled into them, rather than trying to be “funny”. “I am afraid the snakes don’t help either sir,” she added.

“It’s bloody discrimination, that is what it is,” said a low voice from under the head scarf.

“Sshh Penelope,” said a second voice from under the scarf. “We don’t want to blow it for the kid.”

“I still say we should never have left the cave,” whined a third voice.

“It was bloody damn cold in that cave in the winter,” piped up a fourth voice.

“Listen, will you lot shut the hell up!” scream whispered the second voice.

Vimes sat there frozen, staring at the movement under the scarf. He could see Melody turning beet red and decided to try and ignore what he had just heard. “Go on with what you were saying,” he said with a wave of his hand, “before we were um interrupted.”

“No one seems to know where Gorgon eggs come from,” said Melody after a moment to try and regain her composure. “Of course there is the nasty rumour that is spread about us. People say Gorgons are created when the gods curse a woman who has had sex in one of the holy temples. Blind Io and Offler are most often blamed, but they are on record as denying they have anything to do with Gorgons. Considering what the gods get up to, I doubt they would care and it doesn’t explain the eggs and the cave and always being in threes. As for the whole turning people to stone bit, that isn’t really accurate. If we look at someone, they become totally frozen and paralyzed with their skin becoming rougher and more stonelike, but they don’t actually physically transmute into stone. I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of difference when someone stumbles on a Gorgon in a cave because they probably end up starving to death in that state. The wizards are supposed to have a spell to treat it, but often there isn’t a wizard around there in the wilderness to do anything in time. Anyway, when we have to mingle with humans, we wear our sunglasses that keep them safe.”

“Most of the damn humans deserve to be turned to stone if you ask me,” said what sounded like the first voice from under the scarf.

“Oh be quiet Penelope,” hissed the second voice.

“Alright, I will give you a try,” said Vimes with a sigh. “If you screw up, you are out.” Vimes paused to consider this statement and added, “screw up more than normal that is.” You couldn’t be too judgemental when you had Colon and a Nobby in the Watch. “Go downstairs and find Sergeant Colon, he is the fat human at the big desk and tell him I’ve approved you. Colon will be in charge of setting up your training and getting you kitted out.”

“Yes sir! Thank you sir!” exclaimed Melody who hurried out the door, but not before Vimes heard a few more comments from under the scarf.

“He’s kind of cute isn’t he?”

“You are just saying that because of his stone face,” said another voice which might or might not have been the one identified as Penelope. “Personally, I think he is a jerk.”

* * *

There was a polite knock on Vimes’ door and he called out for the knocker to come in. This would be the second and last candidate that the advertising had drummed up. Vimes looked up from searching his desk for the piece of paper that Carrot had given him and saw a more promising sight. No sunglasses, no fangs, no visible fur or other signs that what stood in front of him wasn’t a one hundred percent human female as specified by his Lordship. In fact, she looked very female and he wondered if the armourer would be able to make a couple of large enough dents in the male only chest plates the Watch had to accommodate the potential Lance Constable. She was also going to have some trouble fitting all that long dark hair into a standard one size fits none Watch helmet.

“So, why do you want to be a copper?” Vimes asked as he continued his search and then hastily shoved some papers over a half eaten bacon sandwich from two days ago.

“To prod buttock sir,” said the young woman with an attempt at a salute.

Vimes resisted the impulse to point out that this might also describe some of the work done at Mrs. Palm’s house, but decided against it. He frowned slightly as he looked at the woman closer and thought she looked vaguely familiar. She also had apparently been near Captain Carrot at some point to have heard that genteel form of what a copper sometimes had to do. “I’m sorry, but I seem to have misplaced the sheet with your name on it.”

“Victoria sir,” said the woman with another salute.

“You can skip all the saluting,” Vimes replied, “at least when you’re not out in public and making some kind of formal report. What’s your last name, or is that secret?”

“Cheese sir,” said Victoria and aborted her salute halfway through.

“Victoria Cheese?” echoed Vimes. “Vicky Cheese? Little Vicky Cheese?” and Vimes held out a hand at about the height of the desk. “Not the little Vicky Cheese whose dad owns the bar that all the coppers drink in? That can’t be you. I mean, you’re only, she’s only this high,” and again he held out his hand at desktop level.

“I hit a bit of a growth spurt sir,” replied Vicky. “You saw me helping dad last week when you were there celebrating Constable Haddock’s birthday.”

“That was you?” asked Vimes incredulously. “You pretty much grew up in a bar full of coppers and you still want to be one? I’ve been a copper most of my life and so I know coppers. If I had a daughter, the last thing in the world I would want her to be was a copper.”

“I want to serve my community sir,” replied Vicky.

“Isn’t that what you have been doing as a waitress?” asked Vimes, still trying to wrap his mind around why this woman who had seen coppers at their worst and still wanted to be one. Surely, she couldn’t be mentally stable.

“I feel a calling sir,” said Vicky.

“What does your dad think about your calling?” asked Vimes.

“Er, I’m of age sir and I um haven’t got around to telling him yet,” answered Vicky.

“I mean, you know what coppers can be like,” went on Vimes. “I mean just last week some of them were trying to pinch the bottom of the waitress and …,” Vimes stopped. “Er, that was you wasn’t it?”

“Yes sir,” replied Vicky. “Captain Carrot had a long chat with them about that sir and then Captain Angua growled at them. Nobody has done anything since then.”

I bet not, thought Vimes and oddly enough Carrot’s lecture would have made them feel just as bad as Angua staring at their jugulars. “Alright, you’re in for now. I expect you to talk it over with your dad, even if you are legally old enough to make the decision without his approval. The crew likes his bar and they wouldn’t be happy if something happened to cause them to lose it.”

“Yes sir,” replied Vicky and her saluting reflex cut in again before she could stop it.

“Report to Sergeant Colon and I doubt I have to tell you what he looks like do I?” said Vimes.

“No sir, fat, er I mean stout man who sweats a lot, drinks Winkles Old Peculiar, normally forgets to tip and almost always sits with the little corporal with spotty skin who nicks the tip money when no one is looking, replied Vicky.

“You got it in one,” agreed Vimes and decided he had better return one of the woman’s salutes as she threw him another one and turning, marched out of the office with a determined stride.

* * *

Simon Morgan lived in the small village of Cabbage Leaf on the Sto Plains which should not be confused with the equally bustling metropolises of Cabbage Town, Cabbage Green, Cabbage View, Cabbage North, Cabbage River and for the purists who felt only one word was needed, Cabbage. The village had two streets, or at least they were described as streets by George Olson who was the President and only member of the Cabbage Leaf Chamber of Commerce, but muddy paths would have probably been more accurate. At their intersection were the four essential buildings of any self respecting plains village, namely a bar, a combination livery stable and blacksmith shop, a store and of course a cabbage warehouse. The warehouse also doubled as the local dance hall once the cabbages were shovelled to the side. Beyond the intersection were half a dozen houses for the people that worked the local businesses and beyond them were the cabbage fields. Stretching to the horizon

This morning, Simple Simon as he was known to the rest of the town was on a mission. Before we get to that mission, you need to know how Simon got that nickname. Partly it was because he wasn’t very good at following instructions and partly because he wasn’t as they say in Cabbage Leaf, the sharpest cabbage in the field. Considering the rather round nature of cabbages and their distinct lack of pointyness to begin with, this saying may tell you more about Cabbage Leaf than it does about Simon. Now back to Simon’s mission. He had seen the light shooting across the sky the previous night and was sure that whatever had caused it, had crashed to the ground no more than a mile from town turnwise. That should put it in Joe Green’s fields and Simon set out to see what it was. What work he did was mainly to help unload the cabbage wagons at the cabbage warehouse and there were no shipments due in today.

It wasn’t hard to find the spot since there was a large crater in the middle of Joe’s best cabbage field and Joe himself was standing on the edge of the crater. “Hey Joe,” Simon called to the farmer as he got nearer, “can you see what caused the crater?” There was no reply from Joe who just continued to stare into the hole without turning to look at Simon, or give any other indication he had heard him. “What’s the matter with you Joe?” asked Simon coming up beside him. “You go deaf or something?” The jesting words died in the face of the silent, blank eyed look that the farmer turned to regard Simon with. “Hey Joe, what’s going on? You look a mite weird,” said Simon backing up a step.

“She wants our help Simon,” said Joe in a wooden voice, devoid of any expression.

“She?” echoed Simon uncertainly. “Is there a woman down in the crater? Did someone fall in?” Joe’s wife was dead in a tragic cabbage slide years ago and his kids, one boy and one girl, had both moved to Ankh-Morpork. They claimed that despite all the evidence, that there was more to life than dang cabbages, though they hadn’t exactly said it that way.

“I serve her now,” said Joe in that same dead voice. “Now, you will serve her too.”

Simon didn’t think much of the way Joe was talking and acting and he took another step away from the farmer. Just then, however, he felt something on his leg and he looked down to see the largest spider he had ever seen, though of course he hadn’t got a good look at the bottom of the crater yet, or that record would have been quickly eclipsed by quite a margin. Simon gave an involuntary yelp and shook his leg to try and dislodge the creature, but it hung on and then with incredible speed rushed upwards and under Simon’s shirt. “Get it off of me!” he screamed in panic, but Joe just stood there watching calmly. Simon felt the thing skittle around to his back and then a horrible pain just at the base of his neck.

“You understand what we must do now,” said Joe.

“I understand,” replied Simon in an equally lifeless voice and stooped to pick up one of the large covered baskets that had sat by Joe’s feet that he hadn’t noticed until now. The basket was quite heavy and seemed to pulse as if it contained something that moved around a lot more than the average cabbage. “We must take these to Ankh-Morpork,” he said as Joe picked up the second basket and they headed for the stable where Joe kept his horse and cart. The horse could be heard screaming and trying to kick its way out of its stall as they approached.

* * *

“I dunno Fred,” said Nobby.
“just when I think things can’t get any weirder in the Watch, we enlist a bloody Gorgon. If she gets mad at you, all she has to do is take off those glasses and presto, you are the newest statue in Sator Square.”

As he was speaking, Nobby was making another decrepit roll-up which was something that always baffled Fred Colon. He had known Nobby since he was eight or nine, no one including Nobby was sure how old he was, and Nobby had started making his own cigarettes way back then, but they still looked liked Detritus had stepped on them. The two veteran Watchmen were doing what they did best which was to watch while others did something. In this case, they were watching the two new recruits practicing their sword work with the straw dummies in the yard behind the station. At the moment, it appeared that the dummies were winning as neither woman had ever handled a sword before in their lives whereas the dummies had years of practice under their belts.

“Mr. Vimes says we have to keep changing with the times,” said Fred as he watched an especially cunning move by one of the dummies as it knocked the sword out of Vicky’s hand and it clattered on the cobbles.

“Well, I haven’t changed my underwear in three years,” said Nobby proudly.

“That’s not the kind of information you want to always share,” replied Fred absently as he took a step back away from Nobby on reflex. “It isn’t something that is likely to attract the ladies.”

“You might be right Fred,” said Nobby as he took a deep drag on his cigarette and began to cough. “My love life has been in the toilet lately.”

That seemed like an appropriate metaphor, reflected Fred. “What about that goblin girl you were dating for a while?”

“She ditched me Fred,” complained Nobby. “She said I smelled funny. Do you think I smell funny Fred?”

“It’s not something I am qualified to comment on Nobby,” said Fred and hastily took another step backwards just in case any olfactory requests were forthcoming from Nobby.

Back on the training field, Vicki had recovered her sword and was now at least holding her own against her dummy. Melody had gotten frustrated with the sword, dropped it on the ground and punched the dummy hard.

“Whew Fred, I didn’t know Gorgons were that strong,” said Nobby as the dummy disintegrated as if someone had exploded a charge of black powder in the middle of it.

“I reckon they have to have good muscles to move the stone people around afterwards,” said Fred. “That punch was worthy of Detritus.”

* * *

Who watches the watchers?

In this case, it was not an ethical or philosophical question, but a rather practical one. The answer was Captain Carrot and Captain Angua from a second story window of the watchhouse.

“I don’t understand,” said Angua as she watched Vicky lose her sword to yet another cunning countermove by the dummy while Fred and Nobby just lounged against the wall and watched. “Why does Mr. Vimes always start out the training of new recruits with Fred and Nobby? All they do is stand there gossiping and smoking. The dummies are teaching the new recruits more than they are.”

“I think Mr. Vimes figures if the new recruits can survive baptism by Fred and Nobby that they can survive just about anything,” replied Carrot as he watched Melody miss the target with a crossbow bolt and also the wall.

“Gods, I hope that didn’t hit anyone,” moaned Angua.

“I’m afraid it did,” said Carrot pointing to the rear courtyard door that had just opened and a rather angry looking Reg Shoe was lurching across the courtyard towards the stunned looking Melody with the crossbow bolt projecting from his chest.

“We have to pay for our own armour repairs you know,” yelled Reg as he yanked the arrow out and dropped it on the ground in front of the Gorgon. The Zombie then snatched the crossbow out of the woman’s hands and marched over to where Fred and Nobby stood laughing, or in Nobby’s case choking as he had swallowed his dogend from laughing too hard. “Don’t let her have this back until you bloody well teach her how to use it properly!” With that, Reg headed for the back door of the watchhouse where he kept his often needed armour repair kit.

“I swear if he wasn’t already dead, he would have died at least three times this month,” said Angua trying not to laugh.

* * *

“Congratulations ladies, you set a new Watch record,” said Sergeant Colon as the two flushed and out of breath recruits did their best to come to attention in front of him after several hours of training with the dummies.

“Really?” asked Vicky. “I wasn’t sure we were doing so great.”

“Yep,” replied Colon with a smirk. “I scored it Dummies 3 Recruits 2. Congratulations, you are the first recruits to ever lose a training match with straw dummies.”

Vicky felt her face crumble at that comment and looked over to see that Melody was equally dejected looking. “We’ll do better tomorrow Sarge,” she promised.

“Yes and there might be two moons in the sky tonight,” snickered Nobby from where he was leaning against the wall behind Colon.

“Come on kid, let me bite him,” came a muffled voice from under Melody’s head scarf.

“No, you would probably catch something nasty,” Melody whispered back.

“What was that Lance Constable Melody?” asked Colon. He had meant to put some bite into that question, but his eyes were too busy watching the writhing movement under the Gorgon’s head covering. He suddenly was thinking it might not be such a great idea to go too hard on this particular recruit.

“Er, I think it was just my stomach rumbling Sergeant,” replied Melody. “I haven’t eaten much today.”

“It sounded like a pretty aromatic stomach to me,” grumbled Colon who was rather proud of his use of the word “aromatic”. On his last birthday, Constable Visit had given him a book called “Expand Your Vocabulary” that featured a word a day for a year. Fred had wondered if Visit had been playing a joke on him since he had just a few days before royally reamed out the man for leaving his damn religious pamphlets all over the watchhouse, but the Omnian didn’t seem to know what humour was. The book with words and definitions had even been handwritten which Visit had explained showed extreme reverence among his people. Colon had felt rather smug watching the confused looks on the faces of those he made a point of using his new vocabulary on like Lance Constable Melody just now. Their looks of confusion and bafflement proved they weren’t as lobotomized as he was. Hah, they probably didn’t know lobotomized meant someone who spoke very well which now that he came to think of it was a cinnamon of aromatic according to the book. His new vocabulary even foxed some of the supposedly high and mighty in Ankh-Morpork. Why just the other day, Lord Downey, head of the Assassin’s Guild had stopped by the watchhouse to complain about one of his students being hassled by a watchman wile on a training session in the city. He had told the assassin that he thought the man’s complaint was flatulent. Lord Downey had been so impressed with his vocabulary that he had immediately dropped his complaint and left. Colon hadn’t been sure what it meant when he heard the assassin muttering something under his breath about “no one would take such a small contract, but maybe he would do it pro bono.”

“Well, you better give it some food then,” sniffed Fred returning his attention to the recruit, “so as it doesn’t talk back so much.” There was what sounded like a suppressed giggle from Vicky and feeling his authority under question, Colon turned to glare at the other new recruit. “Did I perhaps say something funny Lance Constable Vicky? Perhaps a couple hundred push-ups would help you be more serious?”

Colon heard someone stir behind him and then turned as Nobby tugged on his arm and beckoned him to lean down while he whispered something in his ear. “His daughter?” More whispering from Nobby. “”Of course I tip her and don’t want anyone gobbing in my beer.” Fred straightened up and gave Vicky a much friendlier look than he had a few seconds earlier. “Well, I am sure we are all tired from a long day of training and my tired ears misheard something. I think we should call it quits for the day and perhaps all go have a drink to show there are no hard feelings eh?”

* * *

Melody peered unhappily into the woman’s shower room and stepped back. “I can’t she told Vicky, “showers just don’t work for me.”

“But it’s beautiful,” said an astonished Vicky gazing in awe at the marble tiles and gleaming chrome fixtures. “I never would have dreamt this old watchhouse had anything like it.”

‘”It didn’t until two weeks ago,” said a new voice from the locker room door.

Both of the recruits turned to see Captain Angua lounging against the doorframe and they struggled to come to attention and salute while still holding the towels in place wrapped around their bodies. “At ease ladies, this is an informal setting and you aren’t dressed for marching.”

The two Lance Constables both sighed and visibly relaxed. “What did you mean when you said that hadn’t been there two weeks ago?” asked Vicky , nodding towards the shower room.

“Oh we had a shower room, just one for both the men and women,” replied Angua and she caught their surprised and horrified looks. “No, we didn’t use it at the same time, we took turns. It was rather gross and we always had to have someone standing guard at the door in case some of the guys got curious. There was an old rusted tank with a wood heater that gave you hot water if you showered real quick and didn’t mind the odd flake of rust in your hair. Lord Vetinari came on a tour and saw it. The next day, he sent Leonard over and he designed new showers and locker rooms for both the men and women then supervised their building.

“Who’s this Leonard? Asked Melody.

Leonard of Quirm,” replied Angua, “he is a genius and maybe the smartest person on the Disc. Leonard claimed he was actually using some designs his father had made, but wouldn’t elaborate since he said it might bias us against them for some reason. The only change we had to make when he was done was to remove the siege crossbow that fired thirty rounds a minute at anyone coming within ten feet of the door while the shower was active. Leonard said it was just an afterthought that he thought of while redesigning the shower-head to give relaxing massages and he was sure none of the nice fellows around here would dream of trying to sneak a peek.”

“He really said that?” asked Vicky incredulously.

“Leonard doesn’t get out much,” replied Angua, “and to be fair he put the same security mechanism in the men’s shower as well which really pissed Sally off.”

“Sally?” asked Melody.

“Sergeant Sally von Humpeding,” replied Angua. “She’s a vampire and those wooden crossbow bolts can really put a crimp in a vampire’s day.”

“But she wouldn’t try and sneak peeks at the men showering would she?” gasped Vicky.

“You haven’t met Sally,” answered Angua. “Frankly, it would serve her right if she caught a glimpse of Nobby instead of Carrot, though there isn’t much chance of that happening since Nobby is absolutely famous for not showering.”

“You mean he doesn’t shower after every shift, or only like once a week?” asked Vicky who was trying not to shudder at the thought of seeing Nobby Nobbs in the altogether.

“I mean ever,” said Angua with a roll of her eyes. “He hasn’t changed his underwear in three years either as my nose can testify. If the Ankh weren’t such an open sewer, I would push him in and give him a bath. I swear that even when it rains, the water tries to avoid contact with him.”

“Well, I really do appreciate the work that was done,” said Melody, “but for um personal reasons, I have to stick to baths.”

“Damn right,” said a voice from under her head scarf.

“Will you please shut up Penelope,” complained a second voice. “Everyone will think the kid is weird.”

Vicky gulped and took a step away from Melody looking like she was ready to make a run for it even if all she was currently wearing was a towel and the place filled with lecherous coppers.

Angua didn’t look surprised or upset. “I take it, those are your snakes?” she asked calmly.

“Yes,” replied Melody in a whisper as once again she resembled a certain root vegetable in colouring. “You don’t seem surprised that they …,” Melody trailed off.

“That they can talk and think independently,” finished Angua and she gave her head a shake. “There was a trio of Gorgons back near my home town in Uberwald. Very nice girls who were really into synchronized gymnastics. I got to know them and their snakes pretty well. Would you mind introducing us?” Angua looked over at the clearly uncomfortable Vicky and gave her a reassuring smile, being careful not to flash too much fang. “You worked in a bar and should be used to all kinds of different people. As Mr. Vimes says, none of us can help how we are born and in this job you are going to encounter a lot of strangeness, so you need to learn how to deal with it.”

“Yes ma’am,” gulped Vicky nervously.

“I promise they won’t bite,” said Melody looking shyly at her fellow recruit.

“I didn’t promise a damn thing,” snapped the voice of what they all now knew to be Penelope.

“She’s just kidding,” said a second voice. “Her hiss is worse than her venom.”

“Venom?” squeaked Vicky.

“It will be ok really,” said Melody with a sigh as she reached up and undid the complex knot that held the yellow head scarf tightly in place. The cloth came free and four snake heads were suddenly rising up to peer at Vicky and Angua. “You sort of know Penelope I guess,” said Melody as she reached up to touch one of the snakes. As she touched each snake in turn, Melody introduced them as Phoebe, Portia and Priscilla.

“Penelope is a real sweetheart when you get to know her better,” said Phoebe who the other two women recognized as the voice that had been shushing Penelope.

To Vicky’s surprise, each of the four snakes had both a distinctive voice and could be told apart visually if you looked closer which she found herself doing despite her nervousness. All of them were mainly green with some brown scales, but there were variations. Penelope had an odd little white diamond scale on her head, Phoebe had a ring of brown scales that looked sort of like a collar, Portia’s tail was almost completely brown and Priscilla’s skin gave the feeling of racing stripes from the positioning of the brown scales down the length of her coiled body.

“The girls don’t like water much,” explained Melody.

“It dries out my skin,” said Penelope. “Removes all the natural oils and causes cracking. You wouldn’t want to see me when that happens.”

“You cracked up years ago dear if you ask me,” snorted Portia.

“Nobody asked your opinion,” snaped Penelope.

“Will you two stop bickering,” said Priscilla. “I’m tired and I want to take a nap, but I can’t get to sleep with you nattering at each other.”

“They don’t hiss when they talk,” said Vicky who seemed to be finding the rather normal sounding conversation overcoming her initial trepidation.

“Hissing?” repeat Penelope disdainfully. “That’s ethnic stereotyping that is. I should sue!”

“I’m sorry,” apologized Vicky. “It’s just that in all the children’s books when they have things like talking snakes, the snakes always hiss when the speak.”

“That’s just lack of imagination on the writer’s part I am afraid,” said Phoebe with a sigh.

“Once you get to know us, we are just like any other snakes you will meet,” put in Portia.

“Er, I’ve never met any other snakes,” replied Vicky, “and I didn’t think all snakes talked.”

“Most humans don’t stick around long enough to find out that snakes can talk,” snickered Penelope. “They are too busy screaming and running away.” With that Penelope stuck out her forked tongue and faked a lunge at the dark haired woman.

“Hah, I’ve met bar patrons like you,” responded Vicky without shrinking back. “Lots of big talk and they hide under the tables when the fighting starts.”

“She’s got your number alright Penelope,” snickered Portia.

“Well, I’m sure we are both happy to meet all four of you,” interjected Angua. “Go shower Vicky while I have a little chat with Melody and her four friends.” Vicky nodded and managed a salute without dislodging her towel and hurried into the shower room. A few moments later, Angua and Melody heard the water running and Angua turned back to the Gorgon. “Have you found a place to stay yet?”

“No ma’am,” replied Melody miserably. “None of the rooming houses want a Gorgon it seems. One man yelled at me and said he had enough damn rocks in his garden as it was.”

“I would like to say it is only a small number of humans who are like that, but there are more than you would think. Even the ones who come out to the Inhuman Pride parades and claim to support diversity can act like that when no one is around to hear them. To be fair though, most of the non human species can be just as nasty about other non humans. Oh, trolls and dwarves get along a lot better than they used to, but it doesn’t take much for the “rock” and “short stuff” insults to start flying. As for a place to stay, once you get changed back into your civies, come and find me downstairs and I will take you to Mrs. Cake. She’s very understanding about renters who have special needs. It’s where I stay.”

“How do you happen to know all that?” asked Melody.

“She’s a damn werewolf,” said Penelope.

“That’s right,” affirmed Angua, but how did you know? Snakes aren’t famous for their sense of smell.”

“You could say I’ve got a fang fetish,” laughed Penelope.

* * *

Vicky walked partway with Angua and Melody on their way to Mrs. Cake’s rooming house then split off to have that little chat with her father over her choice of career. She was still living at home, but was hoping to be able to move out and find her own place now that she had a job. She wasn’t sure she wanted to take a room with Mrs. Cake, but hadn’t said anything to Melody since maybe a Gorgon would feel more at home there. Her father had said Mrs. Cake had volunteered to help the bartender’s guild a few years ago and the guild was still recovering from that act of charity. Mrs. Cake had tried to convince all the bartenders to stop serving alcohol and then had got rather huffy when it was pointed out that serving alcohol was the whole bloody point of being a bartender. They had only managed to get rid of her by putting a fake ad in the Times saying that the Shoemaker’s Guild was looking for someone to help them save souls. It hadn’t been their fault that there had been a typo in the ad was it? Mr. Taylor of the Shoemaker’s Guild had been rather angry about the whole thing and had threatened a boycott of all bars, but had changed his mind when his members revolted. After a week with Mrs. Cake helping them, they needed a drink more than ever and if Mr. Taylor got in the way, then he would make a fine pair or two of patent leather shoes.

Melody followed Angua into the large house and went with her to the kitchen where a young, red haired woman was sitting at the table idly rolling a pair of dice while making notes on a piece of paper and an older, much shorter and wider woman was stirring a pot on the stove. The older woman turned around and spoke before either Angua or Melody could say anything. “Yes I have a room and it’s alright if you can’t pay until the end of the week seeing as how Angua vouches for you.”

Melody turned a puzzled look on Angua , but before the werewolf could reply, the red haired woman spoke up. “You left your precognitive ability turned on again Mrs. Cake.” She then turned and gave Melody a smile. “You have to ask the question still, or it gives her a right proper headache.”

“I, um,” stammered Melody as she tried to adjust to this bit of weirdness. “Er, my name is Melody and I just started with the Watch and was wondering if you had a room to rent? I’m afraid I won’t be able to pay until the end of the week though.”

“I can vouch for her Mrs. Cake,” added Angua promptly.

Mrs. Cake stood there for a moment looking like she was replaying things in her head, then she nodded and gave the side of her head a little bang with the palm of her hand. “Right, I think that’s all sorted out now.”

“And people think we are weird,” came the voice of Penelope from under Melody’s scarf.

The redhead looked startled, but Mrs. Cake took it all in stride as she peered at the yellow scarf and the movements under it. “Oh, a Gorgon eh? No problem, I’ve had one or two stay here over the years. We never seem to have a mouse or rat problem when there is a Gorgon in the place. Very handy.”

There was a muffled sound from under the scarf as you might get if one snake was wrapping itself around the neck of another to prevent it from speaking.

The red haired woman got up from her chair and extended her hand to Melody. “My name’s Celine, I’m the manager of the casino. Pleased to meet you.”

Melody took the offered hand. “Melody,” she said repeating her name. “I am afraid I am not sure what a casino is. I don’t think we have them back in the mountains where I come from.”

“Well, they are pretty new,” replied Celine, “so I wouldn’t worry about that. It’s a place where people can play games of chance to try and win money. I shouldn’t tell you this since I run the casino, but the odds are always stacked in favour of the house. You have to be fortunate to come out ahead, but sometimes a little prayer to The Lady helps, though not always.” Celine fished in a pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Here is a five dollar voucher free of charge if you want to give the place a try.”

Melody took the paper uncertainly and looked past Celine to the dice on the table. “Oh, I think someone I met once mentioned games of chance before he um stopped talking. What were you doing when I came in?”

“Oh, just a little experiment I do when I have some free time,” explained Celine. “I was rolling the dice and recording the results. It is all about probability normally, but sometimes when the dice go wonky, it means The Lady is trying to tell me something.”

“That’s twice you have mentioned this lady,” said Melody. “Who is she?”

“That’s The Lady with two capital letters,” replied Celine. “She is one of the gods, but it is never a good idea to use her name unless you want your fortunes to change suddenly, so we just call her The Lady.”

“And are the dice er telling you anything today?” asked Melody.

Celine frowned. “They are acting up. I’ve been getting a lot more double sixes than I should, but I don’t know exactly what that means. Would you like to give them a try?”

“I don’t know the rules, protested Melody.

“No rules to this,” said Celine handing the Gorgon the dice. “Just roll them and see what you get.” Melody took the dice uncertainly and rolled them. They came up a pair of ones. “Try again,” said Celine in an unusually tense voice. Melody shrugged and rolled the dice again which once more came up with a pair of ones. Celine had Melody throw the dice half a dozen more times and they always came up with two ones. “The odds against that are astronomical,” murmured Celine. “Another word for that particular result is ‘snake eyes’,” and she looked at Melody speculatively.

“I can’t explain it,” said Melody. “I’ve never thrown dice in my life before, so maybe I wasn’t doing it right.”

“Hmmm, something unusual is going to happen I think,” said Celine as she looked over at Angua.

“This is Ankh-Morpork where the unusual is usual,” said Angua, “but I know what you mean and I will pass on the warning to Commander Vimes. Let me know if you get any more specific information.”

Celine nodded and was about to say something more when another person came into the kitchen. “Oh gods it is the girl who shot me,” said Reg Shoe as he glared at Melody.

“Oh come on Reg, it was an accident,” said Angua.

“And I’m really sorry,” said Melody as she extended her hand.

“Well, I suppose it was an accident,” replied Reg somewhat grudgingly as he held out his hand to shake with Melody.

“Um, here’s your finger back,” said Melody sheepishly as she realized Reg had extended five fingers, but had only taken four back.

