It was quite a long branch, and quite thick. But there were tools and things in the Ship. They could let down extra wires to hold the branch and winch it up when it was cut free. It would take some time, but that didn't matter. It was important.
The Thing had said there were ways of growing plants under lights the same color as the sun, in pots full of a sort of weak soup that helped plants grow. It should be the easiest thing to keep a branch alive. The easiest thing in the world.
If they did everything carefully and gently, the frogs would never know.
If the world was a bathtub, the progress of the Ship through it would be like the soap, shooting backward and forward and never being where anyone expected it to be. You could spot where it had just been by airplanes and helicopters taking off in a hurry.
Or maybe it was like the ball in a roulette wheel, bouncing around and looking for the right number.
Or maybe it was just lost.
They searched all night. If there was a night. It was hard to tell. The Thing tried to explain that the Ship went faster than the sun, although the sun actually stood still. Some parts of the world had night while other parts had day. This, Gurder said, was bad organization.
"In the Store," he said, "it was always dark when it should be. Even if it was just somewhere built by humans." It was the first time they'd heard him admit the Store was built by humans.
There didn't seem to be anywhere that looked familiar.
Masklin scratched his chin.
"The Store was in a place called Blackbury," he said. "I know that much. So the quarry couldn't have been far away."
Angalo waved his hand irritably at the screens.
"Yes, but it's not like the map," he said. "They don't stick names on places! It's ridiculous! How's anyone supposed to know where anywhere is?"
"All right," said Masklin. "But you're not to fly down low again to try to read the signposts. Every time you do that, humans rush out into the streets and we get lots of shouting on the radio."
"That's right," said the Thing. "People are bound to get excited when they see a ten-million-ton starship trying to fly down the street."
"I was very careful last time," said Angalo stoutly. "I even stopped when the traffic lights went red. I don't see why there was such a fuss. All the trucks and cars started crashing into one another too. And you call me a bad driver."
Gurder turned to Pion, who was learning the language fast. The geese nomes did. They were used to meeting nomes who spoke other languages.
"Your geese never got lost," he said. "How did they manage it?"
"They just did not get lost," said Pion. "They knew always where they going."
"It can be like that with animals," said Masklin. "They've got instincts. It's like knowing things without knowing you know them."
"I don't know," said Gurder. "Why doesn't the Thing know? It could find Floridia, so somewhere important like Blackbury ought to be no trouble."
"I can find no radio messages about Blackbury. There are plenty about Florida," said the Thing.
"At least land somewhere," said Gurder. Angalo pressed a couple of buttons.
"There's just sea under us right now," he said. "And – what's that?"
Below the Ship and a long way off, something tiny and white skimmed over the clouds.
"Could be goose," said Pion.
"I... don't... think... so," said Angalo carefully. He twiddled a knob. "I'm really learning about this stuff," he said.
The picture of the screen flickered a bit, and then expanded.
There was a white dart sliding across the sky.
"Is it the Concorde?" said Gurder.
"Yes," said Angalo.
"It's going a bit slow, isn't it?"
"Only compared to us," said Angalo.
"Follow it," said Masklin.
"We don't know where it's going," said Angalo, in a reasonable tone of voice.
"I do," said Masklin. "You looked out the window when we were on the Concorde. We were going toward the sun."
"Yes. It was setting," said Angalo. "Well?"
"It's morning now. It's going toward the sun again," Masklin pointed out.
"Well? What about it?"
"It means it's going home."
Angalo bit his lip while he worked this out.
"I don't see why the sun has to rise and set in different places," said Gurder, who refused even to try to understand basic astronomy.
"Going home," said Angalo, ignoring him. "Right. I see it. So we go with it, yes?"
"Yes."
Angalo ran his hands over the Ship's controls. "Right," he said. "Here we go. I expect the Concorde drivers will probably be quite pleased to have some company up here."
The Ship drew level with the plane.
"It's moving around a lot," said Angalo. "And it's starting to go faster too."
"I think they may be worried about the Ship," said Masklin.
"Can't see why," said Angalo. "Can't see why at all. We're not doing anything except following them."
"I wish we had some proper windows," said Gurder, wistfully. "We could wave."
"Have humans ever seen a Ship like this before?" Angalo asked the Thing.
"No. But they've made up stories about ships coming from other worlds."
"Yes, they'd do that," said Masklin, half to himself. "That's just the sort of thing they'd do."
"Sometimes they say the ships will contain friendly people –"
"That's us," said Angalo.
"And sometimes they say they will contain monsters with wavy tentacles and big teeth."
The nomes looked at one another.
Gurder cast an apprehensive eye over his shoulder.
Then they all stared at the passages that radiated off the control room.
"Like alligators?" said Masklin.
"Worse."
"Er," Gurder said, "We did look in all the rooms, didn't we?"
"It's something they made up, Gurder. It's not real," said Masklin.
"Whoever would want to make up something like that?"
"Humans would," said Masklin.
"Huh," said Angalo, nonchalantly trying to swivel around in the chair in case any tentacled things with teeth were trying to creep up on him. "I can't see why."
"I think I can. I've been thinking about humans a lot."
