“On our gate,” said Sacco disapprovingly.
“Bit odd,” said Angalo. The man sleepwalked, in the slow, ponderous way that humans did, back to the vehicle. Eventually it backed around and roared off.
“All the way up here just to stick a bit of paper on the gate,” said Angalo, as the nomes stood up. “That’s humans for you.”
Masklin frowned. Humans were big and stupid, that was true enough, but there was something unstoppable about them, and they seemed to be controlled by bits of paper. Back in the Store, a piece of paper had said the Store was going to be demolished and, sure enough, it had been demolished. You couldn’t trust humans with bits of paper.
He pointed to the rusty wire netting, an easy climb for an agile nome.
“Sacco,” he said, “you’d better fetch it down.”
Miles away, another piece of paper fluttered on the hedge. Spots of rain pattered across its sun-bleached words, soaking the paper until it was heavy and soggy and . . .
. . . tore.
It flopped onto the grass, free. A breeze made it rustle.
2
III. But there came a Sign, and people said, What is it that this means?
IV. And it was not good.
From The Book of Nome,
Signs Chap. 1, v. III–IV
GURDER SHUFFLED ON hands and knees across the paper that had been taken down from the gate.
“Of course I can read it,” he said. “I know what every word means.”
“Well, then?” said Masklin.
Gurder looked embarrassed. “It’s what every sentence means that’s giving me trouble,” he said. “It says here . . . where was it . . . yes, it says here the quarry is going to be reopened. What does that mean? It’s open already—any fool knows that. You can see for miles.”
The other nomes crowded around. You certainly could see for miles. That was the terrible part. On three sides the quarry had decent high cliff walls, but on the fourth side . . . well, you got into the habit of not looking in that direction. There was too much of nothing, which made you feel even smaller and more vulnerable than you were already.
Even if the meaning of the paper wasn’t clear, it certainly looked unpleasant.
“The quarry’s a hole in the ground,” said Dorcas. “You can’t open a hole unless it’s been filled in. Stands to reason.”
“A quarry’s a place you get stone from,” said Grimma. “Humans do it. They dig a hole and they use the stone for making, well, roads and things.”
“I expect you read that, did you?” said Gurder sourly. He suspected Grimma of lack of respect for authority. It was also incredibly annoying that, against all the obvious deficiencies of her sex, she was better at reading than he was.
“I did, actually,” said Grimma, tossing her head.
“But, you see,” said Masklin patiently, “there aren’t any more stones here, Grimma. That’s why there’s a hole.”
“Good point,” said Gurder sternly.
“Then he’ll make the hole bigger!” snapped Grimma. “Look at those cliffs up there”—they obediently looked—“they’re made of stone! Look here”—every head swiveled down to where her foot was tapping impatiently at the paper—“it says it’s for a highway extension! That’s a road! He’s going to make the quarry bigger! Our quarry! That’s what it says he’s going to do!”
There was a long silence.
Then Dorcas said: “Who is?”
“Order! He’s put his name on it,” said Grimma.
“She’s right, you know,” said Masklin. “Look. It says: ‘To be reopened, by Order.’”
The nomes shuffled their feet. Order. It didn’t sound like a promising name. Anyone called Order would probably be capable of anything.
Gurder stood up and brushed the dust off his robe.
“It’s only a piece of paper, when all’s said and done,” he said sullenly.
“But the human came up here,” said Masklin. “They’ve never come up here before.”
“Dunno about that,” said Dorcas. “I mean, all the quarry buildings. The old workshops. The doorways and so on. I mean, they’re for humans. Always worried me, that has. Where humans have been before, they tend to go again. They’re rascals for that.”
There was another crowded silence, the kind that gets made by lots of people thinking unhappy thoughts.
“Do you mean,” said a nome slowly, “that we’ve come all this way, we’ve worked so hard to make a place to live in, and now it’s going to be taken away?”
“I don’t think we should get too disturbed right at this time—” Gurder began.
