Going Postal (34 page)

“Prop
hets
, I said, not pro
fits
,” said Gilt. He waved his hand. “Don’t worry yourselves, it will look better written down. In short, Mr. Lipwig’s gift from above was a big chest of coins, some of them in what looked remarkably like bank sacks and all in modern denominations. You don’t find this strange?”

“Yes, but even the high priests say he—”

“Lipwig is a
showman
,” snapped Gilt. “Do you think the gods will carry his mail coach for him? Do you? This is a
stunt
, do you understand? It got him on page one again, that’s all. This is not hard to follow. He has no plan, other than to fail heroically. No one expects him actually to win, do they?”

“I heard that people are betting heavily on him.”

“People enjoy the experience of being fooled, if it promises a certain amount of entertainment,” said Gilt. “Do you know a good bookmaker? I shall have a little bet. Five thousand dollars, perhaps?”

This got some nervous laughter, and he followed it up. “Gentlemen, be sensible. No gods will come to the aid of our postmaster. No wizards, either. They’re not generous with magic, and we’ll soon find out if he uses any. No, he’s looking for the publicity, that’s all. Which is not to say,” he winked, “that we shouldn’t, how shall I put it, make certainty doubly sure.”

They perked up still more. This sounded like the kind of thing they wanted to hear.

“After all, accidents can happen in the mountains,” said Greenyham.

“I believe that is the case,” said Gilt. “However, I was referring to the Grand Trunk. Therefore I have asked Mr. Pony to outline our procedure. Mr. Pony?”

The engineer shifted uneasily. He’d had a bad night.

“I want it recorded, sir, that I have urged a six-hour shutdown before the event,” he said.

“Indeed, and the minutes will show that I have said that is quite impossible,” said Gilt. “Firstly, because it would be an unpardonable loss of revenue, and secondly, because sending no messages would send quite the wrong message.”

“We’ll shut down for an hour before the event, then, and clear down,” said Mr. Pony. “Every tower will send a statement of readiness to the Tump and then lock all doors and wait. No one will be allowed in or out. We’ll configure the towers to run duplex—that is,” he translated for management, “we’ll turn the down-line into a second up-line, so the message will get to Genua twice as fast. We won’t have
any
other messages on the Trunk while the, er, race is on. No Overhead, nothing. And from now on, sir, from the moment I walk out of this room, we take no more messages from feeder towers. Not even from the one in the palace, not even from the one in the university.” He sniffed, and added with some satisfaction: “’Specially not them students. Someone’s been having a go at us, sir.”

“That seems a bit drastic, Mr. Pony,” said Greenyham.

“I hope it is, sir. I think someone’s found a way of sending messages that can damage a tower, sir.”

“That’s impossi—”

Mr. Pony’s hand slapped the table. “How come you know so much, sir? Did you sit up half the night trying to get to the bottom of it? Have you taken a differential drum apart with a tin opener? Did you spot how the swage armature can be made to jump off the elliptical bearing if you hit the letter
K
and then send it to a tower with an address higher than yours but
only
if you hit the letter Q first and the drum spring is fully wound? Did you spot that the key levers wedge together and the spring forces the arm up and you’re looking at a gearbox full of teeth? Well, I did!”

“Are you talking about sabotage here?” said Gilt.

“Call it what you like,” said Pony, drunk with nervousness. “I went to the yard this morning and dug out the old drum we took out of Tower 14 last month. I’ll swear the same thing happened there. But mostly the breakdowns are in the upper tower, in the shutter boxes. That’s where—”

“So our Mr. Lipwig has been behind a campaign to sabotage us…” Gilt mused.

“I never said that!” said Pony.

“No name need be mentioned,” said Gilt smoothly.

“It’s just sloppy design,” said Pony. “I daresay one of the lads found it by accident and tried it again to see what happened. They’re like that, the tower boys. Show ’em a bit of cunning machinery and they’ll spend all day trying to make it fail. The whole Trunk’s a lash-up, it really is.”

“Why do we employ people like these?” said Stowley, looking bewildered.

“Because they’re the only people mad enough to spend their life up a tower, miles from anywhere, pressing keys,” said Pony. “They
like
it.”

“But somebody in a tower must press the keys that do all these…terrible things,” said Stowley.

