‘Why?’ said Groat.
Mr Emery stared at the whole world for a moment. ‘Because . . . they can deliver messages in the dark?’ he said.
‘Well done,’ murmured the man dismantling the drum.
‘Ah, could be a lifesaver, I can see that,’ said Groat. ‘Can’t see it beating the clacks, though!’
‘That’s what we want to find out,’ said Winton.
‘But we’d be very grateful if you didn’t tell anyone about this,’ said Carlton quickly. ‘Here’s your three dollars, Mr Groat. We wouldn’t want other people stealing our idea, you see.’
‘Lips are sealed, lads,’ said Groat. ‘Don’t you worry about it. You can rely on Groat.’
Carlton was holding the door open. ‘We know we can. Goodbye, Mr Groat.’
Groat heard the door shut behind him as he walked back across the roof. Inside the shed, there seemed to be an argument starting; he heard someone say, ‘What did you have to go and tell him that for?’
That was a bit hurtful, someone thinking that he couldn’t be trusted. And, as he eased his way down the long ladder, Groat wondered if he ought to have pointed out that woodpeckers wouldn’t fly in the dark. It was amazing that bright lads like them hadn’t spotted this flaw. They were, he thought, a bit gullible.
A hundred feet down and a quarter of a mile away as the woodpecker flies during daylight, Moist followed the path of destiny.
Currently, it was leading him through a neighbourhood that was on the downside of whatever curve you hoped you’d bought your property on the upside of. Graffiti and rubbish were everywhere here. They were everywhere in the city, if it came to that, but elsewhere the garbage was better quality rubbish and the graffiti were close to being correctly spelled. The whole area was waiting for something to happen, like a really bad fire.
And then he saw it. It was one of those hopeless little shop fronts that house enterprises with a lifetime measured in days, like Giant Clearance Sale!!! of socks with two heels each, tights with three legs and shirts with one sleeve, four feet long. The window was boarded over, but just visible behind the graffiti above it were the words: The Golem Trust.
Moist pushed open the door. Glass crunched under his feet.
A voice said, ‘Hands where I can see them, mister!’
He raised his hands cautiously, while peering into the gloom. There was definitely a crossbow being wielded by a dim figure. Such light as had managed to get round the boards glinted off the tip of the bolt.
‘Oh,’ said the voice in the dark, as if mildly annoyed that there was no excuse to shoot anybody. ‘All right, then. We had visitors last night.’
‘The window?’ said Moist.
‘It happens about once a month. I was just sweeping it up.’ There was the scratch of a match, and a lamp was lit. ‘They don’t generally attack the golems themselves, not now there’s free ones around. But glass doesn’t fight back.’
The lamp was turned up, revealing a tall young woman in a tight grey woollen dress, with coal-black hair plastered down so that she looked like a peg doll and forced into a tight bun at the back. There was a slight redness to her eyes that suggested she had been crying.
‘You’re lucky to have caught me,’ she said. ‘I’d only come in to make sure nothing’s been taken. Are you here to sell or to hire? You can put your hands down now,’ she added, placing the crossbow under the counter.
‘Sell or hire?’ said Moist, lowering his hands with care.
‘A golem,’ she said, in a talking-to-the-hard-of-thinking voice. ‘We are the Go-lem Trust. We buy or hire go-lems. Do you want to sell a go-lem or hire a go-lem?’
‘Nei-ther,’ said Moist. ‘I’ve got a go-lem. I mean, one is work-ing for me.’
‘Really? Where?’ said the woman. ‘And we can probably speed up a little, I think.’
‘At the Post Office.’
‘Oh, Pump 19,’ said the woman. ‘He said it was government service.’
‘We call him Mister Pump,’ said Moist primly.
‘Really? And do you get a wonderful warm charitable feeling when you do?’
‘Pardon? What?’ said Moist, bewildered. He wasn’t sure if she was managing the trick of laughing at him behind her frown.
