Raising Steam (12 page)

Moist’s cab halted at the palace, and he helped an exhausted Drumknott up the stairs. Amazingly he was beginning to feel sorry for the little chap, who was looking like a lotus eater who had run out of lotuses.
^fn23

Moist very carefully knocked on the door of the Patrician’s
office, which was opened by one of the dark clerks. The clerk stared at Drumknott and looked askance at Moist, as Lord Vetinari himself stood up in surprise, leaving Moist impaled between two askances. So he saluted smartly and said, ‘I beg to report, sir, that Mister Drumknott very gallantly and fearlessly and at some personal cost has helped me form an opinion as to the practical aspects of the new-fangled train, risking his life
repeatedly
in so doing, and for my part I have seen to it that your government has a suitable measure of control over the railways. Sir Harry King is funding further research and trials, but personally, my lord, I believe the new railway will be a winner. I’m convinced that this prototype can pull more stock than dozens of horses. Mister Simnel seems to be very thorough in his work, extremely meticulous and, above all, the people appear to have taken the train to their hearts.’

Moist waited. Lord Vetinari could outstare a statue and make even a statue start to feel nervous and confess. Moist’s counter was a fetching grin, which he knew annoyed Vetinari beyond measure, and there was absolute silence in the Oblong Office while blank stare and cheery grin battled it out for supremacy in some other dimension, which ended when his lordship, still staring fixedly at Moist, said to the nearest dark clerk, ‘Mister Ward, please take Mister Drumknott to his rooms and clean him up, if you would be so kind.’

When they had departed, Lord Vetinari sat down and drummed his fingers on his desk. ‘So, Mister Lipwig, you believe in the train, do you? It certainly appears that my secretary is impressed. I have never seen him so excited by something that wasn’t written on paper, and the afternoon edition of the
Times
seems to be in agreement with him.’

Vetinari walked over to the window and stared down at the city in silence for a moment and continued, ‘What can a mere jobbing tyrant achieve in the face of the even greater, multi-headed tyrant of public opinion and a
regrettably
free press?’

‘Excuse me, sir, but if you wanted to you could shut down the papers, couldn’t you? And forbid the train and put anyone you like in prison, yes?’

Still staring down at the city, Lord Vetinari said, ‘My dear Mister Lipwig, you are clever and certainly smart but you have yet to find the virtue of wisdom, and wisdom tells a powerful prince that firstly he shouldn’t put just anyone he likes in prison, because that is where he puts the people he
doesn’t
like, and secondly that mere unthinking dislike of something, someone, or some situation is no mandate for drastic action. Therefore, while I have given you permission to continue, the train does not have my wholehearted approval. Neither does it have my curse.’ The Patrician seemed to consider for a moment and added, ‘Yet.’

He walked up and down again for a second or two and then, as if the thought had only just struck him, said, ‘Mister Lipwig, do you think it a possibility that a train
could
in fact get all the way to, say, Uberwald? That journey is not only extremely slow, tedious and uncomfortable by coach, but it is fraught with many … ah, perils … and traps for the unwary traveller.’ He paused and added, ‘And indeed the unlucky bandit.’

‘Oh, yes, that’s where Lady Margolotta lives, isn’t it, sir?’ said Moist breezily. ‘But it would mean negotiating the Wilinus Pass, sir. Very dangerous up there! Bandits have been known to knock out coaches by throwing down rocks from the crags.’

‘But there is no other way without a very lengthy detour, Mister Lipwig, as you probably know.’

‘In that case, my lord … I think it might be possible to construct such a thing as an armoured train,’ said Moist, inventing furiously. He was gratified to see that Lord Vetinari brightened when he heard that, repeating the words ‘armoured train’ once or twice more.

Then his lordship said, ‘Can it
really
be possible?’