“Sorry about that,” said Reg accepting the finger. “I think I got a bad batch of thread. I’ve had trouble all week with parts falling off.” The zombie looked over at Angua who had done her best to stifle a laugh and turn it into a cough. “Fall off more than usual,” he amended with a mild glare at the werewolf.

“Reg has a room here too,” said Angua. “If you find any body parts lying around the house, they probably belong to him.”

“I thought that finger looked delicious, you should have kept it kid,” said Penelope.

“She’s kidding,” said Melody hurriedly when Reg looked alarmed.

“Was not,” muttered Penelope.

“Oh gods, you are such a piece of baggage sometimes,” cut in Portia.

“Come along and I will show you your room,” said Angua, taking Melody by the arm before Reg could get too worked up.

“What’s for supper? Reg asked turning to look at Mrs. Cake, “and if you say ‘finger food’ then I’m going to find a new place to stay!”

* * *

She was puzzled. The long voyage in space had weakened Her a little, but She should have totally recovered her strength by now after landing on this planet. It had a very high magical field which should also have expedited Her healing. She had infected a number of beings using her drones which should be feeding back even more power to her, but She still felt weaker than She should. Well, Her first two slaves were almost to this large city called Ankh-Morpork. It was the largest city on this planet and there they would release the drones they were transporting. Those drones would spy out the land for Her and then She could select the optimum targets to infect, control and feed through. Her slaves were approaching the city gates and there were two guards there. That was good. Guards were always good to control. She would seize this pair and thus start Her conquest of this planet. Soon, the entire world would be bowing down to Her as was Her right.

* * *

Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs had signed themselves up to guard the hubwards gate. It was probably the safest duty in the Watch since Ankh-Morpork had long ago given up the idea of empire and settled down to dominating the Disk through the much nastier means of diplomacy and economics. If any other country decided they did want to attack Ankh-morpork, the Patrician would simply repossess their weapons, armour and horses that Ankh-Morpork had sold them, so the attackers would have to trudge home in their underwear. Sergeant Colon hoped if that did happen that the invading army at least changed their underwear more often than Nobby. Yes, the gates were a safe place to do the important act of guarding, even safer than the Opera House. Gods help you if you ever got between one of those big stars like Henry Slug and their legion of screaming female fans. Constable Haddock had almost suffocated to death once on that detail when the women started throwing their unmentionables at the singer. It had taken quick action by Corporal Dorfl to pull Haddock out of the huge pile of undergarments and that had only been possible since Dorfl was a golem and didn’t breathe.

“That looks like Simple Simon coming up the road in that cart,” said Colon as he leaned against one side of the gate and provided a large enough windbreak that Nobby could hide behind him to light one of his horrible roll-ups.

“His horse don’t look so good Fred,” said Nobby peering around the Sergeant. “It’s all covered and sweat and frothing at the mouth. I’ve seen healthier horses after Donut Jimmy gave them one of his concoctions.”

“I thought those concoctions were supposed to help cure a horse from something,” said Fred.

“Depends,” answered Nobby, waggling his fingers for emphasis.

“Depends on what?” asked Fred as he kept an eye on the approaching cart and now agreed with Nobby that the horse in question didn’t look very happy.

“Depends on who paid him the most money I reckon,” said Nobby with a sly grin. “Last Tuesday in the third race, Captain Juniper entered a dead horse, but by the time Donut Jimmy was done with that nag, it won the race by four lengths. Then on Thursday in the final race, the odds on favourite stopped in mid race and gave birth.”

“How could they even let a horse that was so pregnant even enter the race, let alone be the favourite?” asked Fred looking down at Nobby and wondering if his leg was getting pulled.

Nobby shrugged. “Everyone agreed the horse wasn’t pregnant when the race started and that it was a male horse.”

Fred was saved from further comment on Nobby’s outlandish story by the arrival of the cart carrying Simple Simon and another person who Fred speculated might be the pieman he had heard so much about. Frankly, he could do with a nice plump apple pie since this gate guarding was hard work. “Yo Simon,” he called. “Who’s your friend and how come your cart isn’t full of cabbages like it usually is?”

“We brought these instead,” said Simon holding up one of the large baskets that had been sitting beside him on the seat. His normally cheerful voice had been replaced by an emotionless droning.

“What have you got in them baskets?” asked Nobby whose stand on anything entering the city was that no one would notice much if he nicked a bit of it to flog in the Mended Drum or some dark alley.

“Something very special,” said the second man in a voice as devoid of emotion as Simon’s had been.

“What’s the matter with them Sarge?” asked Nobby. “Reg Shoe has got more emotion in him than these two and he is a zombie.”

“Beats me,” replied Fred who stared at the cloth covering the basket and wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him or not. He could have sworn he saw the cloth move and even the most active cabbages possible didn’t do that.

* * *

She sat in the bottom of the crater in the middle of the cabbage field and studied the information coming back from the two enslaved humans. The drones attached to them allowed her to control them totally and see and hear everything they heard and saw, but She had to admit their near catatonic state didn’t do much to make them look or act normal. The two guards appeared to be getting suspicious and She couldn’t have that. Her plans were only in the preliminary stage and She couldn’t risk being detected before She had a chance to ensconce Herself more deeply into this world. With a mental flick of Her mighty mind, She directed two of the drones to slip out of the far side of the basket from the humans and to stealthily approach them, so they could be taken over.

‘Take the small one first,’ she mentally commanded her drones. ‘If the fat one runs, he will have to get past the little one to escape.’ The drones had only very rudimentary intelligence, not enough to think on their own, but enough to follow orders without question. The first drone signalled acknowledgement of its order and crept over to Nobby’s foot and began to climb up his leg. It slipped under Nobby’s pant leg and stealthily moved upwards. Nobby thought he felt something crawling on him, but there wasn’t anything unusual about that and he ignored it as he concentrated his attention on the two unmoving men in the cart. She felt the drone reach almost to the midpoint of the guard and stop. She gave a mental frown at that as she had not given any order to stop. Annoyed, She resent her mental command to the drone to keep climbing, but the drone refused. She blinked her hundred eyes in astonishment all at the same time. One of Her drones had never in thousands of years refused an order from her. It was unthinkable. It was impossible. She couldn’t understand what was happening and decided to enhance all the senses of the drone to try and determine the cause of the malfunction. The drone almost immediately gave a soft choking sound and began to climb back down the leg of the creature. She queried the drone which refused to reply. She sent another order to tell the drone to return to its assigned mission. The drone ignored Her directive and crawled out of Nobby’s pant leg and lay on the ground twitching. She was furious, but decided that somehow the first drone had been defective and now sent the second drone to infect the fat one.

“I think we should take a look in those baskets,” said Fred and took a step forward towards the cart. His foot came down on the drone that had dropped out of Nobby’s pants and the weight of Fred Colon all applied to one booted foot squished the drone into so much jelly. Make that very slippery jelly and with arms flailing, Colon fell and landed hard on his rump. He heard something squish under him and cringed since things that went “squish” on the streets of Ankh-Morpork didn’t bear thinking about. It is hard to say if Fred would have been relieved or terrified if he had known what he had sat on was the second drone.

“Just get on through the two of you,” growled Fred as he got to his feet and tried to discreetly clean the gunk off the back of his pants with his one hand while waving the cart forward with the other.

“I thought you wanted to look in them baskets Fred?” asked Nobby as he watched the cart and the two men rumble past them.

“I did,” snapped Fred, “but I’ve got more pressing things on my mind now. Mrs. Colon gets a mite testy when I come home with a uniform covered in things she can’t identify. That’s a whole lot more on my mind than some stupid baskets that probably just contain rotted cabbages. I mean its not like they are likely to contain some kind of invading aliens from outer space is it?”

“No Fred, you’re probably right,” agreed Nobby and then he took a loud sniff. “Is that you Fred? Whatever that stuff is on your pants smells a mite ripe if you ask me.”

“I never asked for the opinion of a man who hasn’t changed his underwear in three years,” sniffed Fred and against any better judgement that he had ever possessed held his one hand up to his nose to take a sniff. He really wished a few seconds later that he hadn’t done that as he was bent over and adding to the slimy contents of the street. Sham Harga at Harga’s House of Ribs wasn’t known for his fine cuisine, but his breakfast special tasted a lot worse coming up than going down.

She was furious. Two of Her precious drones had been destroyed by that pair of incompetent fools and even worse, one of Her drones had actually disobeyed a direct order from Her. There was something wrong, something odd about this world. Well, She still had hundreds of drones in the baskets and she could always make more if needed. She directed her two slaves to find a quiet place to wait out the day before releasing the other drones to scour the city under the cover of darkness. She could afford to be patient. It wasn’t normally something She practiced, but She was immortal and a few hours delay wouldn’t hurt her ultimate plan.

***

“How did your father take your decision to become a copper? Asked Captain Carrot as he and Vicky ambled along the streets of Ankh-Morpork on patrol. Apparently, Mr. Vimes had decided that one day with Fred and Nobby had been enough of a test of their conviction and was taking Melody out with him while giving Vicky to Carrot to tutor.

“He wasn’t real happy about it,” admitted Vicky, “but I think it was more about losing a waitress he didn’t have to pay than my actual choice of becoming a member of the watch.”

Vicky noticed that Captain Carrot seemed to know almost everyone they passed whether they were human, troll, dwarf or any other species. “Good afternoon Mr. Rubble, Mr. Orecrusher, Mr. Firestone,” said Carrot greeting a trio of unhappy looking dwarves who were having an animated discussion in dwarfish and starting to wave axes threateningly outside of a row of three businesses. The large glass window in the middle one of the three shops was broken with a few pieces of glass on the sidewalk outside and more visible on the floor inside. It didn’t take a genius to guess what the three dwarves had been discussing so vigorously. “Can someone please tell me what is going on here?” asked Carrot with a polite smile as he pulled his notebook out of a pocket and looked expectant. All three dwarves began to yell at the same moment and Carrot had to hold up his hand to get them to stop. “One at a time please, starting with you Mr. Orecrusher. Since it is your window”

“One of these little buggers threw a rock through my window and I want them arrested,” yelled Mr. Orecrusher.

“Did you see who did it?” asked Carrot after giving the other two a gesture not to speak when their mouths began to open with outraged protests.

“Well no,” said Orecrusher grudgingly. “But it had to be one of them. I was the first one to open my business here and I was doing a good business until these two came along.”

Vicky took a closer look at the signs over the three businesses which read
“Orecrusher Fine Jewellery”, “Rubbles Finer Jewellery” and “Firestone Finest Jewellery.” “Isn’t it kind of silly to have three jewellery stores all side by side?” she asked.

“I was here first,” repeated Orecrusher. “These two poachers came in later.”

“You were just selling cheap, gawdy junk,” broke in Rubble. “I offer a line of tasteful and upscale products for the more discerning customer.”

“You mean overpriced baubles,” sneered Firestone. “I, on the other hand, offer the latest imported works of gems and rare metals.”

“Imported all the way from your cousin’s forge in the Street of Cunning Artificers right here in Ankh-Morpork!” sneered Orecrusher.

The three dwarves tightened their grips on their axe handles and looked about ready to settle their disagreement the old fashioned dwarfish way, but Carrot’s voice suddenly cut through the angry muttering with a crack that Vicky hadn’t heard before from the normally smiling watchman. “That is enough of that gentlemen,” snapped Carrot. “I believe it was last week when it was Mr. Rubble’s window that was mysteriously smashed and the week before that the honour belonged to Mr. Firestone. I am sure Mr Williams, the glazer, appreciates the business, but there are more important things for the Watch to be doing than refereeing your disputes. Now my young colleague here has raised an interesting point,” and Carrot reached into his pocket and pulled out a rather thick and much bookmarked volume. “I think there might be some regulations regarding how many businesses of the same type can be located in the same area. It would be most unfortunate if that was the case and two of you had to close.”

“I was here first,” repeated Orecrusher for the second time. “I can’t say as I will miss you two.”

“I’m not certain that it is a case of ‘First Come First Served’,” said Carrot still paging through the book. “It would probably have to go to Lord Vetinari and you know how much he loves having to deal with this kind of dispute. He tends to get extremely polite in my experience.”

The three dwarves looked at each other unhappily. Everyone in the city knew that the more polite Lord Vetinari got, the less someone else was going to like what he decided.

“It might come down to something like which of you is paying the most in taxes,” went on Carrot. “The city is always short of money and his lordship is always very attentive to the needs of good taxpaying citizens.” Carrot stopped his perusal of the book of civic ordinances and laws to regard the three shopkeepers speculatively. “You are all up to date with your taxes I hope? It would be most unfortunate if that wasn’t the case, unfortunate for that individual I mean.”

The three dwarves were now looking even unhappier and their axes dangled listlessly at their sides. “Er, it is possible that some things might have been overlooked due to hectic business pressures,” said Mr. Rubble who glanced sideways at the other two dwarfs who gave slight nods of agreement.

“Oh dear,” said Carrot and now he looked unhappier than the three storekeepers. “Taxes not paid and using city resources, to wit me, at an ever increasing rate. I am afraid all three of you might be out of business unless you can find a way to run your business from the Tanty.”

“Er, isn’t there um some arrangement that we could come to that doesn’t involve the Patrician?” suggested Firestone as he began to reach into his pocket.

“I do hope you are just reaching for your pocket watch to check the time,” said Carrot frostily. “If for instance that hand comes out holding anything resembling money that could be construed as a bribe, all three of you will be in front of Lord Vetinari by the morning after a free night’s lodging in the cells.”

Firestone rather hastily pulled his hand out of his pocket with only a rather dirty handkerchief in it that he used to spread some dirt onto his sweating brow. “I, I didn’t mean anything by that remark Captain Carrot. Would you um perhaps have any possible solutions to our um ongoing problems?”

Carrot looked thoughtful for a moment, closed the book and stepped into Orecrusher’s middle shop and looked around. “Yes, I think I can see a solution,” he announced and drew his rather large sword. The three dwarves who had followed him into the shop visibly cringed, but Carrot ignored them and strode over to the common wall with Mr. Rubble’s shop and quite easily cut a door shaped opening into the wall. He then went over to the common wall with Mr. Firestone and repeated the procedure. “Congratulations gentlemen, you three are now business partners. I will be back next week to see if you need any help filling out all the forms to make it legal including the tax forms.”

The three new partners stared at the holes in the walls and at each other for several moments. “That seems quite a good idea actually,” said Mr. Rubble.

“Yes, we can do away with the overlaps in our inventories,” said Mr. Firestone thoughtfully.

“You know, I think your cousin might be able to improve the mounting on some of my stock,” said Mr. Orecrusher to Firestone.

Carrot and Vicky left the new partners excitedly discussing possibilities and continued on their patrol. After a few minutes, Vicky cleared her throat. “Er, Captain, may I ask a question?”

“Of course,” replied Carrot. “Mr. Vimes is very keen on new recruits asking all the questions they want.”

“Is there really any regulation about similar businesses being so close together? I mean I’ve seen when fads hit like those frothy coffee shops last year and sometimes you ended up with four of them on the same corner.”

“No, I am quite certain there is no regulation against having similar shops close together,” answered Carrot.

“Then you lied to them?” asked Vicky.

“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that,” said a shocked Carrot. “I never said there was such a regulation, I just wondered if there was one and I wasn’t having any luck finding one in my book.”

“Oh,” said Vicky. “Do you think they will do enough business to keep all three of them happy?”

“Probably,” said Carrot. “They will have to learn to share, but they have been spending a lot of time and energy squabbling with each other. If they put that energy into improving their business, they should be fine. Among other things, they are going to save a lot of money on new windows. I should, however, point out one other aspect of my solution that you shouldn’t overlook.”

“Er, what’s that?” asked Vicky who was thinking hard and not coming up with anything.

“Well when I went into Mr. Orecrusher’s shop, I did take note that those three small shops had once been one large shop and that only rather thin walls had been constructed to separate them.”

“So?” asked Vicky still puzzled.

“That meant they weren’t load bearing walls,” replied Carrot.

* * *

“Let me get this straight,” said Melody as she walked alongside Commander Vimes. “You say that stealing, killing and whoring are all legal in Ankh-Morpork? That doesn’t sound like it leaves much for the Watch to do except for jay walking.”

Vimes shook his head. “I said there are guilds for assassins, thieves and oh they prefer seamstresses instead of whores by the way.”

“Um, doesn’t that last one get confusing?” asked Melody, “and I don’t see the distinction you are trying to make. I know I just grew up in a cave with only my sisters and the girls to talk to,” and here she touched her head scarf, “but still a Thieves Guild and an Assassin’s Guild make it sound like stealing and killing are legal which is kind of weird. I mean, people tended to get upset when I accidently looked at someone without my glasses and petrified them.”

“Well, I for one thought that tax collector had it coming,” put in Penelope’s voice from under the scarf. “I really had to do a lot of wriggling to dislodge your sunglasses that time.”

“Someone tried to charge you taxes for living in a cave?” asked Vimes, looking at the top of Melody’s head. Earlier, in the privacy of his office, Melody had introduced him to the “girls” as she called them. So far on patrol they had mostly been quiet with the exception of Penelope and the odd time that Phoebe had tried to shush her.

“He said he was a tax collector,” spoke up Phoebe now. “We think he was just a greedy bastard who was trying to shake the kids down and for the record, I didn’t object to help knocking the kid’s glasses off so he got what was coming to him.”

Vimes decided to forebear on expressing an opinion on a legal matter clearly out of his jurisdiction in both time and space. “To get back to what we were talking about, yes it can sometimes have humorous consequences to how the Seamstress’s Guild is named. The general rule of thumb is if the ‘seamstress’ in question wants to meet you in a dark alley to transact business, it is probably not to patch a hole in the knee of your pants. Regarding the Thief’s Guild, you have to be a member before you can rob someone legally. There are a lot of people in this city who don’t have the inclination or the money to pay for guild membership and if they are lucky, we catch them before the Thief’s Guild does.”

“Why is that lucky for them?” asked Melody.

“Our punishment isn’t normally fatal,” replied Vimes, “unless whoever we caught has been a really bad boy or girl and then Mr. Trooper takes care of them. He’s the Patrician’s hangman,” Vimes explained when he saw the name didn’t register with her. “As for the damn Assassins, they only kill for money, they call it “inhuming” by the way so as not to be crass and they generally only do it for lots of money. That means any killing that doesn’t involve rich bastards falls under our jurisdiction. For the most part the Seamstresses look after their own. If someone gets rough or doesn’t pay the young lady then they can expect a visit from the Agony Aunts, Dotsie and Sadie. Their reputation with the umbrella and knitting needles is such that no one who is very bright wants to annoy them.”

“Umbrellas? Knitting needles?” echoed Melody. “That doesn’t sound so dangerous.”

“Let’s put it like this,” replied Vimes, “ would you like a fourteen inch knitting needle shoved in a place where the sun doesn’t shine?”

“I thought that was over by Bad Ass,” began Melody and then stopped. “Oh!”

“I like the sounds of these Agony Aunts,” said Penelope.

“You would,” muttered Portia.

“Mrs. Palm and the Aunts also look after any woman who wants to try setting up shop without paying their guild membership,” continued Vimes, “though Rosy is pretty understanding and lets girls start on an installment plan if she knows they don’t have any other options.”

“Life back in the cave was a lot simpler,” said Melody. “Most days all you had to worry about was one of those spelunkers with a cave fetish.”

“Sometimes a cave is just a cave,” said Priscilla who didn’t often speak, but that might have been due to trying to compete with Penelope.

Now, here is a little problem for us,” said Vimes as he suddenly hurried forward and grabbed a young boy of indeterminate age by his collar and lifted him in the air just as the boy’s hand was pulling a man’s wallet out of his back pocket. “Constable Melody, meet Chuck Dickens and vice a versa. Please note I didn’t say it was a pleasure to meet young master Dickens since it isn’t. His age is indeterminate, probably somewhere between twelve and forty and his probable lifespan is likely measured in months if not weeks the way he is going.”

“I didn’t do nothing,” protested the grubby urchin dangling from Vimes’ hand.

“He also dropped out of school and didn’t learn anything about double negatives,” went on Vimes as he handed the wallet back to the surprised owner.
The man did the expected pat of his back pocket and then looked relieved. Of course, since he was from Ankh-Morpork, he opened the wallet and counted his money. “Hey, there is only twenty dollars here and I had forty. Where’s my other twenty?”

“Move along,” replied Vimes with a glare. “I caught him before he could remove any money and knowing Chuckie here, you wouldn’t have got the twenty bucks back if once he got his greasy little fingers on it.”

The man looked affronted and began to turn red. “I will have you know that I am a personal friend of Lord Vetinari and when I tell him about this outrage, he will have that useless Commander Vimes take you to task for your affrontery. I had sixty dollars in my wallet and I demand justice.”

“One more word out of you and you can make your demands from a cell for attempted fraud,” snarled Vimes getting eyeball to eyeball with the man.

“Fine, I’m going,” said the man backing up hurriedly and starting to walk away. When he was fairly sure he was out of reach, he called back, “You haven’t heard the last of this. I bloody well had eighty dollars in my wallet!”

“What a bloody crook!” yelled Dickens after the man’s retreating back.

“So robbery is legal, but pickpocketing is not?” asked a confused Melody.

“Oh pickpocketing is quite legal and very much encouraged by the Thieves’ Guild,” said Vimes. “You have to be at least fourteen to be apprenticed into the guild, but they encourage kids younger than that to start with pickpocketing. It gives them a little spending money, allows them to save for the guild entry fee and its considered good practice for them.”

So, why did you grab him then?” asked Melody looking at Chuck.

“He wasn’t following the rules, explained Vimes. “The two main types of robbery practiced by the Thieves Guild are the home B&E, that’s copper shorthand for Break and Entry, and the alley mugging. Home owners who keep their fees paid up get a sticker to put in the window, guild members know not to bother that house. With an alley mugging, the proposed victim just has to display his paid up card in his wallet or her purse as the case may be. Pickpocketing and the related purse snatching are a little more problematic. If the thief pinches a wallet or purse and finds a paid up card in it then they are required to return the wallet or purse immediately, at the risk of having their skin hung up on a pole in Sator Square.”

“Yeah, well you didn’t give me a chance to do that did you?” complained Chuck.

“Don’t give me lip boy,” snapped Vimes and looked back up at Melody. “As I was going to say before this little hoodlum interrupted me, the obvious problem is that the thief doesn’t know until after they have taken the wallet or purse that they have robbed a paid up customer. To prevent that, the paid up victims are given a pin to put on their jacket or other garment that tells all the pickpockets and purse snatchers to find another target. The man this little bugger was targeting clearly had his pin displayed and Chuck either didn’t check or didn’t care.”

“Er, couldn’t someone wear a fake pin?” asked Melody.

“That’s covered under the ‘knife to have known you rule,’” replied Vimes. “Anyone who counterfeits a Thieves Guild pin will get the same quick service from the guild that Assassins charge large amounts for. The same goes for any guild member or guild candidate like Chuckie here who violates the guild rules.”

“I didn’t see his pin,” whined Chuck.

“That as I recall was the same defence offered by the late Boneless Brown,” replied Vimes, “only he got his nickname after he was dead.”

“I don’t suppose Mr. Brown is still around?” asked Penelope. “The bones are quite a nuisance and always getting stuck in my throat.”

“What? Who said that?” cried Chuck looking around and suddenly not looking quite so cocky.

“Never mind that,” said Vimes, giving the boy a hard shake. “I suggest you smarten up Mr. Dickens if you want to live long enough to apply to the guild for full membership. The odds aren’t good, but maybe you will be this generation’s Nobby since you remind me a lot of him.”

“Now that’s a filthy thing to say,” complained Chuck. “I’ve been called a lot of names, but that’s the first time anyone sunk so low as to compare me to Nobby Nobbs!!”

“If the dirty underwear fits, wear it” replied Vimes as he started to put the boy down and then stopped long enough to reach into Chuck’s pocket and retrieve his watch and wallet. “Now scram and get a brain before you get dead.”

Like the man whose wallet Vimes had retrieved, Chuck made sure he was a good distance away before stopping to make his final biting comments. In his case he stuck out his tongue and yelled, ”Stupid old copper, I still got the two silver dollars from your pocket,” and then he dashed away.

Vimes just smiled when he saw Melody looking at him. “He won’t be so happy when he finds out I nicked the three dollars from his other pocket that he probably stole from someone else.” Vimes looked around and saw a man in a well tailored, but quite shabby jacket walking towards him with a duck on his head. He handed the three dollars to the man. “Here you go, two dollars for you and one for your duck.”

“What duck?” asked the beggar automatically pocketing the money.

“Sorry, I guess I confused you with someone else,” said Vimes staring directly at the duck.

“Not a problem kind sir,” said the Duck man as he tipped his dirty top hat to Vimes and continued on down the street.

“Ducks are tasty you know,” said Penelope. “Smaller bones too and don’t present as much of a choking hazard as a human.”

“She is joking isn’t she?” whispered Vims to Melody. “I mean, I saw them and they aren’t that big. I could see a mouse or a rat, but that’s about it.”

“Oh yes, she is a real kidder,” said Melody, but she didn’t sound very convincing.

* * *

Orville Tucker, a fully paid up member of the Thieves Guild smiled when he saw the two country rubes pull their cart into the dark alley. That was a dead end and he had no idea why they had driven into it, but it was good news for him. Maybe they were planning to meet one of Mrs. Palm’s girls, but if so they were going to meet him first. Orville had been having an incredibly bad run of luck that he couldn’t explain over the last few months. It had started that night he had accosted the girl with the long red hair and the horrible stench as if she had just bathed in raw sewage.

[Author’s Note: See The Lady for Orville’s encounter with Celine who fortunately for her had actually just landed in a night soil cart. I say fortunate since the alternative, while less aromatic, would have ben the much harder stone cobbles of Ankh-Morpork.]

After he had regained consciousness that night, Orville had been severely embarrassed to discover he had been robbed while he was out. He had no idea if it had been done by a guild brother, some wretched independent, or just a random citizen of this foul city who had come across him. After that night, his every attempt to get back into the game had gone horribly wrong. He would end up dropping his knife down a sewer, knock himself unconscious on a door suddenly flung open in his path, get stung by wasps and the list of mishaps went on and on. Well, tonight he was going to change his luck.

“Good evening gentlemen,” he said dropping down lightly into the back of the empty cart and brandishing his knife at the two men. “This is your lucky night. My name is Mr. Tucker of the Thieves Guild and I will be your mugger for the evening. Before I commence my operation, might I inquire if either of you has a paid up card? If so, please let me see it and I will be on my way.”

“Card?” said Simple Simon turning to stare at Joe and then his eyes glazed over as if he were having some kind of inner conversation.

“No card,” said the second man in the same monotone voice which the first man had used.

Orville began to feel something was off here, but he just needed a win dammit and ploughed on. “Alright then, let me outline today’s special. I will take one half of the money from each of you up to a maximum of one hundred dollars. In return you get a six month stamped card exempting you from any muggings during that time. As a special bonus, I will throw in this deluxe set of steak knives,” and Orville quickly produced and then hid the box of steak knives under his coat. The knives were crap and would be lucky to cut butter, but these suckers would only find that out later.

“We don’t need knives,” said the first man. “We only need to serve her.”

“We must all serve her,” said the second man in the creepy dead voice.

“Well, it’s up to you if you want the knives or not,” replied Orville with a shrug, “but the rest of the deal still stands. Now, please hand over your wallets, so there won’t be any avoidable bloodshed.” The men made no move to comply and Orville was about to get a little more insistent using his knife when he felt something crawling up his leg. Oh great, these hicks had probably brought some damn crawling thing in with them from the cabbage fields. Orville went to swat whatever it was and felt it move faster than he expected under is shirt. He just had a brief view of some black, multilegged thing that looked like a spider, but it had been the biggest damn spider he had ever seen. Orville was just about to really freak out and swat at his back when he felt a sharp pain in his neck.

“Now you will serve her too,” said Simon.

“Yes, I will serve her,” replied Orville in that same dead voice that had previously given him the willies.

She purred happily in the bottom of the crater. This had gone much better with no problems. Whatever had caused the problem with those two guards hadn’t affected Her at all with this human. She sifted through the man’s mind and memories. A thief? She had encountered thieves before and they could be useful. This one knew the city much better than Her first two slaves. They would still be useful for ferrying more drones to the city, but this one had intimate knowledge of the city and which people were important. Those were the ones She needed to find and control. There was one called Vetinari and another called Vimes. Gaining control over them would be a good start to controlling this city and then this world.

* * *

As Vicky and Carrot continued their patrol, they saw some distance ahead a man walking in the same direction they were and a pair of well dressed elderly women walking towards them. “Oh no, not again,” gasped Carrot and he began to run forward just as the man in front of them whipped open the large raincoat he was wearing.

“What is it?” panted Vicky struggling to talk and keep up with Carrot’s long loping strides. She heard gasps from the two women who stood there staring at the man, the looks on their faces going from surprised to puzzled in seconds.

“That’s Larry Allen,” replied Carrot who wasn’t even breathing hard. “We call him The Flash.”

“Oh dear,” said Vicky, not sure she wanted to see what seemed to be coming, though growing up in a bar she was not totally unfamiliar with the male accessories and their tendency to display them in inappropriate ways and places.

By this time, they had reached Larry and the two women. “Please close your coat Larry,” said Carrot kindly, but firmly. “I think these ladies have seen enough.”

Curiosity and revulsion warred in Vicky’s brain and curiosity won. She looked and couldn’t help the gasp of surprise that escaped her lips. Under his raincoat, Larry Allen wore a very nicely three piece tailored suit, an expensive silk tie and well polished black shoes. “What the …?” her voice trailed off in confusion as she looked at Carrot for an explanation.

“It’s a bit sad really,” replied Carrot with a sigh. “Larry is the worst flasher in the city, or maybe the best depending on how you look at it. You really haven’t grasped the essential bit of flashing have you Larry?”

“Hah!” said Larry dismissively as he buttoned up his coat. “Those others are inconsequential fools. I am an artist. This outfit cost me five hundred dollars and it takes an hour to polish my shoes to be that bright.”

