Last Continent by Terry Pratchett Page A

with—’
    â€˜Sharks,’ said the Senior Wrangler.
    â€˜Right!’ said Ridcully. ‘And—’
    â€˜Barracudas,’ said the Senior Wrangler. ‘Marlins. Swordfish. Looks like somewhere out near the Rim to me. Fishermen say there’s fish there that’d take your arm off.’
    â€˜Right,’ said Ridcully. ‘Right . . .’ There was a small but significant change in his tone. Everyone knew about the stuffed fish on his walls. Archchancellor Ridcully would hunt anything . The only cockerel still crowing within two hundred yards of the University these days stood under a cart to do it.
    â€˜And that jungle,’ said the Senior Wrangler, sniffing. ‘Looks pretty damn dangerous to me. Could be anything in it. Fatal. Could be tigers and gorillas and elephants and pineapples. I wouldn’t go near it. I’m with you, Archchancellor. Better to freeze here than look some rabid man-eater in the eye.’
    Ridcully’s own eyes were burning bright. He stroked his beard thoughtfully. ‘Tigers, eh?’ he said. Then his expression changed. ‘ Pineapples? ’
    â€˜Deadly,’ said the Senior Wrangler firmly. ‘One of them got my aunt. We couldn’t get it off her. I told her that’s not the way you’re supposed to eat them, but would she listen?’
    The Dean looked sidelong at his Archchancellor. It was the glance of a man who also didn’t want another night in a frigid bedroom and had suddenly worked out where the levers were.
    â€˜That gets my vote, Mustrum,’ he said. ‘Catch me going through some hole in space on to some warm beach with a sea teeming with huge fish and a jungle full of hunting trophies.’ He yawned like a bad poker player. ‘No, it’s me for my nice freezing bed, I don’t know about you. Archchancellor?’
    â€˜I think—’ Ridcully began.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Clams,’ said the Senior Wrangler, shaking his head. ‘Looks just the beach for the devils. You just ask my cousin. You’ll have to find a good medium first, though. They shouldn’t ooze green, I said. They shouldn’t bubble, I told him. But would he listen?’
    The Archchancellor was currently amongst those who wouldn’t. ‘You think that taking him out there would be just the thing for the Librarian, do you?’ he said. ‘Just the tonic for the poor old chap, an hour or two under that sun?’
    â€˜But I expect we ought to be ready to protect him, eh, Archchancellor?’ the Dean said, innocently.
    â€˜Why, yes, I really hadn’t thought of that,’ said Ridcully. ‘Hmm, yes. Important point. Better get them to bring down my 500-pound crossbow with the armour-piercing arrows and my home taxidermy outfit. And all ten fishing rods. And all four tackle boxes. And the big set of scales.’
    â€˜Good thinking, Archchancellor,’ said the Dean. ‘He may want to take a swim when he’s feeling better.’
    â€˜In that case,’ said Ponder, ‘I think I’ll get my thaumodalite and my notebooks. It’s vital to work out where we are. It could be EcksEcksEcksEcks, I suppose. It looks very foreign.’
    â€˜I suppose I’d better fetch my reptile press and my herbarium,’ said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, who had got there eventually. ‘Much may be learned from the plants here, I’ll wager.’
    â€˜I shall certainly endeavour to make a study of any primitive grass-skirted peoples hereabouts,’ added the Dean, with a lawnmower look in his eyes.
    â€˜What about you, Runes?’ said Ridcully.
    â€˜Me? Oh, er . . .’ The Lecturer in Recent Runes looked wildly at his colleagues, who were nodding frantically at him. ‘Er . . . this would be a good time to catch up on my reading, obviously.’
    â€˜Right,’ said Ridcully. ‘Because we are not , and I want to make this very clear, we are