That meant that he was in charge in the absence of the senior members of the faculty. And, currently, this being the spring break, they were absent. And so were the students. The University was, therefore, running at near peak efficiency.

Ponder smoothed out the beer-smelling paper and read: TELL STIBBONS GET HERE AT ONCE. BRING LIBRARIAN. WAS IN FOREST, AM IN

ROUND WORLD. FOOD GOOD, BEER AWFUL. WIZARDS USELESS. ELVES HERE

TOO. DIRTY DEEDS AFOOT.

RIDCULLY

He looked up at the humming, clicking, busy bulk of Hex, the University's magical thinking engine, then, with great care, he placed the message on a tray that was part of the machine's rambling structure.

A mechanical eyeball about a foot across lowered itself carefully from the ceiling. Ponder didn't know how it worked, except that it contained vast amounts of incredibly finely drawn tubing.

Hex had drawn up the plans one night and Ponder had taken them along to the gnome jewellers; he'd long ago lost track of what Hex was doing. The machine changed almost on a daily basis.

The write-out began to clatter and produced the message:

+++ Elves have entered Roundworld. This is to be expected. +++

'Expected?' said Ponder.

+++ Their world is a parasite universe. It needs a host +++

Ponder turned to Rincewind. 'Do you understand any of this?' he said.

'No,' said Rincewind. 'But I've run into elves.'

'And?'

'And then I've run away from them. You don't hang around elves. They're not my field, unless they're doing fretwork. Anyway, there's nothing on Roundworld at the moment.'

'I thought you did a report on the various species that kept turning up there?'

'You read that?'

'I read all the papers that get circulated,' said Ponder.

'You do?'

'You said that every so often some kind of intelligent life turns up, hangs around for a few million years, and then dies out because the air freezes or the continents explode or a giant rock smacks into the sea.'