Death sat in his study, deep in thought. So, something had happened
again. Something had happened, and _they_ were probably involved. He
wasn't completely sure, but reasonably so.

  DRAT, he muttered.

  "Master?" inquired Albert, coming in with a tray of tea. He put it
down on the desk, and looked at the black-robed figure, slightly
worried. He'd learned to read the Master's moods, and this was one of
those times....

  YOU'D THINK THEY WOULD LEARN, ALBERT.

  "Who?"

  THEM. THE AUDITORS.

  Albert winced.

  SOMETHING HAS ENTERED THIS UNIVERSE THAT DOESN'T REALLY BELONG. THAT
THING ON THE BEACH EARLIER, THAT WAS JUST THE BEGINNING.... BUT MORE,
NOW. SO MESSY. There was a sigh like the grinding of asteroids. Albert
waited patiently; he was used to the Master talking to himself on
occasion, especially when he was already like this. Then Death snapped
his fingers, and three hourglasses appeared on the table. Albert
squinted at the nameplates on them.

  "What kind of names are those?"

  ONES THAT ARE FROM ANOTHER WORLD. BUT THEY ARE QUITE SIMILAR TO ONE OF
THE LANGUAGES OF THIS WORLD. Death swiveled in his chair to look at his
model of the Disc. HOWEVER, I SOMEWHAT DOUBT THAT SUCH A DETAIL IS
SIGNIFICANT. IF ANYTHING, IT MAY SIMPLY BE SOMETHING TO THROW US OFF.

  "Us, Master? ...no, don't tell me you're going to get invol--"

  I DON'T KNOW YET, ALBERT. BUT--BE PREPARED. THAT'S MY MOTTO.

  "I thought that was the motto of the Young Male Human Quasimilitary
Troops of Tsort."

  WELL, THEIRS TOO.

  "And isn't your motto actually--"

  YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, ALBERT, said Death with a testy edge.

  "Yes, Master," sighed Albert. He stood there attentively, while Death
sank back into his chair, and also back into a thoughtful silence. After
a few minutes, Albert took this to be his dismissal, turning and walking
out of the study, back to the kitchen. He plopped himself down at the
small table with a groan.

  SQUEAK? said the other presence in the room. Albert rolled his eyes
over to the Death of Rats.

  "He says, 'Be Prepared'."

  SQUEAK.

  "Oh, I really do hope the Master doesn't do that...."

  Somewhere on the Disc, Susan Sto Helit sneezed, and felt very
uncomfortable.



  Mustrum Ridcully was not shouting. He wasn't even speaking in a loud
voice. He was speechless, simply gaping at the youth, who himself was
now silently staring at the floor in front him. It was the first time
that anyone present in the Great Hall had ever experienced the silence
of the Archchancellor, a man who even occasionally shouted in his sleep;
the Bursar was wishing that such a thing had happened more frequently.
Actually, the Bursar was presently wishing for a herring cigar, if you
would be so kind, Mr. Jelly, but when he was on a dried frog pill
upswing later and could more or less rationally recall this situation,
he was wishing the aforementioned wish.

  But all good things must come to an end.

  "...FATHER!?"

  The boy cringed until he was actually underneath the table. The other
wizards backed away nervously; they knew a storm when it was coming.
Ricully sputtered incoherently for a few seconds, before managing to
continue with his shouting.

  "That's impossible! I mean, I mean, I'm a wizard! I'm not supposed to
do something like this! It's in the Lore! And even if I did, I'd
_remember_ it, you know! Not the sort of thing you'd forget easily!"

  As Ridcully paused to take a deep breath, the Chair of Invisible
Studies felt compelled to mention something about getting so completely
drunk so that one _could_ forget a sort of thing like that. Then he
thought back to that one Hogswatchnight, when it had been Ridcully vs.
several glasses of port, quite a few pints of Turbot's Really Odd,
and a large jug of scumble. Ridcully had won quite decisively. He even
woke up early the next morning for his usual jog, according to the
servants, who started to regard the Archchancellor with a new and
terrified awe. The Chair held his tongue.

