Raising Steam: (Discworld novel 40) (Discworld Novels) Read online

  Moist von Lipwig had done some heavy work once and couldn’t see any future in it, but he could look at it for hours, provided other people were doing it, of course, and clearly some of them liked what they were doing, and so he shrugged and felt happy that Crisp was happy being a handyman whilst Moist was happy not picking up anything that was heavier than a glass. After all, his work was unseen and depended on words, which were fortunately not very heavy and didn’t need grease. In his career as a crook they had served him well and now he felt somewhat smug at using them to the benefit of the citizenry.

  There was a difference between a banker and a crook, there really was, and although it was very, very teeny Moist felt that he should point out that it did exist and, besides, Lord Vetinari always had his eye on him.

  So everybody was happy and Moist went to work in very clean clothes and with a very clean conscience.

  Having washed and dressed in said clothes in his private bathroom,fn11 Moist went to see his wife, practising his smile on the way and endeavouring to look cheerful. You never knew with Adora Belle.fn12 She could be quite acerbic. After all, she ran the whole clacks system these days.

  She also liked goblins, which was why there were some living behind the wainscoting of the house and others in the roof. They smelled, but the smell wasn’t, once you got over the shock, all that bad. The compensation was that the goblins had taken the clacks into their scrawny hearts, one and all. The wheels and levers fascinated them. Moist knew that generally goblins hid out in caves and insalubrious places that humans didn’t bother about, but now, when suddenly they were being treated as people, they had found their element which was generally the sky. They could scramble up a clacks tower faster than any man could run, and the rattling, back-and-forth clanking and relentlessly busy machinery of the clacks had them in its grip.

  Already, after only a few months in the city, the goblins had improved the efficiency of the clacks across the Sto Plains threefold. They were creatures of darkness, but their perception of light was remarkable. There was a whole malignityfn13 of goblins up on the roof, but if you wanted your clacks to fly fast, you didn’t use the term out loud. The villains of the storybooks had found their place in society, at last. All it needed was technology.

  When Dick Simnel walked into Sir Harry King’s compound he wasn’t at all certain how you spoke to grand folk. Nevertheless, he managed to talk his way through the people in the front office, who had a rather jaundiced look and appeared to consider it their duty to ensure that no one should ever get to see Sir Harry King, especially greasy-looking young men with wild eyes trying hard to look respectable despite their extremely old clothing which, these gatekeepers thought, needed something, possibly a bonfire. However, Dick had the persistence of a wasp and the sharpness of a razor blade, and so eventually he ended up deposited in front of the big man’s desk like a supplicant.

  Harry, red-faced and impatient, looked over his desk and said to him, ‘Lad, time is money and I’m a busy man. You told Nancy down on Reception that you’ve got something I might like. Now stop fidgeting and look me in the face square like. If you’re another chancer wanting to bamboozle me I’ll have you down the Effing stairsfn14 before you know it.’

  Dick stared soundlessly at Harry for a moment, then said, ‘Mister Sir King, I’ve made a machine that can carry people and goods just about everywhere and it don’t need ’orses and it’s run on water ’n’ coal. It’s my machine, I built it and I can make it even better if you can see your way clear to advance me some investment.’

  Harry King reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy gold watch. Dick couldn’t help but notice the famous gold rings that he had been told Sir Harry always wore, possibly as an ensemble of socially acceptable and extremely valuable knuckledusters.

  ‘Did I hear you right? It’s Mister Simnel, isn’t it? I’ll give you five minutes to catch my fancy and if I think you’re just another thimblerigger on the slant you’ll go out of here rather more quickly than you came in.’

  ‘My old mother always said seeing is believing, Mister King, and so I’ve come prepared. If you can give me some time to get t’lads and t’ ’orses …’ Dick coughed and continued, ‘I have to tell you, Mister Sir Harry, I took the liberty of parking them right outside your compound, ’cos I talked to people and they said that if Harry King wants something to start happening it ’as to ’appen fast.’ He hesitated. Was that a glint in Harry’s eye?

