"You've got to try," he said simply. "Come on, Pion. What are you watching? Geese?"
Pion was staring at the sky.
"There's a dot up there," said Gurder, squinting.
"It's probably a bird," said Angalo.
"Doesn't look like a bird."
"Then it's a plane."
"Doesn't look like a plane."
Now all three of them were staring upward, their upturned faces forming a triangle.
There was a black dot up there.
"You don't think he actually managed it, do you?" said Angalo, uncertainly.
What had been a dot was now a small dark circle.
"It's not moving, though," said Gurder.
"It's not moving sideways, anyway," said Angalo, still speaking very slowly. "It's moving more sort of down."
What had been a small dark circle was a larger dark circle, with just a suspicion of smoke or steam around its edges.
"It might be some sort of weather," said Angalo. "You know – special Floridian weather?"
"Oh, yeah? One great big hailstone, right? It's the Ship! Coming for us!"
It was a lot bigger now, and yet, and yet... still a very long way off.
"If it could come for us just a little way away I wouldn't mind," Gurder quavered. "I wouldn't mind walking a little way."
"Yeah," said Angalo, beginning to look desperate. "It's not so much coming as, as..."
"Dropping," said Gurder.
He looked at Angalo.
"Shall we run?" he said.
"It's got to be worth a try," said Angalo.
"Where shall we run to?"
"Let's just follow Pion, shall we? He started running a while ago."
Masklin would be the first to admit that he wasn't too familiar with forms of transport, but what they all seemed to have in common was a front, which was in front, and a back, which wasn't. The whole point was that the front was where they went forward from.
The thing dropping out of the sky was a disc – just a top connected to a bottom, with edges around the sides. It didn't make any noise, but it seemed to be impressing the humans no end.
"That's it?" he said.
"Yes."
"Oh."
And then things seemed to come into focus.
The Ship wasn't big. It was so big, it needed a new word. It wasn't dropping through the thin wisps of cloud up there, it was simply pushing them aside. Just when you thought you'd got some idea of the size, a cloud would stream past and the perspective would come back. There had to be a special word for something as big as that. "Is it going to crash?" he whispered.
"I shall land it on the scrub," said the Thing. "I don't want to frighten the humans."
"Run!"
"What do you think I'm doing?"
"It's still right above us!"
"I'm running! I'm running! I can't run any faster!"
A shadow fell across the three running nomes.
"All the way to Floridia to be squashed under our own Ship," moaned Angalo. "You never really believed in it, did you? Well, now you're going to believe in it really hard!"
The shadow deepened. They could see it racing across the ground ahead of them – gray around the edges, spreading into the darkness of night. Their own private night.
"The others are still out there somewhere," said Masklin.
"Ah," said the Thing. "I forgot."
"You're not suppose to forget things like that!"
"I've been very busy lately. I can't think of everything. Just nearly everything."
"Just don't squash anyone!"
"I shall stop it before it lands. Don't worry."
The humans were all talking at once. Some of them had started to run toward the falling Ship. Some were running away from it.
Masklin risked a glance at Grandson Richard's face. It was watching the Ship with a strange, rapt expression.
As Masklin stared, the big eyes swiveled slowly sideways. The head turned around. Grandson Richard, 39, stared down at the nome on his shoulder.
For the second time, the human saw him. And this time, there was nowhere to run.
Masklin rapped the Thing on its lid.
"Can you slow my voice down?" he said quickly. An amazed expression was forming on the human's face.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you just repeat what I say, but slowed down. And louder. So it – so he can understand it?"
"You want to communicate? With a human?"
"Yes! Can you do it?"
"I strongly advise against it! It could be very dangerous!"
Masklin clenched his fists. "Compared to what, Thing? Compared to what? How much more dangerous than not communicating, Thing? Do it! Right now! Tell him... tell him we're not trying to hurt any humans! Right now! I can see his hand moving already! Do it!" He held the box right up to Grandson Richard's ear.
The Thing started to speak in the low, slow tones of human speech.
It seemed to go on for a long time.
The human's expression froze.
"What did you say? What did you say?" said Masklin.
"I said. If he harms you in any way I shall explode and blow his head off," said the Thing.
"You didn't!"
"I did"
"You call that communicating?"
"Yes. I call it very effective communicating."
"But it's a dreadful thing to say! Anyway... you never told me you could explode!"
"I can't. But he doesn't know that. He's only human," said the Thing.
The Ship slowed its fall and drifted down across the scrubland until it met its own shadow. Beside it, the tower where the shuttle had been launched looked like a pin alongside a very large black plate.
"You landed it on the ground! I told you not to!" said Masklin.
"It's not on the ground. It is floating just above the ground."
"It looks as though it's on the ground to me!"
"It is floating just above it," repeated the Thing patiently.
Grandson Richard was looking down the length of his nose at Masklin. He looked puzzled.
"What makes it float?" Masklin demanded.
The Thing told him.
"Auntie who? Who's she? There are relatives on board?"
"Not auntie. Anti. Antigravity."
