It was an effort, even for a human. But there was a snap loud enough to be heard even in the bushes, and then a long drawn-out clinking noise as the chain fell away.
Dorcas groaned. He'd had great hopes for that chain. It was the Cat's; at least, it was in a big yellow box bolted to part of the Cat, so presumably it had belonged to the Cat. But it had been the padlock that had broken, not the chain. Dorcas felt oddly proud about that.
"I don't understand it," Grimma muttered. "They can see they're not wanted, so why are they so stupid?"
"It's not as if there aren't masses of stone around," agreed Sacco.
The human pulled at the gate and swung it enough to allow itself inside.
"It's going to the manager's office," said Sacco.
"It's going to make noises in the telephone."
"No, it's not," Dorcas prophesied.
"But it will be ringing up Order," said Sacco. "It'll be saying, in Human, I mean, it'll be saying, Some of Our Wheels Have Gone Flat."
"No," said Dorcas, "It'll be saying, Why Doesn't the Telephone Work?"
"Why doesn't the telephone work?" said Nooty.
"Because I know which wires to cut," said Dorcas. "Look, it's coming back out."
They watched it walk around the sheds. The snow had covered the nomes' sad attempts at cultivation. There were plenty of nome tracks, though, like little bird trails in the snow. The human didn't notice them. Humans hardly ever noticed anything.
"Trip wires," said Grimma.
"What?" said Dorcas.
"Trip wires. We should put trip wires down. The bigger they are," said Grimma, "the harder they fall."
"Not on us, I hope," said Dorcas.
"No. We could put more nails down," said Grimma.
"Good grief."
The humans clustered around the stricken truck.
Then they appeared to reach a decision and walked back to the Land-Rover. They got in. It couldn't go forward, but reversed slowly down the dirt road, turned around in a field gateway, and headed back to the main road. The big truck was left alone.
Dorcas breathed out.
"I was afraid one of them would stay," he said.
"They'll come back," said Grimma. "You've always said it. Humans'll come back and mend the wheels or whatever it is they do."
"Then we'd better get on with it," said Dorcas.
"Come on, everybody."
He stood up and trotted toward the road. To Sacco's surprise, Dorcas was whistling under his breath.
"Now, the important thing is to make sure they can't move it," he said as they ran to keep up. "If they can't move it, it means it stays blocking the dirt road. And if it stays blocking the dirt road, they can't get any more machines in."
"Good thinking," said Grimma, in a slightly puzzled voice.
"We must immobilize it," said Dorcas. "We'll take out the battery first. No electricity, no go."
"Right," said Sacco.
"It's a big square thing," said Sacco, "It'll need eight of you at least. Don't drop it, whatever you do."
"Why not?" said Grimma. "We want to smash it, don't we?"
"Er. Er. Er," said Dorcas urgently, like a motor trying to get started. "No, because, because it could be dangerous. Yes. Dangerous. Yes. Because, because, because of the acid and whatnot. You must take it out very carefully, and I'll find somewhere safe to put it. Yes. Very safe. Off you go now. Two men to a wrench."
They trotted off.
"What else can we do?" said Grimma.
"We'd better drain the gas out," said Dorcas firmly as they walked under the shadow of the truck. It was much smaller than the one that had brought them out of the Store, but still quite big enough. He wandered around until he was under the enormous swelling bulk of the gas tank.
Four of the young nomes had dragged an empty can out of the bushes. Dorcas called them over and pointed to the tank above them.
"There must be a nut on there somewhere," he said. "It'll be to let the stuff out. Get a wrench around it. Make sure the can's underneath it first!"
They nodded enthusiastically and got to work.
Nomes are good climbers and remarkably strong for their size.
"And try not to spill any, please!" Dorcas shouted up after them.
"I don't see why that matters," said Grimma, behind him. "All we want to do is get it out of the truck. Where it goes doesn't matter, does it?"
She gave him another thoughtful look. Dorcas blinked back at her, his mind racing.
