The Bromeliad 3 - Wings

Chapter 11

The Ship: The machine used by nomes to leaveEarth. We don't yet know everything about it, butsince it was built by nomes using Science, wewill. - From A Scientific Encyclopedia for theEnquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

The ramp wound in. The doorway shut. The Ship rose in the air until itwas high above the buildings.

And it stayed there, while the sun set. The humans below tried shiningcolored lights at it, and playing tunes at it, and eventually just speaking to it in every language known to humans. It didn't seem totake any notice.

Masklin woke up.

He was on a very uncomfortable bed. It was all soft. He hated lying onanything softer than the ground. The Store nomes liked sleeping on fancybits of carpet, but Masklin's bed had been a bit of wood. He'd used apiece of rag for a cover and thought that was luxury.

He sat up and looked around the room. It was fairly empty. There was justthe bed, a table, and a chair.

A table and a chair.

In the Store, the nomes had made their furniture out of matchboxes andcotton reels; the nomes living Outside didn't even know what furniturewas.

This looked rather like human furniture, but it was nome-sized.

Masklin got up and padded across the metal floor to the door. Nome-sized, again. A doorway made by nomes for nomes to walk through.

It led into a corridor, lined with doors. There was an old feel about it.

It wasn't dirty or dusty. It just felt like somewhere that had beenabsolutely clean for a very, very long time.

Something purred toward him. It was a small black box, rather like theThing, mounted on little treads. A little revolving brush on the frontwas sweeping dust into a slot. At least, if there had been any dust itwould have been sweeping it. Masklin wondered how many times it hadindustriously cleaned this corridor, while it waited for nomes to comeback.

It bumped into his foot, beeped at him, and then bustled off in theopposite direction. Masklin followed it.

After a while he passed another one. It was moving along the ceiling witha faint clicking noise, cleaning it.

He turned the corner, and almost walked into Gurder.

"You're up!"

"Yes," said Masklin. "Er. We're on the Ship, right?

"It's amazing ... !" Gurder began. He looked wild-eyed, and his hairwas sticking up at all angles.

"I'm sure it is," said Masklin reassuringly.

"But there's all these ... and there's great big ... and there arethese huge ... and you'd never believe how wide ... and there's somuch ..." Gurder's voice trailed off. He looked like a nome who would have to learn new words before he could describe things.

"It's too big!" he blurted out. He grabbed Masklin's arm.

"Come on," he said, and half ran along the corridor.

"How did you get on?" said Masklin, trying to keep up.

"It was amazing! Angalo touched this panel thing and it just moved asideand then we were inside and there was an elevator thing and then we werein this great big room with a seat and Angalo sat down and all theselights came on and he started pressing buttons and moving things!"

"Didn't you try to stop him?"

Gurder rolled his eyes. "You know Angalo and machines," he said. "But theThing is trying to get him to be sensible. Otherwise we'd be crashinginto stars by now," he added gloomily.

He led the way through another arch into-well, it had to be a room. Itwas inside the Ship. It was just as well he knew that, Masklin thought, because otherwise he'd think it was Outside. It stretched away, as big asone of the departments in the Store.

Vast screens and complicated-looking panels covered the walls. Most ofthem were dark. Shadowy gloom stretched away in every direction, except for a little puddle of light in the very center of the room.

It illuminated Angalo in a big padded chair. He had the Thing in front ofhim, on a sloping metal board studded with switches. He had obviouslybeen arguing with it. When Masklin walked up, he glared at him and said,

"It won't do what I tell it!"

The Thing looked as small and black and square as it could.

"He wants to drive the Ship," it said.

"You're a machine! You have to do what you're told!" snapped Angalo.

"I'm an intelligent machine, and I don't want to end up very flat at thebottom of a deep hole," said the Thing. "You can't pilot the Ship yet."

"How do you know? You won't let me try! I drove the Truck, didn't I? Itwasn't my fault all those trees and streetlights and things got in theway," he added, after catching Masklin's eye.

"I expect the Ship is more difficult," said Masklin diplomatically.

"But I'm learning about it all the time," said Angalo. "It's easy. Allthe buttons have got little pictures on them. Look ..." He pressed abutton.

One of the big screens lit up, showing the crowds outside the Ship.

"They've been waiting there for ages," said Gurder.

"What do they want?" said Angalo. "Search me," said Gurder. "Who knowswhat humans want?"

Masklin stared at the throng below the ship. "They've been trying allsorts of stuff," said Angalo. "Flashing lights and music and stuff likethat. And radio, too, the Thing says."

"Haven't you tried talking back to them?" said Masklin.

"No. Haven't got anything to say." said Angalo. He rapped on the Thingwith his knuckles. "Right, Mr. Clever? If I'm not going to do thedriving, who is?"

"Me."

"How?"

"There is a slot by the seat."

"I see it. It's the same size as you."

"Put me in it."

Angalo shrugged, and picked up the Thing. It slid smoothly into the floor until only the top of it was showing.