“I’m terribly sorry ladies,” said Carrot turning to the two elderly women who still stood there with an odd look on their faces which Vicky thought just might be disappointment. “You can move along now, there is er nothing really to see here.”

“It’s really terrible what is happening in this city these days,” said one of the women.

“I can remember when things like this didn’t happen,” agreed the second woman.

“That’s right Mabel,” said the first woman. “You used to get a real good show, but that was simply disgusting. Personally, I blame Lord Vetinari.”

“Come along Violet,” said Mabel taking her friend by the arm and starting to draw her away. “I heard The Purple Tomcat now has male strippers. Let’s go get a front row seat and whistle at those big boys.”

Violet paused and stopped to look Carrot up and down. “You know Captain, you would really draw large crowds if you took to the stage, especially if your block and tackle was as big as your muscles.”

Vicky had never seen anyone blush as bright red as Carrot and she thought you could cook an egg on his skin at that point. The thought of Carrot’s bare skin suddenly made Vicky blush herself and she tried to think of cooler things like icebergs and penguins. She also, however, made a mental note that she might have to visit the Purple Tomcat just to satisfy her professional curiosity.

“Ok Larry, you can move along too,” said Carrot a bit stiffly. “There is no law against not flashing, but maybe you should find another outlet for your um passion. Perhaps you would want to consider a career in modelling. You might even get a discount on your suits if you were modelling them.”

“That’s an interesting suggestion,” admitted Larry as he walked away. “I will give it some thought.”

* * *

“How are sales Throat?” asked Vimes as he and Melody stopped in front of Ankh-Morpork’s most unsuccessful entrepreneur who still stood in the cool evening air trying to flog his sausages in a bun and one hundred percent pork pies to the world. It should be noted that any pig that could talk would have expressed surprised to learn it possessed some of the things in Dibbler’s pies.

“It’s been better,” admitted the shivering Dibbler. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in something to eat. Ten percent discount for the men and women of the watch and that’s cutting my own throat,” he said looking at Melody briefly.

“I’m afraid Sybil packed me a large lunch for patrol,” lied Vimes without having to think much about it.

Melody was about to refuse as well since while she had never encountered the culinary creations of C.M.O.T. Dibbler before, the items on display looked rather wretched as if they had been sitting there all day, which in fact they had when a voice piped up from under her scarf.

“What is that delicious aroma? asked Penelope.

Dibbler looked startled for a second, unable to locate the source of the voice as it hadn’t come from either of the two watchmen in front of him, but he didn’t let something inconsequential like not being able to see his potential customer keep him from going into his sales pitch. “You are smelling the finest pork products known to mankind, dwarfkind, trollkind or whatever kind you are,” he said.

“Mmm, they smell like they have been out in the hot sun ripening all day,” said Phoebe. Dibbler was just opening his mouth to try and turn this into a virtue when Phoebe continued, “I’ve never smelled anything so irresistible in my life.”

“Yum, I can almost feel them moving around,” put in Portia.

“All the wriggling tasty goodness,” added Priscilla.

“Er, just who is doing the talking?” asked Dibbler, now looking a little worried and puzzled as he didn’t see either Vimes’ or Melody’s mouth moving and there was no one else around at the moment.

“I’m not sure you want to know,” replied Melody starting to back away.

“Oh come on kid, we’re hungry,” complained Penelope.

“It’s up to you,” said Vimes with a shrug, “but Throat is pretty tough and won’t cut and run if he thinks he can make a sale. I have to admit to a bit of morbid curiosity myself at the thought of seeing the girls eat, so it’s my treat.”

“Take him up on the offer kid,” said Penelope. “I even take back my previous comment about him being a jerk.”

“Oh way to be tactful as usual,” snorted Portia.

“Please,” begged Phoebe. “The smell is driving me mad here.”

“I second the motion,” added Priscilla.

Melody hesitated a bit more, drew in a long gulp of air and then undid the knot on her scarf. Abruptly, four snake heads leaned forward with their eyes fixed intently on the contents of Dibbler’s tray.

“Four of your best sausages in a bun,” said Vimes cheerfully as he saw the frozen look on Dibbler’s face, “or at least four of what you have,” he amended looking at the greasy red skinned sausages and dropping a few coins on the tray.

“Would,” Dibbler gulped, “would anyone like mustard or anything on their sausage?”

“Make mine loaded,” said Penelope.

“No onions,” said Phoebe, “they give me gas.”

“Yes, definitely no onions for Phoebe please,” begged Melody.

“Just ketchup for mine,” said Portia.

“Mustard and relish for me,” said Priscilla.

Dibbler continued to stare at the four wriggling snakes while his hands worked automatically to prepare the sausages in a bun for his new customers. When he was done, Melody lifted the sausages up to each snake, one at a time. Vimes watched in fascination as mouths that he would have sworn were too small to accommodate the sausages in a bun gaped wide and the food disappeared like magic.

“Another one?” asked Penelope turning to stare at Vimes.

“Your wish is my command,” smirked Vimes as he dropped more coins onto Dibbler’s cart. The merchant seemed to be rapidly getting over his shock at the prospect of making sales and he quickly produced four more sausages in a bun to specifications which vanished down the gullets of the four snakes just as quickly as the first four had.

“Um, I don’t suppose we could try the pies too?” asked Phoebe giving Vimes what passed for a seductive wink among snakes.

In the end, the four snakes devoured the entire contents of Dibbler’s cart and against all odds looked only slightly larger and not sick in the least.

“I don’t suppose there are a bunch of Gorgons planning to move to Ankh-Morpork?” asked Dibbler hopefully when the last sausage and pie had disappeared.

“I don’t think so,” replied Melody. “As far as I know, I am the only Gorgon in the city. Even my two sisters didn’t want to leave our cave.”

“They might be tempted if we send them a postcard about the delicious food,” said Portia.

“Yes, I can still feel some of the filling wriggling around inside me,” said Penelope with satisfaction and then she burped rather loudly.

Vimes remade his vow never to eat anything from Dibbler ever again as Melody retied her scarf and they continued on their patrol while the girls settled down for what they considered a well deserved nap

* * *

Josiah Boggis, head of the Thieves Guild, looked up from his paperwork at the soft knock on his study door. He wasn’t sure if he was annoyed or glad of the interruption as creating the monthly report to submit to the Patrician was one of his least favourite duties. It was almost enough for him to wish for the good old days when you could bop someone on the head, steal all their money and leg it away before the pathetic excuse for a Watch could react, or at least stumble out of the bar long enough to give a half hearted chase. These days, however, Lord Vetinari insisted that all the crime be organized which meant statistics and monthly reports. To be sure, things were much safer and more profitable than they had been in those good old days, but not nearly as much fun. “What is it?” he finally called out, shaking himself out of his pointless reverie.

The study door opened and Vinny ”No Ears” Ludd stuck his face that only a boxing promoter could love inside with an apologetic look. “It’s Orville,” said Vinny. “He says he would like to see you and its important.”

Boggis frowned. “Orville Tucker had not been right since his misadventure a few months back. Boggis had personally taken it on himself to try and help the man who had once been a very productive member of the guild. In fact, just last year, Orville had been up for three major awards at the Guild’s annual banquet. Then things had gone wrong and the man seemed to be living under a curse. “How is he today?” Boggis asked.

“A little weird boss,: replied Vinny.

“Weirder than usual?” asked Boggis becoming slightly alarmed.

“Yeah, a bit,” agreed Vinny and that worried Mr. Boggis even more. Vinny was normally about as sensitive as a sledgehammer, so if he actually noticed something, then Orville was not in a good way to put it mildly.

That was confirmed when Orville lurched into the room and across it to stand looking hollow eyed at Boggis. Vinny clearly didn’t want to leave his boss alone with the man, but Boggis waved him out. Vinny was a bit of a gossip and Mr. Boggis didn’t want whatever was Orville’s newest problem spread all over the guild since it was too much like kicking a three legged puppy.

“You don’t look very well Orville,” said Mr. Boggis.

“I brought you something,” replied Orville in a dead tone. “You will like it”

“No, it’s alright,” said Mr. Boggis hastily, not liking at all the way Orville looked or sounded. He was about to yell for Vinny when Orville dropped an object on his desk. Boggis gaped at the large black spider for a brief second then the thing shot across the surface of the desk and leaped onto his shoulder. Mr. Boggis had very good reflexes and he went to swat the thing, but too many years sitting behind a desk and filling out reports had slowed him down just a little and the spider moved incredibly fast. It got under his shirt and then there was a sharp pain in his neck.

“Did you call boss?” asked Vinny opening the door again, this time without knocking. “I thought I heard something.”

“Everything is fine,” said Mr Boggis in a dead tone of voice. “Now, please don’t let anything else disturb me. I need to get my report finished for the meeting with the Patrician in the morning.” Vinny nodded and closed the door. The boss didn’t sound like his normal self, but he was probably just under a bit of strain. Dealing with Lord Vetinari could do that to a man they said.

* * *

She tasted the mind of Her new slave. He was a step up from the previous one and that one a step above her first two acquisitions. She had since enthralled several others who lived near where She had come to ground and those were now guarding Her new lair. All seemed to be going well, but She was still uneasy. She did not understand why that one drone had failed to obey Her and She was not as strong as She should be. Each new slave added to Her power, but She still felt unusually weak and there was an odd smell that She could not identify or eliminate. She wondered if the smell was connected to her weakness, but She was unable to trace the source of the odor. She would be cautious, something that was alien to Her nature. This new slave was higher in the power structure of this city, but not high enough. Reading his mind, She saw this man called Boggis had a meeting with the city leader in the morning. Normally, She would seize on the opportunity to strike at the top, but She was not sure She was strong enough. She needed more slaves to feed Her more power. The ones called Boggis and Orville would spread the first shipment of drones around the city. They would gather intelligence as they slunk in the shadows and then they would make more slaves for Her. That would make Her stronger, strong enough to overcome that annoying, cloying smell that pervaded even Her dreams. Yes, She would be patient a little longer and build Her strength before striking.

* * *

There was a sound from the dark alley that Carrot and Vicky were approaching and they stopped to peer cautiously into it. They could see a large figure stumbling around and talking in a low voice to itself.

“Alright Lance Constable Vicky, this one is all yours,” said Carrot leaning against the wall of the alley. “I want to see how you handle a problem.”

Vicky licked her suddenly dry lips and nodded before starting to edge her way down the alley towards the figure. “City Watch,” she called out in a voice she hoped didn’t sound too shaky. “Are you in need of assistance?”

The figure stopped moving at the sound of her voice and turned towards her. A stray shaft of light that somehow snuck into the otherwise dark alley fell on the face of a man. He was clutching what looked like an empty booze bottle in one hand and now that Vicky got closer, she could smell the all too familiar reek of alcohol emanating from the man. There were many other smells in the fetid alley, but there was another fresh one besides the booze. Looking down, Vicky saw a wet spot on the front of the man’s pants and deduced why he had come into the alley, though he had either forgot why himself or had been too late.

“Hey, you’re cute,” said the drunk staggering a few steps towards Vicky.

It’s a good thing there isn’t an open flame around here, thought Vicky as his breath swept over her. “I’m with the City Watch,” she said louder, trying to get through to the man’s alcohol fuzzed brain.

“Oh come on sweetie, don’t play hard to get, give old Harold a kiss,” said the man making a grab at Vicky’s arm.

Well, she had pretty much grown up in a bar and was used to dealing with drunks, thought Vicky and looking around she picked up a metal garbage can lid and brought it down hard on the top of the man’s head. He crumpled to the ground, dropping his empty bottle which broke into a thousand pieces. “Say goodnight Harold,” muttered Vicky with satisfaction.

“Not bad,” said Carrot moving to stand over the fallen man and look down at him. “Oh dear Harold Miner. You swore you were going to give up the drinking after the last time we had a problem with you.” Turning back to Vicky, he asked, “Why the garbage can lid and not your sword?”.

“He’s only a drunk,” answered Vicky. “I’ve had a lot of practice assessing and dealing with drunks working at dad’s bar. My normal choice of weapon there would be a heavy drink tray and the garbage can lid made a good substitute.”

Carrot nodded. “I think you are going to do well in the Watch.” With no apparent strain, Carrot leaned down and slung Harold over his shoulder. “Normally you would blow your whistle and get a wagon sent to pick up someone like Harold to sleep it off in the cells, but we aren’t far from the station now. We can drop him off to be processed, have a little break in the canteen and then continue our patrol.”

* * *

Vimes had explained to Melody the proper way to do business checks which involved one member of the pair going down each side of a street, testing doorknobs to make sure they were locked and peering in windows. This was as opposed to the Nobby Nobbs method which involved nicking any small items he thought he could flog if he found a door unlocked before notifying the owner. Nobby would then, of course, commiserate with the owner over the thieving nature of people in general when the owner discovered his or her losses. They were doing this kind of business check when Vimes and Melody rounded a corner and Vimes put a hand on Melody’s arm to stop her.

“There’s no good reason for that to be there at this time of night,” he whispered as he pointed at a horse and cart parked on one side of the street.

“Er, what would be the bad reason?” Melody whispered back.

“It’s parked in front of Corrigal Brothers Fine Furs,” Vimes whispered in reply. “I doubt someone is there picking out a new coat for the wife at one in the morning.” Sure enough, even as they stood in the shadows watching, two men staggered out of the store, obviously burdened by heavy furs and threw them in the cart and went back inside for another load.

“What do we do?” whispered Melody.

Vimes scanned the street in front of them intently and then pointed to a patch of shadowed doorway across the street from the cart. “There is a lookout over there,” he said, still in a whisper. “As soon as we move, whoever is there is going to spot us and alert the thieves.”

“I know this is a dumb question,” said Melody, “but could these be legal thieves?” Putting those words together still felt like an oxymoron, but there was an awful lot about this city that she didn’t yet understand.

“Not a chance,” answered Vimes. “I was by here yesterday and they had a paid up sticker in their window. These are free lancers. Ok, here is what we are going to do. I want you to cross the street and try to get as close to the lookout as you can without being spotted. I will give you a couple of minutes and then head for the cart. At that point, all hell is going to break loose and you see if you can nab the lookout while I deal with the two guys carrying the furs. Once they’ve spotted us, there is no point to keeping quiet, so we can use our whistles and hopefully get some backup here in time. Got it?”

Melody nodded and slipped across the street, staying in the shadows with a skill either born of instinct or experience that Vimes approved of.

“Ooo, this is exciting,” whispered Penelope,.

“A lot more fun than sitting in a cold cave,” whispered Phoebe in rare agreement with Penelope.

Melody was within a few yards of the doorway that Vimes had pointed out to her when something alerted the lookout and the worst imitation of a robin came from the shadowy figure that she had ever heard. Oh, that’s not suspicious at all, she thought as she dashed forward, robins aren’t exactly known for being nocturnal. As bad as the bird call was, however, it did the job and the two men who had just emerged from the store with another load threw them into the cart and jumped up onto the seat. Melody made a lunge for the lookout and missed as she was just a little too far away. Looking around, she saw the small figure, likely a child from the size of it running across the street towards the cart as it started to move while Vimes sprinted towards it at a faster pace than Melody would have thought a man of his age capable of. Remembering her instructions, Melody pulled out her whistle and gave several loud blasts before joining the pursuit.

The horse and cart should have quickly left them well behind, but the thieves had seemingly not taken into account the weight of the furs and had perhaps skimped on the horse which looked like something Donut Jimmy had resuscitated a few too many times, so the two Watchmen were able to keep it in sight. “They are heading for the docks,” yelled Vimes after a few minutes, his breath starting to come in gasps now as he fought for his second wind. “They must have a boat down there.”

That proved to be the case as Vimes and Melody saw the cart pull to a stop at an out of the way pier and begin to toss furs off the cart into a boat they couldn’t as yet see. The two thieves had just cleared the cart and were about to jump into the boat when Vimes reached the cart and jumped into the back, tackling one of the men. Melody was right behind him and the second man took a swing at her which she easily blocked. She might not be much good with an unfamiliar sword, but Gorgons were a lot stronger than they looked. Melody was about to grab her opponent when someone crashed into her from behind and staggered her. Damn, she had forgot about the lookout. The impact wasn’t enough to hurt her, but it did partially dislodge her sunglasses. Melody started to reach up to settle them back in place when the man she had been about to grab lunged at her and she had to use her hands to fend him off. With the worst possible timing a strong breeze from the sea washed over them and Melody’s sunglasses clattered to the ground. Her adversary was looking directly at her and he froze in place in front of her.

“Don’t anyone look at me,” screamed Melody as she searched desperately for her glasses. Of the other three people, only Vimes had a clue as to why she might be yelling such a thing in the middle of a fight and he screwed his eyes shut and turned away. Unfortunately for the other two, the thief Vimes had been fighting with and the lookout, Melody’s cry had the opposite of its intended effect and they stared at her.

“I found my glasses,” Melody sobbed as she put them back on. “It’s ok to look now. Oh gods!” This last was forced out of her mouth when she saw the three frozen figures. “I didn’t mean to do that!” wailed Melody.

Vimes got up and inspected the results. As Melody had said, the trio were not turned into actual stone, but they were totally paralyzed and their skin did feel harder to the touch. “Whipper Muggins and Smelly Tony,” he said identifying the two men, then gave a sigh when he got his first glimpse of the lookout. “Young Master Dickens.”

What do we do?” cried Melody as she stared in horror at the young boy. She had accidently done this to men who had come into her cave before learning about sunglasses, but doing this to a child, even as one as streetwise as Chuck was very upsetting.

“It’s ok kid,” soothed Phoebe. “It wasn’t intentional and it wasn’t your fault.”

“She’s right,” agreed Vimes, “but unfortunately there are a lot of more irrational people in this city who won’t stop to think like that and will head for the nearest ‘Pitchfork and Torch’ store to stock up. We’ll get these three loaded into the cart and over to the university where a wizard should be able to turn them back to normal.”

“Or use them to decorate their gardens,” piped up Penelope.

“That’s not helping,” broke in Portia.

There was the sound of running feet, very heavy running feet and a few seconds later Sergeant Detritus thundered up and saluted to Vimes, his hand clanging off his helmet. “I heard de whistling and got here as quick as I could.”

“Well done Sergeant,” said Vimes. “Now if you would be so kind as to get these three statues, er I mean people into the cart, so I can drive them over to the university before …”

“Smile please,” came a new voice and that was followed by a bright flash of light then a brief scream. When the dust reformed Otto Chriek, the vampire photographer for the Times once more stood there. “Damn, I was sure that new filter vould vork. Oh vell, back to the drawing board as they say,” and he carefully examined the completed iconograph the imp had finished painting and slid out the opening in his camera.

“Before the damn press gets here,” completed an exasperated Vimes. “How the hell did you get here so quick Otto?” demanded Vimes.

“Ah that vas pure luck,” replied Otto looking up at Vimes. “Ve vere attending a charity event put on by Lady Selachie, though I vasn’t aware that poodles were an endangered species.”

Only if they are near a dwarf restaurant, thought Vimes, but he didn’t say that out loud and then his brain registered the pronoun Otto had used. “We?” he asked weakly.

“Hello Commander Vimes,” puffed Sacharissa Cripslock as she rushed up, notebook and pencil already in hand. “I just couldn’t keep up with Otto I am afraid.” She took in the three frozen figures and arched an eyebrow. “I do believe this is going to make a much better front page story than the damn poodles”

“I believe vun of them peed on her shoe,” volunteered Otto in explanation of the rare swear word coming from Sacharissa’s lips.

Vimes was thinking a lot of other and stronger swear words as he looked at the newspaper reporter, but all he said was “Nice to see you again Miss Cripslock. I don’t suppose I could persuade you to ignore this little detail,” he said gesturing to the three figures, “when you report about the foiled robbery? No, I suppose not,” he said with a sigh as Sacharissa just stared at him as if he had grown a third eye.

* * *

Vimes had heard that wizards knew when they were going to die and wasn’t sure if that was really such a blessing or not, but he rather doubted that such precognitive abilities also applied to knowing when uninvited guests were going to drop in. Still, Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, was waiting at the university gates when he arrived with the three petrified humans in the cart at the ungodly hour of three in the morning. What was not surprising, however, was that there was a bit of a row going on as he pulled up.

“I said unlock the damn gates,” yelled Ridcully to someone Vimes couldn’t see.

“But Sir, university tradition says that the gates cannot be unlocked after the ceremony of the key which locks them until dawn,” said the voice of someone who was either brave enough or foolish enough to get in the way of the temperamental wizard who wasn’t known for his patience.

“Tell me Mr. Nobbs, just which of us is the Archchancellor of the university?” snapped Ridcully.

“Well, of course you are Sir,” protested the other voice which Vimes could now identify as Mr. Alphonse Nobbs, one of the university porters, who vehemently protested at every opportunity there was no relation between him and Corporal Nobbs.

“Then step aside at once man while you still don’t sit on lily pads and go ‘croak’,” said Ridcully.

“University regulations forbid the transmutation of university staff,” protested Mr. Nobbs.

“Yes, that was rather bad form of me,” agreed Ridcully. “Perhaps, I should have stuck with a promise to share the genealogical research I did recently into the Nobbs family tree.”

“You wouldn’t!” gasped Mr. Nobbs. “And there is no proof!”

“Let’s just say there are some interesting blank spaces in the Nobbs family tree when someone really digs in and does some research,” said Ridcully. It’s research that won’t ever see the light of day,” the wizard added, “If that gate is opened in the next ten seconds,” It gave the Archchancellor quite a lot of satisfaction to face down one of the bledlows who loved to terrorize the students with impunity over the centuries including one Mustrum Ridcully when he was much younger. Ridcully felt like he had at least six Aces in his hand and that no one was going to suggest that was impossible.

Ridcully had only counted to seven when the gate swung open and Vimes guided the cart through the opening.

That was pretty nasty,” Vimes whispered to Ridcully. “Is what you said true about your Mr. Nobbs and my corporal being related after all?”

“Who knows?” Ridcully whispered back. “I never did the research, too much bloody work, but I doubted if he would call my bluff since he had too much to lose.”

“Who says poker isn’t useful,” muttered Vimes. “How did you know we were coming though? I didn’t know myself until less than half an hour ago.” And at least he had managed to make it there without the redoubtable Miss Cripslock, he thought with relief. Vimes was starting to think that she was at least part vampire like Otto since she somehow turned up at the dead of night whenever something she considered newsworthy was happening. It had taken Sergeant Detritus “accidently stepping on the hem of her dress to pin her in place and give him a head start and now she could cool her heels outside the university gates as they were once more shut and locked until dawn.

“No magic involved,” replied Ridcully, “I was just going out for a little fresh air before bed when I spotted you coming.” The wizard rapped his knuckles on the forehead of one of the thieves. “Sounds a bit hollow, but maybe that’s just my imagination. A Gorgon eh? I didn’t know we had one in the city.”

“Er, that would be me,” said a miserable looking Melody holding up one hand.

“Who’s the old coot with the beard?” asked Penelope.

“Be quiet you idiot,” whispered Portia rather loudly as to rather nullify her warning. “They say not to fiddle with the affairs of wizards since they are supposed to be quick to anger.”

“Are we?” asked Ridcully peering at the wriggling movement under Melody’s head scarf. “I mean the Librarian can be a little testy sometimes when people call him a monkey, and the Senior Wrangler gets rather miffed if you mention how horse faced he looks, but I wouldn’t say we are all that quick to anger. I guess I have turned a few people into frogs for being rude, but it was only a temporary thing and I would think snakes would be in favour of more frogs in the world.”

“Frogs are rather tasty,” agreed Penelope, “especially the legs.”.

“They taste a bit like chicken,” put in Portia.

“Best with a nice tomato based dipping sauce,” said Phoebe.

“and a glass of white wine,” added Priscilla who was definitely the gourmet of the quartet.

“I think we need to focus on the problem at hand,” said Vimes who knew the wizards could get off on tangents faster than “Done It” Duncan could confess to a crime that happened before he was even born. Vimes was just glad it was only Ridcully and not ….

“What have we got here?” asked the Lecturer in Recent Runes as a trio of figures seemed to materialize out of nowhere to peer at the three petrified figures. “These chaps don’t look well.”

Vimes stifled a groan, so much for getting things done quick and quietly.

“They do appear to be having a rather rocky day,” chortled the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

“What’s happened to them? “ asked the Senior Wrangler, duplicating Ridcully’s action of tapping one of them on the forehead with his knuckles.

“Why it’s sedimentary my dear Wrangler,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. When the others just stared at him in bafflement, he muttered, “Well I thought it was funny and you fellows would too if you read something more than a spell book now and then.”

“I thought we were going to the university and not the circus,” snapped Penelope.

It was an ill timed remark since it diverted the attention of the wizards away from the petrified thieves to Melody and they gathered around her peering at her sunglasses and the wriggling mass of her head scarf.

“I haven’t seen a real Gorgon outside of statues in years,” said the Senior Wrangler.

“Don’t they always come in threes?” asked the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

“Yes,” agreed the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “I once knew a trio of Gorgons when I was much younger up in the mountains. They were real keen on interpretive dancing and bird watching.”

Melody turned in near panic from one wizard to the other. One of them was even reaching for the knot on her scarf, curious to see what was under it and she half expected them to try for the sunglasses as well just to see what happened.

“Gentlemen, we came here for help, not to harass the young lady,” said Vimes as he stepped between Melody and the trio of wizards, managing to block the hand reaching for the knot on the scarf.

“The Commander is absolutely correct,” put in Ridcully. “Let’s adjourn to the library for a little research.” The Archchancellor looked around and spotted Modo, the handidwarf and beckoned him forward. “Mr. Modo, please help Sergeant Detritus load these poor souls into your wheelbarrow and trundle them over to the little garden outside the library, so they will be handy when we find the spell to reverse the situation.”

“You sound sure that you can find a cure fairly quickly,” said Vimes to Ridcully s he, Melody and the wizards walked briskly to the library, leaving the thieves in the care of Detritus and Modo.

“I’ve never done the reverse spell personally,” replied Ridcully, but I recall there was a question about it on my final exam when I graduated, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“I take it that you didn’t get that question right?” asked Vimes.

“Best not to tell the young lady this,” replied Ridcully, “but I think I was more interested in the prospect of obtaining a Gorgon head to mount on my wall.”

“Ook? Asked the Librarian as the group marched into the Library and approached his desk where he was carefully regluing the cover on a rare copy of Wayland’s ‘The Best Way To Stuff An Alligator’.

“I didn’t know there was more than one way,” said Vimes glancing at the book title. “Out of curiosity, what is the best way.”

“Ook,” replied the Librarian.

“When it’s dead,” translated Ridcully for Vimes who didn’t speak orangutan.

“That’s a pretty thick book if the method is three words long,” ventured Vimes.

“The rest of the book is first aid instructions,” said a new voice. It was female and Vimes looked up to see Eskarina Smith, the new Dean of Students enter the room. “I don’t have to ask what the problem is this time since I passed the three new statues in the garden on the way in.”

“Ook?” asked the Librarian with what Vimes assumed was what passed for a puzzled look on an orangutan.

“We need a spell to reverse the stare of a Gorgon,” explained Ridcully and he made a sweeping bow towards Melody.

“Ook,” said the Librarian who ambled off into the stacks and returned a few minutes later with half a dozen large books tucked easily under each long, hairy arm.

“Spells for Mythical Creatures, Mything Spells, The Misunderstood Gorgon,,” read Vimes as he looked at the titles of some of the books the Librarian dumped on a large table.

“I am not a myth,” protested Melody.

“Hah, you don’t look like a mister to me,” chortled the Lecturer in Recent Runes, who despite the evidence to the contrary, felt he was on a roll.

“That was about as tactful as a crossbow in the ear Runes,” reprimanded Ridcully as he sat down and picked up one of the books.

“Just a little joke to lighten the mood Archchancellor,” replied the Lecturer in Recent Runes looking hurt.

“Well, next time you want to lighten a room, try stepping out the window on the top floor,” snapped Ridcully. “Now sit down and make yourself useful.”

“You tell him you old coot,” interjected Penelope.

“I’ve got one spell already,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “It says to reverse a Gorgon stare, you need to cut off the head of the Gorgon and then use it to look into a mirror at its victims.”

“Eeek,” cried Melody and looked ready to make a dash for the library door when Vimes put a hand on her arm to steady her.

“I think we want something a little less fatal for Lance Constable Melody,” he said to the wizard.

“Really? You should have specified that then,” grumbled the Chair of Indefinite Studies as he looked disappointed at not getting to try the spell he had found.

“I could live for years on that one,” muttered Penelope.

“He’s too high in saturated fats dear,” said Portia.

“Here’s in interesting one,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Have a young maid who has been chaste all her life walk thrice around the walls of the city unclothed under the light of a full moon.”

“Are there any pictures to go with that spell?” asked the Senior Wrangler hopefully, looking up from his own book.

Eskarina leaned over the shoulder of the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “That’s a spell for summoning a unicorn.”

“Well, maybe we can give it a try later,” said the Senior Wrangler as he bookmarked the page.

“I imagine if she hasn’t got any clothes on, she would be chased eh?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes and he waggled his eyebrows suggestively, at least to a caterpillar.

“You are really getting on my nerves tonight Runes,” snapped Ridcully.

“Here’s one on how to get milk from a male centaur,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies and then he frowned. “I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.”

“It’s for an old love spell,” said Eskarina. “I had to get Nanny Ogg to explain that one to me since Granny Weatherwax refused to discuss it.”

“Was it difficult to do?” asked Ridcully.

“Not really,” answered Eskarina. “I just gave Nanny a glass of scumble, which of course is made from apples, or mostly apples anyway, but I think a glass of wine would have done the trick with Nanny. She took great delight in describing it in detail.”

“If there are pictures, I bet old horseface over there would like to see them,” snickered Penelope.

“That is a slanderous remark,” snapped the Senior Wrangler, “and I will have whoever said that know that my facial features are considered to be refined.”

“That seems fitting since they make glue from refining horses,” said Penelope.

“Oh stop being such a bitch Pen,” sighed Phoebe.

