“Be quiet,” Dorcas hissed. “Someone’s told him about you! He won’t let himself see you! My lord,” he said loudly, turning back, “I bring strange news. The Store is going to be demolished!”
It didn’t have quite the effect Masklin had expected. The Stationeri priests behind the Abbot sniggered to themselves, and the Abbot permitted himself a faint smile.
“Dear me.” He said, “And when is this terrible event likely to occur?”
“In twenty-one days, my lord.”
“Well, then,” said the Abbot in a kindly voice. “You run along now and, afterward, tell us what it was like.”
This time the priests grinned.
“My lord, this is no—”
The Abbot raised a gnarled hand. “I’m sure you know a great deal about electricity, Dorcas, but you must know that every time there is a Grand Final Sale, excitable people say, ‘The end of the Store is nigh.’ And, strangely enough, life goes on.”
Masklin felt the Abbot’s gaze on him. For someone who was invisible, he seemed to be attracting considerable attention.
“My lord, it is rather more than that,” said Dorcas stiffly.
“Oh? Did the electricity tell you?” said the Abbot mockingly.
Dorcas nudged Masklin in the ribs. “Now,” he said.
Masklin stepped forward and put the Thing down on the floor.
“Now,” he whispered.
“Am I in the presence of community leaders?” asked the Thing.
“About as much as you ever will be,” said Dorcas. The Abbot stared at the box.
“I will use small words,” said the Thing. “I am the Flight Recording and Navigation Computer. A computer is a machine that thinks. Think, computer, think. See the computer think. I use electricity. Sometimes electricity can carry messages. I can hear the messages. I can under-stand the messages. Sometimes the messages go along wires called telephone wires. Sometimes they are in other computers. There is a computer in the Store. It pays humans their wages. I can hear it think. It thinks: No more Store soon, no more payroll, no more accounts. The telephone wires, they say, Is that Blackbury Demolition Co.? Can we discuss final arrangements for the demolition, all stock will be out by the twenty-first—”
“Very amusing,” said the Abbot. “How did you make it?”
“I didn’t make it, my lord. These people brought it here—”
“Which people?” said the Abbot, looking straight through Masklin.
“What happens if I go and pull his nose?” whispered Granny, in a hoarse whisper.
“It would be extremely painful,” said Dorcas.
“Good.”
“I mean for you.”
The Abbot rose hesitantly to his feet.
“I am a tolerant nome,” he said. “You speculate about things Outside, and I do not mind, I say it is good mental exercise. We wouldn’t be nomes if we didn’t sometimes allow our minds to wander. But to insist that it is real, that is not to be tolerated. Little tricksy toys . . .” He hobbled forward and brought one stick down sharply on the Thing, which buzzed. “Intolerable! There is nothing Outside, and no one to live in it! Life in other Stores, pah! Audience concluded! Be off with you.”
“I can stand an impact of two thousand five hundred tons,” said the Thing smugly, although no one took much notice.
“Away! Away!” shouted the Abbot, and Masklin saw that he was trembling.
That was the strange thing about the Store. Only a few days ago, there weren’t that many things you needed to know, and they mainly involved big hungry creatures and how to avoid them. Fieldcraft, Torrit had called it. Now it was beginning to dawn on Masklin that there was a different sort of knowledge, and it consisted of the things you needed to understand in order to survive among other nomes. Things like: Be very careful when you tell people things they don’t want to hear. And: The thought that they may be wrong makes people very angry.
Some of the lesser Stationeri ushered them hurriedly through the doorway. It was done quite expertly, without any of them actually touching Masklin’s people or even looking them in the face. Several of them scattered hastily away from Torrit when he picked up the Thing and held it protectively.
Finally Granny Morkie’s temper, which was never particularly long, shortened to vanishing point. She grabbed the nearest monk by his black robe and held him up inches in front of her nose. His eyes crossed frantically with the effort of not seeing her. She poked him violently in the chest.
“Do you feel my finger?” she demanded. “Do you feel it? Not here, am I?”
