“Well, my bit I’m sure is safe,” said Dorcas. “The bit above us was put together by humans, though, and you never can tell. Hold tight, please. Going up!”
There was a clang above them and a slight jerk as they began to rise.
“Good, isn’t it,” said Dorcas. “Took me ages to bypass all the switches. You’d have thought they’d notice, wouldn’t you? They press the button to go down, but if I want to go up, we go up. I used to worry that the humans would think it odd that these lifts seemed to go up and down by themselves, but they seem powerful dense. Here we are.”
The elevator stopped with another jerk, leaving the nome’s basket level with another underfloor gap.
“Electrical and Domestic Appliances,” said Dorcas. “Just a little place I call my own. No one bothers me here, not even the Abbot. I’m the only one who knows how things work, see.”
It was a place of wires. They ran under the floor in every direction, great bundles of the things. A few young nomes were taking something to pieces in the middle of it all.
“Radio,” said Dorcas. “Amazing thing. Trying to figure out how it talks.” He rummaged among piles of thick paper, pulled out a sheet, and sheepishly passed it to Masklin.
It showed a small pinkish cone, with a little tuft of hair on top.
The nomes had never seen a limpet. If they had, they’d have known that this drawing looked exactly like one. Except for the hair.
“Very nice,” said Masklin, uncertainly. “What is it?”
“Um. It was my idea of what an Outsider would look like, you see,” said Dorcas.
“What, with pointy heads?”
“The Rain, you see. In the old legends of the time before the Store. Rain. Water dropping out of the sky all the time. It’d need to run off. And the sloping sides are so the Wind won’t keep knocking it over. I only had the old stories to go on, you see.”
“It hasn’t even got any eyes!”
Dorcas pointed. “Yes, it has. Tiny ones. Tucked in under the hair so they won’t get blinded by the Sun. That’s a big bright light in the sky,” Dorcas added helpfully.
“We’ve seen it,” said Masklin.
“What’s he sayin’?” said Torrit.
“He’s saying you ought to of looked like that,” said Granny Morkie sarcastically.
“My head ain’t that sharp!”
“You’re right there, you,” said Granny.
“I think you’ve got it a bit wrong,” said Masklin slowly. “It’s not like that at all. Hasn’t anyone been to look?”
“I saw the big door open once,” said Dorcas. “The one down in the garage, I mean. But there was just a blinding white light outside.”
“I expect it would seem like it, if you spend all your time in this gloom,” said Masklin.
Dorcas pulled up an empty cotton reel. “You must tell me about it,” he said. “Everything you can remember about the Outside.”
In Torrit’s lap, the Thing began to flash another green light.
One of the young nomes brought some food after a while. And they talked, and argued, and often contradicted one another, while Dorcas listened, and asked questions.
He was, he told them, an inventor. Especially of things to do with electricity. Back in the early days, when the nomes first began to tap into the Store’s wiring, a good many had been killed. They’d found safer ways to do it now, but it was still a bit of a mystery and there weren’t many who were keen to get close to it. That’s why the leaders of the big families, and even the Abbot of the Stationeri himself, left him alone. It was always a good idea, he said, to be good at something other people couldn’t or didn’t want to do. So they put up with him sometimes wondering, out loud, about the Outside. Provided he wasn’t too loud.
“I shan’t remember it all,” he sighed. “What was the other light, the one that you get at Closing Time? Sorry, I mean bite.”
“Night,” corrected Masklin. “It’s called the moon.”
“Moon,” said Dorcas, rolling the word around his mouth. “But it’s not as bright as the sun? Strange, really. It’s be more sensible to have the brightest light at night, not during the day, when you can see anyway. I suppose you’ve no idea why, have you?”
“It just happens,” said Masklin.
“I’d give anything to see for myself. I used to go and watch the trucks when I was a lad, but I never had the courage to get on one.” He leaned closer.