"Can't the Thing send a message to the Concorde drivers?" said Gurder. "Something like 'Don't worry, we haven't got any teeth and tentacles, guaranteed'?"
"They probably wouldn't believe us," said Angalo. "If I had teeth and tentacles all over the place that's just the sort of message I'd send. Cunning."
The Concorde screamed across the top of the sky, breaking the transatlantic record. The Ship drifted along behind it.
"I reckon," said Angalo, looking down, "that humans are just about intelligent enough to be crazy."
"I think," said Masklin, "that maybe they're intelligent enough to be lonely."
The plane touched down with its tires screaming. Fire engines raced across the airport, and there were other vehicles behind them.
The great black ship shot over them, turned across the sky like a Frisbee, and slowed.
"There's the reservoir!" said Gurder. "Right under us! And that's the railway line! And that's the quarry! It's still there!"
"Of course it's still there, idiot," muttered Angalo as he headed the Ship toward the hills, which were patchy with melting snow.
"Some of it," said Masklin.
A pall of black smoke hung over the quarry. As they got closer, they saw it was rising from a burning truck. There were more trucks around it, and also several humans, who started to run when they saw the shadow of the Ship.
"Lonely, eh?" snarled Angalo. "If they've hurt a single nome, they'll wish they'd never been born!"
"If they've hurt a single nome, they'll wish I'd never been born," said Masklin. "But I don't think anyone's down there. They wouldn't hang around if the humans came. And who set fir
e to the truck?"
"Yay!" said Angalo, waving a fist in the air.
Masklin scanned the landscape below them. Somehow he couldn't imagine people like Grimma and Dorcas sitting in holes, waiting for humans to take over. Trucks didn't just set fire to themselves. A couple of buildings looked damaged too. Humans wouldn't have done that, would they?
He stared at the field by the quarry. The gate had been smashed, and a pair of wide tracks led through the slush and mud.
"I think they got away in another truck," he said.
"What do you mean, yay?" said Gurder, lagging a bit behind the conversation.
"Across the fields?" said Angalo. "It'd get stuck, wouldn't it?"
Masklin shook his head. Perhaps even a nome could have instincts. "Follow the tracks," he said urgently. "And quickly!"
"Quickly? Quickly? Do you know how difficult it is to make this thing go slow?" Angalo nudged a lever. The Ship lurched up the hillside, straining at the indignity of restraint.
They'd been up here before, on foot, months ago. It was hard to believe.
The hills were quite flat on the top, forming a kind of plateau overlooking the airport. There was the field where there had been potatoes. There was the thicket where they'd hunted, and the wood where they'd killed a fox for eating nomes.
And there... there was something small and yellow, rolling across the fields.
Angalo craned forward.
"Looks like some kind of a machine," he admitted, fumbling for levers without taking his eyes off the screen. "Weird kind of one, though."
There were other things moving on the roads down there. They had flashing lights on top.
"Those cars are chasing it, do you think?" said Angalo.
"Maybe they want to talk to it about a burning truck," said Masklin. "Can you get to it before they do?"
Angalo narrowed his eyes. "Listen, I think we can get to it before they do even if we go via Floridia." He found another lever and gave it a nudge.
There was the briefest flicker in the landscape, and the truck was now right in front of them.
"See?" he said.
"Move in more," said Masklin.
Angalo pressed a button.
"See, the screen can show you below –" he began.
"There's nomes!" said Gurder.
"Yeah, and those cars are running away!" shouted Angalo. "That's it, run away! Otherwise it's teeth and tentacles time!"
"So long as the nomes don't think that too," said Gurder. "Masklin, do you think –"
Once again, Masklin wasn't there.
I should have thought about this before, he thought.
The piece of branch was thirty times longer than a nome. They'd been keeping it under lights, and it seemed to be growing quite happily with one end in a pot of special plant water. The nomes who had once flown in the Ship had grown lots of plants that way.
Pion helped him drag the pot toward the hatch. The frogs watched Masklin with interest.
When it was positioned as well as the two of them could manage, Masklin let the hatch open. It wasn't one that slid aside. The ancient nomes had used it as some kind of elevator, but it didn't have wires – it went up and down by some force as mysterious as auntie's gravy or whatever that was.
It dropped away. Masklin looked down and saw the yellow truck roll to a halt.
When he straightened up, Pion was giving him a puzzled look.
"Flower is a message?" said the boy.
"Yes. Kind of."
"Not using words?"
"No," said Masklin.
"Why not?"
Masklin shrugged.
"Don't know how to say them."
It nearly ends there... But it shouldn't end there.
Nomes swarmed all over the Ship. If there were any monsters with tentacles and teeth, they'd have been overwhelmed by sheer force of nome.
Young nomes filled the control room, where they were industriously trying to press buttons. Dorcas and his trainee engineers had disappeared in search of the Ship's engines. Voices and laughter echoed along the gray corridors.
Masklin and Grimma sat by themselves, watching the frogs in their flower.
"I had to see if it was true," said Masklin.
"The most wonderful thing in the world," said Grimma. "You know, a bromeliad looks quite different from what I expected."
