He'd got his students to set up a small display at the far end of the squash court. Beside it, with pipes looping away through the wall into the High Energy Magic building next door, was a terminal to HEX, the University's thinking engine. And beside that was a plinth on which was a very large red lever, around which someone had tied a pink ribbon.
Ponder looked at his notes, and then surveyed the faculty.
'Ahem ...' he began.
'I've got a throat sweet somewhere,' said the Senior Wrangler, patting his pockets.
Ponder looked at his notes again, and a horrible sense of hopelessness overcame him. He realized that he could explain thaumic fission very well, provided that the person listening already knew all about it. With the senior wizards, though, he'd need to explain the meaning of every word. In some cases this would mean words like 'the' and 'and'.
He glanced down at the water jug on his lectern, and decided to extemporize.
Ponder held up a glass of water.
'Do you realize, gentlemen,' he said, 'that the thaumic potential in this water ... that is, I mean to say, the magical field generated by its narrativium content which tells it that it is water and lets it keep on being water instead of, haha, a pigeon or a frog ... would, if we could release it, be enough to move this whole university all the way to the moon?'
He beamed at them.
'Better leave it in there, then,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
Ponder's smile froze.
'Obviously we cannot extract all of it,' he said, 'But we...'
'Enough to get a small part of the university to the moon?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
'The Dean could do with a holiday,' said the Archchancellor.
'I resent that remark, Archchancellor'