"Ah," he said. "Ah. Ah. Because. Becausebecausebecause. Ah. Because it's dangerous stuff. We don't want it polluting things, do we? Best to put it carefully in a can and –"
"Keep it safe?" said Grimma suspiciously.
"Right! Right," said Dorcas, who was starting to sweat. "Good idea. Now let's just go over here..." He led Grimma away.
There was sudden rush of air and a thump from right behind them. The truck's battery landed where they had been standing.
"Sorry, Dorcas," Sacco called down. "It was a lot heavier than we thought. It got away from us."
"You idiots!" Grimma shouted.
"Yes, you idiots!" shouted Dorcas. "You might have damaged it! Just you come down here right now and get it into the hedge, quickly!"
"He might have damaged us!" said Grimma.
"Yes. Yes. Yes, that's what I meant, of course," said Dorcas vaguely. "You wouldn't mind organizing them a bit, would you? They're good boys, but always a little too enthusiastic, if you know what I mean."
He wandered off into the shadow, his head tilted backward.
"Well!" said Grimma. She looked around at Sacco and his friends, who were sheepishly climbing down again.
"Don't just stand there," she said. "Get it into the hedge. Hasn't Dorcas told you about using levers? Very important things. It's amazing what you can do with levers. We used them a lot on the Long Drive..."
Her voice trailed off. She turned and looked at the distant figure of Dorcas and her eyes narrowed.
The cunning old devil is up to something, she thought.
"Oh, just get on with it," she said, and ran after Dorcas.
He was standing under the truck's engine, staring up intently into the masses of rusting pipework. As she came up she distinctly heard him say, "Now, what else do we need?"
"What do you mean, need?" said Grimma quietly.
"Oh, to help the Ca –" Dorcas stopped, and turned around slowly. "I mean, what else do we need to do to make the thing totally immobile," he said stonily. "That was what I meant."
"You're not planning to drive this truck, are you?" said Grimma.
"Don't be silly. Where'd we go? It'd never get across the fields to the barn."
"Well. All right, then."
"I just want to have a look around it. Time spent collecting knowledge is never wasted," said Dorcas primly. He stepped out into the light on the other side of the truck and looked up.
"Well, well," he said.
"What is it?"
"They left the door open. I suppose they thought it was all right because they'd be coming back."
Grimma followed his gaze. The truck's door was slightly ajar.
Dorcas looked around at the hedge behind them.
"Help me find a big enough stick," he said. "I reckon we could climb up there and have a look around."
"A look around? What do you expect to find?"
"You never know till you've looked," said Dorcas philosophically. He peered back underneath the truck.
"How are you all doing under there? We need a hand here."
Sacco staggered up. "We managed to get the battery thing behind the hedge," he said, "and the can's nearly full. Smells horrible. There's still lots coming out."
"Can you get the screw back in?"
"Nooty tried and she got all covered in yuk."
"Let it go on the road, then," said Dorcas.
"Hang on, you said that would be dangerous," said Grimma. "It's dangerous until you've filled the can up, is it,
and then not dangerous at all?"
"Look, you wanted me to stop the truck and I've stopped the truck," said Dorcas. "So just shut up, will you?"
Grimma looked at him in horror.
"What did you say?" she said.
Dorcas swallowed. Oh, well. If you were going to get shouted at, you might as well get your money's worth.
"I said just shut up," he said quietly. "I don't want to be rude, but you do go on at people. I'm sorry, but that's how it is. I'm helping you. I'm not asking you to help me, but at least you can let me get on with things instead of badgering me the whole time. And you never say please or thank you, either. People are a little like machines," he added solemnly, while her face went redder, "and words like please and thank you are just like grease. They make them work better. Is that all right?" He turned to the boys, who were looking embarrassed.
"Find a stick long enough to reach up to the cab," he said. "Please."
They fell over themselves to obey.
