The Bromeliad 1 - Truckers

7

xxi. But Arnold Bros (est. 1905) said, This is the Sign I give you: xxii. If You Do Not See What You Require, Please Ask.

From The Book of Nome, Regulations v.XXI -XXII 'She can't come,' said Gurder.

'Why not?' said Masklin.

'Well, it's dangerous." 'So?' Masklin looked at Grimma, who was wear­ing a defiant expression.

'You shouldn't take girls anywhere dangerous,' said Gurder virtuously.

Once again Masklin got the feeling he'd come to recognize often since he'd arrived in the Store. They were talking, their mouths were opening and shutting, every word by itself was perfect­ly understandable, but when they were all put together they made no sense at all. The best thing to do was ignore them. Back home, if women weren't to go anywhere dangerous, they wouldn't go anywhere.

'I'm coming,' said Grimma. 'What danger is there, anyway? Only this Price Slasher, and-' 'And Arnold Bros (est. 1905) himself,' said Gurder nervously.

Well, I'm going to come anyway. People don't need me and there's nothing to do,' said Grimma. What can happen, anyway? It's not as if something terrible could happen,' she added sarcastically, 'like me reading something and my brain overheating, for example.' 'Now, I'm sure I didn't say-' said Gurder weakly.

'I bet the Stationeri don't do their own washing,' said Grimma. 'Or darn their own socks. I bet-' 'All right, all right,' said Gurder, backing away. 'But you mustn't lag behind, and you mustn't get in the way. We'll make the decisions, all right?' He gave Masklin a desperate look.

'You tell her she mustn't get in the way,' he said.

'Me?' said Masklin. 'I've never told her any­thing.' The journey was less impressive than he'd expected. The old Abbot had told of staircases that moved, fire in buckets, long empty corridors with nowhere to hide.

But since then, of course, Dorcas had put the lifts in. They only went as far as Kiddies Klothes and Toys, but the Kiothians were a friendly people who had adapted well to life on a high floor and always welcomed the rare travellers who came with tales of the world below.

'They don't even come down to use the Food Hall,' said Gurder. 'They get everything they want from the Staff rest-room. They live on tea and biscuits, mainly. And yoghurt.' 'How strange,' said Grimma.

They're very gentle,' said Gurder. 'Very thought­ful. Very quiet. A little bit mystical, though. It must be all that yoghurt and tea.' 'I don't understand about the fire in buckets, though,' said Masklin.

'Er,' said Gurder, 'we think that the old Abbot might, er, we think his memory... after all, he is extremely old...' 'You don't have to explain,' said Grimma. 'Old Torrit can be a bit like that.' 'It's just that his mind is not as sharp as it was,' said Gurder.

Masklin said nothing. It just seemed to him that, if the Abbot's mind was a bit blunt now, it must once have been sharp enough to cut the breeze.

The Kiothians gave them a guide to take them through the outlying. regions of the underfloor. There were few nomes this high up. Most of them preferred the busy floors below.

It was almost like being outside. Faint breezes blew the dust into grey drifts; there was no light except what filtered through from odd cracks. In the darkest places the guide had to light matches. He was a very small nome, who smiled a lot in a shy way and said nothing at all when Grimma tried to talk to him.

'Where are we going?' said Masklin, looking back at their deep footprints.

'To the moving stairs,' said Gurder.

'Move? How do they move? Bits of the Store move around?' Gurder chuckled patronizingly.

'Of course, all this is new to you. You mustn't worry if you don't understand everything,' he said.

'Do they move or don't they?' said Grimma. 'You'll see. It's the only one we use, you know. It's a bit dangerous. You have to be topsides, you see. It's not like the lifts.' The little Klothian pointed forward, bowed and hurried away.

Gurder led them up through a narrow crack in the ancient floorboards, into the bright emptiness of a passageway, and there- -the moving stair.

Masklin watched it hypnotically. Stairs rose out of the floor, squeaking eerily as they did so, and whirred up into the distant heights.

'Wow,' he said. It wasn't much, but it was all that he could think of.

'The Klothians won't go near it,' said Gurder. 'They think it is haunted by spirits.' 'I don't blame them,' said Grimma, shivering. 'Oh, it's just superstition,' said Gurder. His face was white and there was a tremble in his voice. 'There's nothing to be frightened of,' he squeaked.

Masklin peered at him.

'Have you ever been here before?' he asked. 'Oh, yes. Millions of times. Often,' said Gurder, picking up a fold of his robe and twisting it between his fingers.

