Going Postal - Terry Pratchett [138]
Every time the Woodpecker arrived at your tower, that was how often. And it was like an illness that could only attack the weak and sick. It wouldn’t have attacked the old Trunk, because the old Trunk was too full of tower captains who’d shut down instantly and strip the offending message out of the drum, secure in the knowledge that their actions would be judged by superiors who knew how a tower worked and would have done the same thing themselves.
It would work against the new Trunk, because there weren’t enough of those captains now. You did what you were told or you didn’t get paid, and if things went wrong it wasn’t your problem. It was the fault of whatever idiot has accepted this message for sending in the first place. No one cared about you, and everyone at headquarters was an idiot. It wasn’t your fault, no one listened to you. Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn’t care.
And today you’d been told to shift code as fast as possible, and you didn’t want to be the one accused of slowing the system down, so you watched the next tower in line until your eyes watered and you hit keys like a man tap-dancing on hot rocks.
One after another, the towers failed. Some burned when the shutter boxes broke free and smashed on the cabin roofs, spilling blazing oil. There was no hope of fighting fire in a wooden box sixty feet up in the air; you slid down the suicide line and legged it to a safe distance to watch the show.
Fourteen towers were burning before someone took their hands off the keys. And then what? You’d been given orders. There were to be no—repeat, no—messages on the Trunk while this message was being sent. What did you do next?
Moist awoke, the Grand Trunk burning in his head.
The Smoking Gnu wanted to break it down and pick up the pieces, and he could see why. But it wouldn’t work. Somewhere on the line there was going to be one inconvenient engineer who’d risk his job to send a message ahead saying, “It’s a killer, shift it slowly,” and that would be that. Oh, it might take a day or two to get the thing to Genua, but they had weeks to work with. And someone else, too, would be smart enough to compare the message with what had been sent by the first tower. Gilt would wriggle out of it—no, he’d storm out of it. The message had been tampered with, he’d say, and he’d be right. There had to be another solution.
The Gnu were on to something, though. Changing the message was the answer, if only he could do it the right way.
Moist awoke. He was at his desk, and someone had put a pillow under his head.
When was the last time he’d slept in a decent bed? Oh, yes, the night Mr. Pump had caught him. He’d spent a couple of hours in a rented bed that had a mattress that didn’t actually move and wasn’t full of rocks. Bliss.
His immediate past life scampered before his eyes. He groaned.
“Good Morning, Mr. Lipvig,” said Mr. Pump from the corner. “Your Razor Is Sharp, The Kettle Is Hot, And I Am Sure A Cup Of Tea Is On The Way.”
“What time is it?”
“Noon, Mr. Lipvig. You Did Not Get In Until Dawn,” the golem added reproachfully.
Moist groaned again. Six hours to the race. And then so many pigeons would come home to roost it’d be like an eclipse.
“There Is Much Excitement,” said the golem, as Moist shaved. “It Has Been Agreed That The Starting Line Will Be In Sator Square—”
Moist stared at his reflection, barely listening. He always raised the stakes, automatically. Never promise to do the possible.