“Indigenous!” said Torrit.
The monk solved his immediate problem by giving a little whimper and fainting.
“Let’s get away from here,” said Dorcas hurriedly. “I suspect it’s only a small step between not seeing people and making sure they don’t exist.”
“I don’t understand,” said Grimma. “How can people not see us?”
“Because they know we’re from Outside,” said Masklin.
“But other nomes can see us!” said Grimma, her voice rising. Masklin didn’t blame her. He was beginning to feel a bit unsure too.
“I think that’s because they don’t know,” he said, “or don’t believe, we really are Outsiders!”
“I ain’t an Outsider!” said Torrit. “They’re all Insiders!”
“But that means that the Abbot really does think we’re from Outside!” said Grimma. “That means he believes we’re here and he can’t see us! Where’s the sense in that?”
“That’s nomish nature for you,” said Dorcas.
“Don’t see that it matters much,” said Granny grimly. “Come three weeks and they’ll all be Outsiders. Serve them right. They’ll have to go around not looking at themselves. See how they like that, eh?” She stuck her nose in the air. “Ho, hexcuse me, Mr. Abbot, went and tripped over hyou there, didn’t see hyou hi’am sure. . . .”
“I’m sure they’d understand if only they’d listen,” said Masklin.
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Dorcas, kicking at the dust. “Silly of me to think they would, really. The Stationeri never listen to new ideas.”
“Excuse me,” said a quiet voice behind them.
They turned and saw one of the Stationeri standing there. He was young, and quite plump, with curly hair and a worried expression. In fact he was nervously twisting the corner of his robe.
“You want me?” said Dorcas.
“Er. I was, er, I wanted to talk to the, er, Outsiders,” said the little man carefully. He bobbed a curtsey in the direction of Torrit and Granny Morkie.
“You’ve got better eyesight than most, then,” said Masklin.
“Er, yes,” said the Stationeri. He looked back down the corridor. “Er, I’d like to talk to you. Somewhere private.”
They shuffled around a floor joist.
“Well?” said Masklin.
“That, er, thing that spoke,” said the Stationeri. “Do you believe it?”
“I think it can’t actually tell lies,” said Masklin.
“What is it, exactly? Some kind of radio?”
Masklin gave Dorcas a hopeful look.
“That’s a thing for making noise,” Dorcas explained loftily.
“Is it?” asked Masklin, and shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve just had it a long time. It says it came with nomes from a long way away, a long time ago. We’ve looked after it for generations, haven’t we, Torrit?”
The old man nodded violently. “My dad had it before me, and his father before him, and his father before him, and his brother at the same time as him, and their uncle before them—” he began.
The Stationeri scratched his head.
“It’s very worrying,” he said. “The humans are acting very strangely. Things aren’t being replaced in the Store. There’s signs we’ve never seen before. Even the Abbot’s worried—he can’t work out what Arnold Bros (est. 1905) expects us to do. So, er . . .” He bunched up his robe, untwisted it hurriedly, and went
on. “I’m the Abbot’s assistant, you see. My name is Gurder. I have to do the things he can’t do himself. So, er . . .”
“Well, what?” said Masklin.
“Could you come with me? Please?”
“Is there food?” said Granny Morkie, who could always put her finger on the important points.
“We’ll certainly have some sent up,” said Gurder hurriedly. He backed off through the maze of joists and wiring. “Please, follow me. Please.”
5
I. Yet there were some who said, We have seen Arnold Bros (est. 1905)’s new Signs in the Store, and we are Troubled for we Understand them not.
II. For this is the Season that should be Christmas Fayre, and yet the Signs are not the Signs of Christmas Fayre;
III. Nor are they January Sales, or Back-to-School Week, or Spring Into Spring Fashions, or Summer Bargains, or other Signs we know in their Season;
IV. For the Signs say Clearance Sale. We are sorely Troubled.
From The Book of Nome, Complaints v. I–IV
GURDER, BOBBING AND curtseying, led them deeper into Stationeri territory. It had a musty smell. Here and there were stacks of what Masklin was told were books. He didn’t fully understand what they were for, but Dorcas obviously thought they were important.