"But there's no flames or smoke!"
"Flames and smoke are not essential."
Vehicles were screaming toward the bulk of the Ship.
"Um. Exactly how far off the ground did you stop it?" Masklin inquired.
"Four inches seemed adequate."
Angalo lay with his face pressed into the sandy soil.
To his amazement, he was still alive. Or at least, if he was dead, then he was still able to think. Perhaps he was dead, and this was wherever you went afterward.
It seemed pretty much like where he'd been before.
Let's see, now. He'd looked up at the great thing dropping out of the sky right toward his head, and had flung himself down expecting at any second to become just a little greasy mark in a great big hole.
No, he probably hadn't died. He'd have remembered something important like that.
"Gurder?" he ventured.
"Is that you?" said Gurder's voice.
"I hope so. Pion?"
"Pion!" said Pion, somewhere in the darkness.
Angalo pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.
"Any idea where we are?" he said.
"In the Ship?" suggested Gurder.
"Don't think so," said Angalo. "There's soil here, and grass and stuff."
"Then where did the Ship go? Why's it all dark?"
Angalo brushed the dirt off his coat. "Dunno. Maybe... maybe it missed us. Maybe we were knocked out, and now it's nighttime?"
"I can see a bit of light around the horizon," said Gurder. "That's not right, is it? That's not how nights are supposed to be."
Angalo looked around. There was a line of light in the distance. And there was also a str
ange sound, so quiet that you could miss it but that, once you had noticed it, also seemed to fill up the world.
He stood up to get a better view.
There was a faint thump.
"Ouch!"
Angalo reached up to rub his head. His hand touched metal. Crouching a little, he risked turning his head to see what it was he'd hit. He got very thoughtful for a while. Then he said, "Gurder, you're going to find this amazingly hard to believe."
"This time," said Masklin to the Thing, "I want you to translate exactly, do you understand? Don't try to frighten him!"
Humans had surrounded the Ship. At least, they were trying to surround it, but you'd need an awful lot of humans to surround something the size of the Ship. So they were just surrounding it in places.
More trucks were arriving, many of them with sirens blaring. Grandson Richard, 39, had been left standing by himself, watching his own shoulder nervously.
"Besides, we owe him something," said Masklin. "We used his satellite. And we stole things."
"You said you wanted to do it your way. No help from humans, you said," said the Thing.
"It's different now. There is the Ship," said Masklin. "We've made it. We're not begging anymore."
"May I point out that you're sitting on his shoulder, not him on yours," said the Thing.
"Never mind that," said Masklin. "Tell it – I mean, ask him to walk toward the Ship. And say 'please.' And say that we don't want anyone to get hurt. Including me," he added.
Grandson Richard's reply seemed to take a long time. But he did start to walk toward the crowds around the Ship.
"What did he say?" said Masklin, hanging on tightly to the sweater.
"I don't believe it," said the Thing.
"He doesn't believe me?"
"He said his grandfather always talked about the little people, but he never believed it until now. He said, Are you like the ones in the old Store?"
Masklin's mouth dropped open. Grandson Richard, 39, was watching him intently.
"Tell him yes," Masklin croaked.
"Very well. But I do not think it'll be a good idea."
The Thing boomed. Grandson Richard rumbled a reply.
"He says his grandfather made jokes about little people in the Store," said the Thing. "He used to say they brought him luck."
Masklin felt the horrible sensation in his stomach that meant the world was changing again, just when he thought he understood it.
"Did his grandfather ever see a nome?" he said.
"He says no. But he says that when his grandfather and his grandfather's brother were starting the Store, and stayed late every night to do the office work, they used to hear sounds in the walls and they used to tell each other there were little Store people. It was a sort of joke. He says that when he was small, his grandfather used to tell him about little people who came out at night to play with the toys."
"But the Store nomes never did things like that!" said Masklin.
"I didn't say the stories were true."
The Ship was a lot closer now. There didn't seem to be any doors or windows anywhere. It was as featureless as an egg.
Masklin's mind was in turmoil. He'd always believed that humans were quite intelligent. After all, nomes were very intelligent. Rats were quite intelligent. And foxes were intelligent, more or less. There ought to be enough intelligence sloshing around in the world for humans to have some too. But this was something more than intelligence.
He remembered a book called Gulliver's Travels. It had been a big surprise to the nomes. There had never been an island of small people. He was certain of that. It was a – a – a made-up thing. There had been lots of books in the Store that were like that. They'd caused no end of problems for the nomes. For some reason, humans needed things that weren't true.
They never really thought nomes existed, he thought, but they wanted to believe that we did.
"Tell him," he said, "tell him I must get into the Ship."
Grandson Richard, 39, whispered. It was like listening to a gale.
"He says there are too many people."
"Why are all the humans around it?" said Masklin, bewildered. "Why aren't they frightened?"
Grandson Richard's reply was another gale.
"He says they think some creatures from another world will come out and talk to them."
"Why?"
"I don't know," said the Thing. "Perhaps they don't want to be alone."