  ‘Well,’ the magnate grumbled rather theatrically. ‘Young man, even though time is money, talk is cheap. I’ll come out in five minutes and you’d better have something solid to show me.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir King, that’s very kind of you, sir, but we’ll have to get t’boiler warmed up first, sir, and so we’ll have ’er throbbing in no more than two hours, sir.’

  Harry King took his cigar out of his mouth and said, ‘What?! Throbbing?’

  Dick smiled nervously. ‘You’ll see, sir, you’ll see.’

  Very shortly afterwards, and just in time, smoke and steam enveloped the compound and Harry King saw and, indeed, was amazed.

  And Harry King really was amazed. There was something insect-like about the metallic contraption, bits of which were spinning incessantly while the whole thing was shrouded in a cloud of smoke and steam of its own making. Harry King saw purpose personified. Purpose, moreover, that would be unlikely ever to ask for a day off for its granny’s funeral.

  Over the noise he shouted, ‘What did you say this thing is called, my lad?’

  ‘Iron Girder, sir. An engine that uses the expansion or rapid condensation of steam to generate power. Power for locomotion – that is to say, movement, sir. And if you’d allow us to lay down her rails, sir, we can really show you what she can do.’

  ‘Rails?’

  ‘Aye, sir. She runs on an iron road, you’ll see.’

  Suddenly there was the sound of a banshee on heat as Wally moved a lever.

  ‘Sorry, sir, you ’ave to let t’steam out. It’s all about ’arnessing t’steam. You heard her singing, sir, she wants motion, power is going to waste while she’s just sitting here. Give me time and allow me to put a test track around your compound. We’ll have ’er running very soon, I promise you.’

  Harry was uncharacteristically silent. The thrumming of the machine was like a kind of spell. Again, the metal voice of steam rang out over the compound like a lost soul and he found himself unable to leave. Harry wasn’t a man for introspection and all that rubbish, but he thought that this, well, this was something worth a closer look. And then he noticed the faces of the crowd around the compound, the goblins climbing up to gawp at this new raging devil which was nevertheless under the control of two lads in flat caps and very little to speak of in regard to teeth.

  Getting his thoughts lined up properly, Harry turned to Dick Simnel and said, ‘Mister Simnel, I’ll give you two days, no more. You have your chance, mister, don’t waste it. I am, as I say, a busy man. Two days to show me something that astounds me. Go on.’

  Dwarfs and men sat and listened intently to the old boy sitting in the corner of the Treacle Minerfn15, human, possibly, but with a beard any respectable dwarf would have coveted, who had decided to share with them his knowledge of the treacle-mining world.

  ‘Gather round, lads, fill my pot and I’ll tell you a tale that’s dark and sticky.’ He looked meaningfully at his empty tankard and there was laughter as it was replaced by some well-wisher and, as he sipped his ale, he began his tale.

  Years back, unexpected deep treacle reserves had been discovered under Ankh-Morpork, fathoms down, and as every treacle miner knew, the lower the treacle, the better the texture and therefore the better the taste. In truth, and in Ankh-Morpork at least, there was very little friction between dwarf clans on this matter, and the question of who would be allowed to mine the discovery was amiably dealt with by the old boys, dwarf and human.

  Everyone conceded that when it came to working underground there was nothing
like the dwarfs, but, to the dismay of the older miners, very few of the dwarf youngsters of Ankh-Morpork were at all interested in mining under any circumstances. And so the grizzled old boys welcomed any local miners of any species to work under the venerable streets of Ankh-Morpork, for the sheer pleasure of seeing treacle being properly produced again, and the miners, whoever they were, went about their sticky business in the search for the deep shimmering treacle.

  And something happened, somewhere up near the Shires, where the dwarf miners had been working a reasonable seam, part of which was under land which at that time belonged to the Low King of the Dwarfs. In those not too distant days political relationships between human and dwarf were somewhat nervy.