9
III. The younger nomes spoke, saying, Would that we were the nomes our fathers were, to ride upon the Truck, and what was it like.
IV. And Dorcas said, It was scary.
V. That was what it was like.
From the Book of Nome, Strange Frogs II, v. III–V
It was pretty much like the cab of the truck that had brought them from the Store. It brought back old memories.
"Wow!" said Sacco, "And we all drove one of these?"
"Seven hundred of us," said Dorcas proudly. "Your dad was one of them. You were in the back with your mothers. All you lads were."
"I'm not a lad," said Nooty.
"Sorry," said Dorcas. "Slip of the tongue. In my day girls stayed at home most of the time. Not that I've got anything at all against them getting out and about a bit now," he added hurriedly, not wanting another Grimma on his hands. "I'm not against that at all."
"I wish I'd been older on the Drive," said Nooty.
"It must have been amazing."
"It terrified the life out of me," said Dorcas.
The others wandered around the cab like tourists in a cathedral, gawking. Nooty tried to press a pedal.
"Amazing," she said, under her breath.
"Sacco, you get up there and take those keys out," said Dorcas. "The rest of you, no lollygagging. Those humans could be back anytime. Nooty, stop making those brrrm-brrrm noises. I'm sure nice girls shouldn't make those kind of noises," he added lamely.
Sacco swarmed up the steering wheel post and wrestled the keys out of the ignition while the rest of the boys poked around in the cab.
Grimma wasn't with them. She hadn't wanted to come up into the cab. She'd gone very quiet, in fact. She'd stayed down in the dirt road with a sullen look on her face.
But it had needed saying, Dorcas told himself.
He looked around the cab. Let's see, he thought... we've got the battery, we've got the fuel, was there anything else the Cat needs?
"Come on, everyone," he called, "Let's be getting out of here. Nooty, stop trying to move things all the time. It'd take all of you to shift the gear lever. Come on, before the humans come back."
He made his way to the door and heard a click behind him.
"I said come on. What do you think you 're doing?"
The young nomes stared at him, wide-eyed.
"We're seeing if we can move the gear lever, Dorcas," said Nooty, "If you press this knob you can –
"Don't press the knob! Don't press the knob!"
The first inkling Grimma had that something was going wrong was a nasty little crunching sound and a change in the light.
The truck was moving. Not very fast, because the two front tires were flat. But the dirt road was steep. It was moving all right, and just because it had started off slowly didn't mean there wasn't something huge and unstoppable about it.
She stared at it in horror.
The dirt road ran between high banks all the way down to the big highway – and the railroad.
"I said don't press it! Did I say press it? I said don't press it!"
The terrified nomes stared it him, their open mouths a row of Os.
"It's not the gear lever! It's the hand brake, you idiots!"
Now they could all hear the crunching noise and feel the slight vibration.
"Er," said Sacco, his voice shaking, "What's a hand brake, Dorcas?"
"It keeps it stopped on hills and things! Don't just stand there! Help me push it back up!"
The cab was, very gently, beginning to sway from side to side. The truck was definitely moving.
The hand brake wasn't. Dorcas heaved on it until blue and purple spots flashed in front of his eyes.
"I just gave the knob on the end a push!" Nooty babbled. "I only wanted to see what it did!"
"Yes, yes, all right..." Dorcas stared around. What he needed was a lever. What he needed was about fifty nomes. What he needed most of all was not to be here.
He staggered across the bouncing floor to the doorway and cautiously peered out. The hedge was moving past quite gently, as if it wasn't in a particular hurry to get anywhere, but the surface of the road already had a blurred look.
We could probably jump, he thought. And if we're lucky, we won't break anything. If we're even luckier, we'll avoid the wheels. How lucky do I feel, right at this minute?
Not very.
Sacco joined him.
"Perhaps if we took a good running jump –" he began.
There was a thump as the truck hit the bank, heeled over, and then bounced back onto the road.
The nomes struggled to their feet.
