The dark side of the sun - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,16

surveyed his emotions analytically, and realized he felt content. He smiled to himself, and drew another memory cube towards him and slotted it in the recorder.

‘And therefore,’ he said, ‘I will make this final prediction concerning my future son. He will die on his half-year birthday, as the long year is measured on Widdershins, which will be the day he is invested as Planetary Chairman. The means: some form of energy discharge.’

He switched off for a few seconds while he collected his thoughts, and then began: ‘The assassin: I cannot tell. Don’t think I haven’t tried to find out. All I can see is a gap in the flow of the equations, a gap, maybe, in the shape of a man. If so, he is a man around whom the continuum flows like water round a rock. I know that he will escape. I can sense him outlined by your actions like – damn, another simile – a vacuum made of shadow. I think he works for the Joker Institute, and they are making a desperate attempt to kill my son.’

He paused, and glanced down at his equation. It was polished, perfect, like a slab of agate. It had an intrinsic beauty.

The distant glint of the Tower drew his gaze again. He glanced up. Not the right time, not yet. Another hour …

‘And now, Dom, as you stand there torn between shock and astonishment, what do you see? Does your grandmother have that tightlipped, determined look she wears at times of stress? How was the party, anyway?

‘Dom, you are my son, but as you are perhaps learning, I have many sons – untold millions. Have, I say, but “had” I mean. For in those billions of universes that hedge us about on every side, they are dead as I predicted. You, who are flesh and blood, are also that one chance that lies a long trek behind the decimal point. That chance that I am wrong. But a student of probability soon realizes that by its nature the billion-to-one chance crops up nine times out of ten, and that the greatest odds boil down to a double-sided statement: it will happen, or it will not.

‘I have studied you, and the billion-to-one universe in which you now stand. It left the main-sequence universe at the point of your non-death. Universes are like the stars which some of them contain. Most follow the well-beaten path. But some, by the twist of a photon, career down strange histories which end in supernovae or impossible holes in space. Rogue universes now, crack under the stress of paradox or – what?

‘I will try to give you some help, because you will need it. Your assassin came from your present universe, can you understand that? He wanted to prevent you discovering something that will make your chance-in-a-billion universe the greatest in all the alternate creations. But I’ve an inkling that whatever saved you from death came from your universe, too. I’ve seen a lot in your universe but how can I tell you because, believe me, Dom, if I did the paradox burden would split your universe at the seams.’

He laid down the recorder and wandered idly into his outer office. The secretary robot clicked into life.

‘If anyone calls I am going out to the Tower. I, uh, shouldn’t be long.’

‘Yes, Mr Chairman.’

‘You’ll find a cube on my desk. Please send it to Her Managing Directorship.’

‘Certainly.’

John Sabalos closed the door and went back to his desk. He was still wearing his black and brown robes from the Hogswatch celebrations of the night before. He hadn’t slept, but he felt exhilarated. It was false, of course. Knowing the future wasn’t the same thing as controlling it. It just felt like it. He picked up the recorder.

‘This I can say, however. Three things. You will discover the Jokers World, if you look in the right directions. Your life will be in danger. And, thirdly … look up in the corner of the room! Run for your life!’

He switched off, and laid the cube on his desk.

Somewhere outside, over towards the east lawn, someone was playing the phnobic chlong zither, badly. John stepped outside. The clatter of Joan’s old electric computer floated up from the kitchen domes, which meant she was processing the eighth-year household accounts.

He breathed deeply. Something was adding a third dimension to his senses, etching the external world in high relief. With a probability adept’s skill he located the cause. The world was like wine, because