She swept away and shut the door behind her.
Masklin felt his ears growing hot.
“I can do both!” Masklin shouted after her. “At the same time!”
He thought about it and added, “So can everyone!”
He stamped off along the tunnel. Bright enough in his way! Gurder was right, universal education was not a good idea. He’d never understand women, he thought. Even if he lived to be ten.
Gurder had turned over the leadership of the Stationeri to Nisodemus. Masklin felt less than happy about this. It wasn’t that Nisodemus was stupid. Quite the reverse. He was clever in a bubbling, sideways way that Masklin distrusted; he always seemed to be bottling up excitement about something, and when he spoke, the words always rushed out, with Nisodemus putting “ums” in the flow of words so that he could catch his breath without anyone having the chance to interrupt him. He made Masklin uneasy. He mentioned this to Gurder.
“Nisodemus might be a bit overenthusiastic,” said Gurder, “but his heart’s in the right place.”
“What about his head?”
“Listen,” said Gurder. “We know each other well enough, don’t we? We understand one another, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Then I’ll let you make the decisions that affect all nomes’ bodies,” said Gurder, his voice just one step away from being threatening, “and you’ll let me make the decisions that affect all nomes’ souls. Fair enough?”
And so they set off.
The good-byes, the last-minute messages, the organization, and, because they were nomes, the hundred little arguments, are not important.
They set off.
Life at the quarry began to get back to something like normal. No more trucks came up to the gate. Dorcas sent a couple of his more agile young assistant engineers up the wire netting, just in case, to stuff the rusty padlock full of mud. He also ordered a team of nomes to twist wire round and round the gates as well.
“Not that it’d hold them very long,” he said. “Not if they were determined.”
The Council, or what was left of it now, nodded wisely although frankly none of them understood or cared much about mechanical things.
The truck came back the same afternoon. The two nomes watching the lane hurried back into the quarry to report. The driver had fiddled with the padlock for a while, pulled at the wire, and then driven off.
“And it said something,” said Sacco.
“Yes, it said something. Sacco heard it,” said his partner, Nooty Kiddies Klothes. She was a plump young nome who wore trousers and was good at engineering and had actually volunteered to be a guard instead of staying at home learning how to cook; things were really changing in the quarry.
“I heard it say something,” said Sacco helpfully, in case the point hadn’t sunk in.
“That’s right,” said Nooty. “We both heard it, didn’t we, Sacco?”
“And what was it?” said Dorcas encouragingly. I don’t really deserve this sort of thing, he thought. Not at my time of life. I’d rather be in my workshop, trying to invent radio.
“It said”—Sacco took a deep breath, his eyes bulged, and he attempted the foghorn mooing that was human sound—“‘Bbbllllooooooooddddyyyee kkiiiddddddssss!’”
Dorcas looked at the others.
“Anyone got any ideas?” he said. “It almost seems to mean something, doesn’t it? I tell you, if only we could understand them. . . .”
“This must have been one of the stupid ones,” said Nooty. “It was trying to get in!”
“Then it’ll come back,” said Dorcas gloomily. He shook his head.
“All right, you two,” he said. “Well done. Get back on watch. Thank you.”
He watched them go off hand in hand, and then he wandered away across the quarry, heading for the old manager’s office.
I’ve seen Christmas Fayre come around six times, he thought. Six whatd’youcallems—years. And almost one more, I think, although it’s hard to be sure out here. No one puts up any signs to say what’s happening, and the heating just gets turned down. Seven years old. Just about the time when a nome ought to be taking it easy. And I’m out here, where there aren’t any proper walls to the world, and the water goes cold and hard as glass some mornings, and the ventilation and heating systems are quite shockingly out of control. Of course—he pulled himself together a bit—as a scientist I find all these phenomena extremely interesting. It would just be nicer to find them extremely interesting from somewhere nice and snug, inside.