  On the day when things came to a head there had been a sudden fall of dark toffee, extremely precious and very unusual, but feared by every treacle miner because of its tendency to spontaneously collapse into the tunnels. According to the eyewitnesses, both humans and dwarfs were mining underground while politicians argued on both sides of the political divide. And this fall was mostly on the human side of the seam, with many men trapped in a deluge of unrelenting stickiness.

  He hesitated for a moment and said, ‘Or it might have been the dwarf side, now I come to think about it …’ He looked embarrassed, but continued. ‘Well, it doesn’t really matter now who they were, it was a long time ago anyway. The miners working the seam from the other side of the fall heard that there were many miners down there, trapped and drowning in refined sugar derivatives, and said, “Come on, lads, get the gear together and let’s get them out of there.”’

  The old boy hesitated a further moment, possibly for effect, and said, ‘But of course that meant that they had to enter territory that required going through two bloody security barriers manned by armed guards. Guards, moreover, who were not that bothered about miners and were certainly not going to let any of the enemy down into their sovereign soil.’

  Another significant pause, then the tale raced on. All the miners had piled up against the barriers. Someone said, ‘We can’t tackle them, they’ve got weapons!’ and they looked at one another in what is known as wild surmise, and then another voice yelled, ‘But so have we, when you look at it the right way, and ours are bigger!’ And the speaker waved his enormous fist and said, ‘And we’re mining every day, not standing around and looking smart.’

  And so as one dwarf, or possibly human, they rushed the barricade and the guards, realizing they were failing to frighten people, ran for cover as the miners with the picks and shovels came down on them at speed and sixty miners were saved from a very sticky situation on both sides of the seam.

  Nothing official happened afterwards because officialdom didn’t want any part of the shame of it.

  The old boy looked around and glowed as if he himself had been one of those miners and, quite possibly, he might have been, and his tankard was topped up once again and he said wistfully, ‘Of course, that was the old days. I wish it still was.’

  It was just short of the end of the second day when Simnel and his lads had Iron Girder chuffing slowly and purposefully along a short circular track in Harry’s compound.

  And Harry couldn’t help noticing that the look of the engine had changed and it now seemed somehow … smoother than before. In fact, he thought, he had been ready to say sleek, though it was hard to think of what looked like fifty tons of steel as sleek, but yes, he thought, why not? It shouldn’t be beautiful, but she was. Stuttering, stinking, growling, smoking, but so very beautiful.

  Dick said cheerfully, ‘We’re taking it slow, Mister Harry. We need to put down some real ballast before we can let ’er rip, but she grows on yer, don’t you think? And when we’ve built ’er up, and added on wagons and suchlike there’ll be no stoppin’ ’er.’

  And there it was again. It really ought to be a he, Harry mused, but somehow the ‘she’ stuck relentlessly.

  And then Harry’s rather crumpled brow furrowed even further. This young lad clearly knows his stuff, he thought, and he said his machine could carry people and goods … but who’d want to ride on this clanking great monster?

  On the other hand, the compound smelled of steam and coal and hot grease – manly, healthy smells … Yes, he’d give them that little bit longer. Perhaps another week. After all, coal wasn’t expensive and he wasn’t paying them anything. Harry King realized he was feeling unusually happy. Yes, they could have a little more time. And the smell was good, unlike those he and Effie had put up with over the years. Oh, yes, they could definitely have their time, though he’d need to keep the lads on their toes. He looked up and the clacks towers blinked relentlessly and Harry King saw the future.

  The wind above the clacks towers was blowing from the hub, cool and purposeful, and Adora Belle Dearheart fancied she could see the edge of the world from here. She cherished moments like this. They reminded her of when she was young, really young, when her mother would hang her cradle from the top of a tower while she was coding, leaving her daughter cheerfully making baby noises several hundred feet above the ground. In fact, her mother said her very first word was ‘checksum’.

  And now she could see, clearly out of its mists, the mountain Cori Celesti glittering like a great green icicle. She sang as she tightened up the spinners on the upper gallery. She was out of the office, as far from it as was possible, and it felt good. After all, she could even see the office from up here. In fact, she could probably see everybody’s office from here, but right now she sorted out the delicate little mechanisms and savoured a world where she could reach out and touch the sun, well, metaphorically at least. This reverie was broken by one of the tower’s goblins.

