Going Postal (Discworld 33)

'Yessir!' said Groat, drunk on enthusiasm. 'We'll . . . we'll do things that are quite new, in interestin' ways!'

'You're getting the hang of it already,' said Moist, rolling his eyes. Ten minutes later, the Post Office received its first delivery. It was Senior Postman Bates, blood streaming down his face. He was helped into the office by two Watch officers, carrying a makeshift stretcher. 'Found him wandering in the street, sir,' said one of them. 'Sergeant Colon, sir, at your service.'

'What happened to him?' said Moist, horrified. Bates opened his eyes. 'Sorry, sir,' he murmured. 'I held on tight, but they belted me over the bonce with a big thing!'

'Coupla toughs jumped him,' said Sergeant Colon. 'They threw his bag in the river, too.'

'Does that normally happen to postmen?' said Moist. 'I thought— Oh, no . . .' The new, painfully slow arrival was Senior Postman Aggy, dragging one leg because it had a bulldog attached to it. 'Sorry about this, sir,' he said, limping forward. 'I think my official trousers is torn. I stunned the bugger with my bag, sir, but they're a devil to get to let go.' The bulldog's eyes were shut; it appeared to be thinking of something else.

'Good job you've got your armour, eh?' said Moist. 'Wrong leg, sir. But not to worry. I'm nat'rally imp-ervious around the calfy regions. It's all the scar tissue, sir, you could strike matches on it. Jimmy Tropes is in trouble, though. He's up a tree in Hide Park.' Moist von Lipwig strode up Market Street, face set with grim purpose. The boards were still up on the Golem Trust, but had attracted another layer of graffiti. The paint on the door was burnt and bubbled, too. He opened the door, and instinct made him duck. He felt the crossbow bolt zip between the wings of his hat. Miss Dearheart lowered the bow. 'My gods, it's you! For a minute I thought a second sun had appeared in the sky!' Moist rose cautiously as she laid the bow aside. 'We had a fire-bomb last night,' she said, by way of explanation for attempting to shoot him in the head. 'How many golems are for hire right now, Miss Dearheart?' said Moist. 'Huh? Oh . . . about . . . a dozen or so—'

'Fine. I'll take them. Don't bother to wrap them up. I want them down at the Post Office as soon as possible.'

'What?' Miss Dearheart's normal expression of perpetual annoyance returned. 'Look, you can't just walk in, snap your fingers and order a dozen people like this—'

'They think they're property!' said Moist. 'That's what you told me.' They glared at one another. Then Miss Dearheart fumbled distractedly in a filing tray. 'I can let you ha— employ four right now,' she said. 'That'd be Doors 1, Saw 20, Campanile 2 and . . . Anghammarad. Only Anghammarad can talk at the moment; the frees haven't helped the others yet—'

'Helped?' Miss Dearheart shrugged. 'A lot of the cultures that built golems thought tools shouldn't talk. They have no tongues.'

'And the Trust gives them some extra clay, eh?' said Moist cheerfully. She gave him a look. 'It's a bit more mystical than that,' she said solemnly. 'Well, dumb is okay so long as they're not stupid,' said Moist, trying to look serious. 'This Anghammarad's got a name? Not just a description?'

'A lot of the very old ones have. Tell me, what do you want them to do?' said the woman. 'Be postmen,' said Moist. 'Working in public?'

'I don't think you can have secret postmen,' said Moist, briefly seeing shadowy figures skulking from door to door. 'Anything wrong with that?'

'Well . . . no. Certainly not! It's just that people get a bit nervous, and set fire to the shop. I'll bring them down as soon as possible.' She paused. 'You do understand that owned golems have to have a day off every week? You did read the pamphlet, didn't you?'

'Er . . . time off?' said Moist. 'What do they need time off for? A hammer doesn't get time off, does it?'

'In order to be golems. Don't ask what they do - I think just go and sit in a cellar somewhere. It's . . . it's a way to show they're not a hammer, Mr Lipwig. The buried ones forget. The free golems teach them. But don't worry, the rest of the time they won't even sleep.'

'So . . . Mr Pump has a day off coming?' said Moist. 'Of course,' said Miss Dearheart, and Moist filed this one under 'useful to know'. 'Good. Thank you,' he said. Would you like to have dinner tonight? Moist normally had no trouble with words, but these stuck to his tongue. There was something pineapple-prickly about Miss Dearheart. There was something about her expression, too, which said: there's no possible way you could surprise me. I know all about you. 'Is there anything else?' she said. 'Only you're standing there with your mouth open.'

