YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT, said Death coldly. MATHEMATICS ISNT ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE.
'How do you feel about being invited to christenings?'
I THINK NOT. I WASN'T CUT OUT TO BE A FATHER, AND CERTAINLY NOT A GRANDAD. I HAVEN'T GOT THE RIGHT KIND OF KNEES.
He put down his wine glass and nodded at Mort.
MY REGARDS TO YOUR GOOD LADY, he said. AND NOW I REALLY MUST BE OFF.
'Are you sure? You're welcome to stay.'
IT'S NICE OF YOU TO SAY SO, BUT DUTY CALLS. He extended a bony hand. YOU KNOW HOW IT IS.
Mort gripped the hand and shook it, ignoring the chill.
'Look,' he said. 'If ever you want a few days off, you know, if you'd like a holiday —'
MANY THANKS FOR THE OFFER, said Death graciously. I SHALL THINK ABOUT IT MOST SERIOUSLY. AND NOW —
'Goodbye,' Mart said, and was surprised to find a lump in his throat. 'It's such an unpleasant word, isn't it?'
QUITE SO. Death grinned because, as has so often been remarked, he didn't have much option. But possibly he meant it, this time.
I PREFER AU REVOIR, he said.'
,
Practically anything can go faster than Disc light, which is lazy and tame, unlike ordinary light. The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, according to the philosopher Ly Tin Wheedle. He reasoned like this: you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously. Presumably, he said, there must be some elementary particles — kingons, or possibly queons — that do this job, but of course succession sometimes fails if, in mid-flight, they strike an anti-particle, or republicon. His ambitious plans to use his discovery to send messages, involving the careful torturing of a small king in order to modulate the signal, were never fully expounded because, at that point, the bar closed.
The first pizza was created on the Disc by the Klatchian mystic Ronron 'Revelation Joe' Shuwadhi, who