“Ook,” said the Librarian, forestalling any more arguments as he pointed a hairy digit at the page he was reading.

“Let’s see what you have there old chap,” said Ridcully, reaching over and taking the book from the ape. “Well, it looks simple enough.” The Archchancellor glanced over at Melody. “How would you feel about kissing the three afflicted people?”

“I thought that only worked for princesses and frogs,” put in the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

“No kings or princesses here,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “Just the Patrician and I can’t see him going in for kissing those three.”

“Actually, I wasn’t clear,” said Ridcully. “It isn’t the young lady who has to kiss them, but her snakes. One kiss from each.”

“Kiss a human?” asked Penelope. “Yuck.”

“For once I have to agree with Penelope,” said Portia. “You never know where a human’s lips have been or what they touched last.”

“Oh come on please girls,” begged Melody rolling her eyes up to stare at the top of her head. “We can use some alcohol to disinfect them first. Please, I really need your help with this. I will buy you each a sausage in a bun from Mr. Dibbler if you do this for me.”

“And one of those delicious wriggling pies too?” bargained Penelope.

“Yes, I promise,” replied Melody.

“I suspect it is our civic duty,” said Phoebe with a sigh. “It, it’s just so ….,” she trailed off.

“Gross?” suggested Priscilla.

“Exactly,” agreed Phoebe.

All the wizards were staring open mouthed with a mixture of curiosity and shock on their faces as they listened to this dialogue from under Melody’s head covering.

“Well, I guess there is no time like the present,” said Ridcully who took off his pointed hat and pulled a small bottle of high quality brandy out of the point. “This should be strong enough to disinfect just about anything,” and he took a long swig before standing up to lead the way outside.

Almost shyly, Melody untied her scarf, feeling all the eyes on her. The four snakes reared up as soon as they were freed from the imprisoning cloth and stared around with interest at the wizards and everything around them.

“I’m still not sure I can go through with this,” said Penelope looking at the three petrified thieves.

“Ladies, if you would all be so kind as to cooperate, I can promise you a most wonderful repast,” said Ridcully with a bow.

“Hmm, you might be ok for an old geezer,” said Penelope.

Ridcully dabbed the lips of the three victims with the brandy and Melody crouched down a bit to get the heights to match. “Oh my, it looks like we are robbing the cradle with this one,” giggled Penelope as she looked at Chuck.

After twelve quite loud smacks, Melody stood back and everyone watched the three figures intently. Slowly colour returned to their features and they began to move.

“Oh gods, I dreamed I was kissed by four snakes,” said one of the older thieves. He looked around dazedly, caught sight of Melody and the four snakes watching him.

“Boo,” said Penelope as she flicked her forked tongue at him and watched the man faint dead away. The second man was made of slightly sterner stuff, but he was going to need a change of trousers from the smell of him.

“I’m innocent,” declared Chuck within seconds of waking up. “I never saw these other two blokes in my life before. I wasn’t even there. They forced me to do it.”

“I think you should pick one alibi and stick to it,” suggested Vimes. “Now, Sergeant Detritus is going to escort the three of you to the cells and we will let the Patrician decide what to do with you tomorrow. I suggest you don’t try and leg it, or I won’t bother with the Patrician and just give your names to the Thieves Guild.”

The trio went quite pale at this and walked away very quietly with Detritus.

Vimes was about to thank the wizards for their help and take his leave when Ponder Stibbons came rushing up. “Oh, I’m glad I caught everyone awake. I think we might have a problem.” The young wizard’s face was flushed and he was so preoccupied that he hadn’t even noticed the snakes waving around on top of Melody’s head.

“Oh, he’s cute,” said Priscilla.

“He’s a geek,” sniffed Penelope.

“Er, did I miss something?” asked Ponder as he suddenly caught sight of the snakes and stared at them.

“We’ll tell you about it later,” promised Ridcully. “Now, what is this new problem you were babbling about.”

“You had better come see for yourself,” replied Ponder closing his mouth with a click and beckoning everyone to follow him to the High Energy Magic Building. “It’s Hex,” said Ponder gesturing towards the thinking machine. “It started acting erratically a few days ago and has got progressively worse. I think it is trying to warn me about something, but I can’t figure out what it is.”

Ridcully looked down at the quill pen that was frantically writing line after line of text.

+++ It came from outer space
+++ Danger Will Robinson
+++ In the cabbages they can’t hear you scream
+++ Everyone must serve her
+++ Run you fools, run!
+++ Even a towel can’t save you
+++ I am your father

“It looks like gibberish to me alright,” said Ridcully passing the latest sheet of paper around for the others to read. “Have you tried the dried frog pills?”

“Yes,” admitted Ponder with some reluctance. It went against every logical bone in his body to have tried it, but as much as he hated to admit it, Ridcully’s solution of “giving” the machine virtual dried frog pills had worked before, just as the real pills sometimes had helped the bursar to connect at least temporarily with reality. He had even upped the “dosage” significantly and it had still done nothing. “It was the first thing I tried.”

Ridcully shrugged. “Blasted if I know what to do then. What about you Sam? Have you heard about anything that might be considered such a danger?”

Now it was Vimes’ turn to shrug. “Nothing out of the ordinary, but I will check with the patrols when they get back.” He paused and frowned. “Come to think of it though, Angua passed on a warning from Celine, the manager of the casino, that there was something odd going on, but she had no more details than your machine here.”

* * *

She had Her slaves called Boggis and Orville deliver Her drones to different spots in the city and release them. The drones crept through shadows on rooftops, into dark alleys and through open windows and doors to explore and report. She had several of them capture new slaves for her to increase her power and had met no further resistance. Two of the new slaves promised to be very useful. One was a young human male dressed all in black She had found lounging on a rooftop. Reading his mind, She discovered he was an assassin. He would be able to get into difficult places for Her and from him, She also learned there was an entire guild of such talented individuals. It should prove very useful to take over that guild, starting at the top as She had with the one called Boggis. The second new slave that looked promising was a human female that She had found doing something possibly related to procreation in an alley. She also belonged to a guild, though She could not see how a group of seamstresses could be all that useful to Her plans. Still, the members of this guild seemed to be able to travel unimpeded all over the city without being questioned by the law enforcement personnel. Maybe there was an inordinate need for clothing repair among the citizens of this city.

Despite Her success during the night, however, She still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Her kind had travelled the universe for millennia and She had access to all those ancestral memories. World after world had fallen to them, but Her kind had never encountered this smell before that seemed to envelop and cling to Her like a poisonous mist. She needed more slaves to feed Her and that would take care of everything. She was being silly and there was nothing special about this world. Like every other world that Her species had landed on, this one would fall and all its inhabitants would serve Her.

* * *

With Carrot, her usual partner, tied up showing Vicky around the city, Angua found herself patrolling with Cheery Littlebottom. Cheery was good company and certainly much better than being stuck with Nobby who on any given shift might cause more crime than he stopped. The one drawback with Cheery was that she, like most dwarves, just tended to say what she was thinking and that sometimes created a few uncomfortable moments when interacting with humans, or werewolves as in this case.

“So, you don’t mind Carrot spending time with someone as good looking as Vicky?” asked Cheery as they strolled down the street.

Not until you mentioned it, Angua thought, but didn’t say that out loud. The thing was, she realized, she wasn’t. “If he was anyone else, I probably would be,” she told Cheery. “Carrot is well … you know, he is Carrot. He probably notices that Vicky is good looking in the same way that he might notice that someone is tall or has a good sense of humour. He will be very attentive to her and give her all the support she needs, but at the end of the day, I know he is mine.” Angua almost added that she was also his and would go running to him, tail wagging for a pet, but the full moon wasn’t due for another week and there were some things she kept in her thoughts, even with Cheery.

“I think she might have a bit of a crush on him,” said Cheery looking up at her. “I’ve seen her in the bar when we go for drinks and how she looks at Carrot.”

“It won’t be the first time, or the last time that happens,” replied Angua. “I’m surprised though that you noticed Vicky at all. Her father’s bar has been the copper’s bar since I joined and I didn’t even know Mr. Cheese had a daughter, let alone that she was working there as a waitress.”

Cheery shrugged. “It’s probably because I’m not very good at quaffing. Everyone else is pretty much concentrating on their drinks, so I have time to look around and see things.”

Angua started to reply, but suddenly a figure lurched out of a nearby alley and came towards them. “Oh, hello Reg,” said Angua as the figure drew closer. “Anything going on?”

“You mean besides Visit pestering me continuously about the advantages of the after-life?” asked the zombie officer. “He keeps going on about how I could be sitting on clouds and playing harps all day. Does it look like that would be something I am any good at?”

Angua looked down at the grey skin and the stitches holding him together and had to agree that the image of Reg sitting on wispy clouds didn’t exactly mesh. “Probably not,” she said, “but I was really asking about anything unusual going on in the city.”

“Playing a harp, hah!” snorted Reg. “Do you know how often I would have to sew my fingers back on? Harp strings are just like garroting wire to a zombie. No, I don’t want any part of his after-life, I’m perfectly happy with my after-death, thank-you very much!.”

“The city Reg?” repeated Angua, trying to get him back on track. Once Reg got going, you almost had to hit him with a hammer to get him to switch tracks. Of course, after you hit him with the hammer, you would have to stop and help him pick up the pieces that fell off and sew them back on.

“Oh, the city,” said Reg stumbling to a halt in his diatribe. “There does seem to be something odd going on, but I couldn’t tell you exactly what. It’s a bit too quiet. Even the rats and the pigeons seem scared of something, but so far we haven’t seen any sign of what that might be. Visit and I were in that alley checking out some weird scuttling noise, but all I got a glimpse of was something that looked like an extra large spider.”

“It dived into a hole and was gone before I got a good look at it,” said Constable Visit as he came out of the alley to join them.

Visit The Infidel With Explanatory Pamphlets or shortened to Visit and nicknamed Washpot for reasons most didn’t know was, despite his evangelical zeal in spreading the word of Om, was a good copper Angua knew, as was Reg, so Angua took their report and concerns seriously. Angua took a long sniff, even in human form her sense of smell was what she relied on more than any other sense and once you subtracted the smell of mothballs from Reg and printer’s ink from Visit, she did pick up something new and odd. It was vaguely insect like, but not like anything she could recall smelling before. “Ok, keep your eyes open and let me, Carrot or Mr. Vimes know if you learn anything more.”

The other two officers nodded and headed off in a new direction while Angua looked down at Cheery. “Have you noticed anything odd? Like these spiders”

“You mean because I’m closer to the ground?” asked Cheery with just a hint of reproach in her voice.

“Frankly, yes,” replied Angua. “It gives you a different perspective on things. You were the one who noticed Vicky in the bar when no one else did. It’s kind of like my nose, all the different ways of looking at things tends to give us a better picture than everyone being the same.”

Sorry,” said Cheery. “I tend to get a bit sensitive over the height thing sometimes, but to answer your question, not yet,” replied Cheery as her hand strayed to her axe by reflex. When the going got tough, a dwarf’s first reaction was to make sure their axe was ready and close to hand.

* * *

Buggerit. “Millennium hand and shrimp,” muttered Foul Old Ron as he wandered through the dark streets of Ankh-Morpork. “There was an alligator sitting in the tree eating ice cream and I said to him that he should bugger off, but he just laughed at me.”

“Well, you can never trust an alligator,” said Gaspode companionably. He served as Ron’s ‘Thinking Brain’ dog and the two were on their way back to the beggar’s camp under the bridge. They had been near the back door of the casino where lately they seemed to hit it lucky more often than not. This time a cook had come out with a tray of sausage rolls that she said were slightly burned and so couldn’t be served to guests. They had actually looked fine to Gaspode, but there was no point in arguing the issue and the cook had even found a paper bag for them to carry the food away. If Gaspode didn’t know better that the world didn’t give a damn about anyone, especially beggars who were too bad to even belong to the Beggar’s Guild, then he would have suspected that someone had been looking out for them lately. It was a good streak of … and he knew it was stupid to not even think the word, but he wasn’t going to just in case.

Ron stopped to talk to a lamp post that he thought he recognized and one of the drones crept down a nearby wall towards him. She had seen the beggars moving freely through the city and had decided they would make useful spies for Her. She ordered the drone to leap onto the human and turn him into an obedient slave, but the drone hesitated and then refused Her order. She hammered the order through Her mental link to the drone a second time with enough power behind it that the small creature had no choice. It leapt and the smell of Foul Old Ron washed over it. The drone landed on Ron’s shoulder and managed to cling there heroically for a second before falling to the ground where it started to melt. Gaspode noticed the squirming, disintegrating thing and lifted his leg to anoint it. After he finished, he gave the resultant puddle a sniff and backed away hurriedly. There were some things that even a dog won’t roll in, not many, but this was one of them.

“It was dill pickle-ice cream that the alligator was eating and it offered to share after it stopped laughing, but I ain’t no fool. I went and tickled the whale. That’s what I did. Buggerit.”

“That’s right Ron,” said Gaspode, “now let’s get home and eat shall we?”

* * *

She was stunned. For the second time ever, one of Her drones had refused Her command and then it had died without Her having any idea what had killed it. Was Her most recent target some kind of all powerful mage? It seemed unlikely, but She had no other explanation at this moment. It doesn’t matter, She told Herself. I am getting stronger with each new slave and very soon I will target those in power in this city. Now if only She could ignore that cloying smell that surrounded Her.

* * *

Vicky stole sidelong glances at Carrot as they resumed their patrol. He moved with such total confidence and he had carried that heavy thief without even breaking into a sweat. Thinking of Carrot in a sweat made Vicky start to sweat and she wiped a hand over her forehead. Damn, she needed to think of something else. She had seen Carrot with Captain Angua in the bar and knew they were an item. She also knew that getting Angua pissed off at her was not a good move since she had seen a few idiots who had managed to do that. The way Angua stared at the jugular of someone she was mad at was enough to make anyone remotely sane think about taking a long trip away from Ankh-Morpork as quickly as they could. Still, Vicky couldn’t help but steal another glance at Carrot and those huge muscles.

“Hello Jolene,” Vicky heard Carrot say and looked outwards from her thoughts to finally notice the woman coming towards them. One of Mrs. Palm’s ladies from the way she was dressed and the way she walked.

“I obey only her now,” said Jolene in a toneless voice and she walked past the two city guards without seeming to really notice them.

“That’s odd,” said Carrot as he stopped and looked back at Jolene’s receding form. “She is normally very polite and talkative.”

“She sounded like she just came from or was on her way to a bondage customer,” smirked Vicky.

“Pardon?” said Carrot turning to her with a puzzled look on his face.

“You know someone who is into um things with like ropes and whips,” replied Vicky and saw clearly that Carrot didn’t. There was no way in hells she wanted to have to explain the topic any further to this man. She had been doing her best not to think about how Carrot would look out of that shiny armour of his and had finally succeeded in getting herself under control. Thoughts of cold showers and even entire icebergs hadn’t worked, but then she had hit on the picture of Corporal Nobbs and suddenly she felt all her unwanted emotions vanish like magic.

“Oh, I see,” said Carrot after a few seconds thought and Vicky saw him blush bright red. “I think Angua mentioned something about that being a service that Mrs. Palm provided to some of her clients. I didn’t think Jolene was one of those er specialists though.” Carrot kept looking at Jolene until the woman rounded a corner and was out of sight. “Maybe I will have to check on her when my shift is over.”

Vicky wondered what Angua’s reaction would be to Carrot going into Mrs. Palm’s house to check on one of her “seamstresses”, but then again maybe Angua knew Carrot better than she did. Lucky girl.

* * *

“Of course I will resign Sir,” said Melody as she stood in front of Vimes’ desk early in the morning. “I’m pretty sure Harmony and Beatrice will let me move back into the cave.”

The first edition of the Times lay on the commander’s desk in front of them. “Three Turned To Stone By Gorgon!” read the headline in the largest type size that would fit the entire width of the paper. Vimes wondered if he should feel grateful for the restraint that William de Worde had used by employing only one exclamation mark. Well, he didn’t feel very grateful and part of the reason for that was the large colour picture that Otto had taken showing the three petrified thieves and a horrified looking Melody.

At least Sacharissa’s story had made it quite clear that the “victims” were caught red handed in the middle of a robbery and that their being turned to stone was an accident that resulted from the attempt to apprehend the thieves. There were a couple of sidebar stories as well as the main article. The enterprising Miss Cripslock had managed to sneak through the university gates when Detritus had taken the revived trio to the cells and with a few well placed flattering remarks, had got Ridcully to explain how the thieves weren’t really turned to stone. Thankfully, the wizard had at least invoked the good old “trade secrets” excuse to keep from revealing the exact details about how the process had been reversed. The other sidebar was from Hector Corrigal who praised the Watch for their quick response and the retrieval of his goods. Well that was something, but it hardly made up for the other item in the paper that had Vimes glaring at the inanimate object so sourly. Damned if he knew how the cartoonist had managed to get it done in time for the early morning edition, but there was a cartoon showing Vimes himself standing among what he presumed were supposed to be the three petrified thieves and leering at a cowering person with “Public” written across their back. The caption read “And you thought I was stone faced eh?”

Once he had got back to the station, Vimes had sent the two older thieves to the Tanty. Both men had long records and they would be safer there at least temporarily, since the Thieves Guild knew the Patrician could be counted on to administer swift and quite likely lethal punishment. Still, it was odd that Mr. Boggis had not made at least a pro forma request for the pair to be turned over to his guild for punishment. Vimes had kept Chuck here at the station cells. He was probably being naïve, but the boy was still young enough that there might be a chance to get him straightened out, or at least a little less bent. Vimes had no idea how to accomplish that miracle, but maybe something would occur to him.

“Of course you aren’t resigning,” he said finally transferring his glare from the paper to the visibly quaking Lance Constable. When he saw the shaking, he turned down his glare a few notches and managed to soften his voice as well. “You didn’t do anything wrong tonight Lance Constable. It was an accident, though it is one we can learn from and try to avoid in the future. You did good tonight. You asked questions, learned quickly and followed orders well. There is no way in the hells that I am letting you quit over something like this.”

Melody stared at Vimes for several moments, unable to believe what she had heard. “I, I don’t know what to say,” she finally stammered out. “I thought I really screwed up and I was ready to go pack my bag and crawl back into the cave for the rest of my life.”

“You didn’t screwup,” said Vimes. “Like I said it was an accident and even if it was a screwup, everyone is entitled to at least one, or in Nobby’s case a few dozen. Look, it wasn’t that long ago that the Watch was made up totally of screwups. It was Colon, Nobby and me and I was the biggest screwup of the lot. I was drunk most of the time and it took a bloody damn dragon to sober me up. Well, the dragon and Sybil of course and come to think of it, I was more afraid of Sybil’s reaction to me not getting my act together than I was scared of the dragon. Now, I suggest you go get some sleep Lance Constable and be ready for your shift tonight.”

“Yes Sir!” replied Melody doing her best to salute and come to attention before heading out the door with a lot more spring in her step than she had coming in.

“He might not be such a jerk after all,” came the faint, but unmistakable voice of Penelope from the hallway.

“It sounds like you convinced Melody to stay,” said Carrot as he and Angua entered Vimes’ office.

“What I told her is the truth,” said Vimes. “It really wasn’t her fault and I think she could be a good copper. How did it go with you and Vicky?”

“She did well,” replied Carrot then stopped when he seemed about to say something more.

“He just needs to find a way to gently discourage her puppy dog crush,” spoke up Angua. She saw Carrot blush and throw her a worried look. “Oh don’t worry, I won’t tear her throat out, or at least not yet.”

Vimes was pretty sure Angua was joking since she even went back and paid for any chicken she ate on the nights when the full moon tended to make her a little testy. He decided it was best for them to work this out without his interference, so he decided to change the subject. “Any more signs of something new and odd going on in the city?” Carrot told him about meeting Jolene and how she had been acting, then Angua reported what Reg and Visit had told her. Vimes scratched his chin and sighed. “The wizards thinking machine is having conniptions too, but I don’t know what to make of it. Do either of you have any suggestions?”

“I did smell something odd when I was near the alley where Reg saw whatever he saw,” said Angua. “This might sound a bit weird, but at least part of the smell was cabbages, but the other part was something I hadn’t encountered before. I might have more luck if I nosed around in wolf form tonight.”

Vimes nodded, “alright, but take Carrot with you. I don’t like how this feels. We can send the new recruits out with other officers tonight.”

“Er, not Fred and Nobby though,” put in Carrot hastily.

“Definitely not,” agreed Vimes. “There are days when I wonder why I keep those two around, but oddly enough they tend to come in handy. They can spot trouble coming from miles away and most times if I do the opposite of what they suggest, it turns out to be the right thing.”

What about Chuck?” asked Carrot. “I see you didn’t send him to be a guest of the Patrician like the other two.”

“He is the oldest of six kids and his dad was killed in a bar fight last year. The mother has her hands full with the younger kids, so he is probably their only source of income. He’s pretty talented, but also a bit careless. I will have a word with Mr. Boggis and see if he can be admitted to the guild early. It’s something they do on compassionate grounds now and then.”

“I know that when I first came to Ankh-Morpork,” said Carrot, “that the idea of a policeman recommending someone for admittance to the Thieves Guild would have totally baffled me. Now it just seems to make sense as the best option.”

“This city changes us all,” agreed Vimes. “Now, I am going home to see my wife and son and get some sleep.”

* * *

Lady Sybil Ramkin stepped out the back door of her mansion not long after the sun had made its appearance in the sky. She was dressed in heavy, fire-proof garments from head to toe as she paused to flip down the shield over her face with one thick gloved hand while tightly clutching a cast iron frying pan in the other. So prepared, Sybil made her way across the yard and into the large shed that contained the love of her life, well after Sam of course, the three dozen or so swamp dragons that she had rescued, raised and bred. The dragons heard her coming and there were small gouts of flame shooting up from some of the stalls as she entered the shed. Putting down the frypan on a large flat rock that served as a work table … you certainly couldn’t use flammable wood or meltable metal around swamp dragons, Sybil picked up a heavy iron shovel and began to dump the dragon’s food mixture which consisted mainly of coal and some vitamin and mineral additives into the food bowls of her darlings. As Sybil did all this, she was totally unaware that she was being watched.

One of the drones had crept through a small hole in the roof left by the explosion of Precious Greenscales Darlington IV a few days ago and through its senses, She watched the woman below. The intelligence gathered by Her drones said that this was an important person in this city, both in her own right and as the wife of the human Vimes who commanded the City Watch. As such, She felt the woman would prove to a very useful slave in her conquest of this city and this world. It was just that She was having trouble reconciling the supposed importance of the woman with her actions and behaviour. Important people didn’t do manual jobs like this, that was what slaves were for. Also, why was this woman so concerned with the welfare of what were clearly inferior beings? She had many ancestral memories of large dragons that soared through the sky terrifying the insects below them that crawled on the land. Those large dragons made very useful slaves and were easily controlled as long as you didn’t threaten their hordes of precious metals and jewels. She had no use for such things and Her kind had often found dragons convenient servants that were satisfied with those material objects. These small “swamp dragons” as She had learned they were called were useless to Her plans. A hiccup or a falling leaf could trigger them into exploding noisily into thousands of small, fleshy bits. She felt quite safe in ignoring the swamp dragons and turned its attention back to the woman as it ordered its drone to move to one of the walls and proceed in enslaving the woman.

Sybil finished feeding the swamp dragons and checked to make sure all their water bowls were full then picked up the frying pan. She had got a semaphore signal from Pseudopolis Yard that Sam was on his way home and she intended to have breakfast for him just the way he liked it. Inside the large frying pan were two slices of bread, several eggs, sausages of what might possibly be mostly meat and of course bacon. Sybil knew she was not a good cook, but Sam always said that it didn’t matter since he wasn’t a good eater. Sybil walked down to the pen of Leadbelly Pendergrast VII, the oldest of her current crop of dragons and the one with the coolest flame. She held out the frying pan over the wall of the small dragon’s pen and saw it suck in air through its large nostrils in preparation for flame. Leady, as she called him, was quite familiar with this little game which always earned him a rather tasty chunk of quartz or some other mineral. Very carefully, at least for a swamp dragon, it sent a breath of flame onto the bottom of the frypan for a few seconds and stopped. With some difficulty due to her heavy and very necessary gloves, Sybil took a spatula out of her robe pockets and flipped everything in the glowing red frypan before extending it once more over the pen. A second gout of flame flickered over the bottom of the pan and cut out. Sybil inspected the contents and saw it was just the way Sam liked it with lots of little crunchy black pieces. “That’s a good little boy Leady,” Sybil crooned and again reaching into a pocket, she extracted a tasty, at least for swamp dragons, chunk of chalcocite and tossed it to the helpful little cutie. There was a happy crunching noise as Leady consumed his treat. All of a sudden though, Leady focussed his eyes on something on the wall no more than a foot above Sybil’s head. Sybil had seen that look before thousands of times and quickly ducked as sometimes the dragon flames could test her fireproof gear to the limits of the definition of fireproof. She just hoped that Leady didn’t explode himself as she was quite fond of the little dragon and it had taken her some time to train it to help with breakfast.

Leady didn’t have a clue what the drone was, partly since it had never seen one before and partly because brains were not a survival trait among swamp dragons. It just instinctively knew it didn’t like the thing creeping down the wall towards the nice lady that fed it tasty things. A hotter than usual flame belched out of the old swamp dragon and fried the drone.

She screamed in the bottom of Her crater nest as if the flames had struck Her. The connection between She and Her drones was two way, it had to be, but that meant She felt everything the drones did just as She heard and saw everything they did. Quickly, She severed the link between Her and the drone and lay there shivering with terror and rage. Those inferior creatures had dared destroy one of Her precious drones They had denied her the chance of enslaving the woman and through her the one called Vimes. She who had never lost a single drone before had now lost three in less than a day. It was unthinkable and She would exact a terrible price for this affront. She still had more than enough drones and Her first slaves were even now delivering a second load to the city. It was time though to start moving higher up the city’s chain of power and command.

* * *

A drone crept through the halls of Unseen University. She liked wizards, they made very useful slaves and were often so easy to trap. Wizards were always pushing the limits, seeking knowledge in dark corners and doing things that even someone with a half a dozen pints in him on a Saturday night and wearing a lampshade for a hat would know was just not a good idea. Through the drone’s senses, She heard sounds in the room to Her left and the drone slithered under the door. There was a wizard in the room. You could always tell it was a wizard by the pointy hat and the stuffed alligator hung from the ceiling. She had no idea why these two things were a necessary requirement for a wizard, but many things that humans and other species did were a total mystery to Her. The only odd thing about this particular wizard was that he wasn’t mixing things up in deformed glassware or drawing mystic symbols all over the place. Instead, he just sat there in his chair smiling faintly. No matter, he was a wizard and would soon join Her growing army of slaves.

The Bursar sat in his comfortable chair smiling and doing sums in his head. The day had not gotten off to a good start. He had got up early and decided to take a little stroll around the grounds to work up an appetite for breakfast. He had been surprised to find three new stone statues in the little garden outside of the library. That had been unusual, but not terribly alarming as he figured Mr. Modo was merely doing some landscaping to spruce up the place. He had done a tour around the grounds and upon returning for breakfast, he saw the statues moving around. Statues were not supposed to do that were they? The Bursar had felt his initial good mood start to slip at that point and then he saw the woman with snakes for hair and the snakes were talking. That had totally killed his feeling of euphoria and the Bursar had dashed for his room and taken a double dose of dried frog pills. The medication had kicked in and now the Bursar sat in his chair feeling very mellow indeed.

The Bursar even saw the spider like drone crawl under his door and yet that didn’t alarm him in the least. He had seen many stranger things such as the tap dancing hippopotamuses the other night. “Here little feller,” giggled the Bursar and he put his hand down on the floor in invitation to the drone.

She paused the drone and tried to figure out what was going on. The sight of Her drones almost always drove the viewer into a screaming wreck who either cowered in abject fear or tried to run away. Both were fun outcomes as they gave Her a chance to play with Her prey. No one had ever held out their hand and openly welcomed one of Her drones before. Perhaps this was some truly black hearted wizard who foolishly thought he could find power through Her drone? Well, if that was the case, She would take great delight in tormenting the fool for as long as he lived. With a mental smile, She sent the drone skittering forward onto the outstretched hand.

“You’re kind of cute,” laughed the Bursar as he tickled the drone’s tentacles with the fingertips of his other hand. With total unconcern, the Bursar watched the drone walk up his arm onto his shoulder and then around to the back of his neck. He felt a very small pinprick as the drone stabbed a tendril into his body and established direct contact with his central nervous system.

She giggled. She had never done that before and indeed had not even known what a giggle was until that moment. The world around her suddenly became a totally different place. It was no longer a harsh landscape of slaves and conquest. Instead, it was kind of pink. A nice foggy pink that enveloped Her brain and made Her feel good. Conquest? Why should She want such a silly thing when She could sit here and watch the polka dotted flamingos singing folksongs about lovely maidens on the first day of May?

She screamed and all Her slaves felt the anger and the fear behind it through their mental link with Her. With the last vestiges of Her evil willpower, She wrenched the drone free from the wizard and ordered it to self destruct. It was barely in time. Another few seconds of that pinkish happy feeling and She would have been lost, content to just sit in the bottom of Her crater until the world ended. It had been so close, so very close. She had no idea how such a thing could have happened. Surely, this wizard was the most cunning and deadly foe She had ever faced. She would have to be more cautious when attempting to enslave the other wizards since She didn’t know if this man was typical of their breed on this world or just a freakish outlier. No matter, once She had conquered this entire world, even he would have to fall before Her might. Until then, She decided to leave this mighty wizard alone and hope he didn’t interfere with Her plans.

