Going Postal - Terry Pratchett [17]
“You don’t sweep up the pigeon shit!”
“Oddly enough, that’s not in the Regulations, sir,” said the old man. “Truth is, sir, no one wants us anymore. It’s all the clacks now, the damn clacks, clack, clack, clack. Everyone’s got a clacks tower now, sir. That’s the fashion. Fast as the speed of light, they say. Ha! It’s got no soul, sir, no heart. I hates ’em. But we’re ready, sir. If there was any mail, we’d deal with it, sir. We’d spring into action, sir, spring into action. But there ain’t.”
“Of course there isn’t! It’s clearly sunk into this town long ago that you might as well throw your letters away as give them to the Post Office!”
“No, sir, wrong again. They’re all kept, sir. That’s what we do, sir. We keep things as they are. We try not to disturb things, sir,” said Groat quietly. “We try not to disturb anything.”
The way he said it made Moist hesitate.
“What kind of anything?” he said.
“Oh, nothing, sir. We just…go carefully.”
Moist looked around the room. Did it appear smaller? Did the shadows deepen and lengthen? Was there a sudden cold sensation in the air?
No, there wasn’t. But an opportunity had definitely been missed, Moist felt. The hairs on the back of his neck were rising. Moist had heard that this was because men had been made out of monkeys, and it meant that there was a tiger behind you.
In fact Mr. Pump was behind him, just standing there, eyes burning more brightly than any tiger had ever managed. This was worse. Tigers couldn’t follow you across the sea, and they had to sleep.
He gave up. Mr. Groat was in some strange, musty little world of his own.
“Do you call this a life?” he said.
For the first time in this conversation. Mr. Groat looked him squarely in the eye.
“Much better than a death, sir,” he said.
MR. PUMP followed Moist across the main hall and out of the main doors, at which point Moist turned on him.
“All right, what are the rules here?” he demanded. “Are you going to follow me everywhere? You know I can’t run!”
“You Are Allowed Autonomous Movement Within The City And Environs,” the golem rumbled. “But Until You Are Settled In, I Am Also Instructed To Accompany You For Your Own Protection.”
“Against who? Someone annoyed that their great-grandaddy’s mail didn’t turn up?”
“I Couldn’t Say, Sir.”
“I need some fresh air. What happened in there? Why is it so…creepy? What happened to the Post Office?”
“I Couldn’t Say, Sir,” said Mr. Pump placidly.
“You don’t know? But it’s your city,” said Moist sarcastically. “Have you been stuck at the bottom of a hole in the ground for the last hundred years?”
“No, Mr. Lipvig,” said the golem.
“Well, why can’t—” Moist began.
“It Was Two Hundred And Forty Years, Mr. Lipvig,” said the golem.
“What was?”
“The Time I Spent At The Bottom Of The Hole In The Ground, Mr. Lipvig.”
“What are you talking about?” said Moist.
“Why, The Time I Spent At The Bottom Of The Hole In The Ground, Mr. Lipvig. Pump Is Not My Name, Mr. Lipvig. It Is My Description. Pump. Pump 19, To Be Precise. I Stood In The Bottom Of A Hole A Hundred Feet Deep And Pumped Water. For Two Hundred And Forty Years, Mr. Lipvig. But Now I Am Ambulating In The Sunlight. This Is Better, Mr. Lipvig. This Is Better!”
THAT NIGHT, Moist lay staring at the ceiling. It was three feet from him. Hanging from it, a little distance away, was a candle in a safety lantern. Stanley had been insistent about that, and no wonder. This place would go up like a bomb. It was the boy who’d showed him up here; Groat was sulking somewhere. He’d been right, damn him. He needed Groat. Groat practically was the Post Office.
It had been a long day, and Moist hadn’t slept well last night, what with being upside down over Mr. Pump’s shoulder and occasionally kicked by the frantic horse.
He didn’t want to sleep here, either, heavens knew, but he didn’t have lodgings he could use anymore, and they were at a premium in this hive of a city in any case. The locker room did not appeal, no, not at all. So