Pony sighed. They never took an interest. It was just money. They didn’t know how anything
worked
. And then suddenly they needed to know, and you had to use baby talk.

“The lads follow the signal, sir, as they say,” he said. “They watch the next tower and repeat the message, as fast as they can. There’s no time to think about it. Anything for their tower comes out on the differential drum. They just pound keys and kick pedals and pull levers, as fast as they can. They take pride in it. They even do all kinds of tricks to speed things up. I don’t want any talk about sabotage, not right now. Let’s just get the message sent, as fast as possible. The lads will enjoy that.”

“The image is attractive,” said Gilt. “The dark of night, the waiting towers, and then, one by one, they come alive as a serpent of light speeds across the world, softly and silently carrying its…whatever. We must get some poet to write about it.” He nodded at Mr. Pony. “We’re in your hands, Mr. Pony. You’re the man with the plan.”

“I
DON’T HAVE ONE
,” said Moist.

“No plan?” said Miss Dearheart. “Are you telling me you—”

“Keep it down, keep it down!” Moist hissed. “I don’t want everyone to know!”

They were in the little café near the Pin Exchange, which, Moist had noticed, didn’t seem to be doing much business today. He’d had to get out of the Post Office, in case his head exploded.

“You challenged the Grand Trunk! You mean you just talked big and hoped something would turn up?” said Miss Dearheart.

“It’s always worked before! Where’s the sense in promising to achieve the achievable? What kind of success would that be?” said Moist.

“Haven’t you ever heard of learning to walk before you run?”

“It’s a theory, yes.”

“I just want to be absolutely clear,” said Miss Dearheart. “Tomorrow night—that’s the day after today—you are going to send via a coach—that’s a thing on wheels, pulled by horses, which might reach fourteen miles an hour on a good road—to race against the Grand Trunk—that’s all those semaphore towers, which can send messages at hundreds of miles an hour—all the way to Genua—that’s the town which is a very long way away indeed?”

“Yes.”

“And you have no wonderful plan?”

“No.”

“And why are you telling me?”

“Because, in this city, right now,
you
are the only person who would possibly
believe
I don’t have a plan!” said Moist. “I told Mr. Groat and he just tapped the side of his nose, which is something you wouldn’t want to watch, by the way, and he said, ‘Of course you haven’t, sir. Not you! Ho-ho-ho!’”

“And you just hoped something would turn up? What made you think it would?”

“It always has. The only way to get something to turn up when you need it is to need it to turn up.”

“And I’m supposed to help you how?”

“Your father built the Trunk!”

“Yes, but I didn’t,” said the woman. “I’ve been up in the towers. I don’t know any big secrets, except that it’s always on the point of breaking down. And everyone knows that.”

“People who can’t afford to lose are betting money on me! And the more I tell them they shouldn’t, the more they bet!”

“Don’t you think that’s a bit silly of them?” said Miss Dearheart sweetly.

Moist drummed his fingers on the edge of the table. “All right,” he said, “I can think of another good reason why you might help me. It’s a little complicated, so I can only tell you if you promise to sit still and not make any sudden movements.”

“Why, do you believe I will?”

“Yes. I think that in a few seconds you’ll try to kill me. I’d like you to promise not to.”

She shrugged. “This should be interesting.”

“Promise?” said Moist.

“All right. I hope it’s going to be exciting.” Miss Dearheart flicked some ash off her cigarette. “Go on.”

Moist took a couple of calm breaths. This was it. The End. If you kept changing the way people see the world, you ended up changing the way you saw yourself.

“I am the man who lost you that job at the bank. I forged those cash drafts.”

Miss Dearheart’s expression didn’t change, apart from a certain narrowing of the eyes. Then she blew out a stream of smoke.

“I did promise, did I?” she said.

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Did I have my fingers crossed?”

“No. I was watching.”

“Hmm.” She stared reflectively at the glowing end of her cigarette. “All right. You’d better tell me the rest of it.”

He told her the rest of it. All of it. She quite liked the bit where he was hanged, and made him repeat it. Around them, the city happened. Between them, the ashtray filled up with ash.

When he’d finished, she stared at him for some time, through the smoke.

“I don’t understand the bit where you give all your stolen money to the Post Office. Why did you do that?”