'So what do we do now?' Gurder tried to speak slowly but his voice began to go faster and faster of its own accord: 'You know, the Klothians say that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) waits at the top, you know, and when nomes die-' Grimma looked reflectively at the rising stairs, and shivered again. Then she ran forward.

'What're you doing?' said Masklin.

'Seeing if they're right!' she snapped. 'Other­wise we'll be here all day!' Masklin ran after her. Gurder gulped, looked behind him, and scurried after both of them.

Masklin saw her run towards the rising bulk of a stair, and then the floor below her came up and she was suddenly rising, wobbling as she fought for balance. The floor below him pushed against his feet and he rose after her, one step below.

'Jump down!' he shouted. You can't trust ground that moves by itself!' Her pale face peered over the edge of her stair.

'What good will that do?' she said.

Then we can go and talk about it!' She laughed. 'Go where? Have you looked down lately?' Masklin looked down. He was already several stairs up. The distant figure of Gurder, his face just a blob, screwed up his courage and jumped on to a step of his own...

Arnold Bros (est. 1905) was not waiting at the top.

It was simply a long brown corridor lined with doors. There were words painted on some of them.

But Grimma was waiting. Masklin waved a finger at her as he staggered off his stair, which mysteriously folded itself down into the floor.

'Never, ever, do anything like that again!' he shouted.

'If I hadn't, you'd still be at the bottom. You could see Gurder was scared out of his wits!' she snapped.

'But there could have been all sorts of dangers up here!' 'Like what?' said Grimma haughtily.

Well, there could be ...' Masklin hesitated. 'That's not the point, the point is-' At this point Gurder's stair rolled him almost to their feet. They picked him up.

'There,' said Grimma brightly. We're all here, and everything's perfectly all right, isn't it.' Gurder stared around him. Then he coughed, and adjusted his clothes. 'I lost my balance there,' he said. 'Tricky, these moving stairs. But you get used to them eventu­ally.' He coughed again, and looked along the corridor. 'Well, we'd better get a move on,' he said.

The three nomes crept forward, past the rows of doors.

'Does one of these belong to Prices Slashed?' said Grimma. Somehow, the name sounded far worse up here.

'Urn, no,' said Gurder. 'He dwells among the furnaces in the basement.' He squinted up at the nearest door. 'This one is called Salaries,' he said.

'Is that good or bad?' said Grimma, staring at the word on the varnished wood.

'Don't know.' Masklin brought up the rear, turning slow­ly to keep all the corridor in view. It was too open. There was no cover, nothing to hide behind.

He pointed to a row of giant red things hanging halfway up the opposite wall. Gurder whispered that they were buckets.

'There's pictures of them in Colin and Susan Go to the Seaside,' he confided.

'What's that written on them?' Gurder squinted.' "Fire",' he said. 'Oh, my. The Abbot was right. Buckets of fire!' 'Fire in buckets?' said Masklin. 'Buckets of fire? I can't see any flames.' 'They must be inside. Perhaps there's a lid. There's beans in bean tins, and jam in jam jars. There should be fire in fire buckets,' said Gurder vaguely. 'Come on.' Grimma stared at this word, too. Her lips moved silently as she repeated it to herself. Then she hurried after the other two.

Eventually they reached the end of the corridor. There was another door there, with glass in the top half.

Gurder stared up at it.

'I can see there's words,' said Grimma. 'Read them out. I'd better not look at them,' she added sweetly, 'in case my brain goes bang.' Gurder swallowed. 'They say "Arnold Bros (est. 1905). D.H.K. Butterthwaite, General Manager." Er.' 'He's in there?' she said.

'Well, there's beans in bean tins and fire in fire buckets,' said Masklin helpfully. 'The door's not shut, look. Want me to go and see?' Gurder nodded wretchedly. Masklin walked over to the door, leaned against it, and pushed it until his arms ached. Eventually it swung in a little way.

There was no light inside, but by the faint glow from the corridor through the glass he could see he was entering a large room. The carpet was much thicker it was like wading through grass. Several meters away was a large rectangular wooden thing; as he walked around it he saw a chair behind it. Perhaps this was where Arnold Bros (est. 1905) sat.

'Where are you, Arnold Bros (est. 1905)?' he whispered.

Some minutes later the other two heard him calling softly. They peered around the door.

'Where are you?' hissed Grimma.

'Up here,' came Masklin's voice. 'This big wood­en thing. There's sticking-out bits you can climb on. There's all kinds of things up here. Careful of the carpet, there could be wild animals in it. If you wait a minute, I can help you up.' They waded through the deep pile of the carpet and waited anxiously by the wooden cliff.