"But there's no one in it! It's our Ship –" Masklin began.
There was a wail. The crowd put their hands over their ears.
Lights appeared on the darkness of the Ship. They twinkled all over the hull in patterns that raced backward and forward and disappeared. There was another wail.
"There isn't anyone in it, is there?" said Masklin. "No nomes were left on it in hibernation or anything?"
High up on the Ship a square hole opened. There was a whiffling noise and a beam of red light shot out and set fire to a patch of scrub several hundred yards away.
People started to run.
The Ship rose a few feet, wobbling alarmingly. It drifted sideways a little. Then it went straight up so fast that it was just a blur and jerked to a halt high over the crowd. And then it turned over. And then it went on its edge for a while.
It floated back down again and landed, more or less. That is, one side touched the ground and the other rested on the air, on nothing.
The Ship spoke, loudly.
To the humans it must have sounded like a high-pitched chattering.
What it actually said was: "Sorry! Sorry! Is this a microphone? Can't find the button that opens the door... Let's try this one..."
Another square hole opened. Brilliant blue light flooded out.
The voice boomed out across the country again.
"Got it!" There was the distorted thud-thud of someone not certain if their microphone was working, and tapping it experimentally. "Masklin, are you out there?"
"That's Angalo!" said Masklin. "No one else drives like that! Thing, tell Grandson Richard, 39, I must get on the Ship! Please!"
The human nodded.
Humans were milling around the base of the Ship. The doorway was too high up for them to reach.
With Masklin hanging on grimly, Grandson Richard, 39, pushed his way through the throng.
The ship wailed again.
"Er," came Angalo's hugely amplified voice, apparently talking to someone else, "I'm not sure about this switch, but maybe it's... Certainly I'm going to press it, why shouldn't I press it? It's next to the door one, it must be safe. Look, shut up..."
A silver ramp wound out of the doorway. It looked big enough for humans.
"See? See?" said Angalo's voice.
"Thing, can you speak to Angalo?" said Masklin. "Can you tell him I'm out here, trying to get to the Ship?"
"No. He appears to be randomly pressing buttons. It is to be hoped that he does not press the wrong ones."
"I thought you could tell the Ship what to do!" said Masklin.
The Thing managed to sound shocked. "Not when a nome is in it," it said. "I can't tell it not to do what a nome tells it to do. That's what being a machine is all about."
Grandson Richard, 39, was shoving his way through the pushing, shouting mass of humans, but it was hard going.
Masklin sighed.
"Ask Grandson Richard, 39, to put me down," he said. Then he added, "And say thank you. Say it... it would have been nice to talk more."
The Thing did the translation.
Grandson Richard, 39, looked surprised. The Thing spoke again. Then he reached up a hand toward Masklin.
If he had to make a list of terrifying moments, Masklin would have put this one at the top. He'd faced foxes, he'd helped to drive the Truck, he'd flown on a goose – but none of them were half so bad as letting a human being actually touch him. The huge whorled fingers uncurled and passed on either side of his waist. He shut his eyes.
Angalo's booming v
oice said, "Masklin? Masklin? If anything bad's happened to you, there's going to be trouble."
Grandson Richard's finger gripped Masklin lightly, as though the human was holding something very fragile. Masklin felt himself being slowly lowered toward the ground.
He opened his eyes. There was a forest of human legs around him.
He looked up into Grandson Richard's huge face, and trying to make his voice as deep and slow as possible, said the last word any nome said to any human:
"Good-bye."
Then he ran through the maze of feet.
Several humans with official-looking trousers and big boots were standing at the bottom of the ramp. Masklin scurried between them and ran on upward.
Ahead of him blue light shone out of the open hatchway. As he ran he saw two dots appear on the lip of the entrance.
The ramp was long. Masklin hadn't slept for hours. He wished he'd got some sleep on the bed when the humans were studying; it had looked quite comfortable.
Suddenly, all his legs wanted to do was go somewhere close and lie down.
He staggered to the top of the ramp and the dots became the heads of Gurder and Pion. They reached out and pulled him into the Ship.
He turned around and looked down into a sea of human faces, below him. He'd never looked down on a human before.
They probably couldn't even see him. They're waiting for the little green men, he thought.
"Are you all right?" said Gurder urgently. "Did they do anything to you?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," murmured Masklin. "No one hurt me."
"You look dreadful."
"We should have talked to them, Gurder," said Masklin. "They need us."
"Are you sure you're all right?" said Gurder, peering anxiously at him.
Masklin's head felt full of cotton wool. "You know how you believed in Arnold Bros. (est. 1905)?" he managed to say.
"Yes," said Gurder.
Masklin gave him a mad, triumphant grin.
"Well, he believed in you too! How about that?"
And Masklin folded up, very gently.
11
THE SHIP: The machine used by nomes to leave Earth. We don't yet know everything about it, but since it was built by nomes using Science, we will.
From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
by Angalo de Haberdasheri.
The ramp wound in. The doorway shut. The Ship rose in the air until it was high above the buildings.
The Bromeliad Trilogy Page 38