“Right you are, Mr. Angalo sir,” said the signaler.
“Can’t see any golden horses,” said Masklin. “You know, I’m not entirely certain—”
“And there should be cheerful music,” said Gurder, pleased to be making a contribution.
“Can’t hear any cheer—” Masklin began.
There was the long-drawn-out blast of a car horn. The road stopped and was replaced by a mound covered in bushes. The truck roared up it, all wheels leaving the ground for a moment, then thumped down on the other side of the roundabout and continued a little way, rocking from side to side, on the opposite road. It rolled to a halt.
There was silence in the cab again. Then someone groaned.
Masklin crawled to the edge of the platform and looked down into the frightened face of Gurder, who was hanging on to the edge.
“What happened?” he groaned.
Masklin hauled him back up to safety and dusted him off.
“I think,” he said, “that although the signs mean what they say, what they say isn’t what they mean.”
Grimma pulled herself out from underneath the Code. Angalo untangled himself from the lengths of string and found himself looking into her furious scowl.
“You,” she said, “are a total idiot. And speed mad! Why don’t you listen?”
“You can’t speak to me like that!” said Angalo, cowering back. “Gurder, tell her she can’t call me names like that!”
Gurder sat trembling on the edge of the platform.
“As far as I am concerned right now,” he said, “she can call you what she likes. Go to it, young woman.”
Angalo glowered. “Hang on! You were the one who went on about golden horses! I didn’t see any golden horses! Did anyone see any golden horses? He confused me, going on about golden horses—”
Gurder waved a finger at him. “Don’t you ‘he’ me—” he began.
“And don’t you ‘young woman’ me in that tone of voice!” screamed Grimma.
Dorcas’s voice came up from the depths.
“I don’t want to interrupt anything,” it said, “but if this happens one more time, there are people down here who will be getting very angry. Is that understood?”
“Just a minor steering problem,” Masklin called down cheerfully. He turned back to the others.
“Now you all look here,” he said quietly. “This arguing has got to stop. Every time we hit a problem, we start bickering. It’s not sensible.”
Angalo sniffed. “We were doing perfectly all right until he—”
“Shut up!”
They stared at him. He was shaking with anger.
“I’ve had just about enough of all of you!” he shouted. “You make me ashamed! We were doing so well! I haven’t spent ages trying to make all this happen just for a, a, a steering committee to ruin it all! Now you can all get up and get this thing moving again! There’s a whole truckload of nomes back there! They’re depending on you! Understand?”
They looked at one another. They stood up sheepishly. Angalo pulled up the steering strings. The signaler untangled his flags.
“Ahem,” said Angalo quietly. “I think . . . yes, I think a little bit of first gear might be in order here, if it’s all the same to everybody?”
“Good idea. Go ahead,” said Gurder.
“But carefully,” said Grimma.
“Thank you,” said Angalo politely. “Is that all right by you, Masklin?” he added.
“Hmm? Yes. Yes. Fine. Go.”
At least there were no more buildings. The truck purred along the lonely road, its one remaining headlight making a white glow in the mist. One or two vehicles passed them on the other side of the road.
Masklin knew that soon they should be looking for somewhere to stop. It would have to be somewhere sheltered, away from humans—but not too far away, because he was pretty certain there were still plenty of things the nomes were going to need. Perhaps they were going north, but if they were, it would be sheer luck.
It was at that moment—tired, angry, with his mind not entirely on what was in front of him—that he saw Prices Slashed.
There was no doubt about it. The human was standing in the road, waving its flashlight. There was a car beside him, with a blue flashing light on top.
The others had seen it, too.
“Prices Slashed!” moaned Gurder. “He’s got here in front of us!”
“More speed,” said Angalo grimly.
“What are you going to do?” said Masklin.
“We’ll see how his light can stand up to a truck!” muttered Angalo.
“You can’t do that! You can’t drive trucks into people!”
“It’s Prices Slashed!” said Angalo. “It’s not people!”
“He’s right,” said Grimma. “You said we mustn’t stop now!”
Masklin grabbed the steering strings and gave one a yank. The truck skewed around just as Prices Slashed dropped his flashlight and, with respectable speed, jumped into the hedge. There was a bang as the rear of the truck hit the car, and then Angalo had the threads again and was guiding them back into something like a straight line.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said sullenly. “It’s all right to run into Prices Slashed, isn’t it, Gurder?”
“Well. Er,” said Gurder. He gave Masklin an embarrassed look. “I’m not sure it was Prices Slashed, in fact. He had darker clothes, for one thing. And the car with the light on it.”
“Yes, but he had the peaked hat and the terrible light!”
The truck bumped off a bank, taking away a large chunk of soil, and lurched back onto the road.
“Anyway,” said Angalo in a satisfied voice, “that’s all behind now. We left Arnold Bros (est. 1905) behind in the Store. We don’t need that stuff. Not Outside.”
Noisy though it was in the cab, the words created their own sort of silence.
“Well, it’s true,” said Angalo defensively. “And Dorcas thinks the same thing. And a lot of younger nomes.”