Ah, inside. That was the place to be. Most of the older nomes suffered from the fear of the Outside, but no one liked to talk about it much. It wasn’t too bad in the quarry, with its great walls of rock. If you didn’t look up too much, and avoided the fourth side with its terribly huge views across the countryside, you could almost believe you were back in the Store. Even so, most of the older nomes preferred to stay in the sheds, or in the cozy gloom under the floorboards. That way you avoided this horrible exposed feeling, the dreadful sensation that the sky was watching you.
The children seemed to quite like the Outside, though. They weren’t really used to anything else. They could just about remember the Store, but it didn’t mean much to them. They belonged Outside. They were used to it. And the young men who went out hunting and gathering . . . well, young men liked to show how brave they were, didn’t they? Especially in front of other young men. And young women.
Of course, Dorcas thought, as a scientist and rational-thinking nome, I know we weren’t really intended to live under floorboards the whole time. It’s just that, as a nome who is probably seven years old and feeling a bit creaky, I’ve got to admit I’d find it sort of comforting to have a few of the good old signs around the place. Amazing Reductions, perhaps, or just a little sign saying Mammoth Sale Starts Tomorrow. It wouldn’t hurt, and I’m sure I’d feel happier. Which is, of course, totally ridiculous, when you look at it rationally.
It’s just like Arnold Bros (est. 1905), he thought sadly. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t exist in the way I was taught he did, when I was young. But when you saw things like If You Do Not See What You Require, Please Ask on the walls, you felt that everything was somehow All Right.
He thought: These are very wrong thoughts for a rational-thinking nome.
There was a crack in the woodwork by the door of the manager’s office. Dorcas slipped into the familiar gloom under the floor and padded along until he found the switch.
He was rather proud of this idea. There was a big red bell on the outside wall of the office, presumably so that humans could hear the telephone ring when the quarry was noisy. Dorcas had changed the wiring so that he could make it ring whenever he liked.
He pressed the switch.
Nomes came running from all corners of the quarry. Dorcas waited as the underfloor space filled up and then dragged up an empty matchbox to stand on.
“The human has been back,” he announced. “It didn’t get in, but it’ll keep trying.”
“What about your wire?” said one of the nomes.
“I’m afraid there are such things as wire cutters.”
“So much for your theory about, um, humans being intelligent. An intelligent human would know enough not to go, um, where it wasn’t wanted,” said Nisodemus sourly.
Dorcas liked to see eagerness in a young nome, but Nisodemus vibrated with a peculiarly hungry kind of eagerness that was unpleasant to see. He gave him as sharp a look as he dared.
“Humans out here might be different from the ones in the Store,” he snapped. “Anyway—”
“Order must have sent it,” said Nisodemus. “It’s a judgment, um, on us!”
“None of that. It’s just a human,” said Dorcas. Nisodemus glared at him as he went on. “Now, we really should be sending some of the women and children to the—”
There was the sound of running feet outside, and the gate guards piled in through the crack.
“It’s back! It’s
back!” panted Sacco. “The human’s back!”
“All right, all right,” said Dorcas. “Don’t worry about it, it can’t—”
“No! No! No!” yelled Sacco, jumping up and down. “It’s got a pair of cutter things! It’s cut the wire and the chain that holds the gates shut, and it—!”
They didn’t hear the rest of it.
They didn’t need to.
The sound of an engine coming closer said it all.
It grew so loud that the shed shook, and then it stopped suddenly, leaving a nasty kind of silence that was worse than the noise. There was the crump of a metal door slamming. Then the rattle and squeak of the shed door.
Then footsteps. The boards overhead buckled and dropped little clouds of dust as great thumping steps wandered around the office.
The nomes stood in absolute silence. They moved nothing except their eyes, but they moved in perfect time to the footsteps, marking the position, flicking backward and forward as the human crossed the room above. A baby started to whimper.
There was some clicking, and then the muffled sound of a human voice making its usual incomprehensible noises. This went on for some time.
