Discworld 07 - Pyramids

He knew about tortoises. There were tortoises in the Old Kingdom. They could be called a lot of things—vegetarians, patient, thoughtful, even extremely diligent and persistent sex-maniacs—but never, up until now, fast. Fast was a word particularly associated with tortoises because they were not it.

Ptraci gave this some consideration.

‘And that’s a mocracy, is it?’

‘They invented it in Ephebe, you know,’ said Teppic, feeling obscurely that he ought to defend it.

‘I bet they had trouble exporting it,’ said Ptraci firmly.

‘What’s Ephebe like?’ said Ptraci.

‘I’ve never been there. Apparently it’s ruled by a Tyrant.’

‘I hope we don’t meet him, then.’

Teppic shook his head. ‘It’s not like that,’ he said. ‘They have a new Tyrant every five years and they do something to him first.’ He hesitated. ‘I think they ee-lect him.’

‘Is that something like they do to tomcats and bulls and things?’

‘Er.’

‘You know. To make them stop fighting and be more peaceful.’

Teppic winced. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think so. They’ve got something they do it with, I think it’s called a mocracy, and it means everyone in the whole country can say who the new Tyrant is. One man, one—’ He paused. The political history lesson seemed a very long while ago, and had introduced concepts never heard of in Djelibeybi or in Ankh-Morpork, for that matter. He had a stab at it, anyway. ‘One man, one vet.’

‘That’s for the eelecting, then?’

He shrugged. It might be, for all he knew. ‘The point is, though, that everyone can do it. They’re very proud of it. Everyone has—’ he hesitated again, certain now that things were amiss — ‘the vet. Except for women, of course. And children. And criminals. And slaves. And stupid people. And people of foreign extraction. And people disapproved of for, er, various reasons. And lots of other people. But everyone apart from them. It’s a very enlightened civilization.’