“We shall see,” said Gurder. “However, I suspect that if Arnold Bros (est. 1905) was ever anywhere, then he’s everywhere.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m not sure myself. I need to think about it.”
Angalo sniffed. “Well, think about it, then. But I don’t believe it. It doesn’t matter anymore. May Bargains Galore turn against me if I’m wrong,” he added.
Masklin saw a blue light out of the corner of his eye. There were mirrors over the wheels of the truck and, although one of them was smashed and the other one was bent, they still worked after a fashion. The light was behind the truck.
“He’s coming after us, whoever it is,” he said mildly.
“And there’s that dee-dah, dee-dah noise,” said Gurder.
“I think,” Masklin went on, “that it might be a good idea to get off this road.”
Angalo glanced from side to side.
“Too many hedges,” he said.
“No, I meant onto another road. Can you do that?”
“Ten-four. No problem. Hey, he’s trying to pass! What a nerve! Ha!” The truck swerved violently.
“I wish we could open the windows,” he added. “One of the drivers I watched, if anyone behind him honked, he’d wave his hand out of the window and shout things. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do.” He waved his arm up and shouted, “Yahgerronyerr!”
“Don’t worry about that. Just find another road, a small road,” said Masklin soothingly. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He lowered himself down the swaying ladder to Dorcas and his people. There wasn’t too much going on at the moment, just little tugs on the big wheel from the steering groups and a steady pressure on the go-faster pedal. Many of the nomes were sitting down and trying to relax. There was a ragged cheer when Masklin joined them.
Dorcas was sitting by himself, scribbling things on a piece of paper.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said. “Everything working now?
Have we run out of things to bump into?”
“We’re being followed by someone who wants to make us stop,” said Masklin.
“Another truck?”
“A car, I think. With humans in it.”
Dorcas scratched his chin.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“You used things to cut the truck wires when you didn’t want it to go,” said Masklin.
“Pliers. What about them?”
“Have you still got them?”
“Oh, yes. But you need two nomes to use them.”
“Then I shall need another nome.” Masklin told Dorcas what he had in mind.
The old nome looked at him with something like admiration and then shook his head.
“It’ll never work,” he said. “We won’t have the time. Nice idea, though.”
“But we’re so much faster than humans! We could do it and be back at the truck before they know!”
“Hmm.” Dorcas grinned nastily. “You going to come?”
“Yes. I, er, I’m not sure nomes who’ve never been outside the Store will be able to cope.”
Dorcas stood and yawned. “Well, I’d like to try some of this ‘fresh air’ stuff,” he said. “I’m told it’s very good for you.”
If there had been watchers, peering over the hedge into that mist-wreathed country lane, they would have seen a truck come thundering along at quite an unsafe speed.
They might have thought: That’s an unusual vehicle—it seems to have lost quite a few things it should have, like one headlight, a bumper, and most of the paint down one side, and picked up a number of things it shouldn’t have, like some bits of bush and more dents than a sheet of corrugated iron.
They might have wondered why it had a Road Works Ahead sign hanging from one door handle.
And they would have certainly have wondered why it rolled to a stop.
The police car behind it stopped rather more impressively, in a shower of gravel. Two men almost fell out of it and ran to the truck, wrenching open the doors.
If the watchers had been able to understand Human, they’d have heard someone say, All right, chummy, that’s it for it tonight and then say, Where’s he gone? There’s just a load of string in here! And then someone else would say, I bet he’s slipped out and has legged it over the fields.
And while this was going on, and while the policemen poked vaguely in the hedge and shone their flashlights into the mist, the watchers might have noticed a couple of very small shadows run from under the rear of the truck and disappear under the car. They moved very fast, like mice. Like mice, their voices were high-pitched, fast, and squeaky.
They were carrying a pair of pliers.
A few seconds later, they scurried back again. And almost as soon as they’d disappeared under the truck, it started up.
The men shouted and ran back to their car.
But instead of roaring into life, it went whirr, whirr, whirr in the misty night.
After a while one of them got out and lifted the hood.
As the truck vanished into the mist, its single rear light a fading glow, he knelt down, reached under the car, and held up a handful of neatly cut wires. . . .
This is what the watchers would have seen. In fact, the only watchers were a couple of cows, and they didn’t understand any of it.
Perhaps it nearly ends there.
A couple of days later the truck was found in a ditch some way outside the town. What was stranger was this: The battery, and every wire, light bulb, and switch had been taken out of it. So had the radio.
The cab was full of bits of string.
14
XV. And the nomes said, Here is a New Place, to be ours for Ever and Ever.
XVI. And the Outsider said Nothing.
From The Book of Nome, Exits Chap. 4, v. XV–XVI
IT HAD BEEN a quarry. The nomes knew this because the gate had a rusty sign on it: Quarry. Dangerous. Do Not Enter.
They found it after a mad panicking run across the fields. By luck, if you listened to Angalo. Because of Arnold Bros (est. 1905), if you believed Gurder.