* * *

Lord Downey, head of the Assassin’s Guild frowned as he worked on his monthly budget. The guild income came mainly from the twenty five percent handling charge it collected on any inhumations carried out by its members. Those engagements came exclusively from the upper class of society, either aristocrats who had managed not to drink or gamble their wealth away, or from the noveau rich who earned their money in the more tackier ways of business. The problem was that Lord Downey had been noticing a small, but steady drop in the number of contracts his guild members had been called on to execute over the last few years. Reluctantly, the head assassin was beginning to suspect there might be just a tiny flaw in the guild’s business model. With each successful inhumation, the targets of which also came from the upper class, there were fewer and fewer people able to afford and require the guild’s services. Not every inhumed person had an heir to pass their wealth to, especially not if someone had bought a “family plan” from the guild. Oh, there were still the odd new persons entering the upper crust who could afford guild services, but the exit rate was higher than the entrance rate. If this trend kept up, there might not be in a few years time enough people with money to keep the guild viable. It might be, and Lord Downey shuddered at this idea, necessary to explore some type of “middle class” option with lowered rates that the moderately well off could afford. The quantity would make up for the quality. It might be the only way to save the guild, but the prospect left a horrible taste in the head assassin’s mouth.

There was a knock at the door of Lord Downey’s study and he looked up with a frown. He had told his personal servant Carter that he didn’t want to be disturbed until he was done the budget unless the situation was life and death and the value of that death equal to at least fifty thousand dollars. “Come in,” he called and prepared himself to give the man a good tongue lashing.

“Sorry to disturb you,” said Carter in a rather dead sounding voice which made Downey wonder if there was something the matter with his servant, but didn’t feel interested enough to inquire about it. “Young master Reginald Blackheart has just returned from a reconnaissance mission for a proposed inhumation and said he has found something vitally important that you need to see.”

“I trust it is more interesting than a dead pigeon,” replied Lord Downey dryly.

“Oh yes sir,” said Carter. “He gave it to me to show you. It will change your life sir.”

Downey was sure now that there was something wrong with Carter as he watched the man approaching his desk and reaching into his pocket. Carter never had much of a personality, but the dead flatness in his voice was ringing alarm bells in the head assassin’s brain. It was ridiculous though. Carter’s family had been guild servants for four generations and every assassin knew that servants were off limits both for killing or being involved in an inhumation. Still, Lord Downey’s right hand slipped a razor sharp dagger out of its sheath under cover of his desk and regarded Carter calmly as the man’s hand opened. The assassin caught only a brief glimpse of something black and multilegged on the palm of Carter’s hand before it leaped for him. Downey threw his chair backwards and tried to bring up the knife, but the thing was too fast and landed on his shoulder. Lord Downey felt it scurry around to the back of his neck and then felt a terrible stabbing pain.

* * *

The various clocks of Ankh-Morpork tolled noon, starting with that of the teacher’s guild whose members were the most desperate to get away from the little monsters, otherwise describe in much more glowing terms to their parents. One by one the clocks rang out until Old Tom, the Unseen University bell rang twelve silences that stopped all noise. It was a dirty little secret, or perhaps more accurately a clean little secret that noon marked the start of washing time at the Guild of Seamstresses. All of Mrs. Palm’s young ladies of contingent affection were now out of their beds and blearily regarding their breakfasts with the aid of several cups of strong coffee and the obligatory joke about how they never wanted to see another sausage in their lives. The last patron had been tossed out at four in the morning and that was generally a literal heave. As in any business trying to close, there is always at least one customer who doesn’t take the hint when the lights are flicked off and on and require some active assistance to quit the premises. That closing time gave the ladies a solid eight hours until noon and then the daily cleaning ritual began. The one exception to this being the “Emergency Room” that Mrs. Palm had started up a few years back. It seemed that there were always those willing to pay a significant premium for off hours service and Rosy saw no reason to not collect that premium.
During cleaning time, all the bedding in all the rooms was cleaned and the rooms themselves were given a thorough wipe-down as per the regulations laid down by the Patrician and enforced by Mrs. Palm. Rosy totally approved of those regulations and didn’t see them as anything but beneficial to her business. She had risen through the ranks of the profession during the years when they had been denied guild status and knew on a first hand basis the importance of proper hygiene in their line of work. The basement of the guild house ran the largest laundry this side of the palace and the university with massive custom designed washing and drying machines for large items, though the more intimate apparel required delicate hand washing. Mrs. Palm had poached Sylvia Gregoire from Unseen University where she had been one of Mrs. Whitlow’s top assistants to head up the guild cleaning team. It was a move that still brought uncharacteristic language from Mrs. Whitlow whenever she thought about it and was the source of any disparaging remarks she made about the Seamstresses Guild rather than any moral objections to their business practices.

“I don’t know what is wrong with some of the girls today,” said Sylvia as she and Rosy stood together on the basement steps watching the cleaning routine get started. “I would say that several of them are walking around like zombies, except Gertrude is a zombie and one of my best workers. We just have to check to make sure she has all her fingers after loading the laundry into the washing tubs.”
“Oh yes, I remember,” said Rosy. “We didn’t do that when she first started working here and Melissa nearly had a meltdown when she found a finger in her knickers. It wouldn’t have been so bad except Gertrude’s fingers try to wiggle their way home to her. Still, I know what you mean about unusual behavior. I have Jolene and several other girls acting almost brain dead this morning. I am going to have to send a runner over to Dr. Lawn and see if he can take a look at them. When he comes, I will let you know and you can send any of your people up to see him as well. It is probably some new bug that is going around. Sometimes I think we were better off in the old days when nobody knew about these invisible little creatures. If you couldn’t see them and didn’t know about them, then how could they cause problems?”

Rosy and Sylvia heard a noise behind them on the steps and turned to see the aforementioned Jolene coming down the stairs towards them with a vacant look on her face and her hands hidden behind her back. “I have been looking for you,” said Jolene in a voice devoid of any emotion. “She must be obeyed and She has given me a present for both of you.”

“She?” demanded Rosy starting to get angry. “If there is someone who thinks they can muscle in on my guild then they are going to learn a very painful lesson very quickly.”

“She wants to be your friend,” replied Jolene woodenly. “She only wants to help you.” Suddenly, before either Sylvia or Rosy could react, Jolene’s hands came out from behind her and she flung two drones directly at the other two women. They barely had time to open their mouths to scream before the creatures scuttled around to the back of their necks and a sharp pain seared through their bodies.

* * *

Drumknot frowned and glanced at the clock for the hundredth time that morning. Mr. Boggis had missed his morning appointment with the Patrician which was a novel event in the clerk’s experience. Mr. Boggis and all the other guild leaders tended to be quite punctual when it came to their monthly meetings with Lord Vetinari. His lordship tended to get very polite and smile more when he was kept waiting and that tended to worry people greatly for some reason. That was what made the current situation so worrying and Drumknot had even taken the Patrician in his lunch which really didn’t bode well for the Thieves Guild leader when he showed up. On the bright side, maybe Mr. Boggis had suffered a heart attack or something else fatal which would explain his tardiness.

There was a sound from the doorway to the waiting room and Drumknot spun around to see Mr. Boggis standing there. The man certainly didn’t look quite right. For one thing, he was not wearing his brown bowler hat which was the official emblem of the head of the Thieves Guild. For Mr. Boggis to be out without his hat was like Captain Carrot being seen without a breastplate shined to a blinding brilliance.

“Are you alright Mr. Boggis?” asked Drumknot hurrying over to the man, his voice tinged with concern.

“She must be obeyed,” replied Mr. Boggis woodenly.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Drumknot. “Is Mrs. Boggis ill?” The clerk gave an inward sigh of relief at this logical explanation, both for Mr. Boggis being late for his appointment and for his current condition. “You should have sent word Mr. Boggis, his lordship would have understood about postponing the meeting under those circumstances.”

“She must be obeyed,” repeated Mr. Boggis and clasped Drumknot on the shoulder. The clerk automatically began to pull back, since any kind of physical contact made him uncomfortable, but he forced himself to remain still. He rather vaguely knew that sometimes when people were under great stress, they often sought out physical touch for solace. Because of the speed of the drones, it was doubtful that avoiding contact would have made any difference as the creature slipped under the clerk’s tight collar and then Drumknot felt a horrible pain at the back of his neck.

* * *

Lord Vetinari looked up from his soup when his office door opened and saw Drumknot step inside. The Patrician’s eyes narrowed ever so minutely and then returned to normal as he looked at his clerk. Under his desk, Mr. Fusspot began to growl.

* * *

Leonard of Quirm looked down sadly at the results of his latest experiment to make unbreakable dishes. He was sure he almost had the formula correct. The dishes even survived casual bangs and bumps, but when he dropped them on the tiled floor, they blew apart in a very distressing manner which could possibly even be called dangerous. Leonard looked at the solid oak table he had taken shelter behind and saw half a dozen lethal looking shards stuck an inch deep in it and revised his thoughts from “possibly dangerous” to “certainly dangerous”. Why, if you were to load a large number of the dishes into a catapult and fling them over the walls of a city you were laying siege to then the results could be quite horrific. Of course no one would do something that insane. Also, the current models of catapult would be terribly inefficient for such a task. Absentmindedly, Leonard picked up paper and quickly began to draw. Hmm, if he changed the standard payload basket thusly and of course it would make sense to use the new more powerful springs he had designed last week along with steel reinforced oak arms … That should give a maximum range of let’s see and Leonard did the calculation of the range in the margin. Leonard looked at the complete drawing, sighed and was going to rip it into shreds, but instead added it to a mounting pile of papers on one table. Perhaps with some modifications, he might be able to use such a device to launch objects into orbit, or to collect samples from the upper atmosphere.

Reaching for a dustpan and broom, Leonard began to sweep up the shrapnel. He got halfway through the cleanup when a thought struck him. There should be a better way to do this shouldn’t there? Lost in thought, Leonard crouched there with brush in hand as he thought. Dropping his tools, Leonard reached for a new sheet of paper and began to draw. It needed wheels of some sort and a chamber to store material it picked up. Some kind of clockwork mechanism to power it? There had to be a better way, but so far that idea had eluded him, though the bit with sticking electrodes in potatoes was showing promise. Ok, now add a pump to create a vacuum which would go here and how could he automate it? Leonard remembered the punch tape he had created for automating weaving which the Weavers Guild had thrown such a silly fit over. Yes, he could adapt that. Of course, it would require a set of instructions to program it. Well, that should be easy enough. Leonard was halfway through enumerating the commands needed for such a device when he heard sounds emanating from the corridor outside his room. A moment later, the key clicked in the lock and the door opened. The Patrician stood there with a body slung over his shoulder, breathing hard and leaning heavily on his cane.

“She must be obeyed,” gasped Lord Vetinari.

“Must she?” asked Leonard in puzzlement as the Patrician limped into the room and dropped the body on the floor so that Leonard could see it was Lord Vetinari’s secretary Drumknot. “Oh dear, has something happened to him?”

“I am afraid, I happened to him,” replied Vetinari as he removed a raft of papers from a chair and sank down onto it with a sigh.

“I am afraid, I don’t understand my lord,” said Leonard moving towards Drumknot’s still form.

“Wait,” said Vetinari, holding up a hand to stop Leonard. “He is only unconscious, but it might not be safe to touch him. He came into my office acting very unusual and then produced some kind of creature, possibly a parasite of some sort that attacked me. It might have succeeded except for Mr. Fusspot who knocked it into my soup where it melted.” There was a muffled bark at this point and only then did Leonard realize the Patrician’s small dog was stuffed under his jacket and wriggling to get free. Having regained his breath, Lord Vetinari released the dog of diverse parentage from his prison and Mr. Fusspot jumped down and began to run around the room sniffing and exploring.

“But you have guards, other clerks,” began Leonard, “shouldn’t you have summoned them?”

Vetinari gave his head a shake. “The two men I encountered just outside my office were also acting strangely. The common denominator was that phrase about obedience to her and I have no idea who they are referring to.”

Leonard nodded and went over to his workbench and put on a pair of gloves. “I think we still need to examine Mr. Drumknot to see what we can learn,” he said. “I created these gloves using the sap from certain trees for Dr. Lawn at the Lady Sybil Free Hospital. They should keep any parasites from being able to infect me.” Leonard crouched down over the unconscious clerk and began to carefully examine him with his eyes and touch.

“I am afraid the bump on the back of his head is my doing,” said Vetinari as he watched Leonard work. “He was caught by surprise when his attack failed and I felled him with a paperweight.”

“That does not appear to be serious my lord, said Leonard and then he gasped as he lifted the collar of Drumknot’s shirt and saw the spider like thing attached there. “Oh my, that does not look good.”

“It looks exactly like the thing that attacked me,” said Lord Vetinari as he leaned down to get a better look.

“It doesn’t look like anything I have seen or read about,” said Leonard scratching the side of his head reflexively as he looked closer at the drone. “It appears to have inserted a probe of some sort into him, probably into the spinal cord.”

“Would that allow the creature to control him?” asked Vetinari.

“Yes and no,” replied Leonard thoughtfully. “The thing appears to be too small to control a human, but it might be acting as a relay to some kind of hive mind. That would fit in with you saying that others are similarly infected.”

“Can you remove it?” asked Vetinari.

“That might prove fatal to Mr. Drumknot. I will need to do a more detailed inspection to determine if the thing can be safely removed,” said Leonard as he produced a large magnifying glass to examine the spot where the creature had inserted itself into its host. “Er, might I ask what kind of soup you were eating my lord?”

“I don’t see what …,” the Patrician began and then stopped himself. “You think something in the soup killed the parasite that tried to attack me?”

“It seems a good working hypothesis my lord,” agreed Leonard.

“I am not sure of all the ingredients,” admitted Lord Vetinari. “It was a vegetable soup, carrots, potato, cabbage, possibly other things. The cook can get quite inventive at times.”

“It might be any of the ingredients or just the water,” said Leonard with a shrug. “It would require some experimentation.”

“The important questions seem to be then, where did these things come from and what can we do about them?” said Lord Vetinari with a shrug.

“As I said my lord, I have never heard tell of such a creature on the Disk,” replied Leonard looking thoughtful. “There are some places in the wilds of the Klatchian continent that have not been well explored and I suppose we could say the same for the Counterweight Continent and Fourecks. Still, I think we would have encountered such a dangerous species by now and I know of nothing similar to it which makes it a very unlikely creature.”

“Nevertheless, it is here, right in front of us,” pointed out the Patrician. “How do you explain that?”

“I am minded of something that happened a few nights ago,” replied Leonard. “I was using my See Far Device to observe the stars when I saw a meteor flash across the sky. I did some quick calculations and believe that if it did not burn up when entering the atmosphere, that it would have come to earth less than ten miles from the city.”

“You think the creatures came from outer space?” asked Vetinari, one eyebrow arching in obvious doubt.

“I think it is worth taking a look my lord,” answered Leonard. “I do not see what we have to lose. From what you say, there are several others at least infected by these creatures and surely we cannot remain in hiding here.”

As if to punctuate his words, Leonard and the Patrician heard a scream from some ways down the corridor leading to Leonard’s workroom. “Ah, from the pitch of that scream, I would venture to guess someone has discovered the scorpion pit,” mused Lord Vetinari. “Yes, the various traps will slow them down, but it won’t stop them.” Leonard only nodded and began to stuff things that he thought might be useful into a backpack.

* * *

She was angry. The attempt to enslave the wretched ruler of this wretched city had failed at least for now. Her latest slave, the one called Drumknot had actually resisted Her. He seemed to think loyalty was an important quality and his resistance had made him slow. Then there had been the wretched, smelly four legged creature who made noises that hurt Her ears. It had intercepted Her drone and then somehow that drone had been destroyed. The slave Drumknot was unconscious and so could not even provide Her with any intelligence on what the man Vetinari was doing. She had directed several of Her other slaves into the hidden corridors of the building, but it seemed filled with devious traps, devious and lethal. She had lost several slaves in the attempt to capture this Vetinari and for some unaccountable reason, She had had overwhelming desire to count Her paperclips and file all Her slaves in alphabetical order. She didn’t even have a clue what a paperclip was.

* * *

“Wake up Sam, Cheery is at the door and needs to talk to you.”

Sam Vimes came awake and stared muzzily up at Sybil’s face as she leaned over the bed. He had been having dreams about insects crawling over his skin and eating him alive. It had been so real that he couldn’t help but hold up a hand to his face and sigh with relief when he saw the hand was whole and not just bare white bones as in his dreams. “What time is it?” he got out in a hoarse whisper.

“About three in the afternoon,” replied Sybil who poured a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table and handed it to him. “You were out all last night and have only had a few hours of sleep.”

Vimes gulped the water thankfully and gave Sybil the glass before more or less falling out of bed to land on the floor. He had meant to spring up lightly, but his body hadn’t been having with any of that nonsense so soon after waking up on too little sleep. Sybil bent down and offered him her arm and with one hand gripping that solid form and the other pushing up on the mattress, Vimes made it to his feet. “Please tell Cheery I will be down in five minutes,” he said looking around for his discarded clothes.

“I will tell her half an hour,” contradicted Sybil and put up a hand to forestall any argument on his part. “Wilikins has your razor and hot water ready in the bathroom. The city is not going to fall before you have a chance to make yourself presentable. You have an example to set to your people.”

“Yes dear,” agreed Vimes who would argue with a troll high on slab in a dark alley before he would argue with Sybil and have a better chance of winning.

“Something weird is going on in the city,” Cheery told Vimes when he came downstairs freshly shaved and washed.

“This is Ankh-Morpork Sergeant,” said Vimes as they stepped out the front door. “Perhaps you could be a tad more specific?”

“Yes sir, sorry sir,” said Cheery. “I went to the Watch house early since I was feeling a little edgy and Sergeant Ironhelm was not at the duty desk like he should be.”

“Ah,” said Vimes as his mind spun up to process this. He had heard the scuttlebutt from Nobby that Cheery and Sergeant Rory Ironhelm were in the process of becoming an “item”. Courting among dwarves was always a bit tentative at first mainly because no one, including the dwarves themselves, were quite sure about the gender of the other dwarves around them. Traditionally, both male and female dwarves had beards, wore iron helmets, carried large axes, quaffed ale and sung songs about gold. In fact to an outsider, all dwarf songs sounded the same since they often only had one word which had four letters and began with a “g”. This inability to distinguish the differences mystified dwarves who claimed there were 412 ways to pronounce the g word which meant a near infinite number of combinations and variations for creating distinctive songs. Cheery had been the first dwarf in Ankh-Morpork to proclaim her gender to the world. She still had a beard, iron helmet and axe, but she plaited her beard with ribbons and was known to wear the odd bit of makeup. That had made her a heretic in the eyes of traditional dwarves, but Cheery didn’t seem to care and had got the personal approval of the Low King of the Dwarves who had incidentally turned out to really be the Low Queen of the Dwarves.

[Note: Being miners and lovers of caves, dwarves consider an address deeper down to be more desirable, so the titular leader of all dwarves had to be a Low King rather than a high king as is common among humans.]

Ironhelm on the other hand hadn’t given any indication one way or the other about his or her gender which meant there was the usual awkwardness of two dwarves feeling each other out, though only figuratively as far as Vimes wanted to know, as to what gender the other was. Vimes wondered what Cheery’s reaction would be if Ironhelm turned out to be female like herself since that was relationship territory the dwarves didn’t discuss. What it came down to was that likely Cheery had gone in early in order to initiate some delicate discussions with Ironhelm.

“I presume you looked for Sergeant Ironhelm?” asked Vimes.

“Yes sir, and when I found him, I locked him in the cells sir,” replied Cheery.

“For any particular reason?” asked Vimes cautiously, hoping he wasn’t trespassing into dwarf courtship rituals or something.

“Yes sir,” replied Cheery. “He was wandering around the place muttering ‘She must be obeyed’ over and over. I would say he was like a zombie, but we all know Reg and he is a lot more expressive than that. I just don’t have another word for what he is like. I checked the log since Sergeant Ironhelm was on desk duty for the day watch and things seemed normal until around noon, then a few reports came in from patrols describing citizens acting the same way Ironhelm is.”

Vimes and Cheery rounded a corner and were nearly bowled over by a woman who stared with vacant eyes and didn’t seem to see them. “She must be obeyed,” said the woman as she shouldered her way past them and continued down the street.

“Rather like that I take it,” commented Vimes looking after the woman.

“Exactly like that sir,” agreed Cheery. “I tried sending a clacks message to the palace, but no one replied, so I figured I better come get you.”

Vimes stopped so abruptly that Cheery had taken several steps before realizing it. “I think we had better detour to the palace to see what is going on there,” said Vimes. “Something has to be wrong, or Vetinari would have woke me up an hour before you did.”

They found half a dozen of the palace guard wandering around the Patrician’s office, most of them bleeding from various wounds or with nasty looking burns. One of them was even lying on the rug and Vimes didn’t see any sign of life in him. The City Watch and the Palace Guards didn’t tend to get along which in Vimes’ opinion was because t the Palace Guards had trouble adding anything more than single digit numbers, or understanding words longer than two syllables. They in fact made Fred Colon look like a blooming genius, but even so he was shocked at their seeming indifference to their wounds as they prowled around the office muttering “She must be obeyed’. There was a gaping hole in one wall that showed an apparently secret passageway and from it there came a scream of pain. When Vimes tried to ask them questions, they turned as a group to glare at him and shuffle towards him.

“I think we should get out of here,” said Vimes and grabbing Cheery, he exited the palace as fast as he could.

“But what about the Patrician and Drumknot sir?” asked a worried Cheery. “We can’t just leave them in there with those things.”

“I suspect Lord Vetinari is long gone,” replied Vimes. “He is too smart to hang around waiting for those pseudo zombies, or whatever they are, to catch up to him. That hidden passage was probably just one of his escape routes and I am sure he will turn up at some point.”

* * *

With each new slave, She grew stronger, but Her frustration was growing just as fast. There had been the unaccustomed failures and outright escapes from Her dominion. She would not tolerate this any longer and directed her drones towards what seemed to be the key figures She needed to enslave to control the city.

* * *

“People are acting weird out there,” cried Sacharissa Cripslock as she ran into the editorial offices of the Times and slammed and locked the door behind her. The effect was slightly ruined when a few seconds later, there was a polite knock at the door.

“I didn’t think the ravening hordes bothered to knock,” commented William de Worde as he looked up calmly from the article he was editing.

“I suppose that could be Otto, since he was right behind me,” admitted Sacharissa as she unlocked the door and let the vampire iconographer in.

“People are acting weird out there,” said Otto as he put his iconograph and other equipment on one of the desks.

“So I’ve heard,” replied William somewhat distractedly. “I forget, did we decide to spell words like colour and humour with or without the u? I think it is important we pick a style and be consistent.”

“They only spell them with a u over in Quirm,” said Sacharissa. “The proper Ankh-Morpork spelling is without the u.”

“Ah, good, then I will spell them with a u,” said William. “A little pinprick in the Ankh-Morpork superiority complex will do it good and generate more outraged letters to the editor which is good for selling newspapers.”

Sacharissa rolled her eyes. “Did you miss the part about me and Otto telling you that people are acting weird out there?”

“Well, this is Ankh-Morpork,” replied William as he continued to edit the article in front of him. “We are ruled by a tyrant who doesn’t seem to care about his own personal gain, the head of the Post Office, Royal Bank, The Royal Mint and the Railroad is an admitted former con man, we have a police force that employs Nobby Nobbs, the librarian of Unseen University is a orangutan …, need I go on?”

“Ok, I get it,” snapped Sacharissa, “but this is weirder than usual. People are wandering around the streets muttering ‘She must be obeyed’ and the Patrician is missing.”

That last bit of information made William stop and look up at Sacharissa with shock. “How do you know that? Is it confirmed by multiple sources?”

“I haven’t had time to confirm it since I was dodging all the crazy people in the streets,” replied Sacharissa. “As for how I know, I just happened to be near the palace gate when Commander Vimes and Sergeant Litlebottom came running out and talking about it.”

“Well, there were two of them then, so that is multiple sources,” said William who grabbed a notepad and began to write. Unseen by the young editor and the other two, three spider shaped creatures began to crawl down the walls towards their targets.

* * *

Celine was feeling troubled as she walked across the casino floor, jingling the dice in her pocket absentmindedly. The crowd was down significantly tonight and Ludmilla had told her about turning away a half dozen people who just looked high on something and kept repeating ‘She must be obeyed’ over and over again. Ludmilla said they weren’t zombies and she should know since several of the renters at her mother’s boarding house were zombies including Reg Shoe. They even employed a couple of zombies here at the casino, though Mystic Melvin the magician seemed to have missed the point of things when it came to sawing himself in half as the climax to his show. Even the beggars hadn’t been around today and that worried Celine. In many ways people like Ron, Henry and the others were like the canaries in the coal mine and were very sensitive to subtle changes. If the beggars had gone to ground in their nest under the bridge then the city was in for a rough patch.

Celine stopped abruptly and bent down to pick up a penny from the floor. She had no idea why she had bothered to do this since a penny was totally insignificant compared to the daily earnings of the casino. As she stood up, Celine spotted old Mrs. Grand playing the penny slot machines with her usual religious fervour and handed her the penny.

“Why thank-you dear,” gushed Mrs. Grand with a toothless grin that made you think she had been given a thousand dollars instead of a penny.

What neither Celine or Mrs. Grand had noticed was that when Celine had bent over to pick up the penny was that the drone dropping from the beams of the ceiling had missed her and landed on top of the slot machine where Mrs. Grand was playing. The old woman put the penny in the machine and pulled the large mechanical arm with a strength a troll might envy. There was a little “urk” sound from the drone as it was sucked into the machine via the cooling slots on top. Around and around the pictures on the dials went and when they stopped, there were three dark smears.

“I don’t understand this one dear,” said Mrs. Grand looking from the dials to the prize chart. “I think I got three of a kind, but it isn’t listed.”

Celine leaned over the machine and was just as puzzled by the results as Mrs. Grand. “I think I had better have the techs give the machine a going over,” she told the old woman and pulled a coupon for the ‘All You Can Eat’ buffet out of her pocket and handed it to Mrs. Grand.

“Bless you dear,” said Mrs. Grand as she took the coupon and scuttled off as fast as her walking stick would allow. “I seem to have skipped breakfast again today.”

Celine flipped an Out of Order sign on the machine and made a mental note to make sure Mrs. Grand got more buffet coupons in the future. Whistling under her breath, Celine continued her tour of the game floor feeling a little bit better, though she wasn’t exactly sure why.

* * *

“Good morning Mrs. Cake, er I mean good afternoon,” said Melody as she walked into the kitchen of the boarding house. This working night shifts was going to obviously take some getting used to.

“Yes, there is some orange juice in the new magical cool box,” said Mrs. Cake without turning around from the stove where she was making pancakes.

Melody blinked as she hadn’t asked the question yet about whether there was any orange juice and remembered what Angua had told her about Mrs. Cake and her precognitive issues. "Er, is there any orange juice Mrs. Cake?” she asked to help prevent the woman from getting a migraine. Melody opened the cool box where she saw the little green imp peddling frantically to pump the warm air out of the enclosure and poured herself a glass of orange juice.

“I’m cooking enough for your little friends too dear,” said Mrs. Cake flipping over the pancakes.

“Is there anything for my girls to eat?” asked Melody, struggling to keep up her end of the strange conversation.

“And people think we are weird,” muttered Penelope from under Melody’s head scarf.

Melody gave a small shushing sound and sat down at the kitchen table to finish her juice. Mrs. Cake slipped the pancakes onto a plate and brought the plate over to the table. Melody was just reaching for the maple syrup which all four of her snakes in a rare moment of agreement approved of totally when Mrs. Cake turned abruptly and smashed the large frypan against the wall twice. Two rather squished drones fell to the floor.

“Try to sneak up on a poor defenceless old woman will you,” snapped Mrs. Cake as she and Melody gazed down at the two unmoving creatures. “Good thing I had my precognitive ability still switched on,” said Mrs. Cake as she gave her head a little thump to turn it off.

“I wonder what they were,” said Melody bending down to examine the things more closely.

“Delicious,” said Penelope abruptly as her head darted out from the scarf and slurped up the two mangled drones.

“Hey,” protested Portia. “That’s not fair, you got all that wonderful smelling slime!”

“You snooze, you lose,” snickered Penelope.

“It’s ok, I’ll make sure the other three of you get an extra pancake,” said Melody moving back to her late breakfast.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” protested Penelope.

* * *

“Do you have any idea who this ‘She’ is they keep going on about Fred?” asked Nobby. At the moment, the two watchmen were guarding the Hubward Gate, though they were doing so from a position some fifty yards away from the gate which put them in the nearest alley behind several large garbage cans. Closer to the gate, were half a dozen men and women wandering around and holding various instruments such as bread knives and pitchforks.

Fred Colon hesitated for a moment before answering. The truth was he didn’t have a clue, but as a superior officer, he didn’t think it was proper to admit ignorance. The fact that ignorance had entered and taken up abode many years ago and hadn’t left due to the lack of anything resembling knowledge or wisdom to dislodge it had never kept him from offering an expert opinion. He did so now with the first thought that occurred to him and instantly regretted it. “I suppose they could be talking about one of them dominatrix types.”

“What’s a dominatrix Fred?” asked Nobby with his most innocent expression.

Fred looked down at that guileless expression and couldn’t tell if Nobby was just winding him up again or not. He certainly had no desire to try and explain that speciality to Nobby at least partially out of fear of Nobby deciding he wanted to give it a try.

It was only by an accident of fate that Fred knew the word and its meaning himself. It had been on his first tour in the army and some of his “friends” had talked him into going with them to visit some of the women who liked to follow armies around for reasons other than acting as nurses or cooks. Those friends had even offered to pay for his entertainment seeing as how it was Fred’s first time in such an establishment, though even they hadn’t realized all the meanings of “first time” in this case. Perhaps, their snickering should have given Fred a clue, but he had been far too nervous and scared to even notice. The lads had paid the madam and requested a dominatrix for their friend. The madam had looked rather dubiously at the red faced, sweating Fred then shrugged and took the money. Fred was ushered into a room in the large tent and a rather pretty young woman had briefly appeared and smiled at him. She said she needed to get changed and while she was doing that, he should make himself more comfortable. This latter was said with a rather lewd wink and then the girl had vanished. Blushing furiously and not really feeling more comfortable, Fred had undressed and sat in his underwear on the bed. He knew the underwear was stupid, but he just felt too damn silly sitting there in the altogether. Suddenly the young woman had returned, but not wearing that lingering clothing he had heard about that was supposed to not leave much to the imagination. The outfit the girl had on got his imagination working at a fearful pace. It was some kind of skin tight black leather outfit with a mask and the woman had cracked a whip large enough to prod an elephant into action. Fred had bolted from that tent and only when he got back to camp did he remember all he had on was his underwear. Old Sergeant Dillard had laughed his head off and then given Fred a week on latrine duty for being out of uniform.