  ‘I am bringing twenty spinners and a flask of coffee, very hygienic, I cleaned the mug myself with my own hand. Me. Of the Twilight the Darkness,’ he said proudly.

  Adora Belle looked down at a face that would take a frantic battalion of mothers to love, but nevertheless she smiled and said, ‘Thanks, mister. I must say you’ve really got acclimatized for somebody who has spent most of their life in a cave. I can’t believe you don’t even worry about heights, that never ceases to amaze me. And thanks again, it really is good coffee and still warm, too.’

  Of the Twilight the Darkness shrugged as only a goblin could shrug. The effect was rather like a parcel of snakes dancing.

  ‘Missus Boss, goblins no stranger to acclimatize. Don’t acclimatize, don’t live! And anyway, things going well down there, no problems. Goblins got respeck! And how is Mister Slightly Damp?’

  ‘Moist is fine, my friend, and surely you know my husband doesn’t like the name you goblins have given him. He thinks you’re doing it on purpose.’

  ‘You want that we stop doing it?’

  ‘Oh, no! It teaches him a lesson in humility. I think he needs to go to university on that score.’

  The goblin grinned in the way of a conspirator, and he could see Adora Belle trying not to laugh, while overhead the clacks continued sending its messages to the world.

  Adora Belle could almost read the messages simply by watching the towers, but you had to be very, very fast; and the goblins were even faster than that. And who ever would have thought their eyesight was so discerning? Using the new augmented colour shutter boxes after dark, most human clacks spotters could separate about four or five or maybe even six colours on a very good clear night, but who could have imagined that goblins, fresh out of their caves, would be uncannily able even to identify puce as opposed to pink, while most humans didn’t have a clue what a damn puce was if they saw it?

  Adora Belle glanced at Of the Twilight the Darkness and once again acknowledged to herself that goblins were the reason why clacks traffic was so much faster, more accurate and streamlined than ever before. And yet how could she reward them for the increased efficiency? Sometimes the goblins never even bothered to take their pay. They liked rats, of which there was never a shortage, but because she was indeed the bossfn16 she felt it incumbent on her to persuade the lit
tle nerds that there were, indeed, many other things you could be doing apart from coding and deciphering clacks messages. She almost shivered. They actively, obsessively liked to work, all day and all night if possible.

  She knew if the name on the door said ‘Boss’ then in theory she had to think about their welfare, but they weren’t interested in their own welfare. What they wanted to do was code and decipher, pausing only when the lady troll with the rat trolley came round. Honestly! They liked their work and not just liked it, but lived it. How many bosses had had to go all around the workplace telling people they really had to stop working now and go home? But then they didn’t go home, they wanted to stay up in their clacks towers, and in the small hours of the night chat by clacks to goblins elsewhere. They would rather chatter than eat, it seemed, and even slept on the tower, dragging in little straw beds for when they were forced by nature to take a nap.

  Adora Belle had insisted to the trustees that there should be a foundation set up, against the day when goblins and their children might want to move further into society. So a scant while after the remarkable musical talents of Tears of the Mushroom had been so spectacularly unveiled to Ankh-Morpork high society, the goblins had become people, strange people, yes, but people nevertheless. Of course, there was the smell, but you couldn’t have everything.

  Novelty went around Ankh-Morpork just like an embarrassing disease, thought Sir Harry King the following afternoon as he looked down on to the compound where people were peering through the gates and fencing in a great susurration of speculation. Harry knew his fellow citizens from the bottom up, as it were, willing slaves to novelty and the exotic, rubberneckers all of them. The whole crowd were turning their heads as one to keep track of Iron Girder, like a flock of starlings, and all the time Iron Girder was chuffing away with Dick waving from the footplate, the air still full of the smuts and smells. And yet, he thought, it’s all approval. No one’s disagreeing, no one’s frightened. A beast from nowhere. A fiery dragon, all smoke and cinders, has appeared among them and they hold up their children to look at it, waving as it goes past.