"On the other hand, perhaps not a good idea," said Sacco. "What shall we do now, Dorcas?"
"Just hang on," said Dorcas. "I think the banks will keep it on the road and I suppose it'll just roll to a halt eventually." He sat down suddenly as the truck bounced off the bank again. "You wanted to know what a truck ride was like. Well, now you know."
There was another thump. The branch of a tree caught the door, swung it open and then, with a terrible metallic noise, ripped it off.
"Was it like this?" shouted Nooty, above the noise. To Dorcas's amazement, now that the immediate danger was over, she seemed to be quite enjoying it. We're bringing up new nomes, he thought. They're not so scared of things as we were. They know about a bigger world.
He coughed.
"Well, apart from its being in the dark and we could see where we were going, yes," he said. "I think we all ought to hang on to something. Just in case it gets bumpy."
The truck rolled down the dirt road and onto the highway. A car skidded into the hedge to avoid it; another truck managed to stop at the end of four long streaks of scorched rubber.
None of the nomes in the cab noticed this at the time. All they felt was another thump as the truck bounced gently over the far side of the highway and down the dirt road that ran toward the railroad.
Where, with red lights flashing, the barriers were coming down.
Sacco peered out of the stricken doorway.
"We've just crossed over a paved road," he said.
"Ah," said Dorcas.
"I just saw a car run into the back of another car and a truck ended up going sideways," Sacco went on.
"Ah. Lucky we got over, then," said Dorcas.
"There's some dangerous drivers around."
The gritty sound of the flat tires rolling over gravel gradually slowed down. There was the snap of something breaking behind the truck, a couple of bumps, and then another thump that brought them to a halt.
And a low, booming noise.
Nomes hear things differently from humans, and the shrill clanging of the crossing warning alarms sounded, to them, like the doleful tolling of an ancient bell.
"We've stopped," said Dorcas. He thought, We could have pressed the brake pedal. We could have looked for something to press it with and pressed it. I must be getting too old. Oh, well. "Come on, no hanging around. We can jump out. You youngsters can, a
nyway."
"Why? What are you going to do?" said Sacco.
"I'm going to wait until you've all jumped out, and then I'm going to tell you to catch me," said Dorcas pleasantly. "I'm not as young as I was.
Now, off you go."
They got down awkwardly, hanging on to the edge of the running board and dropping onto the road.
Dorcas lowered himself gingerly onto the running board and sat with his legs dangling over the drop.
It looked a long way down.
Below him, Nooty prodded Sacco respectfully on the arm.
"Er. Sacco," she said, nervously.
"What is it?"
"Look at that metal rail thing over there."
"Well, what about it?"
"There's another one over there," said Nooty, pointing.
"Yes, I can see," said Sacco testily. "What about them? They're not doing anything."
"We're right in between them," said Nooty. "I just thought I should, you know, point it out. And there's that bell thing ringing."
"Yes, I can hear it," said Sacco irritably. "I wish it would stop."
"I just wondered why it was."
Sacco shrugged. "Who knows why anything happens?" he said. "Come on, Dorcas. Please. We haven't got all day."
"I'm just composing myself," said Dorcas quietly.
Nooty wandered miserably away from the group and looked down at one of the rails. It was bright and shiny.
And it seemed to be singing.
She bent closer. Yes, it was definitely making a faint humming sound. Which was odd. Bits of metal didn't normally make any noise at all. Not by themselves, anyway.
As she stared at the truck stuck between the flashing lights and the shiny rails, the world seem to change slightly and a horrible idea formed in her head.
"Sacco!" she quavered. "Sacco, we're right on the railroad line, Sacco!"
Something a long way off made a deep, mournful noise.
Whoo-oooo...
From the gateway of the quarry Grimma had a good view of the land all the way to the airport.
She saw the train, and the truck.
The train had seen the truck too. It suddenly started to make the long drawn-out screaming noise of metal in distress.
The Bromeliad Trilogy Page 22