“I’m a bit hazy on that myself.”

“I mean, you’re clearly a self-centered bastard, with the moral fiber of a, a—”

“—rat,” Moist suggested.

“—a rat, thank you…but suddenly you’re the darling of the big religions, the savior of the Post Office, official snook-cocker to the rich and powerful, heroic horseman, all-round wonderful human being and, of course, you rescued a cat from a burning building. Two humans, too, but everyone knows the cat’s the most important bit. Who are you trying to fool, Mr. Lipwig?”

“Me, I think. I’ve fallen into good ways. I keep thinking I can give it up any time I like, but I don’t. But I know if I
couldn’t
give it up any time I liked, I wouldn’t go on doing it. Er…there is another reason, too.”

“And that is—?”

“I’m not Reacher Gilt. That’s sort of important. Some people might say there’s not a lot of difference, but I can see it from where I stand and it’s there. It’s like a golem not being a hammer. Please? How can I beat the Grand Trunk?”

Miss Dearheart stared through him until he felt perforated. Then she said, in a faraway voice:

“How well do you know the Post Office, Mr. Lipwig? The building, I mean.”

“I saw most of it before it burned down.”

“But you never went onto the roof?”

“No. I couldn’t find a way up. The upper floors were stuffed with letters when…I…tried…” Moist’s voice trailed off.

Miss Dearheart stubbed out her cigarette. “Go up there tonight, Mr. Lipwig. Get yourself a little bit closer to heaven. And then get down on your knees and pray. You know how to pray, don’t you? You just put your hands together—and hope.”

M
OIST GOT THROUGH
the rest of the day somehow. There were postmastery things to do—Mr. Spools to speak to, builders to shout at, the everlasting clearing up to oversee, and new staff to hire. In the case of the staff, though, it was more a matter of ratifying the decisions of Mr. Groat and Miss Maccalariat, but they seemed to know what they were doing. He just had to be there to make the occasional judgment, such as:

“Do we embrace divertingly?” said Miss Maccalariat, appearing in front of his desk.

There was a pregnant pause. It gave birth to a lot of little pauses, each one more deeply embarrassing than its parent.

“Not as far as I know,” was the best Moist could manage. “Why do you ask?”

“A young lady wants to know. She said that’s what they do at the Grand Trunk.”

“Ah. I suspect she means embrace diversity,” said Moist, recalling Gilt’s speech to the
Times
. “But we don’t do that here because we don’t know what it means. We’ll employ anyone who can read and write and reach a letterbox, Miss Maccalariat. I’ll hire vampires if they’re members of the League of Temperance, trolls if they wipe their feet, and if there’re any werewolves out there, I’d
love
to hire postmen who can bite back. Anyone who can do the job, Miss Maccalariat. Our job is moving the mail. Morning, noon, and night, we deliver. Was there anything else?”

Now there was a glint in her eye. “I don’t have any difficulties with anyone who speaks up about what they are, Mr. Lipwig, but I must protest about dwarfs. Mr. Groat is hiring them.”

“Fine workers, Miss Maccalariat. Keen on the written word. Hardworking, too,” said Moist briskly.

“But they do not tell you what their—what they—which—if they’re ladies or gentlemen dwarfs, Mr. Lipwig.”

“Ah. This is going to be about the privies again?” said Moist, his heart sinking.

“I feel I am responsible for the moral welfare of the young people in my charge,” said Miss Maccalariat sternly. “You are smiling, Postmaster, but I will not be funned with.”

“Your concern does you credit, Miss Maccalariat,” said Moist. “Special attention will be paid to this in the design of the new building, and I will tell the architect that you are to be consulted at every stage.” Miss Maccalariat’s wellcovered bosom inflated noticeably at this sudden acquisition of power. “In the meantime, alas, we must make do with what the fire has left us. I do hope, as part of the
management
team, you will reassure people on this.”

The fires of dreadful pride gleamed off Miss Maccalariat’s glasses. Management!

“Of
course
, Postmaster,” she said.

But, mostly, Moist’s job was just to…be. Half of the building was a blackened shell. People were squeezed into what was left; mail was even being sorted on the stairs. And things seemed to go better when he was around. He didn’t have to do anything, he just had to be there.