“I reckon,” he said, “that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) put us in the Store to find out things. To learn about it. Otherwise, why have we got brains? What do you think?”
Masklin was rather flattered at being asked, but he was interrupted as soon as he opened his mouth. “People keep talking about Arnold Bros (est. 1905),” said Grimma. “No one actually says who he is, though.”
Dorcas leaned back. “Oh, he created the Store. In 1905, you know. The Bargain Basement, Consumer Accounts, and everything between. I can’t deny it. I mean, someone must have done it. But I keep telling people, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about—”
The green light on the Thing went off. Its little spinning cup vanished. It made a faint whirring sound, such as a machine would make to clear its throat.
“I am monitoring telephonic communications,” it said.
The nomes looked at one another.
“Well, that’s nice,” said Grimma. “Isn’t that nice, Masklin?”
“I have urgent information to impart to the leaders of this community. Are you aware that you are living in a constructed entity with a limited life?”
“Fascinating,” said Dorcas. “All those words. You could imagine you could almost understand what it’s saying. There’s things up there”— he jerked his thumb to the floorboards above them—“that’re just like that. Radios, they’re called. With pictures, too. Amazing.”
“Vitally important I communicate information of utmost significance to community leaders, concerning imminent destruction of this artifact,” intoned the Thing.
“I’m sorry,” said Masklin. “Could you try that again?”
“You do not comprehend?”
“I don’t know what ‘comprehend’ means.”
“Evidently language has changed in ways I do not understand.”
Masklin tried to look helpful.
“I will endeavor to clarify my statement,” said the Thing. A few lights flashed.
“Jolly good,” said Masklin.
“Big-fella Store him go Bang along plenty soon enough chop-chop?” said the Thing, hopefully.
The nomes watched one another’s faces. There didn’t seem to be any light dawning.
The Thing cleared its throat again. “Do you know the meaning of the word ‘destroyed’?” it said.
“Oh, yes,” said Dorcas.
“That’s what is going to happen to the Store. In twenty-one days.”
4
I. Woe unto you, Ironmongri and Haberdasheri; woe unto you, Millineri and Del Icatessen; woe unto you, Young Fashions, and unto you, you bandits of Corsetry. And even unto to you, Stationeri.
II. For the Store is but a Place inside the Outside.
III. Woe unto you, for Arnold Bros (est. 1905) has opened the Last Sale. Everything Must Go.
IV. But they mocked him and said, You are an Outsider, You don’t even Exist.
From The Book of Nome, Goods Inward v. I–IV
OVERHEAD THE HUMANS plodded through their slow and incomprehensible lives. Below, so that that the din was muffled by carpet and floorboards into a distant rumbling, the nomes straggled hurriedly along their dusty passageways.
“It couldn’t of meant it,” said Granny Morkie. “This place is too big. Place as big as this can’t be destroyed. Stands to reason.”
“I tole you, dint I?” panted Torrit, who always cheered up immensely at any news of devastation and terror. “They always said the Thing knows things. And don’t you go tellin’ me to shut up, you.”
“Why do we have to run?” said
Masklin. “I mean, twenty-one days is a long time.”
“Not in politics,” said Dorcas grimly.
“I thought this was the Store?”
Dorcas stopped so suddenly that Granny Morkie cannoned into the back of him.
“Look,” he said, with impatient patience, “what do you think nomes should do, eh, if the Store is destroyed?”
“Go outside, of—” Masklin began.
“But most of them don’t even believe the Outside really exists! Even I’m not quite sure about it, and I have an extremely intelligent and questioning mind! There isn’t anywhere to go. Do you understand me?”
“There’s masses of outside—”
“Only if you believe in it!”
“No, it’s really there!”
“I’m afraid people are more complicated than you think. But we ought to see the Abbot, anyway. Dreadful old tyrant, of course, but quite bright in his way. It’s just a rather stuffy way.” He looked hard at them.