Then the footsteps left the office again. The nomes could hear them crunching around outside, and then more noises. Nasty, clinking metal noises.
A small nome said, “Mum, I want the lavatory, Mum—”
“Shh!”
“I really mean it, Mum!”
“Will you be quiet!”
All the nomes stood stock-still as the noises went on around them. Well, nearly all. One small nome hopped from one foot to the other, going very red in the face.
Eventually the noise stopped. There was the thunk of a truck door closing, the growl of its engine, and the motor noise died away.
Dorcas said, very quietly, “I think perhaps we can relax now.”
Hundreds of nomes breathed a sigh of relief.
“Mum!”
“Yes, all right, off you go.”
And after the sigh of relief, the outbreak of babble. One voice rose above the rest.
“It was never like this in the Store!” said Nisodemus, climbing onto a half brick. “I ask you, fellow nomes, is this what we were led, um, to expect?”
There was a mumble chorus of “noes” and “yeses” as Nisodemus went on: “A year ago we were safe in the Store. Do you remember what it was like at Christmas Fayre? Do you remember what it was like in the Food Hall? Anyone remember, um, roast beef and turkey?”
There were one or two embarrassed cheers. Nisodemus looked triumphant. “And here we are at the same time of year—well, they tell us it’s the same time of year,” he said, sarcastically, “—and what we’re expected to eat are knobbly things actually grown in dirt! Um. And the meat isn’t proper meat at all, it’s just dead animals cut up! Actual dead animals, actually cut up! Is this what you want your, um, children to get used to? Digging up their food? And now they tell us we might even have to go to some barn that hasn’t even got proper floorboards for us to live under as Arnold Bros (est. 1905) intended. Where next, we ask ourselves? Out in a field somewhere? Um. And do you know what is the worst thing about all of this? I’ll tell you.” He pointed a finger at Dorcas. “The people who seem to be giving us all the orders now are the very people who, um, got us into this trouble in the first place!”
“Now just you hold on—” Dorcas began.
“You all know I’m right!” shouted Nisodemus. “Think about it, nomes! Why in the name of Arnold Bros (est. 1905) did we have to leave the Store?”
There were a few more vague cheers, and several arguments broke out among the audience.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Dorcas. “The Store was going to be demolished!”
“We don’t know that!” shouted Nisodemus.
“Of course we do!” roared Dorcas. “Masklin and Gurder saw—”
“And where are they now, eh?”
“They’ve gone to—well, they’ve gone to—” Dorcas began. He wasn’t much good at this, he knew. Why did it have to be him? He preferred messing around with wires and bolts and things. Bolts didn’t keep shouting at you.
“Yes, they’ve gone!” Nisodemus lowered his voice to a sort of angry hiss. “Think about it, you nomes! Use your, um, brains! In the Store, we knew where we were, things worked, everything was exactly as Arnold Bros (est. 1905) decreed. And suddenly we’re out here. Remember how you used to despise Outsiders? Well, the Outsiders are us! Um. And now it’s all panic again, and it always will be—until we mend our ways and Arnold Bros (est. 1905) graciously allows us back into the Store as better, wiser nomes!”
“Let’s just get this clear,” said a nome. “Are you saying that the Abbot lied to us?”
“I’m not saying anything like that,” said Nisodemus, sniffing. “I’m just presenting you with the facts. Um. That’s all I’m doing.”
“But, but, but the Abbot has gone to get help,” said a lady nome uncertainly. “And, and, after all, I’m sure the Store was demolished. I mean, we wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble otherwise, would we? Er.” She looked desperate.
“I know this, though,” said the nome beside her. “Say what you like, but I don’t fancy this old barn everyone’s talking about. There’s not even any electricity there.”
“Yes, and it’s in the middle of”—another nome began, and then lowered his voice—“you know. Things. You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yeah,” said an elderly nome. “Things. I’ve seen ’em. My lad took me blackberryin’ a month or two back, up above the quarry, and I seen ’em.”
