Going Postal

Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Did Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr. Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”
    Moist’s mouth had dropped open. It shut. It opened again. It shut again. You can never find repartee when you need it.
    “You’re nothing but a walking flowerpot, Pump 19,” he snapped. “Where did that come from?”
    “I Have Read The Details Of Your Many Crimes, Mr. Lipvig. And Pumping Water Teaches One The Value Of Rational Thought. You Took From Others Because You Were Clever And They Were Stupid.”
    “Hold on, most of the time they thought they were swindling me!”
    “You Set Out To Trap Them, Mr. Lipvig,” said Mr. Pump.
    Moist went to prod the golem meaningfully, but decided against it just in time. A man could break a finger that way.
    “Well, think about this,” he said. “I’m paying for all that! I was nearly hanged, godsdamit!”
    “Yes. But Even Now You Harbor Thoughts Of Escape, Of Somehow Turning The Situation To Your Advantage. They Say The Leopard Does Not Change His Shorts.”
    “But you have to obey my orders, yes?” snarled Moist.
    “Yes.”
    “Then screw your damn head off!”
    For a moment the red eyes flickered. When Pump spoke next, it was in the voice of Lord Vetinari: “Ah, Lipwig. Despite everything, you do not pay attention. Mr. Pump cannot be instructed to destroy himself. I would have thought you at least could have worked this out. If you instruct him to do so again, punitive action will be taken.”
    The golem blinked again.
    “How did you—” Moist began.
    “I Have Perfect Recall Of Legal Verbal Instructions,” said the golem in his normal rumbling tone. “I Surmise That Lord Vetinari, Mindful Of Your Way Of Thinking, Left That Message Because—”
    “I meant the voice! ”
    “ Perfect Recall, Mr. Lipvig,” Pump replied. “I Can Speak With All The Voices Of Men.”
    “Really? How nice for you.” Moist stared up at Mr. Pump. There was never any animation in that face. There was a nose, of sorts, but it was just a lump in the clay. The mouth moved when he spoke, and the gods knew how baked clay could move like that—indeed, they probably did know. The eyes never closed, they merely dimmed.
    “Can you really read my thoughts?” he said.
    “No, I Merely Extrapolate From Past Behavior.”
    “Well—” Moist said, once again stuck for words. He glared up at the expressionless face that nevertheless contrived to be disapproving. He was used to looks of anger, indignation, and hatred. They were part of the job. But what was a golem? Just…dirt. Fired earth. People looking at you as though you were less than the dust beneath their feet was one thing, but it was strangely unpleasant when even the dust did that, too.
    “—don’t,” he finished lamely. “Go and…work. Yes! Go on! That’s what you do! That’s what you’re for!”

    I T WAS CALLED the lucky clacks tower, Tower 181. It was close enough to the town of Bonk for a man to be able to go and get a hot bath and a good bed on his days off, but since this was Uberwald there wasn’t too much local traffic and—this was important—it was way, way up in the mountains and management didn’t like to go that far. In the good old days of last year, when the Hour of the Dead took place every night, it was a happy tower, because both the up-line and the down-line got the Hour at the same time, so there was an extra pair of hands for maintenance. Now Tower 181 did maintenance on the fly or not at all, just like all the others, but it was still, proverbially, a good tower to man.
    Mostly man, anyway. Back down on the plains it was a standing joke that 181 was staffed by vampires and werewolves. In fact, like a lot of towers, it was often manned by kids.
    Everyone knew it happened. Actually, the new management probably didn’t, but wouldn’t have done anything about it if they found out, apart from carefully forgetting that they’d known. Kids didn’t need to be paid.
    The—mostly—young men on the towers worked hard in all weather for just enough money. They were loners, hard dreamers, fugitives from the law that the law had forgotten, or just from everybody else. They had a special kind of directed