  The rant resumed. "And, and, who would the mother be!? I wouldn't be
the only one involved here! After all, Esme, she's already...." He
trailed off, to the disappointment of the other wizards. It had suddenly
started to sound interesting.

  "Ridcully?" hazarded the Dean. "Who might this Es--"

  "The Trousers of Time," said Ridcully, in the voice of one who'd like
to continue shouting but has already used up his immediate quota of
exclamation points. "That's it, isn't it? That's the only way, 'cos
otherwise _I_would_know_." He looked to the young boy again, who was
quivering behind the chair. "All right, lad, you can come out. I ain't
angry at you."

  Slowly, the youth did so. He warily stood in front of the head wizard,
the hunted look never leaving his eyes.

  "Now, I may look like your father or something, but I ain't actually
your father for real. Your actual father's in one of them parasite
universes, sort of like this one, but not actualy the same. You
understand?" The boy blinked, then nodded hesitantly. His eyes said that
he didn't quite understand, though, but Ridcully missed this. "Good.
Now, son...er...what's your name?"

  "...Shinji. Shinji Ikari."

  "But isn't your family name Ridcully, Archchancellor?" asked the
Bursar, who briefly happened to be in the vicinity of reality, if a few
degrees of importance behind. Still, it was a good point.

  The Senior Wrangler scratched his head. "That name sounds Agatean.
Well, one of their dialects, anyway. Never can tell which one exactly,
with all of those tones swooping up and down."

  "Not all of them are tonal, you know," interrupted the Lecturer in
Recent Runes. "In fact, there are several completely different languages
spoken in the Empire; the one spoken by most has different tonal
dialects, but there are two other major ones which aren't tonal--"

  Ridcully sighed. "Shut up, you two. Well, that proves I'm not his
father," he said, with subtle hints of both relief and disappointment in
his voice, if anyone cared to listen for them. "Wouldn't name my own kid
in some strange language like that," said a man who easily chanted
magical words which would send a layman's tongue out his right ear in an
attempt to pronounce them, were such a person foolish enough to try. He
blinked, realizing something. "And how old are you, Shinji?"

  "I'm...I'm fourteen."

  "Must be time travel involved too, unless the universe he's from is
runnin' at a different pace.... Your father ain't over seventy, is he?"
Shinji shook his head. "Younger, right? Right."

  The Archchancellor regarded Shinji Ikari carefully, who was still
staring at his feet. The boy was utterly spineless, and _that_ also
proved they couldn't actually be related. Then again...the idea of
having a son of his own somehow appealed to Ridcully.

  The Lore had been doubly strengthened about this matter when that
Sourceror, Coin, had appeared on the scene and nearly ripped apart the
University, Ankh-Morpork (though that would probably have raised land
values in some areas of the city), and the rest of the Disc. To have his
own family....

  Plus, the lad had doused his sandwich with Wow-Wow Sauce, eaten a bite
of it without hesitation, had _another_ bite without flinching, and was
now able to stand quietly. Mind you, so had one of Ridcully's uncles,
but the boy wasn't maintaining a standing position due to rigor mortis,
from the evidence gathered. Perhaps not his own son, but certainly,
somehow, this was a son of a Ridcully in a universe that had gone down
the other Trouser leg, and this Ridcully, here and now, felt obligated
to help the young lad.

  He owed it to himself, after all. Even if he didn't invite himself to
his own wedding. Or whatever in blue blazes Stibbons had been saying.

  "Wait, if he's your son, even from a different universe, then why does
he also look Agatean?"

  Ridcully's train of thought ground to a halt. He frowned, which is
quite an impressive sight. "Good question. Looks like a really
complicated Trouser problem. Probably stitched for some elder god who
trips over his own tentacles." He sighed again; looked like it would be
back to the High Energy Magic building, this time to engage that
thinking machine of Stibbon's.

  But first....

  "I came in here for brunch, so I might as well grab something to take
back to eat. Pass me the Wow-Wow Sauce. No, lad, don't drop it--"