“Possibly best if we don’t draw attention to ourselves,” he added. “People tend to leave me alone, but it’s not a wise thing for people to wander around outside their department without good reason. And since you haven’t got a department at all . . .”
He shrugged. He managed, in one shift of his shoulders, to hint at all the unpleasant things that could happen to departmentless wanderers.
It meant using the lift again. It led into a dusty underfloor area dimly lit by well-spaced, weak bulbs. No one seemed to be around. After the bustle of the other departments, it was almost unpleasantly quiet. Even quieter, Masklin thought, than the big fields. After all, they were meant to be quiet. The underfloor spaces should have nomes in them.
They all sensed it. They drew closer to one another.
“What dear little lights,” said Grimma, to break the silence. “Nome size. All different colors, look. And some of them flash on and off.”
“We steal boxes of ’em every year, around Christmas Fayre,” said Dorcas, without looking around. “Humans put them on trees.”
“Why?”
“Search me. To see ’em better, I suppose. You can never tell, with humans,” said Dorcas.
“But you know what trees are, then,” said Masklin. “I didn’t think you’d have them in the Store.”
“Of course I know,” said Dorcas. “Big green things with plastic prickles on. Some of ’em are made of tinsel. You can’t move for the damn things every Christmas Fayre, I told you.”
“The ones we have outside are huge,” Masklin ventured. “And they have these leaves, which fall off every year.”
Dorcas gave him an odd look.
“What do you mean, fall off?” he said.
“They just curl up and fall off,” said Masklin. The other nomes nodded. There were a lot of things lately they weren’t certain about, but they were experts on what happened to leaves every year.
“And this happens every year?” said Dorcas.
“Oh, yes.”
“Really?” said Dorcas. “Fascinating. And who sticks them back on?”
“No one,” said Masklin. “They just turn up again, eventually.”
“All by themselves?”
They nodded. When there’s one thing you’re certain of, you hang on to it. “They seem to,” said Masklin. “We’ve never really found out why. It just happens.”
The Store nome scratched his head. “Well, I don’t know,” he said uncertainly. “It sounds like very sloppy management to me. Are you sure—”
There were suddenly figures surrounding them. One minute dust heaps, the next minute people. The one right in front of the party had a beard, a patch over one eye, and a knife clutched in his teeth. It somehow made his grin so much worse.
“Oh, dear,” said Dorcas.
“Who’re they?” hissed Masklin.
“Bandits. That’s always a problem in Corsetry,” said Dorcas, raising his hands.
“What’s bandits?” said Masklin blankly.
“What’s Corsetry?” said Grimma.
Dorcas pointed a finger at the floorboards overhead. “It’s up there,” he said. “A department. Only no one’s really interested in it because there’s nothing in it of any use. It’s mainly pink,” he added. “Sometimes the elastic—”
“Orr ossessionz orr orr ife,” said the head bandit impatiently.
“Pardon?” said Grimma.
“I edd, orr ossessionz orr orr ife!”
“I think it’s the knife,” said Masklin. “I think we’d understand you if you took the knife out.”
The bandit glared at them with his one good eye, but took the knife blade out of his mouth.
“I said, your possessions or your life!” he repeated.
Masklin gave Dorcas a questioning look. The old nome waved his hands.
“He wants you to give him everything you have,” he said. “He won’t kill you, of course, but they can be rather unpleasant.”
The Outside nomes went into a huddle. This was something beyond their experience. The idea of stealing was a new one to them. Back home there had never been anyone to steal from. If it came to that, there had never been anything to steal.
“Don’t they understand plain Nome?” said the bandit.
Dorcas gave him a sheepish grin. “You’ll have to excuse them,” he said. “They’re new here.”
Masklin turned around.
“We’ve decided,” he said. “If it’s the same to you, we’ll keep what we have. Sorry.”
He gave Dorcas and the bandit a bright smile.
The bandit returned it. At least, he opened his mouth and showed a lot of teeth.