'It's a desk,' said Gurder, loftily. 'There's lots of them in Furnishing. Amazing Value in Genuine One Hundred Per Cent Oak Veneer.' What's he doing up there?' said Grimma. 'I can hear clinking noises.' 'A Must In Every Home,' said Gurder, as if say­ing the words gave him some comfort. 'Wide Choice of Styles to Suit Every Pocket.' 'What are you talking about?' 'Sorry. It's the sort of thing Arnold Bros (est. 1905) writes on the signs. I just feel better for saying it.' What's that other thing up there?' He looked where she was pointing. 'That? It's a chair. Swivelled Finish For That Executive Look.' 'It looks big enough for humans,' she said thoughtfully.

'I expect humans. sit there when Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is giving them their instructions.' 'Hmm,' she said.

There was a clinking noise by her head.

'Sorry,' Masklin called down. 'It took me a while to hook them together.' Gurder looked up at the heights, and the gleam­ing chain that now hung down.

'Paperclips,' he said, amazed. 'I never would have thought it.' When they clambered to the top they found Masklin wandering across the shiny surface, prodding things with his spear. This was paper, Gurder explained airily, and things for making marks.

'Well, Arnold Bros (est. 1905) doesn't seem to be around,' Masklin said. 'Perhaps he's gone to bed, or whatever.' 'The Abbot said he saw him here one night, sit­ting at the desk right here,' said Gurder. 'Watching over the Store.' 'What, sitting on that chair?' said Grimma.

'I suppose so.' 'So he's big, then, is he?' Grimma pressed on relentlessly. 'Sort of human-sized?' 'Sort of,' Gurder agreed reluctantly.

'Hmm.' Masklin found a cable as thick as his arm winding off across the top of the desk. He fol­lowed it.

'If he's human-shaped and human-sized,' said Grimma, 'then perhaps he's a-' 'Let's just see what we can find up here, shall we?' said Gurder hurriedly. He walked over to a pile of paper and started reading the top sheet by the dim light coming in from the corridor. He read slowly, in a very loud voice.

'"The Arnco Group,"' he read, '"incorporat­ing Arnco Developments (UK), United Television, Arnco-Schultz (Hamburg) AG, Arnco Airlines, Arnco Recording, the Arnco Organization (Cin­emas) Ltd, Arnco Petroleum Holdings, Arnco Publishing, and Arnco UK Retailing plc."' 'Gosh,' said Grimma flatly.

'There's more,' said Gurder excitedly, 'in much smaller letters, perhaps they're meant to be right for us. Listen to all these names: "Arnco UK Retailing plc includes Bonded Outlets Ltd, the Grimethorpe Dye and Paint Company, Kwik­Kleen Mechanical Sweepers Ltd, and - and -and-" 'Something wrong?' '-"Arnold Bros (eat. 1905)".' Gurder looked up. What do you think it all means? Bargains Galore preserve us!' There was a light. It skewered down on the two of them, white and searing, so that they stood over a black pool of their own shadows.

Gurder looked up in terror at the brilliant globe that had appeared above them.

'Sorry, I think that was me,' said Masklin's voice from the shadows. 'I found this sort of lever thing and when I pushed it, it went click. Sorry.' 'Ahaha,' said Gurder, mirthlessly. 'An electric light. Of course. Ahaha. Gave me quite a start for a moment.' Masklin appeared in the circle of brightness, and looked at the paper.

'I heard you reading,' he said. 'Anything inter­esting?' Gurder pored over the print again. "Notice to all Staff,"' he read, '"I am sure we are all aware of the increasingly poor. finan­cial performance of the store in recent years. This rambling old building, while quite suitable for the leisured shopper of 1905, is not appropriate in the exciting world of the Nineties, and as we all know, there have unfortunately been marked stock losses and a general loss of custom following the opening of newer major outlets in the town. I am sure our sorrow at the closure of Arnold Bros, which as you know was the foundation of the Arnco fortunes, will be lessened by the news of plans by the Group to replace it with an Arnco Super Saverstore in the Neil Armstrong Shopping Mall. To this end, the store will close at the end of the month, and will shortly be demolished to make way for an exciting new Arnco Leisure Complex...".' Gurder fell silent, and put his head in his hands.

'There's those words again,' said Masklin slow­ly. 'Closure. Demolished.' 'What's leisure?' said Grimma. The Stationeri ignored her.

Masklin took her gently by the arm.