“Look at ’em,” he said. “Powerful lot of stuff in there that we could find useful, and the Stationeri guard it like, like—”
“Like something well guarded?” said Masklin.
“Right. Right. That’s exactly right. They keep looking hard at ’em. Reading, they call it. But they don’t understand any of it.”
There was a whirr from the Thing in Torrit’s arms, and a few lights lit up.
“Books are repositories of knowledge?” it said.
“There’s said to be a lot in them,” said Dorcas.
“It is vital that you obtain books,” said the Thing.
“Stationeri hold on to ’em,” said Dorcas. “Unless you know how to read books properly, they inflame the brain, they say.”
“In here, please,” said Gurder, shifting a cardboard barrier.
Someone was waiting for them, sitting stiffly on a pile of cushions with his back to them.
“Ah. Gurder,” he said. “Come in. Good.”
It was the Abbot. He didn’t turn around.
Masklin prodded Gurder. “It was bad enough just now,” he said. “Why are we doing this again?”
Gurder gave him a look that seemed to say: Trust me, this is the only way.
“Have you arranged for some food, Gurder?” said the Abbot.
“My lord, I was just—”
“Go and do it now.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Gurder gave Masklin another desperate look and scurried away.
The nomes stood sheepishly, wondering what was going to happen next.
The Abbot spoke.
“I am nearly fifteen years old,” he said. “I am older even than some departments in the Store. I have seen many strange things, and soon I am going to meet Arnold Bros (est. 1905) in the hope that I have been a good and dutiful nome. I am so old that there are nomes who think that in some way I am the Store, and fear that when I am gone, the Store will end. Now you tell me this is so. Who is in charge?”
Masklin looked at Torrit. But everyone else looked at him.
“Well, er,” he said. “Me. I suppose. Just for the moment.”
“That’s right,” said Torrit, relieved. “Just for the moment I’m puttin’ him in charge, see. Because I’m the leader.”
The Abbot nodded.
“A very wise decision,” he said. Torrit beamed.
“Stay here with the talking box,” said the Abbot to Masklin. “The rest of you, please go. There will be food brought to you. Please go and wait.”
“Um,” said Masklin, “no.”
There was a pause.
Then the Abbot said, quite softly, “Why not?”
“Because, you see, um, we’re all together,” said Masklin. “We’ve never been split up.”
“A very commendable sentiment. You’ll find, however, that life doesn’t work like that. Come, now. I can hardly harm you, can I?”
“You talk to him, Masklin,” said Grimma. “We won’t be far away. It’s not important.”
He nodded reluctantly.
When they had left, the Abbot turned around. Close to, he was even older than he had looked before. His face wasn’t just wrinkled, it was one big wrinkle. He was middle-aged when old Torrit was born, Masklin told himself. He’s old enough to be Granny Morkie’s grandfather!
The Abbot smiled. It was a difficult smile. It was as if he’d had smiling explained to him but had never had the chance to practice.
“Your name, I believe, is Masklin,” he said.
Masklin couldn’t deny it.
“I don’t understand!” he said. “You can see me! Ten minutes ago you said I didn’t even exist, and now you’re talking to me!”
“There is nothing strange about it,” said the Abbot. “Ten minutes ago it was official. Goodness me, I can’t go around letting people believe that I’ve been wrong all along, can I? The Abbots have been denying there is anything Outside for generations. I can’t suddenly say they were all wrong. People would think I’ve gone mad.”
“Would they?” said Masklin.
“Oh, yes. Politics, you see. Abbots can’t go changing their minds all the time. You’ll find this out. The important thing about being a leader is not being right or wrong, but being certain. Otherwise people wouldn’t know what to think. Of course, it helps to be right as well,” the Abbot conceded. He leaned back.