“Er,” said Dorcas, “you can’t say that, you know. You can’t say you don’t want to be robbed!” He saw Masklin’s look of complete bewilderment. “Robbed,” he repeated. “It means having your things taken away from you. You just can’t say you don’t want it to happen!”
“Why not?” said Grimma.
“Because—” The old nome hesitated. “I don’t know, really. Tradition, I suppose.”
The bandit chief tossed his knife from one hand to the other. “Tell you what I’ll do,” he said, “you being new and everything. We’ll hardly hurt you at all. Get them!”
Two bandits grabbed Granny Morkie.
This turned out to be a mistake. Her bony right hand flashed out and there were two ringing slaps.
“Cheeky!” she snapped as the nomes staggered sideways, clutching their ears.
A bandit who tried to hold old Torrit got a pointed elbow in his stomach. One waved a knife at Grimma, who caught his wrist; the knife dropped from his hand and he sank to his knees, making pathetic bubbling noises.
Masklin leaned down, grabbed a handful of the chief’s shirt in one hand, and lifted him up to eye level.
“I’m not sure we fully understand this custom,” he said. “But nomes shouldn’t hurt other nomes, don’t you think?”
“Ahahaha,” said the chief, nervously.
“So I think perhaps it would be a good idea if you go away, don’t you?”
He let go. The bandit scrabbled on the floor for his knife, gave Masklin another anxious grin, and ran for it. The rest of the band hurried after him, or at least limped fast.
Masklin turned to Dorcas, who was shaking with laughter.
“Well,” he said, “what was that all about?”
Dorcas leaned against a wall for support.
“You really don’t know, do you?” he said.
“No,” said Masklin patiently. “That’s why I asked, you see.”
“The Corsetri are bandits. They take things that don’t belong to them. They hide out in Corsetry because it’s more trouble than it’s worth to anyone to drag them out,” said Dorcas. “Usually they just try to frighten people. They’re really just a bit of a nuisance.”
“Why’d that one have his knife in his mouth?” said Grimma.
“It’s supposed to make him look tough and devil-may-care, I think.”
“I think it makes him look silly,” said Grimma flatly.
“He’ll feel the back of my hand if he comes back here,” said Granny Morkie.
“I don’t think they’ll be back. I think they were a bit shocked to have people hit them, in fact,” said Dorcas. He laughed. “You know, I’m really looking forward to seeing what effect you lot have on the Abbot. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like you. You’ll be like a— a—what’s that stuff you said there’s a lot of Outside?”
“Fresh air?” said Masklin.
“That’s right. Fresh air.”
And so they came, eventually, to the Stationeri.
Go to the Stationeri or go Outside, the Duke had said, meaning that he didn’t see a lot of difference between the two. And there was no doubt that the other great families distrusted the Stationeri, who they reckoned had strange and terrifying powers.
After all, they could read and write. Anyone who can tell you what a piece of paper is saying must be strange.
They also understood Arnold Bros (est. 1905)’s messages in the sky.
But it is very hard to meet someone who believes you don’t exist.
Masklin had always thought that Torrit looked old, but the Abbot looked so old that he must have been around to give Time itself a bit of a push. He walked with the aid of two sticks, and a couple of younger nomes hovered behind him in case he needed support. His face was a bag of wrinkles, out of which his eyes stared like two sharp black holes.
The tribe clustered up behind Masklin, as they always did now when they were worried.
The Abbot’s guest hall was an area walled with cardboard, near one of the lifts. Occasionally one went past, shaking down some dust.
The Abbot was helped to his chair and sat down slowly, while his assistants fussed around him. Then he leaned forward.
“Ah,” he said, “del Icatessen, isn’t it? Invented anything lately?”
“Not lately, my lord,” said Dorcas. “My lord, I have the honor to present to you—”
“I can’t see anyone,” said the Abbot, smoothly.
“Must be blind,” sniffed Granny.
“And I can’t hear anyone, either,” said the Abbot.
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