“We’ve got families here,” said another nome. Masklin realized that it was Angalo. He’d been married in the spring to a young lady from the del Icatessen family, and they’d already got a fine pair of youngsters, two months old and talking already.
“And we were going to have another go at planting seeds,” said another nome. “We’ve spent ages clearing that ground behind the big sheds. You know that.”
Gurder raised his hand imploringly.
“We don’t know anything,” he said. “We mustn’t start getting upset until we’ve found out what’s going on.”
“And then can we get upset?” said another nome sourly. Masklin recognized Nisodemus, one of the Stationeri and Gurder’s own assistant. He’d never liked the young nome, and the young nome had never liked anyone, as far as Masklin could see.
“I’ve never, um, been happy with the feel of this place, um, I knew there was going to be trouble—” Nisodemus complained.
“Now, now, Nisodemus,” said Gurder. “There’s no cause to go talking like that. We’ll have another meeting of the Council,” he added. “That’s what we’ll do.”
The crumpled newspaper lay beside the road. Occasionally a breeze would blow it randomly along the shoulder while, a few inches away, the traffic thundered past.
A stronger gust hit it at the same time as a particularly large truck roared by, dragging a tail of whirling air. The paper shot up over the road, spread out like a sail, and rose on the wind.
The Quarry Council was in session, in the space under the floor of the old quarry office.
Other nomes had crowded in, and the rest of the tribe milled around outside.
“Look,” said Angalo, “there’s a big old barn up on the hill, the other side of the potato field. It wouldn’t hurt to take some stores up there. Make it ready, you know. Just in case. Then if anything does happen, we’ve got somewhere to go.”
“The quarry buildings don’t have spaces under the floors, except in the canteen and the office,” said Dorcas gloomily. “It’s not like the Store. There aren’t many places to hide. We need the sheds. If humans come here, we’ll have to leave.”
“So the barn will be a good idea, won’t it?” repeated Angalo.
“There’s a man on a tractor who goes up there sometimes,” said Masklin.
“We could keep out of his way. Anyway,” said Angalo, looking around at the rows of faces, “maybe the humans will go away again. Perhaps they’ll just take their stone and go. And we can come back. We could send someone to spy on them every day.”
“It seems to me you’ve been thinking about this barn for some time,” said Dorcas.
“Me and Masklin talked about it one day when we were hunting up there,” said Angalo. “Didn’t we, Masklin?”
“Hmm?” said Masklin, who was staring into space.
“You remember, we went up there and I said that’d be a useful place if ever we needed it, and you said yes.”
“Hmm,” said Masklin.
“Yes, but there’s this Winter thing coming,” said one of the nomes. “You know. Cold. Glitter on everythin’.”
“Robins,” another nome put in.
“Yeah,” said the first nome uncertainly. “Them, too. Not a good time to go movin’ around, with robins zoomin’ about.”
“Nothing wrong with robins,” said Granny Morkie, who had nodded off for
a moment. “My dad used to say there’s good eatin’ on a robin, if you catched one.” She beamed at them proudly.
This comment had the same effect on everyone’s train of thought as a brick wall built across the line. Eventually Gurder said: “I still say we shouldn’t get too excited right at this moment. We should wait and trust in Arnold Bros (est. 1905)’s guidance.”
There was more silence. Then Angalo said, very quietly: “Fat lot of good that’ll do us.”
There was silence again. But this time it was a thick, heavy silence, and it got thicker and heavier and more menacing, like a storm cloud building up over a mountain, until the first flash of lightning would come as a relief.
It came.
“What did you say?” said Gurder, slowly.
“Only what everyone’s been thinking,” said Angalo. Many of the nomes started to stare at their feet.
“And what do you mean by that?” said Gurder.
“Where is Arnold Bros (est. 1905), then?” said Angalo. “How did he help us get out of the Store? Exactly, I mean? He didn’t, did he?” Angalo’s voice shook a bit, as if even he was terrified to hear himself talking like this. “We did it. By learning things. We did it all ourselves. We learned to read books, your books, and we found things out and we did things for ourselves. . . .”