'I think he wants to be alone for a while,' he said. He pulled the tip of his spear across the broad sheet of paper, creasing it, and folded it up until it was small enough to carry.

'I expect the Abbot will want to see it,' he said. 'He'll never believe us if we-' He stopped. Grimma was staring over his shoul­der. He turned, and looked out through the glass part of the great door into the corridor beyond. There was a shadow out there. Human-shaped. And growing bigger.

What is it?' she said.

Masklin gripped the spear. 'I think,' he said, 'it may be Prices Slashed.' They turned and hurried over to Gurder.

'There's someone coming,' Masklin whispered. 'Get down to the floor, quickly!' 'Demolished!' moaned Gurder, hugging himself and rocking from side to side. 'Everything Must Go! Final Reductions! We're all doomed!' 'Yes, but do you think you could go and be doomed on the floor?' said Masklin.

'He's not himself; you can see that,' said Grimma. 'Come on,' she added, in a horribly cheerful voice. 'Upsydaisy.' She lifted him up bodily and helped him towards the rope of clips. Masklin followed them, walking backwards with his eye on the door.

He thought: he has seen the light. It should be dark in here now, and he has seen the light. But I'll never get it off in time and anyway, it won't make any difference. I don't believe in any demon called Prices Slashed and now, here he comes. What a strange world.

He sidled into the shade of a pile of paper, and waited.

He could hear Gurder's feeble protests, down around floor level, suddenly stop. Perhaps Grimma had hit him with something. She had a way of taking obvious action in a crisis.

The door drifted open, very slowly. There was a figure there. It looked like a human in a blue suit. Masklin wasn't much of a judge of human expressions, but the man didn't look very happy. In one hand he held a metal tube. Light shone out of one end. His terrible light, Masklin thought.

The figure came closer, in that slow-motion, sleep-walking way that humans had. Masklin peered around the paper, fascinated despite him­self. He looked up into a round, red face, felt the breath, saw the peaked hat.

He'd learned that humans in the Store had their names on little badges, because he'd been told -they were so stupid they wouldn't remember them otherwise. This man had his name on his hat. Masklin squinted and made out the shape of the letters: S... E .... ....... R...... T ..Y. He had a white moustache.

The man straightened up and started to walk around the room. They're not stupid, Masklin told himself. He's bright enough to know there shouldn't be a light on, and he wants to find out why. He's bound to see the others if he just looks in the right place. Even a human could see them.

He gripped his spear. The eyes, he thought, I'd have to go for the eyes...

Security drifted dreamily around the room, examining cupboards and looking in corners. Then he headed back towards the door.

Masklin dared to breathe and, at that moment, Gurder's hysterical voice came from somewhere below him.

'It is Prices Slashed! Oh, Bargains Galore, save us! We're all mmphmmphmmph-' Security stopped. He turned back, a look of puzzlement spreading across his face as slowly as treacle.

Masklin shrunk further back into the shadows. This is it, then, he thought. If I can get a good run at him.

Something outside the door started to roar. It was almost a lorry noise. It didn't seem to worry the man, who just pulled the door open and looked out.

There was a human woman in the passage. She looked quite elderly, as far as Masklin was any judge, with a pink apron with flowers on it and carpet slippers on her feet. She held a duster in one hand, and with the other she was...

Well, it looked as though she was holding back a sort of roaring thing, like a bag on wheels. It kept rushing forward across the carpet, but she kept one hand on its stick and kept pulling it back.

While Masklin watched she gave the thing a kick. The roaring died away as Security started to talk to her. To Masklin the conversation sounded like a couple of foghorns having a fight.

Masklin ran to the edge of the desk and half climbed, half fell down the chain of clips. The other two were waiting in the shadow of the desk. Gurder's eyes were rolling; Grimma had one hand clamped firmly over his mouth.

'Let's get out of here while he's not looking!' said Masklin.

'How?' said Grimma. 'There's only the doorway.' 'Mmphmmph.' Well, let's at least get somewhere better than this.' Masklin stared around across the rolling acres of dark carpet. 'There's a cupboard thing over there,' he said.

'Mmphmmph!' 'What are we going to do with him?' 'Look,' said Masklin to Gurder's frightened face. 'You're not going to go on about doom, doom again, are you? Otherwise we'll have to gag you. Sorry.' 'Mmph.' Promise?' 'Mmph.' 'Okay, you can take your hand away.' 'It was Bargains Galore!' hissed Gurder excit­edly.