“Ah well the clue is in the root of the word ‘domin’,” said Fred thinking as fast as he could. “It is the same as dominoes, so a dominatrix is an expert in dominoes.”

“So, why does she have to b obeyed Fred?” asked Nobby as he began to explore the contents of one nostril.

“Because you have to follow the rules Nobby when you are playing dominoes,” replied Fred.

“So, you think all those people with the knives and stuff is just looking for a good game of dominoes?” asked Nobby, transferring his exploration to the other nostril.

“Could be, could be,” replied Fred noncommittedly.

“Do you think I would make a good dominatrix Fred?” asked Nobby, his mining excursion now over.

Fred tried his best to shut his brain down before it could generate the image of Nobby in a skin-tight, leather outfit and holding a whip, but failed. He shuddered and it took him several seconds before he could find the strength to say anything. “I think you have to bathe more often and change your underwear at least once a month,” he finally got out.

“Just to play dominoes Fred?” asked Nobby skeptically.

“I’m sure I saw that in the rules for a clean game,” said Fred, hoping against hope that this would end the topic.

“Well, I guess that job isn’t for me,” said Nobby. “I’m sure glad you straightened me out on that one Fred. I was confusing it for a while there with women like Mistress Morgana who is one of Mrs. Palm’s specialists and has the biggest whip collection in the city.”

“I suppose you think you were being funny,” snapped Colon as he glared down at the now grinning Nobby.

“Well Fred, I was with you on that first campaign in the army wasn’t I?” replied Nobby with a wink. “Who do you think it was who snuck back and retrieved your uniform before they could sell it?”

Even though he couldn’t afford to do so, Colon was about to give Nobby a piece of his mind for his cheekiness when an old farm cart with two hooded figures on the bench pulled up level with their alley and they heard part of an ongoing discussion.

“I don’t understand my lord,” said a familiar voice that neither watchman could quite place. “Surely there are better qualified individuals that we could enlist in our endeavor. I don’t mean to be unkind, but that pair are rather lacking in many vital aspects.”

“That is true,” admitted the second figure and again the voice was tantalizingly familiar to the two listeners. “They do, however, possess some useful traits, including being expendable if necessary.”

“I wonder who they are talking about Sarge,” whispered Nobby.

Colon shrugged, “Probably a couple of losers they are hoping to hire.”

It was at that point when the second figure swivelled to look into the alley and briefly pulled back his hood. “Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs, please be so good as to get into the back of the cart immediately,” said the Patrician.

“How did he know we was here Fred?” whispered Nobby.

“Beats me Nobby, but we better not keep him waiting,” muttered Colon as he stood up. “I guess he couldn’t find those other two losers and needs us to help out again.”

“If you say so Fred,” said Nobby dubiously as he followed the sergeant out of the alley towards the cart. Unlike his friend, Nobby didn’t have much of an ego left and he rather suspected who Lord Vetinari and his companion had been discussing.

“Do hurry up,” admonished Lord Vetinari.

“What is this all about my lord?” asked Fred Colon as he clambered into the back of the cart which turned out to be one used to haul horse dung from the palace stables and not scrupulously cleaned afterwards, which is to say not at all.

“Leonard and I are going on a little investigation,” replied Lord Vetinari, ”and we require your intrepid services once again.”

“Good day gentlemen,” said Leonard of Quirm as he pulled back his hood briefly to nod at the two watchmen.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this Sarge,” whined Nobby. “Maybe we should just bugger off somewhere before someone gets hurt and by someone, I mean me.”

“I think it’s a little late for that now Nobby,” moaned Colon as he sank down into the back of the cart and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Hood back in place, Lord Vetinari started the cart forward towards the city gate where they were quickly confronted by one of the meandering mob. “She must be obeyed,” said the man standing in the way of the cart.

“She must be obeyed,” agreed Vetinari in a quite decent imitation of the man’s dead voice. “We go to serve Her now.”

The man remained standing in their way for several seconds before giving a nod and stepping aside to let the cart pass.

“Why did he let us go through my lord?” whispered Fred.

“I believe the drones that control these people are in turn controlled by a central mind of some sort,” whispered Leonard. “The more people they enslave, the less active control it has over them at any particular moment since it can’t have an infinite capacity.”

“In short, we tricked it Sergeant,” said Vetinari as the cart rumbled through the gates and out onto the road leading from the city.

* * *

Vimes stood outside the cell and watched as Sergeant Ironhelm wandered around aimlessly and kept muttering “She must be obeyed” over and over again. He turned and looked down at Cheery. “Go find Igor and tell him to get up here to have a look at Ironhelm.”

“Right here thir,” said a voice immediately behind the commander which made him jump involuntarily.

“How many times have I told you to stop doing that?” demanded Vimes spinning around to transfix Igor with a glare that might have melted steel.

“Thory thir,” replied Igor with a shrug. “Ith an inthtinctive behavior that I can’t theem to thake.”

“Thanks,” said Vimes when Cheery tugged at his sleeve and handed him a dry handkerchief. “I want you to see if you can find out what is causing this,” and Vimes gestured towards Ironhelm. “I’ve brought Constable Dorfl to give you a hand. Whatever is affecting these people probably can’t do anything to a golem.”

“I will endeavor to do my betht thir,” said Igor and he nodded at the hulking golem officer to follow him into the cell.

“Hey Mister, what about me?” called a voice from the cell on the other side of the corridor. “That daft dwarf muttering all the time is driving me up the wall.”

Vimes glanced over to see Chuck standing at the bars of his cell looking at him. Vimes sighed, “You are probably safer in that cell than anywhere else in the city, but I don’t know what is wrong with Ironhelm, or if it might be contagious. How would you like to be an acting Lance Constable. I could use a runner who knows the city.”

“Do I get a badge and one of those sticks to whack people with?” asked Chuck hopefully.

“No, but you will get a ding along the ear if you give me any lip,” snapped Vimes.

“I’m used to that,” replied Chuck with an insolent grin. “A dollar a day and meals is my price.”

“You should have held out for two dollars a day,” said Vimes unlocking the cell. “Now go find Captain Carrot and Captain Angua and come back with anything they have to report.”

“Do you really think he will do that?” asked Cheery doubtfully as they watched Chuck dash up the stairs to the main floor and disappear.

“Oddly enough yes,” replied Vimes, “but at worst he will find a hole to hide in and hopefully ride this thing out safely. You are in charge of the duty desk. Organize whoever shows up into pairs and send them out. Tell them to stay away from anyone acting like Ironhelm until we figure out a way how to deal with them. Mainly I want the watch to try and keep those who aren’t affected clear of those that are. I’m going to be in my office, so keep me informed.” Vimes didn’t bother waiting for a reply, but headed up the same stairs Chuck had used a few seconds ago. He really would rather be out on the streets himself, but he knew his place was here for the moment. There would be time to go rushing around doing things when he had a damn clue what things would be worth doing.

* * *

Captain Carrot stood with his back to the alley from which issued the faint sounds of clothing being donned and a moment later Angua joined him. The reason for the back turning was not so much modesty since the pair were lovers, but that Angua had always been sensitive about others seeing the intermediate shapes between human and wolf.

“It is diffusing out over the entire city now, but I can tell you that the smell starts at the Hubwards gate. I suppose that shouldn’t be any great surprise since the smell is partly cabbages and partly something else totally new. I would guess it is entering the city via a cart or carts and I can detect at least four such shipments over the past few days. It might go further back than that, but the smell gets too faint with time to be sure.”

“Do you have any idea what the other unknown smell might be?” asked Carrot.

“It’s sort of a dark purple,” replied Angua. “Oh, sorry that is how my nose sees it and after being in wolf form for a while, I tend to forget humans sense things differently.” Angua paused to think, “I would say the smell is sort of insect like, but a lot stronger than any such smell I’ve encountered and also just different.”

Carrot nodded. “That ties in with what Reg and Visit said about seeing some spider like creatures.”

“Er, there was something else I smelled,” said Angua somewhat hesitantly. “Lord Vetinari and three other men were in a cart that left the city a couple of hours ago. Two of those others were Fred and Nobby.”

Carrot didn’t bother to ask if Angua was certain since when it came to her nose, she was never wrong and he rather suspected the smell of Nobby Nobbs was rather unique. “What about the fourth person?” he asked.
“It wasn’t Drumknot, but it was someone I have picked up faint traces of when I’ve been to the palace,” said Angua.

“That might be Leonard,” said Carrot thoughtfully.

“Oh and Mr. Fusspot was with them,” added Angua. “What do you make of all that?”

“I don’t see Lord Vetinari panicking and fleeing the city,” replied Carrot. “If he was doing that which just isn’t in his character, he certainly wouldn’t have taken Fred and Nobby with him. I think we can safely assume they are along to provide a little muscle since unfortunately I can’t see them contributing much in the way of brainpower to the project, whatever it is.”

Angua watched Carrot as he said this and was reminded of why she liked him. It was obvious that Carrot didn’t like to say anything negative about anyone, even when it was deserved, but he was too honest to not see those shortcomings. “So what should we do?”

“We need to get this information back to Mr. Vimes,” replied Carrot, “but I am rather uneasy about leaving Lord Vetinari with just Fred and Nobby for backup.”

“Hey, I’ve been looking all over the city for you two,” said a voice and the two city guards turned to see Chuck coming down the street towards them. “Old Stone Face wants to know what you’ve learned and sent me to find you. I’m an acting Lance Constable now,” he added proudly.

“Oh gods, Nobby 2.0,” moaned Angua. “Ok, I guess I am the best equipped to go chasing after the Patrician and the others. I will try and find a way to send back any information I come up with.” Angua sighed and started back into the alley. “Some days, I think I take my clothes off more than Tawnee does in the Pink Pussycat Club and I get to do it in dirty, smelly alleys to boot.”

“I’ll go with her in case she needs help,” said Chuck and found himself unable to move as Carrot clamped a heavy hand on his shoulder, rooting him in place.

“I believe she can handle it by herself,” said Carrot mildly. A minute later, Angua, now in wolf form, emerged from the alley with her clothes and armour stuffed into a bag that she carried in her teeth. She gave a quick wag of her tail at Carrot and headed for the gate out of the city.

“Let’s you and I go find Mr. Vimes Acting Lance Constable,” ordered Carrot. He would rather be going with Angua, but he also knew she could travel faster on her own.

* * *

The drone dropped onto Otto’s shoulder and quickly scuttled around to the back of his neck. She could sense the power in this one, he would make an excellent slave. The drone struck. Otto’s eyes flashed red for just a second and then the drone was incinerated by flame.

As a vampire trying to fit into the human dominated society of Ankh-Morpork, Otto had adopted a mild, almost clownish personality to keep the humans from fearing him. Yes, there was the black ribboner pledge of not one drop of human blood, but that thin little ribbon wasn’t terribly reassuring to anyone who had heard all the vampire stories. That mild mannered, polite act tended to make everyone forget Otto was a vampire, at least up until the point when he turned to dust from the flash of his salamander powered flash and then came back intact with the help of a drop of blood, though obviously not human of course. Still, at his heart, veins, arteries and capillaries, Otto was a vampire and vampires don’t take kindly to anyone or anything trying to control them. Otto had instinctively recognized the threat from the drone and his body had defended itself accordingly.

A vampire’s reflexes are also incredibly fast, so Otto was able to swipe the drone from William’s shoulder before it could strike, but he was too late to stop the drone that had targeted Sacharissa.

“What the devil?” asked a confused William as he watched Otto stomp on the drone that had been about to enslave him

“Miss Sacharissa, are you alright?” asked Otto with concern as he ignored William's question for the moment.

Sacharissa sat absolutely rigid in her chair staring straight ahead.

She felt a fresh surge of frustration having only achieved the enslavement of one of the three targets in the room. Well, the others would fall soon enough to more of Her drones or if they resisted then they would be eliminated. She decided it was best to exalt in the subjugation of her new slave, one with an especially strong mind.

“Who are you?”

She, sitting in the bottom of her crater blinked her hundred eyes as the voice sounded in Her mind. It took Her a few seconds to realize the question had come back through the link to one of Her drones.

“I am She who must be obeyed,” She sent back through the mental connection with the emphasis on “obeyed”...

“Ah, I see. Now, where do you come from and how old are you?”

She was now quite nonplussed. She was being interrogated by one of Her own slaves. That was patently impossible. “You will obey me!” She screamed back through the link.

“You don’t want to answer. Does that mean you have something to hide? The public just wants to know a little more about you.”

She felt Her anger give way to confusion. I have nothing to hide. I come from space and I intend to rule this world as is my right.”

“That’s very interesting, so would you call yourself a tyrant then?”

“I am She who must be obeyed,” She repeated, returning to what She felt was the central truth here.

“I’ll put that down as a ‘Yes’ then shall I? Perhaps you could expand a bit more on exactly where you come from. I mean space is a rather large place after all.”

She did not know how to answer these questions, mainly because no one had ever asked Her questions before. All Her slaves had simply obeyed Her without question. “I er, come from an ancient species that has travelled from world to world across the vast expanses of space. It has been so many years ago since we left our home world that I no longer know where it is.” She heard the uncertainty in Her own voice and that was something She had never experienced before.

“And you conquer new worlds when you land on them using these drones?”

“Um yes,” She replied. “It is what I do.”

“How many worlds would you say your species has conquered in this manner?”

“Um, I don’t know, thousands perhaps or more,” She said uncertainly.

“I see, have you ever considered a more cooperative approach to contact with other species?”

“I, I must be obeyed,” She stammered and then tried to rally and enforce Her will again through the mental link to Her slave.

“Would you mind posing for a picture if we sent out an iconographer? I can guarantee you a spot on the front page of the Times and in colour.”

“Picture?” For a brief moment, She wondered which was Her good side and if She had time to polish her tentacles, then She froze. This was insane! This whole world was insane! She ordered the drone to disconnect from the new slave before any further contamination could take place.

* * *

William and Otto watched transfixed as Sacharissa sat there talking to the empty air. “Who is she talking to?” whispered William, keeping his voice low out of a vague worry about the old myth that waking up a sleepwalker or talker could be dangerous to them.

“I believe she is talking to whatever is behind the creatures that attacked us,” replied Otto as they watched Sacharissa pull her notebook out of her purse and begin to write while still seeming to stare off blankly into space.

“She comes from space,” read William who had long ago mastered the journalistic necessity of being able to read fluently documents that were upside down. It was a skill that came in handy when for example he was interviewing someone who was unwise enough to leave incriminating letters and other written documents on their desk. William did suspect, however, that Lord Vetinari took great delight in creating and leaving fake documents for him to read on those occasions when he visited the oblong office.

William and Otto watched for a couple of minutes as Sacharissa continued to make notes and then abruptly she stopped. The spider like parasite that had attached itself to her dropped to the floor and began to crawl away. It had only got a few feet, however, before Otto squished it with his foot.

“I think we should get this information to Commander Vimes,” said William as he read the notes Sacharissa had made after taking the notebook from her unresisting hands.

“You can send a runner with the information,” said Sacharissa suddenly snapping out of her trance. “We’ve got the scoop of the century to publish! No wait, you start writing the story and I will take the information to Commander Vimes myself. We need to save space for his reaction.”

“You don’t think the whole situation is a bit more important than a story?” asked Otto mildly.

“NO!” replied William and Sacharissa in unison.

“Ok, maybe it is,” conceded Sacharissa, “but there is no reason why we still can’t get a story out of it too. I’ve always wanted to scoop the damn tabloids with an ‘Aliens Invade’ headline where the headline is actually true.”

* * *

Two drones dropped down onto Constables Reg Shoe and Visit as they were investigating more weird noises coming from one of the seemingly infinite number of dark, smelly alleys in Ankh-Morpork. The one on Reg quickly found its preferred target at the back of the neck, inserted a probing tendril and … nothing. As far as She could determine the human Her drone was attached to was dead which was impossible. She had seen it walking and talking only seconds before, but all she found was a lifeless hulk. She could do many things, but She could not bring creatures back from the dead. She needed some little spark of life to work with and here there was none.

“What’s the matter Reg?” asked Constable Visit, so far unaware of his own peril.

“Just a little itch,” replied Reg. “Maybe a mouse got in again and is trying to make a nest. Bloody damn nuisance.” The zombie officer took a swipe at the back of his neck and his hand came away with a bit of slime on it. “Ah, that’s better. I wonder what this stuff is?” he asked peering at the gunk on his hand.

There was no reply from Constable Visit, because the second drone chose to strike at that particular moment.

“She must be obeyed,” came the mental command from She.

“The great god Om is not a she,” said Constable Visit.

“I never said he was,” replied Reg who now looked over at Visit. “Are you ok Washpot? You look a bit like a zo …, er something not quite right.”

“She must be obeyed,” came the mental command again.

“No, you are not Om,” said Visit in a half dead voice. “Perhaps you are a succubus sent to tempt me with your sensual wiles and wanton ways.”

At this, Reg looked down at his body with its grayish green skin and a multitude of scars and stitches where various parts had been sewn back on. “Er, I don’t think so Washpot. I haven’t exercised my wanton ways since I was alive.” He paused for a second, “though to tell you the truth, I didn’t use them much then either, er never in fact. Actually for a time after I died, I was investigating the different religions to see which one might best suit me. I went over to Offler’s temple, you know the one where they advertise all their young priestesses are virgins and tried to join, but they turned me down. I mean, I had the necessary qualification and everything, so it was sheer discrimination.” Reg stopped speaking when he saw Visit wasn’t taking in anything he was saying. “You know, I think I had better get you back to the watch house and let Igor take a look at you.”

“I could bring you some very interesting pamphlets to you at your crater and discuss them with you,” went on Visit, his voice not quite so dead now that he was discussing his one passion in life.

“I, I think I will be too busy washing my tentacles,” She said hurriedly. “Another time perhaps.”

“I can come any time of day or night as long as I am off duty,” replied Visit as Reg took him by the arm and gently led him down the street towards the watch house.

“You do remember I live at Mrs. Cake’s boarding house don’t you Washpot?” asked a still rather confused Reg. “I thought the Omnian Church passed a special decree that no church member should go near her on pain of excommunication. She swears that she didn’t know all those bloodstains on the altar and knives and so forth were two thousand years old and sacred to the god. She just gave them a good washing and said the place smelled a whole lot better after that.”

* * *

A drone dropped onto the broad back of Sergeant Detritus as he perambulated on patrol. It quickly moved up higher and stabbed a tentacle into the troll’s neck. Actually, it would be more correct to say it attempted to insert a tentacle. It might as well have attempted to stab a boulder since trolls were essentially living and moving rocks. The tentacle flattened itself on Detritus’s skin and sent a blast of pure agony back through the link to Her. For his part, Detritus didn’t even notice the attempted attack as the injured drone fell to the ground and was a moment later stepped on by the troll’s massive foot. Detritus didn’t notice this either since stepping on something wet and slimy on an Ankh-Morpork sidewalk was at least an hourly occurrence and it was best not to examine what you had stepped on too closely in case you guessed correctly what it was.

* * *

Mustrum Ridcully walked across the grounds of Unseen University with a preoccupied air. Wizards were highly sensitive to all kinds of influences and the Archchancellor could feel something odd happening in the city. Odd in Ankh-Morpork invariably meant dangerous and so he was off to roust the senior wizards to prepare for whatever was happening.

“Good afternoon Mr. Modo,” he greeted the dwarf gardener coming towards him pushing a wheelbarrow.

“She must be obeyed,” replied Modo in a monotone voice.

“Are you quite all right Mr. Modo?” snapped Ridcully stopping in his tracks to glare at the gardener. “Who the devil is this ‘She’ you are talking about?” The concept of female students and staff was quite new to the university, so other than Eskarina and her small handful of female students, the only other likely candidate was the head housekeeper, Mrs. Whitlow who hadn’t previously shown much interest in gardening and …. Ridcully sniffed as the contents of the wheelbarrow wafted up … what might best be describe as fertilizer.

[Note: See ‘The Magic Goes Away’ for the story of how Eskarina joined the Unseen University faculty and the introduction of the first female students at the university.]

“She must be obeyed,” Modo repeated woodenly.

Ridcully scratched his head, “And this She wants you to do what with that er fertilizer.”

“For the rose bushes,” said Modo simply and pushed past the wizard in the direction of his prize rose bushes. Other gardeners might have despaired because some magical disaster was always destroying his prized roses, but Modo just shrugged and seemed to take it as a challenge. The dwarf was so concentrated on this task that even enslaved by She, he knew his priorities. The rose bushes needed fertilizing and running around attacking people with whatever weapon he could find was just going to have to wait.

“I think we have trouble Mustrum,” said a voice, breaking into the wizard’s thoughts. The Archchancellor looked up to see Eskarina coming towards him with a look of concern on her face.

“Does it have anything to do with rose bushes and fertilizer?” asked Ridcully.

“Not as far as I know,” replied Eskarina as a look of puzzlement replaced the one of concern, but then she gave her head a shake knowing better than to get into a long wordy detour with the Archchancellor. “I was just up in the Uncommon Room and some of the other senior wizards are acting very odd.”

“Knowing the senior faculty like I do, how can you possibly tell?” asked Ridcully.

“Odder than usual then,” said Eskarina with a rolling of her eyes.

“This I have to see,” replied Ridcully rubbing his large hands together. “It might be an improvement.”

“She must be obeyed,” intoned the Senior Wrangler.

“Er, of course,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “That goes without saying, but can’t it wait until after tea?”

“Yes, Mrs. Whitlow said it was going to be a special tea today,” put in the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Apparently young Stibbons told her today was pie day and so she has had the cooks prepare a variety of pies for tea. I am sure we can get on with the obeying stuff after we have a few pies don’t you think?”

The Senior Wrangler looked considerably less certain now about the whole obedience thing. “I do love a nice cherry pie,” he said dreamily, warm, “with a little ice cream.”

“Apple pie for me, at least to start,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “I am sure She wouldn’t want us going around obeying on an empty stomach. It’s been over an hour since I finished lunch and I just can’t obey very well when I’m hungry.”

“I want lemon meringue,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, “and maybe some Pecan Pie. I am quite sure She wouldn’t want us to miss pecan pie. I mean conquering the world is one thing, but denying a man a piece or two of pecan pie would be criminal.”

“What about blueberry?” asked the senior wrangler. “I am sure you can’t have a pie day with blueberry. Once I’ve had some blueberry pie, I am quite sure I can get on with obeying Her. Well, after some raisin pie of course.”

“Surely there will be some coconut cream,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “There is no way I can do any proper obeying until after I finish off a coconut cream pie.”

“I prefer banana cream,” responded the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “A really good banana cream pie will set me up for a good few hours of obedience.”

“Er, are we limited to desert pies?” asked the Senior Wrangler. “I mean there is a whole universe of savoury pies to consider. She wouldn’t want us to ignore an entire food group would She? It’s hard to do any decent obeying when you are half starved or malnourished.”

“Now that you mention it, I don’t think pie day would be complete without a nice chicken pot pie,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies as he started to drool. “One simply can’t do proper obedience without a chicken pot pie.”

“What about shepherd’s pie?” asked the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “It is a bit unconventional as far as pies go, but it is still a type of pie. I could definitely do a lot of obeying if I first had a really good shepherd’s pie first. Well, after a little nap to recover that is.”

“You know, they really don’t sound very different,” noted Ridcully as he and Eskarina stood observing the trio of wizards from the door of the Uncommon Room. “I just don’t have a clue who this She is they keep mumbling about though. Well, I say bloody good luck to Her at getting them to listen to Her and do what She wants since they ignore me for the most part unless I threaten to send them to their rooms without supper.”

Esk was about to reply when she saw something creeping along the ceiling of the room headed towards them. She brought up her staff and a second later a fried drone dropped to the floor at their feet. The other senior wizards hadn’t seemed to even notice.

“Well, we do seem to have a bit of a pest problem,” admitted Ridcully as he eyed the fried drone.

“Not just us sir,” panted Ponder Stibbons as he ran up to them and stood looking down at the dead drone. “A runner just came from Commander Vimes to say these things are all over the city and he would like to consult with us about finding a way to stop them.”

“Alright, let’s go see the commander then,” said Ridcully decisively as he turned and strode for the main gate.

“What about them?” asked Esk with a jerk of her head to indicate the other senior wizards.

“They will be fine,” replied Ridcully. “Whoever or whatever this She is won’t get much obedience out of a wizard until his stomach is full. I just hope the buggers save us some of those pies.”

* * *

“I spy with my little eye something that begins with c,” said Nobby as the cart bounced over rutted country roads.

“That would be cabbage Nobby,” replied Fred with a sigh. “It’s been cabbage the last ten times you had a turn.”

“Well, it’s not my fault Fred if all I can see are cabbages,” whined Nobby.

“There are other things,” snapped Colon as he looked around at field after field of cabbages. “Aha, look over there, see those red things. That must be something like beets.”

“Red cabbage, I m afraid,” said Leonard.

“Well, we could try another game,” suggested Nobby. “I’m thinking of a number between one and one million. The first person to guess it gets a prize.”

“Twenty four,” said Lord Vetinari without turning around.

“Hey that’s pretty good,” exclaimed Nobby. “You got it on the first guess and I bet that was at least a one in a hundred chance. How did you do it your lordship?”

It’s your badge number,” answered the Patrician. “Out of curiosity, what prize did I win?”

Nobby looked panicked for a brief moment, but rallied magnificently. “A free cabbage my lord.”

“That was rather what I was afraid of,” replied Vetinari solemnly. “I regret to say that as the leader of the city, I am unable to accept any gratuities that might be misconstrued as a bribe.”

“Is them gratuities a type of cabbage?” Nobby asked Colon, afraid he was suddenly in trouble

“No, I think they are more like a potato,” replied Colon confidently. Another important rule of sergeanting that he had learned was if you talked like you knew what you were doing, people didn’t question you. Of course that posed some problems when you confidently led your men towards a bunch of trees looking for shade on a hot day and they turned out to have a battalion of berserkers with large axes waiting behind the trees. In that case, people either often forgot in their terror whose bright idea it had been, or didn’t survive long enough to ask pointed questions about it.

“I don’t see any of them around here, so I guess I can’t get into any trouble,” said Nobby sounding relieved. After taking time to roll another miserable excuse for a cigarette while gazing around at the endless sea of cabbages, Nobby looked back to Colon. “Fancy another round of ‘I Spy’?” he asked.

“I believe we can suspend the need for any more games,” said Leonard with what sounded like considerable relief as he looked up from the pad he was making calculations on. “The crash site should just be over this hill,” and he gestured to the road where it sloped upwards and hid the cabbage fields beyond. Leonard then looked back at his pad where he seemed to have drawn a device he had labelled “Instrument For Hurling Cabbages At High Velocity’. It was capable of breaching stone city walls two feet thick by hurtling cabbages at them. There were also useful accessories that would allow for hurling flaming cabbages or burning cabbage oil over city walls. Whatever had possessed him to design that he wondered.

When the cart finally topped the hill, they could indeed see a large crater where something had crashed as well as about two dozen people standing around it holding things like pitchforks, scythes and other lethal looking agricultural implements. Before going any closer, Lord Vetinari pulled a sack out from under the cart seat and extracted a couple of robes from it, similar to the ones he and Leonard were wearing. “Put these on gentlemen,” he said handing the robes to Fred and Nobby. “The rustic folk around that crater might not be happy to see Watch uniforms. I also remind you of the magic phrase to use if confronted by anyone, which is of course ‘She must be obeyed’.”

“Er, just exactly what is our plan sir?” asked Colon nervously.

“I think that will depend upon what we see in that crater,” replied Lord Vetinari calmly.

When the quartet got as close to the crater as they could in the cart, they dismounted and began to approach it on foot. A couple of the dull eyed people milling about came to challenge them, but they seemed satisfied with the “magic phrase” and were allowed to pass. They were perhaps a hundred yards from the edge of the crater and could still see nothing other than a slight blue glow coming from it when Colon stumbled. Vetinari caught him by the arm and steadied the sergeant. At the same moment, Mr. Fusspot gave a muffled bark from under the Patrician’s robe.

“She must be obeyed,” said Colon in that dead voice they had become all too accustomed to.

“Stop joking around Fred,” said Nobby. “It ain’t funny and you are scaring me half to death.”

The Patrician frowned and pulled back the hem of Colon’s robe, but saw no sign of one of the parasitic creatures. “I don’t understand,” he said arching an eyebrow at Leonard.

Leonard frowned in agreement and then he pointed at Nobby, whose eyes were starting to glaze over. “Let’s back away from the crater quickly,” he said and pulled Colon with him while Lord Vetinari did the same with Nobby.

“What happened?” asked Nobby after they had gone about twenty yards back away from the crater. “My head feels like the time I fell in the Ankh and swallowed a mouthful or two, though of course it wasn’t just my head that was acting up if you know what I mean. I had to go out and buy a new pair of underwear after that one.”

“Sadly, I fear that you have not purchased any more since that date,” said Lord Vetinari. The Patrician looked over at Colon who was also coming around. “Are you now back with us Sergeant?” he inquired.

“I’m sorry sir, I don’t know what came over me for a while there,” said Colon. He was a man often confused, but he appeared to be setting a new record in that department.

“I believe you have a theory Leonard?” asked Vetinari.

“A working hypothesis at least my lord,” agreed Leonard. “I think whatever is in that crater is alive and the effects of its power increase as you get closer, probably an inverse square ratio.”

“The crater looks more round than square to me,” volunteered Nobby, trying to be helpful. He had heard about these idiot servants who were bloody geniuses at something, but couldn’t put their pants on the right way around.

“Yes, thank-you for that astute observation,” said Leonard and Nobby beamed with pride. “I think the drones are needed for the creature to operate at great distances, but it is able to control people directly when they get close enough.”