Gurder jumped to his feet, white with fury. Beside him Nisodemus put his hand over his mouth and looked too shocked to speak.
“Arnold Bros (est. 1905) goes wherever nomes go!” Gurder shouted.
Angalo swayed backward, but his father had been one of the toughest nomes in the Store, and he didn’t give in easily.
“You just made that up!” he snorted. “I’m not saying that there wasn’t, well, something in the Store, but that was the Store and this is here, and all we’ve got is us! The trouble is, you Stationeri were so powerful in the Store, you just can’t bear to give it up!”
Now Masklin stood up.
“Just a moment, you two—” he began.
“So that’s all it is, is it?” growled Gurder, ignoring him. “That’s the Haberdasheri for you! You always were too proud! Too arrogant by half! Drive a truck a little way and we think we know it all, do we? Perhaps we’re getting what we deserve, eh?”
“—this isn’t the time or place for this sort of thing—” Masklin went on.
“That’s just a silly threat! Why can’t you accept it, you old fool. Arnold Bros doesn’t exist! Use the brains Arnold Bros gave you, why don’t you?”
“If you don’t both shut up I’ll bang your heads together!”
That seemed to work.
“Right,” said Masklin, in a more normal voice. “Now, I think it would be a very good idea if everyone went and got on with—with whatever it was they were getting on with. Because this is no way to make complicated decisions. We all need to think for a bit.”
The nomes filed out, relieved that it was over. Masklin could hear Gurder and Angalo still arguing.
“Not you two,” he warned.
“Now look—” said Gurder.
“No, you look, the pair of you!” said Masklin. “Here we are, maybe a big problem looming up, and you start arguing! You both ought to know better! Can’t you see you’re upsetting people?”
“Well, it’s important,” muttered Angalo.
“What we should do now,” said Masklin sharply, “is have another look at this barn. Can’t say I’m happy with the idea, but it might be useful to have a bolt-hole. Anyway, it’ll keep people occupied, and that’ll stop them worrying. How about it?”
“I suppose so,” said Gurder, with bad grace. “But—”
“No more buts,” said Masklin. “You’re acting like idiots. People look up to the pair of you, so you’ll set an example, do you hear?”
They glowered at each other, but they both nodded.
“Right, then,” said Masklin. “Now, we’ll all go out, and people’ll see you’ve made up, and that’ll stop them fretting. Then we can start planning.”
“But Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is important,” said Gurder.
“I daresay,” said Masklin, as they came out into the daylight of the quarry. The wind was dropping again, leaving the sky a deep cold blue.
“There’s no ‘daresay’ about it,” said Gurder.
“Listen,” said Masklin, “I don’t know whether Arnold Bros exists, or was in the Store, or just lives in our heads or whatever. What I do know is that he isn’t just going to drop out of the sky.”
All three of them glanced up when he said this. The Store nomes shuddered just a bit. It still took a certain courage to look up at the endless sky when you’d been used to nice friendly floorboards, but it was traditional, when you referred to Arnold Bros, to look up. Up was where Management and Accounts had been, back in the Store.
“Funny you should say that. There’s something up there,” said Angalo.
Something white and vaguely rectangular was drifting gently through the air, and growing bigger.
“It’s just a bit of paper,” said Gurder. “Something the wind’s blown off the dump.”
It was definitely a lot bigger now, and turned gently in the air as it tumbled into the quarry.
“I think,” said Masklin slowly, as its shadow raced toward him across the ground, “that we’d better stand back a bit—”
It dropped on him.
It was, of course, only paper. But nomes are small and it had fallen quite some way, so the force was enough to knock him over.
What was more surprising were the words he saw as he fell backward. They were: Arnold Bros.