"No. I think there are probably much more wonderful things in the world," said Masklin. "But it's pretty good, all the same."
Grimma told him about events in the quarry, the fight with the humans, and the stealing of the Cat to escape. Her eyes gleamed when she talked about fighting humans. Masklin looked at her with his mouth open in admiration. She was muddy, her dress was torn, her hair looked like it had been combed with a hedge, but she crackled with so much internal energy that she nearly was throwing off sparks. It's a good thing we got here in time, he thought. Humans ought to thank me.
"What are we going to do now?" she said.
"I don't know," said Masklin. "Try to find home, I suppose. Or a home. According to the Thing, there's lots of worlds out there with nomes on them. Just nomes, I mean. Or we can find one all to ourselves. A new home. That might be even better."
"You know," said Grimma, "I think the Store nomes would be happier just staying on the Ship. That's why they like it so much. It's like being in the Store. All the Outside is outside."
"Then I'd better go along to make sure they remember that there is an Outside. It's sort of my job, I suppose," said Masklin. "And, when we've found somewhere, I want to bring the Ship back."
"Why? What'll be here?" said Grimma.
"Other nomes."
"Oh, yes," said Grimma.
"And humans," said Masklin. "We should talk to them."
"What?"
"They really want to believe in... I mean, they spend all their time making up stories about things that don't exist. They think it's just themselves in the world. We never thought like that. We always knew there were humans. They're terribly lonely and don't know it." He waved his hands vaguely. "It's just that I think we might get along with them," he finished.
"They'd turn us into pixies!"
"Not if we come back in the Ship. If there's one thing even humans can tell, it's that the Ship isn't very pixieish."
Grimma reached out and took his hand.
"Well... if that's what you really want to do."
"It is."
"I'll come back with you."
There was a sound behind them. It was Gurder. The Abbot had a bag slung around his neck and had the drawn, determined look of someone who is going to See It Through no matter what.
"Er. I've come to say good-bye," he said.
"What do you mean?" said Masklin.
"I heard you say you're coming back in the Ship?"
"Yes, but –"
"Please don't argue." Gurder looked around. "I've been thinking about this ever since we got on the Ship. There are other nomes out there. Someone ought to tell them about the Ship coming back. We can't take them now, but someone ought to find all the other nomes in the world and make sure that they know about the Ship. Someone ought to be telling them about what's really true. It should be me, don't you think? I've got to be useful for something."
"All by yourself'?" said Masklin.
Gurder rummaged in the bag.
"No, I'm taking the Thing," he said, producing the black cube.
"Er –" Masklin began.
"Don't worry," said the Thing. "I have copied myself into the Ship's own computers. I can be here and there at the same time."
"It's something I really want to do," said Gurder helplessly.
Masklin thought about arguing and then thought, Why? Gurder will probably be happier like this. Anyway, it's true. This Ship belongs to all nomes. We're just borrowing it for a while. So Gurder's right. Someone's got to find the rest of them, wherever they are in the world, and tell them the truth about nomes. I can't think of anyone better for the job than Gurde
r. It's a big world. You need someone really ready to believe really hard.
"Do you want anyone to go with you?" he said.
"No. I expect I'll find some nomes out there to help me. I've been talking to Pion." He leaned closer. "To tell the truth," he said, "I'm looking forward to it."
"Er. Yes. There's a lot of world, though," said Masklin. "You can't be sure you'll find any help."
"I'll have to hope, then."
"Well... if you're sure..." said Masklin doubtfully.
"Yes. More sure than anything I can remember," said Gurder. "And I've been pretty sure of a lot of things in my time, as you know."
"We'd better find somewhere suitable to set you down," said Masklin.
"That's right," said Gurder. He tried to look brave. "Somewhere with a lot of geese," he said.
They left him at sunset, by a lake.
It was a brief parting. If the Ship stayed anywhere for more than a few minutes now, humans would flock toward it.
"You were wrong to let him go," said Grimma as they closed the hatch. "He doesn't even know how to steer a goose!"
"I told him that, and he said that Pion gave him a few hints and if he couldn't find any goose nomes, then he'd learn himself," said Masklin. "He said that if the Floridians could do it, then he could too. He was very definite about it."
"He'd learn? Gurder? Just like that?" said Grimma.
"Well, you learned how to drive the Cat," said Masklin.
"Huh! That was different. I had to."
"Maybe there are things he has to do too. He's got a chance. Why should we try to stop him?"
"But we're his friends!"
"That's what I mean," said Masklin.
The last they saw of Gurder was a small, waving figure on the shore. And then there was just a lake turning into a green dot on a dwindling landscape. A world unfolded, with one invisible nome in the middle of it. And then there was nothing.
The control room was full of nomes watching the landscape unroll as the Ship rose.
Grimma stared at it.
"I never realized it looked like that," said Grimma. "There's so much of it!"
"It's pretty big," said Masklin.
"You'd think one world would be big enough for all of us," said Grimma.
"Oh, I don't know," said Masklin. "Maybe one world isn't big enough for anyone. Where are we heading, Angalo?"
The Bromeliad Trilogy Page 40