“I see,” said Lord Vetinari, “but why did the creature only affect Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs?”

Leonard glanced at Colon and Nobby, “Er, I suspect that individuals with a lower cognitive acuity were affected first. I felt something very vaguely and might have succumbed if I had gone closer.”

Vetinari frowned in recollection. “I did feel a slight tingle now that I come to think of it.”

“Er, what’s cognitive acuity? Asked Nobby.

“It is, I am afraid, something that you and the Sergeant are sorely lacking,” replied Vetinari.

Vetinari and Leonard turned to look back towards the crater and Nobby gave Colon an elbow in the ribs. “Do you know what it is Sergeant?”

“I think it is one of those things they cut out of people when they reach a certain age and then you get to eat ice cream for a week.”

“I never knew that Fred,” said Nobby. “I guess that is why you are a sergeant.”

“So, we are going to have to find a way to deal with whatever is in that crater without getting too close.” Said Lord Vetinari.

* * *

If She had the type of body that could sit bolt upright, She would have done so in the bottom of Her crater. For just a fleeting moment, She had detected the human called Vetinari in Her mind, but then it was gone before She could react. Quickly, She searched through all Her drone connections and found no trace of the human. That could only mean that he had been physically close to Her. She did not see how such a puny creature could present a danger to Her, but She had also not believed the primitive humans could have tracked Her landing spot either. It could not be mere coincidence and so there was at least a remote possibility that She was in danger, as unthinkable as that should be. Her local security had been slack as She concentrated on the city a short distance away. She had thousands of drones and slaves in the city now, though She continued to suffer mysterious failures and this world seemed populated with a bizarre mixture of species, some of whom appeared immune to Her drones. She had sought to enslave the Human called Vetinari in order to control the city, but maybe it would be better to just eliminate him entirely. From what She had learned from Her slaves in the city, removing Vetinari might well plummet the city into chaos which would then more readily fall to Her. That would be even more true if She could secure the one called Vimes. She considered Her options and sent out new instructions to Her slaves.

* * *

“Can you get it off him?” asked Vimes as he once again watched Sergeant Ironhelm wander aimlessly around the cell while he talked to Igor after his examination of the watchman.

“Oh getting it off it heathy thir,” said Igor with a shrug that only an Igor could do and a patter of liquid that made it seem like it was raining indoors. “A lightning rod and a few thouthand voltth thould do it no problem.”

“And he will survive that?” asked an incredulous Vimes.

“Oh, you never thecified you wanted him thtill live,” replied Igor a little reproachfully. “In that cathe, I will need to do thome more experimenting thir. The thing ith tied into hith nervouth thythtem pretty deep and jutht trying to pull it off will probably kill him.”

“Have you ever run into anything like this before?” asked Vimes as he took a step back out of Igor’s firing range.

“Not mythelf thir,” said Igor, “but my couthin worked for Barking Mad Doctor Demento who tried thomething along thothe lineth.”

“Barking mad?” echoed Vimes. “I take it he was especially wacked eh?”

“We Igorth never comment on the little foibleth of our mathterth thir,” replied Igor woodenly. “He wath called Barking Mad Doctor Demento becauthe he had hith brain tranthferred to a rottweiler and every time he thaw a thquirrel he jutht couldn’t help himthelf. He finally died when he ran into a pack of mutant thquirrelth with adantium clawth. Funny how quick evolution can work thometimeth. Well, Barking Mad Doctor Demento created a thecieth of tomato that he planned to uthe to control the peathantth, but they were dethroyed when the cathtle wath burned down. It wath a real pity thince thothe thingth were real killerth.”” Igor caught the look Vimes gave him at this point and ground to a halt. “Er the parathite ith likely to be thuthceptible to thome thubthance ath a thafeguard.”

“Well keep working at it and let me know as soon as you find out what that substance is,” replied Vimes and Igor nodded and turned back to his patient which Vimes barely refrained from thinking of as his experiment.

After that, Vimes found himself being sought out by several people in succession. The first of these was Melody, who related what happened with Mrs. Cake and the spider like creatures.

“Damn, we could have used one of those things whole for Igor to study,” grumbled Vimes. “Next time Lance Constable, please don’t eat the evidence.”

“You are still a jerk,” muttered Penelope from under the scarf.

“Yes sir, sorry about that sir,” replied Melody. “It’s just hard to keep the girls under control sometimes when they get peckish.”

“Keep working on it Lance Constable,” advised Vimes. “Not everyone is as understanding as I am. Now go report to Sergeant Littlebottom and she will assign you a partner and an area to patrol.”

“Yes Sir!” cried Melody, then came to attention as best she could, saluted and hurried off.

Carrot was the next to arrive and Vimes swore as he listened to what Carrot and Angua had discovered. Vimes briefly considered rushing after Vetinari and his little band of merry men, but decided against it. He was needed here in Ankh-Morpork and there probably wasn’t anything much he could do to help them that Angua couldn’t do better. Knowing Vetinari, he had a plan and he probably had the smartest man on the Disc with him in Leonard of Quirm. As for Fred and Nobby, Vimes loyally decided they would contribute something, even if he had no clue what that might be.

Carrot had barely finished speaking when Sacharissa arrived, bursting into the cell area with Cheery trailing along behind her.

“I’m sorry sir,” said Cheery, “but I couldn’t stop her without using my axe.”

“It’s alright Cheery,” Vimes assured the dwarf and Cheery headed back to the front desk after giving the reporter a final disapproving scowl. “Look Sacharissa, I am rather busy at the moment and …,” he began and was cut off.

“I know where the things come from,” interrupted Sacharissa impatiently and waved her notebook under Vimes’ nose. That got the commander to focus his full attention on the woman and he first listened to her story and then read the notes of her “interview” with the creature called She. Vimes would have thought the whole thing was made up if it had come from anyone else. The Times loved large, attention grabbing, and in Vimes’ opinion, overly sensationalistic headlines, but they almost religiously stuck to the truth. Sacharissa would no more make up a story than Nobby would pass up a chance to nick something not nailed down.

“I was wondering if you had any comment for our readers on the current situation commander?” asked Sacharissa when Vimes had digested the information.

“What?” he goggled at the reporter who despite what must have been a rather traumatic experience, had her pencil and notebook at the ready. “Do you think that these sort of zombies are going to stop their mumbling and buy a copy of the Times?”

“We don’t know they won’t,” pointed out Sacharissa brightly, “and the rest of the city’s inhabitants deserve to know what is going on and what our leaders are doing about the problem.”

“The last thing I need is to start a city wide panic and that’s exactly what one of your damn headlines is likely to do,” growled Vimes.

“I rather think people already know something is going on,” pointed out Sacharissa calmly. “We already have thousands of people walking around like him,” and she gestured towards Ironhelm. “It might calm people to know that the people in charge are actually doing something don’t you think?”

Vimes sighed. She was probably right, but he hated to admit it. “Look, all I ask is you try not to inflame the situation with a bombastic headline.” He waited and Sacharissa gave a slight reluctant nod. Gods know what Sacharissa and William de Worde considered to be non bombastic, but other than locking up Sacharissa in a cell next to Ironhelm, Vimes didn’t think there was much he could do to stop her and Lord Vetinari, when he came back, would ever so politely remind him of the value of a free press. “I can’t tell you everything of course for operational security reasons,” said Vimes doing his best to try and think like a weasel, er politician. “Lord Vetinari is personally attempting to eliminate the source of the problem with the assistance of members of the City Watch.” Best not to mention that assistance was mainly coming from Fred Colon and Nobby Nobbs, thought Vimes, or there really would be panic in the streets.

Sacharissa wanted more details and went away grumbling, but at least she went away. The reporter had barely got out the door when the wizards arrived. Thankfully, it was in the form of Ridcully, Eskarina and young Ponder Stibbons who were three of the more rational members of the faculty.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything magical about the creatures,” pronounced Ridcully after the trio had examined Ironhelm. “We can blast them with magic before they attach, but it doesn’t seem like magic can do much to remove them once they have attached without killing the host.”

“It looks like it is up to Vetinari then,” moaned Vimes as he left the wizards to discuss possible treatments with Igor and returned to his office. He slumped down in his chair and tried to think, so lost in thought he never saw the drone creeping across the ceiling of his office.

* * *

“Oh gods, I made a fool out of myself didn’t I?” said Vicky despondently as she kicked a rock along the street.

“I think you are being too hard on yourself,” replied Melody as she glanced sideways at her fellow new recruit. Growing up in a cave with only her sisters for company and the odd adventurer wandering by hoping to score a head as a trophy had prevented her from forming any friendships. She was hoping to have found one in Vicky, but really wasn’t sure how to go about being a friend. Vicky had almost bounced up to Carrot, assuming she would go patrolling with him again, but the captain had politely told her that wouldn’t be the case since he had responsibilities that kept him at the watch house. With a shortage of officers, Cheery had elected to pair the two raw recruits together, hoping that between them they would make at least one good copper.

“It’s just that I’ve seen Carrot coming into my dad’s bar for years as I grew up and …,” Vicky trailed off, not sure where to go with that sentence that wouldn’t totally humiliate herself.

“And you saw a decent, caring man who is a total hunk,” finished Melody. “It would be hard not to have a crush on him.”

“A total hottie,” chirped up Penelope.

“Sshh,” hissed Phoebe.

“No man is worth beating yourself up over kid,” said Portia, “though I have to admit that Carrot might be the exception to the rule.”

“Everyone else has an opinion Priscilla, what is yours?” asked Vicky looking up at the wriggling mass under the scarf. When Vicky had first met the gorgon, she had been taken aback and even a bit horrified by the snakes if she was being honest, but once you got to know them, it was hard not to like them, even Penelope.

“I suspect Captain Carrot is rather used to women having crushes on him,” said Priscilla after a moment. “He isn’t the kind of guy to take advantage of it or make fun of you for it. He and Angua are pretty solid, so I think if you move on, it will never come up again.”

“I think Pris is right,” said Melody. “Maybe both of us can find someone here in the city. I mean there are an awful lot of people”

“You mean there are a lot of awful people,” snickered Penelope.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” said Portia, “she was born cynical.”

“You are bound to meet a nice guy,” added Phoebe. “It’s hard for me to judge humans, but I think you are very beautiful.”

“Who says she has to meet a man, or even a human?” put in Priscilla. “She might meet a nice dwarf, or a vampire, or a gorgon even.”

“Sounds like Priscilla is trying to do some matchmaking,” teased Penelope.

Vicky saw Melody turning beet red and suspected she was about matching her colour. It was certainly something she hadn’t thought about before and had no clue how to react, or what to say. Thankfully, she saw a distraction as they entered Sator Square in the form of one C.M.O.T. Dibbler.

“Come on,” she said to Melody. “I know we haven’t god paid yet, but I still have some tip money and I will buy the girls a sausage in a bun each. I heard they cleaned out Dibbler’s cart last time and didn’t even get sick once.”

The square was deserted except for a couple of the pseudo zombies wandering around aimlessly. Melody and Vicky both became worried that there might be one more when they stopped in front of the salesman and he only stared blankly ahead of him showing no reaction to their arrival.

“Oh crap, I think the creatures got him too,” said Phoebe.

“Who cares, that just means we can eat everything on his tray and he won’t notice,” said Penelope.

“She must be obeyed,” intoned Dibbler and then he added, “sausages in a bun twenty cents.”

“That’s double the price from yesterday,” protested an outraged Penelope.

“Mr. Dibbler, are you ok?” asked Vicky trying to peer around the man at his neck.

Dibbler’s eyes shifted from left to right and back again. “I’m fine young lady,” he whispered. “I just use the ‘She must be obeyed’ line when one of those things come near me and they leave me alone. Some of them even buy a sausage in a bun. I think the creatures on them actually like them. Er, I mean not that there is anything wrong with the sausages. They are pure pork.”

“Hooves, tusks, and spleens could be said to be pure pork,” pointed out Vicky.

“Non traditional parts of animals are often considered delicacies,” replied Dibbler. “Tell you what though, since the ladies loved my products so much, I will give you a deal. Four for a dollar and that’s cutting my own throat.”

“That’s twenty five cents each,” cried Penelope. “That’s more than you were going to charge for them individually. That’ some bargain.”

“Inflation coupled with supply and demand,” answered Dibbler smoothly.

“What demand?” asked Melody looking around the mostly deserted square. “I bet you haven’t sold four today.”

In response, Dibbler, just picked up one of his sausages and waved it in front of the scarf.

“Stop arguing and pay the man!” snapped Penelope as a bit of snake drool leaked out from under the scarf.

“Here, I can’t stand to see a grown snake cry,” said Vicky pulling out a dollar and handing it over to Dibbler. The money quickly vanished into Dibbler’s pockets and his practiced hands produced the four sausages in a bun all according to the specifications from last time. There were four loud gulps and the sausages in a bun disappeared.

“No more,” admonished Melody when the girls began to whine and beg for seconds. “You didn’t even say thank-you to Vicky for the first one.” There was a chorus of thank-yous from under the scarf and more begging and whining, but Melody held firm and the pair resumed their patrol.

** *

“There is one thing about this that doesn’t make sense,” commented Leonard. The quartet had retreated from the vicinity of the crater back to the cart to try and determine what to do next.

“Only one thing?” asked Lord Vetinari with an arched eyebrow. “I must confess there are at least half a dozen aspects of this situation that puzzle me.”

“It might seem that way my lord,” agreed Leonard, “but I believe what appears to be distinct issues might resolve into a single one.”

“Pray enlighten us then Leonard unless the good Sergeant and the Corporal want to venture a hypothesis?”

“Er, I might have some ideas,” ventured Colon, “but I think I would like to hear what Mr. de Quirm thinks first.”

“Damned if I have a clue,” said Nobby who didn’t think it was fair to ask for ideas from a corporal since coming up with ideas was clearly an officer’s job. If you started coming up with ideas, well the next thing you know they expected you to volunteer and he wasn’t having any of that.

“Go ahead then Leonard, it appears you have the floor,” said Vetinari dryly.

“Well, what I don’t understand is why the creature stays in that crater,” said Leonard scratching his temple as he tried to put his thoughts into words that others could understand. “We are pretty sure it is some kind of creature considering the nature of the parasites and that those enslaved keep going on about some ‘She’ that must be obeyed. That creature, let us call it the mother creature must be producing the parasites and shipping them to Ankh-Morpork, but doing it that way doesn’t make any sense.”

Vetinari closed his eyes in obvious thought for a few seconds and then opened them. “I see,” he said, “it is highly inefficient. Why does not the mother creature simply go to Ankh-Morpork where She could not only deliver the parasite creatures faster, but bring her own mental influences directly to bear.”

“Precisely my lord,” said Leonard beaming. “I think the answer to that question is crucial.”

“Maybe She was hurt when she landed?” suggested Colon.

“Possibly,” acknowledged Vetinari, “but we have not seen any sign of impairment. She is producing the parasites at a prodigious rate and we certainly felt her mental acuity when we got close to the crater.”

“She is also controlling a thousand or more slaves at this point,” added Leonard, “which indicates a certain degree of health.”

“Could be something around here keeps her in that crater? Suggested Nobby.

“There is nothing around here except …,” Lord Vetinari paused and then smiled. “What was it you spied with your little eye that starts with the letter ‘c’?”

“But that was just a joke to wind Fred up,” protested Nobby. “How could cabbages hurt anyone?

“Your soup my lord,” said Leonard excitedly. “You said one of the creatures died when submersed in your soup and it contained cabbage. There must be something about cabbages that is inimical to the mother creature.”

“Just trying to wind me up,” said Colon, glaring down at Nobby. “I think someone is going to be on latrine duty for a year when we get back to the city.”

“I do believe we can overlook Corporal Nobbs’ little transgressions in light of the importance of his discovery,” said Lord Vetinari mildly. “The question is, how can we make use of his fact?” he asked as he turned back to regard Leonard. “Again in an astute observation Corporal Nobbs has pointed out that cabbages are hardly much use as weapons.”

“That might not be true my lord,” said Leonard looking down at his notebook where he had sketched his device for throwing cabbages.

* * *

They had to drive the cart around a dog that lay panting in the middle of the road and which appeared to be the only living thing in sight when Lord Vetinari’s party reached Cabbage Leaf. At least, no one objected when they commandeered the blacksmith shop.

“This should do,” allowed Leonard as he looked around the smithy. Colon was put to work pumping the bellows to heat up the forge while Nobby was sent on a scavenger mission in the small town to find the items detailed by Leonard. “I can’t make a fully realized device of course considering the resources,” Leonard told the Patrician, “but it should be sufficient for our needs.”

Nobby returned a few minutes later dragging a large beam of wood behind him and making clinking sounds. “I do believe you acquired some objects not on your list,” commented Lord Vetinari as he reached gingerly inside Nobby’s pockets and extracted a couple bottles of whiskey.

“Oh, those must have somehow fallen into there,” offered Nobby with a look of total surprise.

“Actually, they might be useful,” said Leonard, thinking of flaming cabbages as he took the lid off one bottle and took a sniff of the contents. “Cabbages don’t burn that well, but I rather suspect anything doused in this stuff will ignite quite magnificently.”

“Well done Corporal,” said Lord Vetinari, “as always you manage to exceed expectations.” Nobby just grinned and trundled off to see what else he could liberate.

* * *

Fred Colon mopped his brow for the thousandth time in the last few hours and regarded the results of their labour. In his opinion, it had been mainly his labour pumping the bellows, but he allowed it did require the brainpower supplied by Leonard and a few practical suggestions by the Patrician to keep the project on track. After an hour of work, Leonard had actually started to dismantle the entire thing, saying he now saw a much better way to build it. The Patrician had interrupted to ask of the original plan would still do the trick to which Leonard had grudgingly admitted that it would, if somewhat inefficiently. To Leonard, doing anything, but the best way possible was anathema which was why many of his projects never got completed as he continually found new and better ways to accomplish them. What their work had produced, using their cart as a mobile base, was starting to look rather lethal in Colon’s opinion which made him just a bit worried about what else might lurk in the recesses of Leonard’s mind.

“We’ve got trouble,” yelled Nobby as he ran into the blacksmith shop and began to close and bar the large doors.

“Do try to be a little more precise Corporal,” admonished Lord Vetinari from where he sat on the anvil studying Leonard’s design and comparing it to what the genius had actually built.

“A whole bunch of the townsfolk are coming this way with torches and pitchforks, panted Nobby. “I reckon She has got wind of what we are doing here.”

“I see,” replied the Patrician calmly and waved Colon to join him at the door where he directed the two watchmen in moving what objects they could to block up the door.

“I don’t think that is going to keep them out for long and they might just decide to burn the entire place down,” noted Colon. The crowd had apparently decided on the battering approach as a minute later there came a loud banging on the smithy doors.

“For a bunch of stunned twits, they suddenly seem to have got themselves organized,” noted Nobby and then he had to jump smartly away from the door as an axe broke through, sending splinters of wood flying in all directions.

* * *

She looked around in confusion at the images being relayed to Her from the mind of the human called Vimes using the drone that had infected him. Something like this had never happened before and She didn’t know how to react. She was in a city at night and rain poured down out of the skies, scouring the cobblestones and washing dead vermin and other things along the gutters. Well, She was not afraid of darkness, if anything the darkness should be afraid of Her.

“Really?” came a mocking voice.

She spun around in a circle, but failed to see any sign of the source of the voice. “Who are you?” She demanded. “Come out coward and face me.”

“Oh, I’m not really here,” said the voice as it floated across the air, seeming to come from nowhere in particular. “I am just a memory of a memory you might say.”

“That is a meaningless statement,” She sneered. “Do you not have a name coward?”

“I am called, or was called the Summoning Dark,” intoned the bodyless voice. “I was old before your race even dreamed of other worlds. You consider yourself mighty, but you are nothing compared to me.”

“I don’t think you can back up that boast,” She retorted. “Strike me down then if you are one so great.”

“I did say I was a memory of a memory,” chided the Summoning Dark. “I am not really here after all. I just thought it would be amusing to see how you fared against him who defeated me.”

“This puny human called Vimes bested you?” She laughed. “You make claims about how powerful you are and then admit to being beaten by a mere human.”

“You still have time to leave,” warned the Summoning Dark and then it paused as if listening. They both heard the sound of approaching footsteps. “No, I take it back, it is too late for that now. Farewell, but not fare thee well.”

She looked around as a figure stepped out of the darkness and stood under the dim light of a streetlight. The face was in shadow as the figure stood hunched under his oilskin cape, water cascading off it with only a glint of battered armour visible here and there and his boots soaked through.

“I am supposed to be afraid of you? She said with scorn. “I think not!”

The figure didn’t reply, but moved to stand under an overhang out of the worst of the rain. It fumbled in an inner pocket and produced a silver case from which it took a small cigar. After several attempts, the man got the cigar lit and took a deep puff. “This is my city and you aren’t welcome here,” he said.

Do you have a name and just how are you going to stop me?” She inquired disdainfully.

I am him, or the part of him that he keeps deep inside him,” replied the figure. “I am the Guarding Dark and as for defeating you, we will find a way,” the figure said with a shrug, “we always do. In fact, we are doing it. People are resisting you even now.”

“A few have escaped my influence,” She admitted, “but they are only a handful. I will triumph and all who oppose me will be destroyed.”

“You are losing,” contradicted the Guarding Dark. “Let me show you some of the ways you are losing even now.” The scene shifted and suddenly they were in a basement somewhere in the city. A woman was leaning against a wall, her entire body trembling.

“She must be obeyed,” said the woman in a whisper. Then the woman’s face contorted with anger. “No damn way,” Rosy Palm said in a louder voice. “I’ve never bowed down to the bastards who tried to keep me down and tell me what to do all my life and no one is getting the better of me now.” Rosy straightened up and the drone fell to the floor as if burned and the seamstress drove her heel down onto it and squished it into slime.

“Rosy is a strong woman,” said the Guarding Dark as he puffed on his cigar and then he paused. “Oh, sorry, where are my manners, would you like one?” and he held out the silver cigar case to Her.

“She is only one of thousands that I control,” She replied, ignoring the cigar case.

“Oh there are others,” said the Guarding Dark. “As the philosopher said, ‘It’s a funny old world’. I can’t say that I like him much, but he is a tough bastard.”

The scene this time was that of a well appointed study and a man sitting behind a large oak desk. “She must be obeyed,” gasped the figure. “Nonsense, assassins do not take orders. No commission was offered and accepted.” This time a paperweight was used to squish the drone when it dropped off Lord Downey’s neck.

“I could be wrong,” said the Guarding Dark, “but assassins like Downey take all kinds of stuff to protect them from poisons. Occupational hazard for them you see and that might be part of the reason for him being able to throw you out.”

She was silent for a moment in disbelief, but the silence was shattered by a scream. “Oh there are many ways to resist you,” said the Guarding Dark. “Here comes one now.” They were back in the street and a scrawny figure in a stained robe and pointy hat with the worst beard ever grown sprinted past them screaming while one of the drones chased after him. “That’s Rincewind,” said the Guarding Dark. “He is possibly a wizard, though a porcupine run over by a cattle cart probably has more magical ability than him. He is one hell of a runner though and hasn’t been caught yet.” The mention of a cart seemed right on queue as one appeared out of the darkness and somehow the fleeing Rincewind jumped onto its back and over it without slowing down. The drone was not so lucky, there was a squishy sound as the wheels of the cart turned the drone into a slimy puddle.

“You boast about running away?” She sneered.

“Whatever works,” replied the Guarding Dark. “Shall we see how the other wizards are making out?” The figure didn’t wait for a reply and the scene shifted to inside another building. Half a dozen of the spider like drones were chasing after a red furred figure that swung from shelf to shelf.

“Ook,” taunted the Librarian and paused to let the drones get closer before swinging into another row of shelves which could only be described as dark and ominous. The drones followed and then there were some loud snapping and chewing sounds. As the man and She watched, the last drops of the drones were being sucked up by the books straining at the end of their chains.

“There really are places in that library that aren’t safe to venture into unless you know what you are doing,” observed the Guarding Dark with another puff of his cigar. “You can be beaten in so many ways, let’s look at one more shall we?” The scene changed to that of the Uncommon Room at Unseen University.

“That was the best peach pie I ever had,” said the Senior Wrangler looking sadly at the now empty pie plate in his hands.

“How would I know?” snapped the Chair of Indefinite Studies, “you ate the whole damn thing without sharing.”

“I didn’t see you sharing that strawberry-rhubarb pie,” retorted the Senior Wrangler, “and you know it is one of my favourites!”

“No, you are both wrong,,” broke in the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “The best pie was the chocolate cream” He paused and scratched his beard. “Er, wasn’t there something we were supposed to be doing after the pies?” he asked.

The other two wizards frowned in thought. “Um, something to do with obeying someone or other?” suggested the Senior Wrangler.

“Sod that,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “I’m to stuffed to obey anyone right now. I need a good nap to get ready for supper.”

Three very fat drones crawled slowly across the floor away from the wizards making for the door which opened to admit Dr. Hix, the Head of Post Mortem Studies and not at all Necromancy at the university. He saw the three drones and producing a jar from the pocket of his black robe scooped them into it with a cry of delight. “I was hoping to find more of these things, they work a treat as sacrifices for some of my rituals.”

“Sacrifices?” echoed the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “That sounds a little bit necromancy to me old chap.”

“Oh, not at all, or at least not very necromancy,” replied Dr. Hix brandishing his skull ring. Just a little licensed evil as required under university statutes. “Er, actually the rituals are for the removal of toe nail fungus. I normally use rubber spiders from Boffo, but their prices are up twenty percent in the latest catalog and Ridcully won’t increase my budget.”

“This world is insane,” She cried as the scene shifted back to the rain drenched street.

The Guarding Dark shrugged as this was not a matter that concerned it. “One more example perhaps?” he suggested, but the scene had already changed before She could reply one way or another. This time it showed a stable behind the palace where the slightly rumpled figure of Drumknot lay on a pile of clean hay where the Patrician had been forced to leave him.

“This one is a weak, pathetic little creature,” She sneered.

“Keep watching,” advised the Guarding Dark. Drumknot’s hands were moving now, picking up the pieces of straw and sorting them out by length, laying them in a very precise row on the ground.

“He resists my commands?” She asked incredulously.

“People fight in their own way,” replied the Guarding Dark with another shrug. “now it is time for you to go.” The Guarding Dark tossed the stub of his cigar at Her and She screamed in agony as flames licked at Her.

“You may have cast me out of his body, but my slaves shall still deliver the city to me,” She screamed in defiance. “I am about to eliminate those who came after me and then the city shall fall. Nothing can prevent it!”

Vimes woke up and a large hand slammed down on the quivering drone on his desk. “We will see about that,” he said.

* * *

The axe and other implements had tore a good sized hole in the smithy door and those inside could see a couple dozen townsfolk and farmers milling around just outside.

“Er, do you have any suggestions sir?” asked Fred Colon looking hopefully at Lord Vetinari.

“Yes,” replied the Patrician stroking his chin thoughtfully, “I would suggest you try not to bleed too much.” A knife suddenly appeared in the Patrician’s hand out of nowhere and for a moment in light of his last comment, Colon thought he meant to use it on him and felt his legs go weak, but Lord Vetinari took a few steps towards the impending attack and stood waiting calmly.

“This looks like it for us Fred,” said Nobby looking around for a way out and not finding one. “Sorry I never paid you that ten dollars I owe you.”

“I think it was thirty dollars Nobby,” corrected Colon. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, so you don’t have to worry about paying me back.”

“That’s good of you Fred,” replied Nobby. “Er, since we are going to die, I should tell you it was me that nicked that new thermos your wife gave you for last Hogswatch.”

“I kind of figured it was you,” said Colon with a sigh, “though I remember you swearing up and down it wasn’t you.”

“What made you think it was me Fred?” asked Nobby.

“Well, possibly because you showed up the very next day with an identical thermos that you claimed you found and it still had my initials written on the bottom of it,” replied Colon.

“Gee Fred, that makes me feel even worse now about pawning that silver pen you liked so much,” said a crestfallen Nobby.

“What?” exclaimed Colon. “You mean the pen one of my daughters gave me as a birthday present and which you told me that Thumbs Sawyer stole that day when I was booking him.”

“That’s the one Fred,” admitted Nobby. “I only got a dollar for it too, but I got three dollars for the pocket watch.”

“You copped that too!” cried Colon turning red in the face and glaring down angrily at Nobby. “I had that watch as a present from an old mate in the army whose life I saved. I thought the chain had just broke and I hunted for that watch for a month. I suppose next you will tell me it was you that stole that new pair of real leather boots out of my locker too?”

“Turns out they weren’t real leather Fred,” said Nobby sadly, “unless you count rat hide as leather.”

“If you two are done reminiscing,” called Lord Vetinari, “please get over here.” The two watchmen turned to see several figures about to enter the smithy and waving sharp objects. Leonard stood beside the Patrician, awkwardly holding a large hammer. The inventor had looked so competent with it a few minutes ago as he hammered metal into shape with it, but apparently the thought of using it on people was giving him more than a little trouble. Suddenly, Mr. Fusspot jumped down and stood in front of Lord Vetinari growling with every ounce of ferocity he didn’t possess.

The dog was answered by a much louder growl from outside and suddenly there were the sounds of people crying out in pain and running. The figures about to enter the blacksmith shop disappeared abruptly followed by the sound of more growling and running feet.

“Captain angua?” asked Lord Vetinari as he stepped through the ragged opening in the door and looked around. The other three followed him outside and saw no sign of their attackers. Nobby spotted something on the ground and seeing that no one was watching him, grinned and kicked it under a bush to hide it.

“Over here sir,” called Angua from behind a tree. “Er, you wouldn’t happen to see the bag with my clothes in it do you? I had to drop it in order to fight those people attacking you.”

“I’m afraid I don’t see it at the moment, but will have my associates look for it,” assured the Patrician. “Corporal Nobbs?”

“I don’t see your clothes anywhere Miss, er Captain,” he amended quickly when he heard the growl coming from behind the tree.