“I don’t mind seeing them a long way off,” said the worried lady nome. “It’s the thought of being in the middle of them that makes me come over all shaky.”
They don’t even like to say the words open fields, thought Dorcas. I know how they feel.
“It’s snug enough here, I’ll grant you,” said the first nome, “but all this stuff you get outside, what d’you call it, begins with an N—”
“Nature?” said Dorcas weakly. Nisodemus was smiling madly, his eyes sparkling.
“That’s right,” said the nome. “Well, it’s not natural. And there’s a sight too much of it. ’S not like a proper world at all. You’ve only got to look at it. The floor’s all rough, ’n’ it should be flat. There’s hardly any walls. All them little starry lights that comes out at night, well, they’re not much help, are they? And now these humans go where they please, and there’s no proper Regulations like there was in the Store.”
“That’s why Arnold Bros Established the Store in 1905,” said Nisodemus. “A proper place for, um, nomes to live.”
Dorcas gently grabbed Sacco’s ear and pulled the young nome toward him.
“Do you know where Grimma is?” he whispered.
“Isn’t she here?”
“I’m quite sure she isn’t,” said Dorcas. “She’d have had something very sharp to say by now if she was. She may have stayed in the school hole with the children when the bell went. It’s just as well.”
Nisodemus has got something on his mind, he thought. I’m not certain what it is, but it smells bad.
And it got worse as the day wore on, especially since it began to rain. A nasty, freezing sort of rain. Sleet, according to Granny Morkie. It was soggy, not really water but not quite ice. Rain with bones.
Somehow it seemed to find its way into places where ordinary rain hadn’t managed to get. Dorcas organized younger nomes to digging drainage trenches and rigged up a few of the big light bulbs for heat. The older nomes sat hunched around them, sneezing and grumbling.
Granny Morkie did her best to cheer them up. Dorcas began to really wish the old woman wouldn’t do that.
“This ain’t nothing,” she said. “I remember the Great Flood. Made our hole cave right in—we was cold and drenched for days!” She cackled and rocked backward and forward. “Like drownded rats, we was! Not a dry stitch on, you know, and no fire for a week. Talk about a lau
gh!”
The Store nomes stared at her and shivered.
“And you don’t want to go worrying about crossing them open fields,” she went on, conversationally. “Nine times out o’ ten you don’t get et by anything.”
“Oh, dear,” said a lady nome, faintly.
“Yes, I’ve been out in fields hundreds o’ times. It’s a doddle if you stay close to the hedge and keep your eyes open. You hardly ever have to run very much,” said Granny.
No one’s temper was improved when they learned that the Land Rover had parked right on the patch of ground they were going to plant things in. The nomes had spent ages during the summer hacking the hard ground into something resembling soil. They’d even planted seeds, which hadn’t grown. Now there were two great ruts in it, and a new padlock and chain on the gate.
The sleet was already filling the ruts. Oil had leaked in and formed a rainbow sheen on the surface.
And all the time, Nisodemus was reminding people how much better it had been in the Store. They didn’t really need much persuading. After all, it had been better. Much better.
I mean, thought Dorcas, we can keep warm and there’s plenty of food, although there is a limit to the number of ways you can cook rabbit and potatoes. The trouble is, Masklin thought that once we got outside the Store, we’d all be digging and building and hunting and facing the future with strong chins and bright smiles. Some of the youngsters are doing well enough, I’ll grant you. But us old ’uns are too set in our ways. It’s all right for me, I like tinkering with things, I can be useful, but the rest of them, well . . . all they’ve really got to occupy themselves is grumbling, and they’ve become really good at that.
I wonder what Nisodemus’s game is. He’s too keen, if you ask me.
I wish Masklin would come back.
Even young Gurder wasn’t too bad.
It’s been three days now.
At a time like this, he knew he’d feel better if he went and looked at Big John.
6
I. For in the Hill was a Dragon, from the days when the World was made.
Diggers Page 4