It doesn’t matter how they settled in, found the few old tumbledown buildings, explored the caves and rock heaps, cleared out the rats. That wasn’t too difficult. The harder part was persuading most of the older nomes to go outside; they felt happier with a floor over their heads. Granny Morkie came in useful there. She made them watch her walk up and down outside, braving the terrible Fresh Air.
Besides, the food taken from the Store didn’t last forever. There was hunger, and there were rabbits in the fields above. Vegetables, too. Not nice and clean, of course, as Arnold Bros (est. 1905) had intended they should be, but just sticking in the ground covered with dirt. There were complaints about this. The molehills that appeared in a nearby field were simply the result of the first experimental potato mine. . . .
After a couple of nasty experiences, foxes learned to keep away.
And then there was Dorcas’s discovery of electricity, still in wires leading to a box in one of the deserted sheds. Getting at it while staying alive seemed to need nearly as much planning as the Great Drive, with a lot of broom handles and rubber gloves involved.
After a lot of thought, Masklin had pushed the Thing near one of the electric wires. It had flashed a few lights but had kept silent. He felt it was listening. He could hear it listening.
He’d taken it away again and tucked it into a gap in one of the walls. He had an obscure feeling that it wasn’t time to use the Thing yet. The longer they left it, he thought, the longer they’d have to work out for themselves what it was they were doing. He’d like to wake it up later and say, “Look, this is what we’ve done, all by ourselves.”
Gurder had already worked out that they were probably somewhere in China.
And so the winter became spring, and spring became summer. . . .
But it wasn’t finished, Masklin felt.
He sat on the rocks above the quarry, on guard. They always kept a guard on duty, just in case. One of Dorcas’s inventions, a switch that was connected to a wire that would light a bulb down under one of the sheds, was hidden under a stone by his side. He’d been promised radio, one of these days. One of these days might be quite soon, because Dorcas had pupils now. They seemed to spend a lot of time in one of the tumbledown sheds, surrounded by bits of wire and looking very serious.
Guard duty was quite popular, at least on sunny days.
This was home, now. The nomes were settling in, filling in the corners, planning, spreading out, starting to belong.
Especially Bobo. He’d disappeared on the first day, and turned up again, scruffy and proud, as the leader of the quarry rats and father of a lot of little ratlings. Perhaps it was because of this that the rats and the nomes seemed to be getting along okay, politely avoiding each other whenever possible and not eating one another.
They belong here more than we do, thought Masklin. This isn’t really our place. This belongs to humans. They’ve just forgotten about it for a while, but one day they’ll remember it. They’ll come back here and we’ll have to move on. We’ll always have to move on. We’ll always try to create our own little worlds inside the big world. We used to have it all, and now we think we’re lucky to have a little bit.
He looked down at the quarry below him. He could just make out Grimma sitting in the sun with some of the young nomes, teaching them to read.
That was a good thing, anyway. He’d never be that good at it, but the kids seemed to pick it up easily enough.
But there were still problems. The departmental families, for example. They had no departments to rule, and they spent a lot of time squabbling. There seemed to be arguments going on the whole time, and everyone expected him to sort them out. It seemed the only time nomes acted together was when they had something to occupy their minds. . . .
Beyond the moon, the Thing had said. You used to live in the stars.
Masklin lay back and listened to
the bees.
One day we’ll go back. We’ll find a way to get to the big Ship in the sky, and we’ll go back. But not yet. It’ll take some doing, and the hard part again will be getting people to understand. Every time we climb up a step, we settle down and think we’ve got to the top of the stairs, and start bickering about things.
Still, even knowing that the stairs are there is a pretty good start.
From here, he could see for miles across the countryside. For instance, he could see the airport.
It had been quite frightening, the day they’d seen the first jet go over, but a few of the nomes had recalled pictures from books they’d read, and it turned out to be nothing more than a sort of truck built to drive in the sky.
Masklin hadn’t told anyone why he thought that knowing more about the airport would be a good idea. Some of the others suspected, he knew, but there was so much to do that they weren’t thinking about it now.
He’d led up to it carefully. He’d just said that it was important to find out as much about this new world as possible, just in case. He’d put it in such a way that no one had said, “In case of what?” and, anyway, there were people to spare and the weather was good.
He’d led a team of nomes across the fields to it; it had been a long journey, but there were thirty of them and there had been no problems. They’d even had to cross a highway, but they’d found a tunnel built for badgers, and a badger coming along it the other way turned around and hurried off when they approached. Bad news like armed nomes spreads quickly.
And then they’d found the wire fence, and climbed up it a little way, and spent hours watching the planes landing and taking off.
Masklin had felt, just as he had done once or twice before, that here was something very important. The jets looked big and terrible, but once he’d thought that about trucks. You just had to know about them. Once you had the name, you had something you could handle, like a sort of lever. One day, they could be useful. One day, the nomes might need them.
To take another step.
Funnily enough, he felt quite optimistic about it. He’d had one glorious moment of feeling that, although they argued and bickered and got things wrong and tripped over themselves, nomes would come through in the end. Because Dorcas had been watching the planes, too, clinging to the wire with a calculating look in his eyes. And Masklin had said:
Truckers Page 16