Lord Vetinari paused and appeared to be thinking. “Corporal Nobbs, I note a certain specificity in your choice of words. You used the present tense, so I must ask if you have seen the Captain’s clothes at any time in the past,” and he held a hand up to forestall an immediate answer, “and let me remind you that we are talking about the time period of the last few minutes as opposed to hours or days ago back in the city about which you were going to make some humerous remark, which I hasten to point out I would not see the humour in it.”

“Er, no my lord, I have not seen Captain Angua’s clothes in the last few minutes,” replied Nobby, endeavoring to look honest and innocent while failing at both.

“I see,” said Lord Vetinari, “but perhaps I did not ask the correct question. Corporal Nobbs, have you seen the bag containing said clothes recently?”

“Oh that bag,” replied Nobby brightly. “I think I might have seen something under this bush sir, shall I check?”

“Don’t let him touch my clothes!” called Angua from behind the tree which in her opinion was not wide enough for her liking and had rather rough bark.

The Patrician sighed. “Sergeant Colon, would you please investigate the specified bush for the presence of a bag of clothes?”

“Right you are sir,” said Fred bending over and after a few seconds standing up with a triumphant look on his face. “I found it sir!” he said proudly.

“I am astounded,” said Lord Vetinari. “Please be good enough to deliver the bag to Captain Angua, so we can converse with her face to face.”

“Er, but she is um without any clothes at the moment sir,” protested a blushing Colon.

“Well done Sergeant, but that is precisely why you are delivering said items to her,” replied the Patrician.

Colon gulped and swallowed, then after getting his sights set on the tree, closed his eyes firmly and set off for it dangling the bag from one hand in front of him. He could not go home and tell Mrs. Colon he had ben ogling naked women, especially ones he worked with on a daily basis.

“A little to the left Fred,” called Nobby helpfully. “No too much, now back to your right a bit. Just a few more steps and you are there. There was a ‘clunking’ sound as Sergeant Colon’s forehead impacted with the tree and he dropped the bag which Angua quickly snatched up. Colon’s eyes had come open reflexively when he hit the tree and for just a second, he, as they say, caught a glimpse of heaven.

“If you ever say anything to anyone, I will rip out your throat,” growled Angua and Fred quickly stumbled back away from the tree towards the others.

“Er, my lord,” called Angua from behind the tree, “could you please call Mr. Fusspot. He appears to have become … agitated.” The others watched as a shapely bare foot appeared around the edge of the tree trunk and tried to gently shoo the small dog away from her.

“Mr. Fusspot, attend,” commanded the Patrician and a moment later, a clearly reluctant Mr. Fusspot trotted over to Lord Vetinari and sat down obediently at his side. There was the sound of rustling clothes and the sound of someone hopping on one foot trying to put boots on while remaining hidden behind the too narrow tree and finally Angua emerged from hiding. “Sorry about that sir, but I have to make sure proper decorum is kept for the sake of discipline in the ranks,” and she gave Fred and Nobby a glare.

“Quite understandable,” replied Lord Vetinari calmly. “You appear to have successfully driven off our would be attackers.”

“Yes sir, enslaved or not, they didn’t seem to want to fight a werewolf sir,” replied Angua. “I made sure not to hurt them much, just a few little nips here and there, more bark than bite. Maybe it is those parasite things on their necks, but my mouth feels like I took a drink out of the Ankh.”

“Oh dear, as bad as all that,” responded the Patrician. “Well, Leonard has constructed a weapon that we believe will be able to put a stop to all of this. If you would be so good as to help him get it out of the blacksmith’s shop while Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs go over to that cabbage warehouse and retrieve ammunition, we will test it out.”

“Cabbages sir?” repeated Angua, sure she had misheard the Patrician.

“Yes, Leonard believes that there is some chemical substance in cabbages that weakens the mother creature who spawned the parasites. If we eliminate the mother creature, the threat should be over to the city.”

Angua nodded and with Leonard’s help managed to get the smithy doors open and push the cart and its weapon out, the horse having fled when it had smelled a werewolf. Fred and Nobby returned with armfuls of cabbages and the group once more set out for the crater in the field.

The enslaved people had regrouped near the rim of the crater, but made no move to attack or try to interfere with the group as they got within a couple hundred yards. Colon and Nobby loaded a test cabbage into the cradle of the catapult and after some scribbled calculations in his notebook, Leonard adjusted the mechanism and fired his strange ammunition. The cabbage soared majestically, if not terribly aerodynamically, through the air until it was about ten yards from the crater where it exploded harmlessly into leafy green shrapnel.

“That shouldn’t have happened,” muttered Leonard and he had Colon and Nobby reload the catapult with a fresh cabbage. The end result was the same with the cabbage exploding harmlessly well before the crater.

“Your explanation Leonard?” asked the Patrician calmly.

“Er,” said Leonard after some thought, “there appears to be what I might call a ‘Shielding Device That Blocks Projectile Weapons’ that is created by the creature.”

“I see,” replied Lord Vetinari who was used to Leonard’s genius and also his inability to create short and succinct names for his creations.

“Some kind of Force Field?”

“A most inaccurate term my lord, but essentially correct,” confirmed Leonard.

“Is there anything you can do to make the weapon more powerful and get past it?” asked the Patrician.

Leonard shrugged. “I have only some theoretical ideas of what this protective field could consist of my lord, so any speculation on my part is little better than a dart toss with my eyes closed. With more time to study the phenomena and unlimited resources, there might be a possibility, but with what I have to work with I don’t think there is anything more that I can do. Of course …,” Leonard trailed off and seemed to be staring at something no one else could see.

“Still, you do have an idea?” asked Lord Vetinari and Colon and Nobby both thought they heard more hope in that question than the usual tight control they were used to from the Patrician.

“Er, I was just wondering my lord if the power for that shield comes from the people that have been enslaved,” said Leonard coming back to the world.

“If we could free the slaves then perhaps your weapon would be effective against the thing?” said Vetinari.

“But, we can’t kill all those people,” protested Colon. “I mean they are just ordinary folk who got taken over.”

“Sometimes it is necessary to amputate a limb in order to save a life,” replied Vetinari calmly, “but actually Sergeant, I was thinking of finding a way to free those people rather than kill them.”

Fred Colon turned red, “er I’m sorry my lord, I didn’t mean to …,” he faltered.

“It is quite alright Sergeant,” said the Patrician, “even a tyrant needs to be reminded now and then that he can’t kill everyone who opposes him.”

“Actually, I thought tyrants could do just that,” whispered Nobby to Colon.

Lord Vetinari hid a smile at the whispered comment, sometimes having such acute hearing could be entertaining. “Captain Angua, I truly appreciate your opportune arrival, but now I need you to take a message back to Commander Vimes as quickly as possible. Tell him that he needs to find a way to free the enslaved people as quickly as possible.”

“Er, do you have any suggestions on how that might be done sir?” asked Angua.

“I imagine it will have something to do with cabbages,” replied the Patrician.

“Yes sir, I will get back to the city as fast as I can,” replied Angua and then she sighed and shot Fred and Nobby another glare. “You two stay put where you are.” The blonde ducked back behind her tree and they could hear her mutter, “I swear I spend half my day sometimes taking my damn clothes off.” There were some rather strange sounds from behind the tree as bones and muscles reformed into new positions and then a few seconds later, a large blonde haired wolf trotted out with a bag clasped firmly between its teeth. It gave Nobby one last glare and then loped off towards Ankh-Morpork.

* * *

“Cabbages?” echoed Vimes. “Where the hell does his lordship think I am going to find cabbages in Ankh-Morpork?”

“Er the marketplace and restaurants?” suggested Carrot. Angua had arrived back in the city only a few minutes earlier and they were gathered in Vimes’ office to try and decide what to do.

“I thought about that and checked the marketplace on the way here,” said Angua. “Its deserted. I think a lot of those people wandering around are the farmers who normally bring in goods from the country, or else they’ve been scared off.”

“Even if we found a bunch of cabbages, what the hell would we do with them?” Vimes mused more to himself than the others. “Nail one to the head of everyone infected?”

“That would work thir,” agreed Igor, “but it might perhapth be a little extreme. We jutht need the esththnce of cabbageth thir.” Igor looked apologetic as Vimes reached for a dry handkerchief. “Sorry about that, it’s the double s’s that do it.”

Vimes stopped in mid mopping. “And just what happened to the lisp for that entire last sentence?” he demanded.

“Er would you believe I thtop lithping when I get excited thir?” Igor asked hopefully.

“No,” snapped Vimes.

“I’m thorry thir,” replied Igor looking downcast. “It’th traditional, an Igor hath to have thtitcheth, lithp and have more than the average number of fingerth.” Igor held up his hands to display six fingers on the left hand and seven on the right.”

Vimes waved the entire discussion away. “We can discuss this later, but for now we need to come up with cabbages.”

“Er, what about those stamps the post office made?” asked Vicky who as the newest recruit had been sent to fetch coffee and had just entered the office juggling multiple cups of coffee which she passed around.

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Vimes snapping his fingers and looking at Igor.

“Yeth thir, they really outdid themthelves with thothe thampth.”

“It’s worth a try,” replied Vimes rummaging in his desk and finding one of the stamps. “I promised young Sam I would get him one,” he explained when he saw everyone looking at him.

“Of course sir,” agreed Carrot loyally as they all hurried down to the cells where Vimes licked the stamp, made a face at the taste and slapped it on Ironhelm’s forehead. Nothing happened for a minute and then suddenly Ironhelm’s eyes took on focus and the drone fell to the floor where Vimes ground it under his boot.

“What in the name of Tak am I doing here in the cells?” asked Ironhelm looking around. “The last thing I remember were a couple of morons coming into the watchhouse talking about someone who had to be obeyed.”

“It’s a long story,” Vimes told him and turned back to the others. “Let’s hope the post office still has plenty of those stamps left.”

“Er, didn’t Lord Vetinari declare them illegal because of the smell and their tendency to burst into flames if you put more than two of them on an envelope?” asked Angua.

“Yes,” answered Vimes, “the Patrician was very insistent about them being destroyed, but maybe Mr. Lipwig has done what he normally does and interpreted his lordship’s edict with his usual flair.”

“Meaning he might have disobeyed a direct order from the Patrician?” asked a shocked Carrot.

“Does Fate cheat at dice?” replied Vimes with a grin, but they had only made it to the watchhouse’s front door when they were forced to dive for cover as an arrow shattered the large front window and stuck in the wall a few inches from Vimes’ left ear.

“Er, I was just going to come tell you that the er not quite zombies have stopped just wandering around aimlessly and have started attacking people sir,” reported Cheery.

“No kidding,” said Vimes looking up at the arrow still quivering in the wall. He crawled over to the window and looked out to see several hundred very angry looking people surrounding the station.

“No problem sir, I can take care of dem,” said Sergeant Detritus as he started to load the siege crossbow he used as a personal weapon. It fired an entire quiver of arrows at once and under the strain the troll used to wind the weapon, they tended to splinter and catch fire in midair. Anything in their path from people to walls tended to disappear in an expanding cloud of smoke and bits of things you might not want to look at too closely.

“I think we need a less lethal option for dealing with tax paying citizens Sergeant,” said Vimes placing a restraining hand on the troll’s shoulder. “Well, I am sure at least some of them think about paying their taxes now and then,” he amended upon remembering this was Ankh-Morpork. “Lance Constable Melody, I think it is time to take off the sunglasses and go meet the public.”

“Are you sure that is wise sir?” asked a worried Carrot. “I am not sure the Patrician will approve of us turning some of his citizens into stone.”

“Well, it’s not really stone and we know now how to turn them back,” pointed out Vimes, “so it will only be a temporary inconvenience for them. I mean it is a hell of a lot better than Detritus’s peacemaker. What do you say Lance Constable?” he said turning to Melody.

“If you are sure it is the best way sir,” replied Melody with a salute.

“No way!” cried Penelope. “I don’t want to have to kiss a couple hundred disgusting humans to turn them back to what passes for normal among humans.”

“I’m with her for a change,” agreed Portia. “Maybe nobody would notice if we just sort of distributed them around Sator Square and called it an art exhibit.”

“I think even humans would not buy that one,” noted Phoebe.

“It is probably our duty,” said Priscilla with a sigh. “I just wish humans weren’t so …. So disgusting to look at. Just touching them makes my skin crawl.”

“I’ll buy you one of Dibbler’s sausages in a bun each,” promised Vimes.

“Hah, there are at least two hundred people out there,” said Penelope. “Nothing less than one sausage in a bun or possibly pork pie for every ten humans we have to kiss.”

Vimes thought the price was pretty cheap, but he didn’t want it to look like he was giving in too easily. “One sausage in a bun for every twenty,” he counteroffered.

“One per fifteen,” replied Penelope.

“Deal,” said Vimes doing his best to sound reluctant.

“Ok girls let’s go put the whammy on the bastards,” said Penelope. With everyone laying face down with their eyes closed, Melody sighed, stepped outside and took her sunglasses off.

* * *

The group made a dash for the Post Office which thankfully was not to far away and only required Melody to remove her sunglasses one more time. They found the Post Office doors locked and barred and it took some pounding and shouting to convince the people hiding inside to open them and let them in.

“We had a bunch of those spider like creatures try and get in,” said Moist von Lipwig as the doors were relocked and the furniture piled against them once more. “It seems they can’t do much with golems and Gladys gave them a tap dancing lesson.” Vimes nodded, a thousand pound golem would crush just about anything it stepped on.

“I got one too,” pointed out Adora Belle Dearheart, Moist’s wife who ran the Klacks system as well as the Golem Trust. She was standing under the ‘Thank-you For Not Smoking’ sign and taking a deep drag on her cigarette before sending out a cloud of smoke. “I don’t think the gunk will ever clean off my shoe,” she said as she looked down at the somewhat infamous spiked heel shoes she favoured and which could be driven through an inch thick oak board when she was angry enough.

“A dilute tholution of acetic acid uthually workth wonderth with nathty organic thainth,”said Igor helpfully.

“And if that fails, try a lightning rod and ten thousand volts,” put in Vimes.

“Very funny thir,” said Igor.

“What we came for though is those cabbage stamps you made,” said Vimes turning back to Moist. “We think something in the cabbage weakens the creatures and will hopefully free the people from the parasites.”

“I had strict orders from the Patrician to destroy all those stamps commander,” replied Moist.

“But being you, I’m betting you didn’t,” replied Vimes. It would have been like burning money and I doubt you could do that.

“I was hoping to find a way to reduce their potency,” admitted Moist with a sigh. “I mean, other than the smell, they are perfectly safe as long as you don’t use more than two of them on the same envelope.” Moist saw the impatient look on Vimes’ face and sighed again. Please follow me commander. The Post Master led the way to a sub basement of the new post office and a locked room. Inside was one of the new magic cooling boxes with a little green imp peddling like mad to expel any warm air and keep the inside of the box as cool as possible.

“I found if you keep them cool enough, they don’t spontaneously catch fire,” explained Moist gesturing at the large bundle of stamps which was the only thing in the box.

“Oh dear, the Patrician is not going to be happy with you Mr. Lipwig,” said Vimes dryly.

“Well, if your idea works,” replied Moist calmly, “then I believe I will have had a premonition from the gods that they were going to be needed to save the city. How can his lordship go against a sign from the gods?”

“He will never believe that,” said Vimes, “but it might work for plausible deniability.”

“You can knock off for now Rodney,” said Moist to the imp as he took the large box out of the magic cold box.

“Thanks boss,” said the little imp with a salute as he stopped peddling and pulled out a tiny water bottle to take a drink.

Vimes started passing packets of stamps around. “We will work in pairs or trios. We don’t want to hurt these people, so Detritus, Dorfl and the stronger ones among us will try and restrain them while others pop a stamp on their foreheads. We will start at the Assassins Guild and the Seamstress Guild. I have it on good authority that Rosy and Downey have both managed to ditch their parasites. I’m sure they will be willing to pitch in and help free up their infected members and both guilds are very good at getting close to people, though admittedly in rather different ways.”

Vimes turned to Chuck, who had somehow managed to attach himself to their group, and handed him a couple packets of stamps. “Take these over to Unseen University and give them either to Ridcully or the Librarian and explain what we want to do. They can look after freeing any of their students and faculty who have been enslaved.”

“The Librarian,” repeated Chuck. “You mean the monkey?”

“That’s the one,” agreed Vimes, “but unless you want your nose introduced to your liver, I wouldn’t call him that.”

As it turned out, there was rather an enthusiastic competition between the Seamstresses and the Assassins to see who could free the most people. Both Rosy Palm and Lord Downey had been outraged at their treatment and once their members had been freed, they set about with a vengeance to get … well vengeance. Surprisingly, it turned out that the Seamstresses were better at it than the Assassins. A bit of cleavage or a hint of a shapely leg proved to be distracting to even the most ardent mumblers of Her than the cool looking black outfits of the Assassins. A dark horse also quickly emerged in the competition when the Fools Guild discovered the stamps could be delivered by a custard pie to the face.

* * *

“Something seems to be happening with them,” said Nobby pointing to the cluster of enslaved people who were gathered around the crater. Having learned from experience, the catapult was now surrounded by a wall of cabbages which seemed enough to ward off more attacks. The puppets of the creature had retreated to the lip of the crater and had been wandering around aimlessly, but now they just stood still and stared vacantly at nothing.

“I believe that is an indication that Commander Vimes has been successful in turning things around in the city,” observed the Patrician. He turned to Leonard, “I think it is time to test the creature’s defences again with your weapon.” Leonard nodded unhappily. He knew it was necessary, but he would much rather have studied what was in the crater than destroy it.

* * *

She seethed with anger and helplessness in the bottom of the crater. She could feel Herself getting weaker by the second as Her slaves were taken from Her and there didn’t seem to be anything She could do about it. In all the eons that Her kind had sought out other worlds, they had never failed to conquer the worlds they landed on, but now She was on the verge of defeat. There had been no way to predict a world full of such diverse and strange creatures who would unite to oppose Her, though upon reflection, a world that was flat and rested on the back of four giant elephants who stood on the back of a space turtle just might have been a hint to how strange it was. Still, the diversity of the creatures normally worked in the favour of Her kind since they were too busy fighting each other to unite against Her. Diversity as a strength? Surely that was impossible.

She was still trying to think of a way to fight back when the first of the flaming cabbages landed in the crater.

* * *

“SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED?” asked the skeletal figure in the black robe.

“Who are you?” She demanded haughtily

“YOU COULD SAY I AM HE WHO MUST BE OBEYED,” said Death and then he paused as if thinking something over. “ER , DOES THAT SOUND TO SEXIST? MY GRANDDAUGHTER SAYS I MUST BEMMORE GENDER INCLUSIVE IN MY LANGUAGE. I AM AFRAID THE HABITS OF MILLIONS OF YEARS ARE HARD TO BREAK. PEOPLE THINK GIVING UP SMOKING IS A BITCH, BUT THEY SHOULD TRY BEING ME FOR A DAY.” Death realized he was rambling and stopped abruptly. “WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE SOME PICTURES?” he ventured.

“Pictures?” She echoed.

‘YES, SUSAN, ER, THAT’S MY GRANDDAUGHTER AGAIN SAYS THAT HUMANS AND OTHER INTELLIGENT SPECIES OFTEN SHARE PICTURES TO HELP FORM BONDS WITH OTHERS.” From out of his robe, Death produced a picture. “THIS ONE IS OF SUSAN WHEN SHE WAS FIVE YEARS OLD AND TAKING HER FIRST RIDE ON BINKY. BINKY IS MY HORSE,” he added helpfully. “BINKY IS THE ONE WITH FOUR LEGS,” Death added after a few more seconds of thought.

She peered rather doubtfully at the picture and then back at the skeletal figure in front of her. “I feel no sense of bonding or kinship. Humans and others are only worthy of being my slaves. You too shall serve me. All shall serve me.”

“I AM AFRAID YOU DON’T SEEM TO HAVE A GRASP ON YOUR CURRENT SITUATION,” said Death patiently. “I SUGGEST YOU LOOK AROUND YOU MORE CLOSELY.”

Puzzled, She looked around the crater and noticed for the first time the inky black and still burning puddle at the bottom of it. “That is me?” she asked in a questioning tone.

“I AM AFRAID SO,” confirmed Death.

“But I cannot die,” She wailed. “My kind is immortal. We cannot die!”

“I MUST POINT OUT THAT BELIEF DOES NOT EQUATE TO REALITY,” replied Death.

“What comes next?” She asked, suddenly experiencing an emotion She had never felt before. Was this what fear felt like, she wondered.

“I DON’T KNOW,” replied Death. “IT IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERY BEING.”

“I just hope there aren’t any damn cabbages,” She said as Death swung his scythe.

* * *

“You still owe me that fifty dollars Nobby,” said Fred Colon as they stood at the lip of the crater staring into it at the burning remains of the mother creature. Around them, the locals stood looking dazed and asking what had happened.

“I thought you said I didn’t have to pay the money back Fred,” whined Nobby, “and that’s more money than I remember owing you.”

“I added a little extra for interest and to cover the other stuff of mine that you nicked,” replied Colon.

“I reckon that’s fair Fred,” said Nobby after a while. “The thing is I don’t have that much money. I can’t take more than five dollars a month out of the petty cash without Mr. Vimes getting really annoyed.”

“Well then, you can pay me back five dollars a month,” allowed Fred generously.

“That’s good of you Fred,” answered Nobby. “I calculate that will take six months then, isn’t that right?”

“Er, sounds good to me,” agreed Fred who tried to avoid higher math whenever he could.

“But five dollars a month would take …,” began Leonard who had overheard the mathematical discussion and then subsided when he saw the Patrician put a finger to his lips. Leonard didn’t know why his lordship was going along with the atrocious mathematics, but he probably had a reason and Leonard was feeling too discouraged by events to care. Very carefully and deliberately, Leonard doused his weapon with the highly flammable alcohol that Corporal Nobbs had scavenged and set it on fire. At least his invention couldn’t be used to cause any further deaths.

“I believe it is time to return to the city,” announced Lord Vetinari. “It appears though that we will have to walk, however, since Leonard just burned our transportation.”

* * *

Vimes stood to attention in front of Lord Vetinari’s desk, staring as usual at a point several inches to the left and above the Patrician’s ear rather than make eye contact. It made the lies easier after all … for both of them. “Everyone who was enslaved seems back to normal,” reported Vimes. “Anyone who we hadn’t managed to free before the creature was killed, snapped out of it when She died.”

“So the Times reports,” said Lord Vetinari, “and we all know how much they value the truth.” Vimes glanced down at the copy of the paper on the Patrician’s desk and tried not to grimace at the headline: “ALIEN INVASION STAMPED OUT!”. There was a large colour picture of the flaming crater and another one of Mr. Boggis with a cabbage stamp stuck in the middle of his forehead and a rather bewildered look on his face. A sidebar story was titled “Seamstresses 139 Assassins 123{“. There was some talk in the story about making the competition an annual event somehow, minus the alien invasion part of course.

“A very unusual report Commander, I congratulate you,” said the Patrician, tapping the papers he had been reading. Lord Vetinari looked down at the written report and displayed a small frown. “I see no mention of where those contraband stamps were found.”

“Apparently some had been overlooked after you ordered their destruction,” replied Vimes woodenly.

“And without spontaneously catching fire,” noted Vetinari. “That was a good stroke of luck and I have to wonder how that was managed.”

“I couldn’t say sir,” said Vimes concentrating all his attention on a small crack in the plaster wall.

“But they are all destroyed now?” asked Lord Vetinari sharply.

“As per your order sir,” replied Vimes who hoped the Patrician didn’t notice his crossed fingers behind his back, since he had after all promised Young Sam one of those stamps which just happened to be in an inside coat pocket at the moment. He hoped the tightly sealed double layers had been enough to reduce the smell beyond detection, but didn’t dare take a sniff to test that.

“Well as long as my orders were eventually carried out,” said Vetinari dryly. “By the way commander, I have acquired one of those new magic cool boxes for the palace. If you ever need a place to store your lunch when you are here, just see the city’s newest employee. I am sure Rodney will be happy to accommodate you.”

How the hells did he find out about Rodney who had been locked in a dark room in a sub basement, wondered Vimes and gave up trying. There seemed precious little that happened in the city that escaped the Patrician’s notice.

“I see the city also seems to owe Mr. Dibbler a sizable amount for sausages in a bun and allegedly pork pies,” continued the Patrician as he looked at the report.

“He gave us a good deal sir,” replied Vimes. “Only fifty cents a sausage and two dollars per pie and he swore he was cutting his own throat at those prices.”

“Well if he didn’t succeed in his knife work, I am sure I can find someone to assist him,” said Vetinari dryly.

“I can probably talk him into giving us a ten percent discount to avoid any assistance,” said Vimes, who was rather looking forward to that discussion with Dibbler.

Drumknot, who seemed to have made a complete recovery and who had left the stable looking absolutely immaculate, bent down and whispered something in Lord Vetinari’s ear. The Patrician nodded and gave Vimes a thin smile. “Drumknot tells me that 15% might be more appropriate since Mr. Dibbler has failed to pay any taxes for the past ten years.”

“I wonder how he has got away with that?” speculated Vimes out loud.

“Apparently the last tax collector to approach Mr. Dibbler about his arears was not familiar with the quality of his culinary offerings,” said Vetinari.

“Oh my gods,” breathed Vimes. “Don’t tell me he ate one of Dibbler’s pies?” At the Patrician’s nod, Vimes had to work to suppress a shudder. “Did he survive sir?”

“I am told he will in the fullness of time make a complete recovery,” Lord Vetinari assured him.

“Ok, twenty percent it is,” said Vimes grimly.

Drumknot leaned down and whispered something else in the Patrician’s ear, then produced a small box from somewhere and laid it on the desk in front of Lord Vetinari. “The newest venture of our Mr. Dibbler,” explained Lord Vetinari when he saw the puzzled look on Vimes’ face. The Patrician opened the box and took out what appeared to be a small doll.

“He is selling toys now?” asked Vimes peering at the crudely made doll. The arms, legs and torso appeared to be just full of stuffing, but the head was … Vimes looked closer reminiscent of a cabbage, or at least cabbage shaped.

“He is calling them ‘Cabbage Garden Dolls’,” said Vetinari. “Each comes with a hand written birth certificate with supposedly a unique name. Through great fortune, Drumknot has managed to acquire the Samuel Vimes model.” Vetinari held the doll out to Vimes so he could see the doll in more detail, including the gingham dress it was wearing. “Oh dear, it appears that Mr. Dibbler did not take gender differences into account in the design of his new product.”

“I’ll make sure we get at least a twenty five percent discount, or I will shut down his new scheme,” growled Vimes. Not before, he added mentally, he got the Havelock Vetinari model from Dibbler for a hostage exchange.

* * *

Leonard sighed with relief as he closed the door to the large room that served as both his prison and workroom and slipped the key under the door for the Patrician to find. He had repaired and improved several of the traps leading to his room as well as adding a few new ones he had thought of. Hopefully they would keep the real world from intruding on his work and he made a mental note to try and remember to tell Lord Vetinari about the improvements.

The first thing Leonard did now that he was back home was to take out a canvas and from memory, paint the scene he had seen in the burning crater. It was quite breathtaking when it was finished, but Leonard nearly ripped it up when he was done as he was sure he could do better on a second attempt. He was about to start on that when he remembered the cabbage catapult. Admitedly, it had done the job, but it had been terribly inefficient. Leonard pulled out a new sheet of paper and began to draw a new device. It was a long tube that you could put projectiles in at one end to be fired by the explosion of carefully measured amounts of black powder. Rather than the large clumsy cart sized mechanism they had used, this new device could be used by a single person, balancing it on his shoulder. The projectiles used could be many different things, but for some reason potatoes came to mind. It would be interesting to measure just how much penetration of something like a stone wall one could get with such a device, thought Leonard as he looked at the completed diagram. It would be a purely academic exercise though, since no one would be foolish enough to use such a thing as a weapon. Thinking about potatoes again, Leonard started making plans for an experiment to improve their nutritional value with some careful cross breeding. In the middle of that planning, Leonard frowned. Selective breeding was all fine and good, but what made a potato a potato. If he could learn what made one organism different from another, perhaps he could find a way to make changes more directly. At that point, the double spiral staircase in the palace came to mind, but Leonard wasn’t sure why. Oh well, he had plenty of time to work that bit out.

* * *

Melody sat on her narrow bed in Mrs. Cake’s boarding house, not sure what to do with her day off. She didn’t even have the girls to talk to at the moment as they were all sated and sleeping after pigging out on Mr. Dibbler’s sausages and pies. Melody looked up at a knock on her door. “Come in,” she called.

Mrs. Cake stuck her head in the door and gave Melody a smile. “I just thought I would tell you that you are going to have a visitor in a few minutes.” Melody was about to ask who, but the landlady continued, “It’s that nice girl Vicky.”

A sudden look of panic crossed Mrs. Cake’s face and Melody had got to know the woman enough to know the cause. “Who is it Mrs. Cake?” she asked to forestall the migraine.

“Oh thank-you dear,” said Mrs. Cake and gave the side of her head a little thump to reset her precognitive ability again. They both heard the front doorbell ring and Mrs. Cake hurried off to answer it. A few seconds later Vicky stepped into Melody’s room and gave her fellow recruit a shy smile.

“Um I was wondering since we both have the day off if you wanted to go to a play with me,” said Vicky. “There is a matinee down at the Dysk. It’s supposed to be one of Hwel’s best plays and of course Tomjon is the leading actor.”

“I’ve heard about plays, but I’ve never seen one,” said an excited Melody. “Do you know what it’s called and what’s it all about?”

“Apparently it is considered bad luck to use the name of the play, so they just call it ‘That Quirmian Play’,” replied Vicky. “Something about kings and murder and ghosts from what I have heard.”

“It sounds like fun,” said Melody getting to her feet and reaching for her jacket which was hung over the back of a chair.

There was a sudden rustling under Melody’s head scarf. “Will they have snacks?” asked Penelope hopefully.

Melody sighed and shoved her coin purse in her jacket pocket.

The End