Grimma looked up at Masklin. 'Shall I shut him up again?' she said.

'He can say what he likes as long as he keeps quiet,' said Masklin. 'It probably makes him feel better. He's had a bit of a shock.' 'Bargains Galore came to protect us! With her great roaring Soul-Sucker...' Gurder's brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

'It was a carpet-cleaner, wasn't it?' he said slowly. 'I always thought it was something magi­cal and it was just a carpet-cleaner. There's lot's of them in Household Appliances. With Extra Suction for Deep-Down Carpet Freshness.' 'Good. That's nice. Now, how do we get out of here?' Some searching behind the fifing cabinets found a crack in the floorboards just big enough to squeeze through with difficulty. Getting back took half a day, partly because Gurder would occasion­ally sit down and burst into tears, but mainly because they had to climb down inside the wall itself. It was hollow and had wires and odd bits of wood in it, tied into place by the Klothians, but it was still a tedious job. They came out under Kid­dies Klothes. Gurder had pulled himself together by then, and haughtily ordered food and an escort.

And so at last they came back to the Stationery Department.

Just in time.

Granny Monkie looked up as they were ushered into the Abbot's bedroom. She was sitting by the bed with her hands on her knees.

'Don't make any loud noises,' she ordered. 'He's very ill. He says he's dyin'. I suppose he should know.' 'Dying of what?' said Masklin.

'Dyin' of bein' alive for such a long time,' said Granny.

The Abbot lay, wrinkled and even smaller than Masklin remembered him, among his pillows. He was clutching the Thing in two thin, claw-like hands.

He looked at Masklin and, with a great effort, beckoned him to come closer.

'You'll have to lean oven,' Granny ordered. 'He can't talk above a croak, poor old soul.' The Abbot gently grabbed Masklin's ear and pulled it down to his mouth.

'A sterling woman,' he whispered. 'Many fine qualities, I am sure. But please send her away before she gives me any more medicine.' Masklin nodded, Granny's remedies, made from simple, honest and generally nearly poisonous herbs and roots, were amazing things. After one dose of stomach-ache jollop, you made sure you never complained of stomach ache ever again. In its way, it was a sort of cure.

'I can't send,' he said, 'but I can ask.' She went out, shouting instructions, to mix up another batch.

Gurder knelt down by the bed.

'You're not going to die, are you, sir?' he said.

'Of course I am. Everyone is. That's what being alive is all about,' whispered the Abbot. 'Did you see Arnold Bros (est. 1905)?' Well. Er.' Gurder hesitated. 'We found some Writing, sir. It's true, it says the Store will be demolished. That means the end of everything, sir, whatever shall we do?' 'You will have to leave,' said the Abbot.

Gurder looked horrified.

'But you've always said that everything outside the Stone could only be a dream!' 'And you never believed me, boy. And maybe I was wrong. That young man with the spear, is he still here? I can't see very well.' Masklin stepped forward.

'Oh, there you are,' said the old nome. 'This box of yours.' 'Yes?' said Masklin.

'Told me things. Showed me pictures. Store's a lot bigger than I thought, there's this room they keep the stars in, not just the glittery ones they hang from the ceiling at Christmas Fayre, but hundreds of the damn things. It's called the uni­verse. We used to live in it, it nearly all belonged to us, it was our home. We didn't live under anyone's floor. I think Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is telling us to go back there.' He reached out and his cold white finger gripped Masklin's arm with surprising strength.

'I don't say you're blessed with brains,' he said. 'In fact I reckon you're the stupid but dutiful kind who gets to be leader when there's no glory in it. You're the kind who sees things through. Take them home. Take them all home.' He slumped back on to the pillows, and shut his eyes.

'But-leave the Store, sir?' said Gurder. 'There's thousands of us, old people and babies and every­one, where can we go? There's foxes out there, Masklin says, and wind and hunger and water that drops out of the sky in bits! Sir? Sir?' Grimma leaned over and felt the old nome's wrist.

'Can he hear me?' said Gurder.

'Maybe,' said Grimma. 'Perhaps. But he won't be able to answer you, because he's dead.' 'But he can't die! He's always been here!' said Gurder, aghast. 'You've got it wrong. Sir? Sir!' Masklin took the Thing out of the Abbot's unresisting hands as other Stationeri, hearing Gurder's voice, hurried in.

'Thing?' he said quietly, walking away from the crowd around the bed, 'I hear you.' 'Is he dead?' 'I detect no life functions.' What does that mean?' 'It means "yes".' 'Oh.' Masklin considered this. 'I thought you had to be eaten or squashed first. I didn't think you just sort of stopped.' The Thing didn't volunteer any information.