The woman sighed. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit snappish this morning. A brick landing on your desk does that to you. Let’s just say they don’t see the world in the same way as we do, okay? They’ve got feelings, in their own way, but they’re not like ours. Anyway . . . how can I help you, Mr . . . ?’
‘Von Lipwig,’ said Moist, and added: ‘Moist von Lipwig,’ to get the worst over with. But the woman didn’t even smile.
‘Lipwig, small town in Near Uberwald,’ she said, picking up a brick from the broken glass and debris on her desk, regarding it critically, and then turning to the ancient filing cabinet behind her and filing it under B. ‘Chief export: its famous dogs, of course, second most important export its beer, except during the two weeks of Sektober-fest, when it exports . . . second-hand beer, probably?’
‘I don’t know. We left when I was a kid,’ said Moist. ‘As far as I’m concerned, it’s just a funny name.’
‘Try Adora Belle Dearheart some time,’ said the woman.
‘Ah. That’s not a funny name,’ said Moist.
‘Quite,’ said Adora Belle Dearheart. ‘I now have no sense of humour whatsoever. Well, now that we’ve been appropriately human towards one another, what exactly was it you wanted?’
‘Look, Vetinari has sort of lumbered me with Mr— with Pump 19 as an . . . an assistant, but I don’t know how to treat . . .’ Moist sought in the woman’s eyes for some clue as to the politically correct term, and plumped for ‘him.’
‘Huh? Just treat him normally.’
‘You mean normally for a human being, or normally for a pottery man filled with fire?’
To Moist’s astonishment Adora Belle Dearheart took a packet of cigarettes out of a desk drawer and lit one. She mistook his expression, and proffered the pack.
‘No, thanks,’ he said, waving it away. Apart from the occasional old lady with a pipe, he’d never seen a woman smoke before. It was . . . strangely attractive, especially since, as it turned out, she smoked a cigarette as if she had a grudge against it, sucking the smoke down and blowing it out almost immediately.
‘You’re getting hung up about it all, right?’ she said. When Ms Dearheart wasn’t smoking she held the cigarette at shoulder height, the elbow of her left arm cupped in her right hand. There was a definite feel about Adora Belle Dearheart that a lid was only barely holding down an entire womanful of anger.
‘Yes! I mean—’ Moist began.
‘Hah! It’s just like the Campaign for Equal Heights and all that patronizing stuff they spout about dwarfs and why we shouldn’t use terms like “small talk” and “feeling small”. Golems don’t have any of our baggage about “who am I, why am I here”, okay? Because they know. They were made to be tools, to be property, to work. Work is what they do. In a way, it’s what they are. End of existential angst.’
Ms Dearheart inhaled and then blew out the smoke in one nervous movement. ‘And then stupid people go around calling them “persons of clay” and “Mr Spanner” and so on, which they find rather strange. They understand about free will. They also understand that they don’t have it. Mind you, once a golem owns himself, it’s a different matter.’
‘Own? How does property own itself?’ said Moist. ‘You said they were—’
‘They save up and buy themselves, of course! Freehold is the only path to freedom they’ll accept. Actually, what happens is that the free golems support the Trust, the Trust buys golems whenever it can, and the new golems then buy themselves from the Trust at cost. It’s working well. The free golems earn twenty-four/eight and there’s more and more of them. They don’t eat, sleep, wear clothes or understand the concept of leisure. The occasional tube of ceramic cement doesn’t cost much. They’re buying more golems every month now, and paying my wages, and the iniquitous rent the landlord of this dump is charging because he knows he’s renting to golems. They never complain, you know. They pay whatever’s asked. They’re so patient it could drive you nuts.’
Tube of ceramic cement, thought Moist. He tried to fix that thought in case it came in useful, but some mental processes were fully occupied with the growing realization of how well some women could look in a severely plain dress.
‘Surely they can’t be damaged, can they?’ he managed.
‘Certainly they can! A sledgehammer on the right spot would really mess one up. Owned golems will just stand there and take it. But the Trust golems are allowed to defend themselves, and when someone weighing a ton snatches a hammer out of your hand you have to let go really quickly.’