3
I. And they Sought for a Better Sign from Arnold Bros (est. 1905), and there was a Sign;
II. And some spake up saying, Well, all right, but it is really nothing but a Co incidence;
III. But others said, Even a Co incidence can be a Sign.
From The Book of Nome,
Signs Chap. 2, v. I–III
MASKLIN HAD ALWAYS kept an open mind on the subject of Arnold Bros (est. 1905). When you thought about it, the Store had been pretty impressive, what with the moving staircases and so on, and if Arnold Bros (est. 1905) hadn’t created it, who had? After all, that left only humans. Not that he considered humans to be as stupid as most nomes thought. They might be big and slow, but there was a sort of unstoppability about them. They could certainly be taught to do simple tasks.
On the other hand, the world was miles across and full of complicated things. It seemed to be asking a lot of Arnold Bros (est. 1905) to create the whole thing.
So Masklin had decided not to decide anything about Arnold Bros (est. 1905), in the hope that if there was an Arnold Bros (est. 1905) and he found out about Masklin, he wouldn’t mind much.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
The faded newspaper from the sky had been carefully spread out on the floor of one of the old sheds.
It was covered with words. Most of them even Masklin could understand, but even Grimma had to admit she couldn’t guess at what they were supposed to mean when you read them all in one go. SCHOOL SLAMS SHOCK PROBE, for example, was a bit of a mystery. So was FURY OVER RATES REBEL. So was PLAY SUPER BINGO IN YOUR SOARAWAY BLACKBURY EVENING POST & GAZETTE. But they were mysteries that would have to wait.
What all eyes were staring at was the quite small area of words, about nome sized, under the word PEOPLE.
“That means people,” said Grimma.
“Really?” said Masklin.
“And the lettering underneath it says: ‘Fun-loving, globe-trotting millionaire playboy Richard Arnold will be jetting to the Florida sunshine next week to witness the launch of Arnsat 1, the first communi’”—she hesitated—“‘cations sat . . . ellite built by Arnco Inter . . . national Group. This leap into the future comes only a few months after the dest . . . ruction by fire of—’”
The nomes, who’d been silently reading along with her
, shivered.
“Arnold Bros, the store here in Blackbury that was the first of the Arnold chain and the basis of the multimillion trad . . . ing group. It was founded in 1905 by Alderman Frank W. Arnold and his brother Arthur. Grand . . . son Richard, 39, who will—” Her voice faded to a whisper.
“Grandson Richard, 39,” repeated Gurder, his face bright with triumph. “What d’you think of that, eh?”
“What does globe-trotting mean?” said Masklin.
“Well, globe means ball, and trotting is a sort of slow running,” said Grimma. “So he runs slowly on a ball. Globe-trotting.”
“This is a message from Arnold Bros,” said Gurder ponderously. “It’s been sent to us. A message.”
“A message meant, um, for us!” said Nisodemus, who was standing just behind Gurder. He held up his hands. “Yea, all the way from—”
“Yes, yes, Nisodemus,” said Gurder. “Do be quiet, there’s a good chap.” He gave Masklin an embarrassed look.
“Doesn’t sound very likely, running slowly. I mean, you’d fall off. If it was a ball, is what I’m saying,” said Masklin.
They stared at The Picture again. It was made up of tiny dots. They showed a smiling face. It had teeth and a beard.
“It stands to reason,” said Gurder, more confidently. “Arnold Bros (est. 1905) has sent Grandson Richard, 39, to—to—”
“And these two names who founded the Store,” said Masklin. “I don’t understand that. I thought Arnold Bros (est. 1905) created the Store.”
“Then these two people founded it,” said Gurder. “That makes sense. It was a big Store. It’d be easy to find, even if you weren’t looking for it.” He looked slightly uneasy. “Losted and founded,” he said, half to himself. “That makes sense. Yes.”
“O-kay,” said Dorcas. “So let’s just see where we’ve got to. The message is, isn’t it, that Grandson Richard, 39, is in Florida, wherever that is—”
“Going to be in Florida,” said Grimma.
“It’s a type of colored juice,” volunteered a nome. “I know, ’cause one day when we went over to the dump, there was this old carton, and it said ‘Florida Orange Juice.’ I read it,” he added proudly.
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