'Any idea what I should do now?' said Masklin. 'Gurder was right. They are not going to leave all this warmth and food. I mean, some of the youngsters might, for a lark. But if we're going to survive outside we'll need lots of people. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. And what am I supposed to say to them: Sorry, you've all got to leave it all behind?' The Thing spoke.

'No,' it said.

Masklin had never seen a funeral before. Come to that, he'd never seen a nome die from being alive too long. Oh, people had been eaten, or had never come back, but no one had simply come to an end.

Where do you bury your dead?' Gurder had asked. 'Inside badgers and foxes, often,' he'd replied, and hadn't been able to resist adding, 'You know. The handsome and agile hunters?' This was how the nomes said farewell to their dead: The body of the old Abbot was ceremoniously dressed in a green coat and a pointy red hat. His long white beard was carefully combed out and then he lay, peacefully, on his bed as Gurder read the service.

'Now that it has pleased you, Arnold Bros (est. 1905), to take our brother to your great Gardening Department beyond Consumer Accounts, where there is Ideal Lawn Edging and an Amazing Floral Display and the pool of eternal life in Easy-to-Lay Polythene with Real Crazy-Paving Edging, we will give him the gifts a nome must take on his journey.' The Count de Ironmongri stepped forward. 'I give him,' he said, laying an object beside the nome, 'the Spade Of Honest Toil.' 'And I,' said the Duke de Haberdasheri, 'lay beside him the Fishing Rod of Hope.' Other leading nomes brought other things: the Wheelbarrow of Leadership, the Shopping Basket of Life. Dying in the Store was quite complicated, Masklin gathered.

Grimma blew her nose as Gurder completed the service and the body was ceremoniously carried away.

To the sub-basement, they later learned, and the incinerator. Down in the realms of Prices Slashed, the Security, where he sat at night-times, legend said, and drank his horrible tea.

'That's a bit dreadful, I reckon,' said Granny Morkie, as they stood around aimlessly after­wards. 'In my young day, if a person died, we buried 'em. In the ground.' 'Ground?' said Gurder.

'Sort of floor,' explained Granny.

'Then what happened?' said Gurder.

Granny looked blank. 'What?' she said.

'Where did they go after that?' said the Stationeri patiently.

'Go? I don't reckon they went anywhere. Dead people don't get about much.' 'In the Store,' said Gurder slowly, as if he was explaining things to a rather backward child, 'when a nome dies, if he has been a good nome, Arnold Bros (eat. 1905) sends them back to see us before they go to a Better Place.' 'How can-' Granny began.

'The inner bit of them, I mean,' said Gurder. 'The bit inside you that's really you.' They looked at him politely, waiting for him to make any sort of sense.

Gurder sighed. 'All right,' he said, 'I'll get some­one to show you.' They were taken to the Gardening Department. It was a strange place, Masklin thought. It was like the world outside but with all the difficult bits taken away. The only light was the faint glow of indoor suns, which stayed on all night. There was no wind, no rain, and there never would be. There was grass, but it was just painted green sacking with bits sticking out of it. There were mountain­ous cliffs of nothing but seeds in packets, each one with a picture that Masklin suspected was quite unreal. They showed flowers, but flowers unlike any he'd ever seen before.

'Is the Outside like this?' said the young priest who was guiding them. 'They say, they say, er, they say you've been there. They say you've seen it.' He sounded hopeful.

'There was more green and brown,' said Mask­lin flatly.

'And flowers?' said the priest.

'Some flowers,' Masklin agreed. 'But not like these.' 'I seed flowers like these once,' said Torrit and then, unusually for him, fell silent.

They were led around the bulk of a giant lawnmower and there- -were nomes. Tall, chubby-faced gnomes. Pink­cheeked painted gnomes. Some of them held fishing rods or spades. Some of them were push­ing painted wheelbarrows. And every single one of them was grinning.

The tribe stood in silence for some time.

Then Grimma said, very softly, 'How horrible.' 'Oh, no!' said the priest, horrified. 'It's marvel­lous! Arnold Bros (est. 1905) sends you back smart and new, and then you leave the Stone and go to a wonderful place!' 'There's no women,' said Granny. 'That's a mercy, anyway.' 'Ah, well,' said the priest, looking a bit embar­rassed. 'That's always been a bit of a debatable question, we're not sure why but we think-' 'And they don't look like anyone,' said Granny. They all look the same.' Well, you see-' 'Catch me coming back like that,' said Granny. 'If you come back like that, I don't want to go.' The priest was almost in tears.