'Er . . . no. That's fine. Thank you,' mumbled Moist. She smiled at him, and bits of Moist tingled. 'Well, off you go then, Mr Lipwig,' she said. 'Brighten up the world like a little sunbeam.' Four out of the five postmen were what Mr Groat called horse de combat and were brewing tea in the mail-stuffed cubbyhole that was laughingly called their Rest Room. Aggy had been sent home after the bulldog had been prised from his leg; Moist had a big basket of fruit sent round. You couldn't go wrong with a basket of fruit. Well, they'd made an impression, at least. So had the bulldog. But some mail had been delivered, you had to admit it. You had to admit, too, that it was years and years late, but the post was moving. You could sense it in the air. The place didn't feel so much like a tomb. Now Moist had retired to his office, where he was getting creative. 'Cup of tea, Mr Lipwig?' He looked up from his work into the slightly strange face of Stanley. 'Thank you, Stanley,' he said, laying down his pen. 'And I see you got nearly all of it in the cup this time! Nicely done!'

'What're you drawing, Mr Lipwig?' said the boy, craning his neck. 'It looks like the Post Office!'

'Well done. It's going to be on a stamp, Stanley. Here, what do you think of the others?' He passed over the other sketches. 'Coo, you're a good draw-er, Mr Lipwig. That looks just like Lord Vetinari!'

'That's the penny stamp,' said Moist. 'I copied the likeness off a penny. City coat-of-arms on the twopenny, Morporkia with her fork on the fivepenny, Tower of Art on the big one-dollar stamp. I was thinking of a tenpenny stamp, too.'

'They look very nice, Mr Lipwig,' said Stanley. 'All that detail. Like little paintings. What's all those tiny lines called?'

'Cross-hatching. Makes them hard to forge. And when the letter with the stamp on it comes into the Post Office, you see, we take one of the old rubber stamps and stamp over the new stamps so they can't be used again, and the—'

'Yes, 'cos they're like money, really,' said Stanley cheerfully. 'Pardon?' said Moist, tea halfway to his lips. 'Like money. These stamps'll be like money, 'cos a penny stamp is a penny, when you think about it. Are you all right, Mr Lipwig? Only you've gone all funny. Mr Lipwig?'

'Er . . . what?' said Moist, who was staring at the wall with a strange, faraway grin. 'Are you all right, sir?'

'What? Oh. Yes. Yes, indeed. Er . . . do we need a bigger stamp, do you think? Five dollars, perhaps?'

'Hah, I should think you could send a big letter all the way to Fourecks for that, Mr Lipwig!' said Stanley cheerfully. 'Worth thinking ahead, then,' said Moist. 'I mean, since we're designing the stamps and

everything . . .' But now Stanley was admiring Mr Robinson's box. It was an old friend to Moist. He never used 'Mr Robinson' as an alias except to get it stored by some halfway-honest merchant or publican, so that it'd be somewhere safe even if he had to leave town quickly. It was for a con-man and forger what a set of lock picks is to a burglar, but with the contents of this box you could open people's brains. It was a work of art in its own right, the way all the little compartments lifted up and fanned out when you opened it. There were pens and inks, of course, but also little pots of paints and tints, stains and solvents. And, kept carefully flat, thirty-six different types of paper, some of them quite hard to obtain. Paper was important. Get the weight and translucence wrong, and no amount of skill would save you. You could get away with bad penmanship much more easily than you could with bad paper. In fact, rough penmanship often worked better than a week of industrious midnights spent getting every little thing right, because there was something in people's heads that spotted some little detail that wasn't quite right but at the same time would fill in details that had merely been suggested by a few careful strokes. Attitude, expectation and presentation were everything. Just like me, he thought. The door was knocked on and opened in one movement. 'Yes?' snapped Moist, not looking up. 'I'm busy designing mon— stamps here, you know!'

'There's a lady,' panted Groat. 'With golems!'

'Ah, that'll be Miss Dearheart,' said Moist, laying down his pen. 'Yessir. She said “Tell Mr Sunshine I've brought him his postmen”, sir! You're going to use golems as postmen, sir?'