And in the squirrel cage of Moist’s mind, he thought, Can it? Can it really? It must be more than twelve hundred miles! It takes
well over two weeks by coach and that’s if you don’t get hijacked, but who was going to try to hijack an armoured train? The engine would be wanting water frequently and is it possible that it could carry enough coal for the whole journey? The numbers rolled in his head. Stopping places, troughs for water, mountains, gorges, bridges, marsh land … So many things, any one of which could scupper the project …

But going to Uberwald would mean passing through so many other places on the way and all of them could be opportunities to make money. The demons of critical path analysis swarmed around his brain. There was always something that you had to do before you could do the thing you wanted to do and even then you might get it wrong.

To Vetinari he said cheerily, ‘Well, sir, I don’t see why not. And, of course, for such a long journey it should be possible to sleep on the train and for heads of state to occupy a complete suite of carriages, if not the whole train. Surely that could be arranged?’ Moist held his breath.

After a few seconds his lordship said, ‘That would be appropriate, but, Mister Lipwig, I am not
entirely
bribed. The train must prove itself both financially
and
mechanically. However, I look forward to its success. It seems, Mister Lipwig, that you are using your extra-cheery voice and so once again you find yourself in your own chosen environment, that being the centre of everything. But tell me: where do you think will be the destination of the first commercial train? Quirm?’

‘Actually, sir, that has been discussed and it looks as if it’s going to be Sto Lat, because that’s where Mister Simnel has his machine tools and a large stock of materials that he would need to transport to Ankh-Morpork. Besides, that place is a nexus for the Sto Plains, and nexus means—’

Lord Vetinari raised a hand and said, ‘Thank you, Mister Lipwig. I do know what a nexus is.’

Moist smiled and headed for the door, showing his panic only on the inside, and as his hand reached the doorknob Vetinari’s voice behind him said, ‘Mister Lipwig, you surely realize that a thoughtful prince, a prince who wishes to keep his throne for some time and is shrewd in the ways of people, would not travel in a thrilling armoured train … He would put somebody
else
on that train, somebody expendable, having himself travelled the previous day in a suitable disguise. After all, there are such things as very, very large boulders, and most definitely there are a great many spies. But I shall consider your idea. It has a beguiling ring to it.’

Over the next few weeks more and more people heard about Iron Girder and even larger crowds passed through Ankh-Morpork to see the new marvel of the age, including delegates, ambassadors and representatives from most of the towns across the Sto Plains. And, of course, there were the
other
artificers and freelance tinkerers, inspecting everything they could see and trying to find out everything they could about what it was they weren’t being allowed to see.

Every night Iron Girder was driven along a set of rails into a locked shed on the compound where she would be safe from interference due to the presence of Harry’s most fearsome attack dogs and also two golems, brought in by Harry because, unlike dogs, they couldn’t be killed by a meal laced with poison poked under the door. They patrolled the huge shed, sometimes with members of the City Watch just for the look of the thing.

Moist spent a lot of time in and around the compound in his not very official but somehow understood role as the grease in the outfit’s management, as essential as the buckets of the stuff that seemed to be required in everything to do with the railway. He had, after all, a stake in the railway’s fortunes as head of the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork, where money was starting to go in and out faster than a revolving door as Harry wrote cheques for iron
shipments, timber and extra metalworkers, many of whom were from the company of Free Golems: every one of them his own man, albeit one made of clay.

And grease was definitely needed here. There was a mountain of paperwork already being generated by the railway, which Moist skilfully passed along to Drumknott, whose passion for paperwork was not quite yet eclipsed by his new passion for the railway. The little pink man was in hog heaven.

Surveyors had been called in to work on a route. They were everywhere with their little theodolites. They treated Dick Simnel as one of them, only different. Moist was pleased about that. Dick had friends now, and if they didn’t understand all of his language they did indeed recognize it as bona fide language somewhat similar to their own and therefore they gave him respect. After all, these other people, in a way, did what he did only in different shapes, stresses, curves, loads, tolerances and substances, and thus where it counted were brothers under the skin. And like Dick, they worked by numbers and knew the absolute necessity of getting them right, and especially they knew the absolute requirement for precision.

In the compound the sound of metal on metal filled the air, and on every flat surface in Harry King’s offices maps were laid out, and they were good maps.