'No, but-' 'I saw one like these once.' It was old Torrit again. He looked very grey in the face and was trembling.

'You shut up, you,' said Granny. 'You never saw nothing.' 'I did too,' said Torrit. 'When I was a little lad.

Grandpa Dimpo took some of us right across the fields, right through the wood, and there was all these big stone houses where humans lived and they had little fields in front full of flowers like what they got here, and grass all short, and ponds with orange fish, and we saw one of these. It was sitting on a stone toadstool by one of these ponds.' 'It never was,' said Granny, automatically.

'It was an' all,' said Torrit, levelly. 'And I mind Grandpa sayin', "That ain't no life, out there in all weathers, birds doing their wossname on your hat and dogs widdlin' all over you." He tole us it was a giant nome who got turned to stone on account of sitting there for so long and never catching no fish. And he said, "Wot a way to go, that ain't for me, lads, I want to go sudden like," and then a cat jumped out on him. Talk about laugh.' What happened?' said Masklin.

'Oh, we gave it a good seeing-to with our spears and picked him up and we all run like bu - run very fast,' said Torrit, watching Granny's stern expression.

'No, no!' wailed the priest. 'It's not like that at all!' and then he started to sob.

Granny hesitated for a moment, and then patted him gently on the back.

'There, there,' she said. 'Don't you worry about it. Daft old fool says any old thing that comes into his head.' 'I don't-.-' Torrit began. Granny's warning look stopped him.

They went back slowly, trying to put the terrible stone images out of their minds. Torrit trailed along behind, grumbling like a worn-out thunderstorm.

'I did see it, I'm telling you,' he whispered.

'Damn great grinning thing, it were, sitting on a spotty stone mushroom. I did see it. Never went back there, though. Better safe than sorry, I always said. But I did see it.' It seemed taken for granted by everyone that Gurder was going to be the new Abbot. The old Abbot had left strict instructions. There didn't seem to be any argument.

The only one against the idea, in fact, was Gurder.

'Why me?' he said. 'I never wanted to lead any­one! Anyway ... you know ...' He lowered his voice. 'I have Doubts, sometimes. The old Abbot knew it, I'm sure, I can't imagine why he'd think I'd be any good.' Masklin said nothing. It occurred to him that the Abbot might have had a very definite aim in mind. Perhaps it was time for a little doubt. Per­haps it was time to look at Arnold Bros (est.1905) in a different way.

They were off to one side in the big underfloor area the Stationeri used for important meetings; it was the one place in the Store, apart from the Food Hall, where fighting was strictly forbidden. The heads of the families, rulers of departments and sub-departments, were milling around out there. They might not be allowed to bear weapons, but they were cutting one another dead at every opportunity.

Getting them to even think of working together would be impossible without the Stationeri. It was odd, really. The Stationeni had no real power at all, but all the families needed them and none of them feared them and so they survived and, in a strange sort of way, led. A Haberdasheri wouldn't listen even to common sense from an Irorimongri, on general principles, but they would if the speaker was a Stationeri because everyone knew the Stationeri didn't take sides.

He turned to Gurder.

'We need to talk to someone in the Ironmongri. They control the electric, don't they? And the lorry nest.' 'That's the Count de Ironinongri over there,' said Gurder, pointing. 'Thin fellow with the mous­tache. Not very religious. Doesn't know much about electric, though.' 'I thought you told me-' 'Oh, the Ironmongri do. The underlings and servants and whatnot. But not people like the Count. Good heavens,' Gurder smiled. 'You don't think the Duke de Haberdasheri ever touches a pair of scissors, do you, or Baroness del Icatessen goes and cuts up food her actual self?' He looked sideways at Masklin.

'You've got a plan, haven't you?' he said.

'Yes. Sort of.' What are you going to tell them, then?' Masklin picked absently at the tip of his spear. 'The truth. I'm going to tell them they can leave the Store and take it all with them. I think it should be possible.' Gurder rubbed his chin. 'Hmm,' he said. 'I sup­pose it's possible. If everyone carries as much food and stuff as they can. But it'll soon run out and, anyway, you can't carry electric. It lives in wires, you know.' 'How many Stationeri can read Human?' said Masklin, ignoring him.

'All of us can read a bit, of course,' said Gurder.

'But only four of us are any real good at it, if you must know.' 'I don't think that's going to be enough,' said Masklin.