“There were terrible wars in the Store once,” he said. “Terrible wars. A terrible time. Nome against nome. Decades ago, of course. It seemed that there was always some nome who thought his family should rule the Store. The Battle of the Freight Elevator, the Goods Inward Campaign, the dreadful Mezzanine Wars . . . But that’s past, now. And do you know why?”
“No,” said Masklin.
“We stopped it. The Stationeri. By cunning and common sense and diplomacy. We made them see that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) expects nomes to be at peace with one another. Now then. Supposing that I, in there, had said I believed you. People would have thought, The old boy has gone off his head.” The Abbot chuckled. “And then they’d have said, Have the Stationeri been wrong all this time? They would have panicked. Well, of course, that would never do. We must hold the nomes together. You know how they bicker at every opportunity.”
“That’s true,” said Masklin. “And they always blame you for everything and say, What’re you going to do about it?”
“You’ve noticed, have you?” said the Abbot, smiling. “It seems to me that you have exactly the right qualification for being a leader.”
“I don’t think so!”
“That’s what I mean. You don’t want to be one. I didn’t want to be Abbot.” He drummed his fingers on his walking stick and then looked sharply at Masklin.
“People are always a lot more complicated than you think,” he said. “It’s very important to remember that.”
“I will,” said Masklin, not knowing what else to say.
“You don’t believe in Arnold Bros (est. 1905), do you?” said the Abbot. It was more a statement than a question.
“Well, er—”
“I’ve seen him, you know. When I was a boy. I climbed all the way up to Consumer Accounts, by myself, and hid, and I saw him at his desk writing.”
“Oh?”
“He had a beard.”
“Oh.”
The Abbot drummed his fingers on his stick. He seemed to be making up his mind about something. Then he said, “Hmm. Where was your home?”
Masklin told him. Funnily, it seemed a lot better now that he looked back on it. More summers than winters, more nuts than rat. No bananas or electric or carpets, but plenty of fresh air. And in memory there didn’t seem to be as much drizzle and frost. The Stationeri listene
d politely.
“It was a lot better when we had more people,” Masklin finished. He glanced at his feet. “You could come and stay. When the Store is demo-thinged.”
The Abbot laughed. “I’m not sure I’d fit in,” he said. “I’m not sure I want to believe in your Outside. It sounds cold and dangerous. Anyway, I shall be going on a rather more mysterious journey. And now, please excuse me, I must rest.” He thumped on the floor with his stick. Gurder appeared as if by magic.
“Take Masklin away and educate him a little,” said the Abbot, “and then the both of you come back here. But leave that black box, please. I wish to learn more about it. Put it on the floor.”
Masklin did so. The Abbot poked it with his stick.
“Black box,” he said, “what are you, and what is your purpose?”
“I am the Flight Recorder and Navigation Computer of the starship Swan. I have many functions. My current major function is to guide and advise those nomes shipwrecked when their scout ship crashed here fifteen thousand years ago.”
“It talks like this all the time,” said Masklin apologetically.
“Who are these nomes of which you speak?” said the Abbot.
“All nomes.”
“Is that your only purpose?”
“I have also been given the task of keeping nomes safe and taking them Home.”
“Very commendable,” said the Abbot. He looked up at the other two.
“Run along, then,” he commanded. “Show him a little of the world, Gurder. And then I shall have a task for both of you.”
Educate him a little, the Abbot had said.
That meant starting with The Book of Nome, which consisted of pieces of paper sewn together with marks on them.
“Humans use it for cigarettes,” said Gurder, and read the first dozen verses. They listened in silence, and then Granny Morkie said, “So this Arnold Bros—”
“—(est. 1905)—” said Gurder primly.
“Whatever,” said Granny. “He built the Store just for nomes?”
“Er. Ye-ess,” said Gurder, uncertainly.
“What was here before, then?” said Granny.
“The Site.” Gurder looked uncomfortable. “You see, the Abbot says there is nothing outside the Store. Um.”
“But we’ve come—”
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