‘Lads,’ Dick Simnel had said to the theodolite men, ‘Harry King is a good gaffer who pays top dollar for a top-rate service. He’s chancing everything to get the locomotives running, so I want you to make it easier for him. Iron Girder can take some slopes, and by ’eck she’ll take more before I’m through, but for now, what I’m telling thee is to keep t’permanent way as level as possible. And I know that there are such things as tunnels and bridges, but they take a lot of time and are flippin’ expensive! Occasionally a little detour might save us a lot of money, which is to say your wages. But think on, and I know it’s obvious, but do not go anywhere near swamps and other shaky ground. A locomotive with its coal
tenders, carriages and crew is reet,
reet
’eavy and the last thing we want to be learning is ’ow to pull a bogged-down locomotive out of t’quicksand.’

And off they’d gone. The men with clean shirts every day. The men of the sliding rule. Moist liked them because they were everything he wasn’t. But maybe he should teach them about being a scoundrel. Oh, not about taking money from widows and orphans, but about being aware that many people weren’t as straight as a theodolite.

The surveyors proved only too happy to agree that the area around Sto Lat was the gateway to the Sto Plains, so now all they needed to do was get the people with, as it were, the keys to the gate to understand this, a job that everybody was extremely happy to turn over to Mr Moist von Lipwig.

As it turned out, there were a great many landowners between Ankh-Morpork and Sto Lat, and any number of tenants. Nobody minded a clacks tower near by. Indeed, often these days they demanded one, but, well, a mechanical thing chuffing through your cornfields and cabbage plantations spewing out smoke and cinders, well,
that
was a different matter, which would be the kind of problem that could be settled only by the application of that wonderful lubricant known to every negotiator as warm specie.
^fn24

The aristocrats, if such they could be called, generally hated the whole concept of the train on the basis that it would encourage the lower classes to move about and not always be available. On the other hand, some were of a type that Moist recognized: shrewd old buffers who’d lead you to believe they were harmless and possibly slightly gaga and then, with a little twinkle in their eye – BANG! – squeeze more money out of you than a snake, twinkling all the way.

Lord Underdale, one such gentleman, had plied Moist with an indecent amount of gin and brandy while naming his terms: ‘Now see here, young man –
twinkle, twinkle
– you can take your tracks across my land if we can agree a route and it won’t cost you a penny if you will firstly carry my freight for nothing and secondly put a loading station just where I want it so that I can also travel anywhere I want merely by flagging down one of your locomotives. Do you see, young man –
twinkle, twinkle
– I go free and my freight goes free. Do we have an accord?’

Moist looked out of the wonderful mullioned windows at the smoke beyond the ancient trees and said, ‘What exactly
is
your freight, sir?’

The old man, all beautiful long white hair and ditto beard, said, ‘Well, now, since you ask, it’s iron ore with a certain amount of lead and zinc. Oh dear, I see your glass is empty again. I must insist you have another brandy – it’s such a cold day, is it not?
Twinkle
,
twinkle
.’

Moist smiled and said, ‘Well, your lordship, you are a tough bargainer and no mistaking –
twinkle, twinkle, TWINKLE.
Since our project is
very
heavy when it comes to metals, we could perhaps do business? That is to say if our surveyors don’t come up with any problems, such as swampy ground and suchlike.’

‘Well, Mister Moist, since you have drunk every last drop of brandy I have pressed on you without appearing to be the least bit intoxicated, I must consider you a man after my own heart –
twinkle, twinkle
.’

And here Moist definitely detected the subtle signs of intoxication as the old man said, ‘I have to tell you that yesterday I was contacted by a man who said he represented the up-and-coming Big Cabbage Railway Company.’

Moist knew about them, yes, they were a company all right, but they didn’t yet have a single engine or anybody as skilful as Simnel to tame the raw steam. He rather suspected that a lot of money
would go their way from the gullible and then, when there was enough, the bright office would be empty and the gentlemen concerned, with different moustaches, would be legging it somewhere else to start up
another
railway company. Part of him longed to be one of them and then he thought, I
am
one of them, only this one has to work.