Well, there's a trick to it, and not everyone can get the hang of it. What are you planning?' 'A way to get everyone, everyone, out. Carrying everything we'll ever need, ever,' said Masklin.

'They'll be squashed under the weight!' 'Not really. Most of what they'll be carrying doesn't weigh anything at all.' Gurder looked worried.

'This isn't some mad scheme of Dorcas's, is it?' he said.

'No.' Masklin felt that he might explode. His head wasn't big enough to hold all the things the Thing had told him.

And he was the only one. Oh, the Abbot had known, and died with his eyes full of stars, but even he didn't understand. The galaxy! The old man thought it was just a great big room outside the Store, just the biggest department ever. Per­haps Gurder wouldn't comprehend, either, He'd lived all his life under a roof. He had no idea of the sort of distances involved.

Masklin felt a slight surge of pride at this. The Store nomes couldn't understand what the Thing was saying, because they had no experiences to draw on. To them, from one end of the Store to the other was the biggest possible distance in the world.

They wouldn't be able to get to grips with the fact that the stars, fr'instance, were much further away. Even if you ran all the way, it'd probably take weeks to reach them.

He'd have to lead up to it gently.

The stars! And a long, long time ago nomes had travelled between them on things that made lorries look tiny - and had been built by nomes. And one of the great ships, exploring around a little star on the edge of nowhere, had sent out a smaller ship to land on the world of the humans.

But something had gone wrong. Masklin hadn't understood that bit, except that the thing that moved the ships was very, very powerful. Hun­dreds of nomes had survived, though. One of them, searching through the wreckage, had found the Thing. It wasn't any good without electricity to eat, but the nomes had kept it, nevertheless, because it had been the machine that steered the ship.

And the generations had passed by, and the nomes forgot everything except that the Thing was very important.

That was enough for one head to carry, Masklin thought. But it wasn't the most important bit, it wasn't the bit that made his blood fizz and his fingers tingle.

This was the important bit. The big ship, the one that could fly between stars, was still up there somewhere. It was tended by machines like the Thing, patiently waiting for the nomes to come back. Time meant nothing to them. There were machines to sweep the long corridors, and machines that made food and watched the stars and patiently counted the hours and minutes in the long, dark emptiness of the ship.

And they'd wait for ever. They didn't know what Time was, except something to be counted and filed away. They'd wait until the sun went cold and the moon died, carefully repairing the ship and keeping it ready for the nomes to come back.

To take them Home. And while they waited, Masklin thought, we forgot all about them, we forgot everything about ourselves, and lived in holes in the ground.

He knew what he had to do. It was, of course, an impossible task. But he was used to them. Dragging a rat all the way from the wood to the hole had been an impossible task. But it wasn't impossible to drag it a little way, so you did that, and then you had a rest, and then you dragged it a little way again... The way to deal with an impossible task was to chop it down into a number of merely very difficult tasks, and break each one of them into a group of horribly hard tasks, and each one of them into tricky jobs, and each one of them...

Probably the hardest job of all was to make nomes understand what they once were and could be again.

He did have a plan. Well, it had started off as the Thing's plan, but he'd turned it over and over in his mind so much he felt it belonged to him. It was probably an impossible plan. But he'd never know, unless he tried it.

Gurder was still watching him cautiously.

'Er,' Masklin said. 'This plan...' 'Yes?' said Gurder.

'The Abbot told me that the Stationeri have always tried to make nomes work together and stop squabbling,' said Masklin.

'That has always been our desire, yes.' 'This plan will mean they'll have to work together.' 'Good.' 'Only I don't think you're going to like it much,' said Masklin.

That's unfair! How can you make assumptions like that?' 'I think you'll laugh at it,' said Masklin.

'The only way to find out is to tell me,' said Gurder.

Masklin told him. When Gurder was over the shock, he laughed and laughed.

And then he looked at Masklin's face, and stopped.

'You're not serious?' he said.

'Let me put it like this,' said Masklin. 'Have you got a better plan? Will you support me?' 'But how will you - how can nomes is it even possible that we can-?' Gurder began.

We'll find a way,' said Masklin. With Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s help, of course,' he added diplomatically.

'Oh. Of course,' said Gurder weakly. He pulled himself together.

'Anyway, if I'm to be the new Abbot I have to make a speech,' he said. 'It's expected. General messages of goodwill and so on. We can talk about this later. Reflect upon it at leisure in the sober surroundings of-' Masklin shook his head. Gurder swallowed.

'You mean now? he said.

'Yes. Now. We tell them now.'