"Look, er," said Angalo, "can't I do something? Operate the windshieldwipers or something? I'd feel like a twerp sitting here doing nothing."

The Thing didn't seem to hear him. Its light flickered on and off for amoment, as if it were making itself comfortable in a mechanical kind ofway. Then it said, in a much deeper voice than it had ever used before:

"RIGHT."

Lights came on all over the Ship. They spread out from the Thing like atide; panels lit up like little skies full of stars, big lights in theceiling flickered on, there was a distant banging and fizzing aselectricity was woken up, and the air began to smell of thunderstorms.

"It's like the Store at Christmas Fayre," said Gurder.

"Science!" breathed Angalo.

"ALL SYSTEMS IN WORKING ORDER," boomed the Thing. "NAME OUR DESTINATION."

"What?" said Masklin. "And don't shout."

"Where are we going?" said the Thing. "You have to name our destination."

"It's got a name already. It's called the quarry, isn't it?" said Masklin.

"Where is it?" said the Thing.

"It's ..." Masklin waved an arm vaguely. "Well, it's over that way somewhere."

"Which way?"

"How should I know? How many ways are there?"

"Thing, are you telling us you don't know the way back to the quarry?" said Gurder.

"That is correct."

"We're lost?"

'Wo. I know exactly what planet ise^re on," said the Thing.

"We can't be lost," said Gurder. "We're here. We know where we are. We just don't know where we aren't."

"Can't you find the quarry if you go up high enough?" said Angalo. "You ought to be able to see it, if you go up high enough."

"Very well."

"Can I do it?" said Angalo. "Please?"

"Press down with your left foot and pull back on the green lever, then," said the Thing.

There wasn't so much a noise as a change in the type of silence. Masklin thought he felt heavy for a moment, but then the sensation passed.

The picture in the screen got smaller.

"Now, this is what I call proper flying," said Angalo, happily. "With real Science. No noise and none of that stupid flapping."

"Yes, where's Pion?" said Masklin.

"He wandered off," said Gurder. "I think he was going to get something to eat."

"On a machine that no nome has been on for fifteen thousand years?" said Masklin.

Gurder shrugged. "Well, maybe there's something at the back of a cupboard somewhere," he said. "I want a word with you, Masklin."

"Yes?"

Gurder moved closely and glanced over his shoulder at Angalo, who was lying back in the control seat with a look of dreamy contentment on his face.

He lowered his voice.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he said. "I know it's a dreadful thing to say, after all we've been through. But this isn't just our Ship. It belongs to all nomes, everywhere."

He looked relieved when Masklin nodded.

"A year ago you didn't even believe there were any other nomes anywhere,"

Masklin said.

Gurder looked sheepish. "Yes. Well. That was then. This is now. I don't know what I believe in anymore, except that there must be thousands of nomes out there we don't know about. There might even be other nomes living in Stores! We're just the lucky ones who had the Thing. So if we take the Ship away, there won't be any hope for them."

"I know, I know," said Masklin wretchedly. "But what can we do? We need the Ship right now. Anyway, how could we find these other nomes?"

"We've got the Ship!" said Gurder.

Masklin waved a hand at the screen, where the landscape was spreading outand becoming misty.

"It'd take forever to find nomes down there. You couldn't do it even with the Ship. You'd have to be on the ground. Nomes keep hidden! You nomes inthe Store didn't know about my people, and we lived a few miles away.

We'd never have found Pion's people except by accident. Besides"-hecouldn't resist prodding Gurder gently-"there's a bigger problem too. Youknow what we nomes are like. Those other nomes probably wouldn't evenbelieve in the Ship."

He was immediately sorry he'd said that. Gurder looked more unhappy thanhe'd ever seen him.

"That's true," the Abbot said. "I wouldn't have believed it. I'm not sureI believe it now, and I'm in it."

"Maybe, when we've found somewhere to live, we can send the Ship back andcollect any other nomes we can find," Masklin hazarded. "I'm sure Angalowould enjoy that."

Gurder's shoulders began to shake. For a moment Masklin thought thenome was laughing, and then he saw the tears rolling down the Abbot'sface.

"Um," he said, not knowing what else to say.

Gurder turned away. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "It's just that there's somuch ... changing. Why can't things stay the same for five minutes?

Every time I get the hang of an idea it suddenly turns into somethingdifferent and I turn into a fool! All I want is something real to believein! Where's the harm in that?"

"I think you just have to have a flexible mind," said Masklin, knowingeven as he said the words that this probably wasn't going to be a lot ofhelp.

"Flexible? Flexible? My mind's got so flexible I could pull it out of myears and tie it under my chin!" snapped Gurder. "And it hasn't done me awhole lot of good, let me tell you! I'd have done better just believingeverything I was taught when I was young! At least I'd be wrong onlyonce! This way I'm wrong all the time!"

He stamped away down one of the corridors.

Masklin watched him go.

Not for the first time, he wished he believed in something as much asGurder did so he could complain to it about his life. He even wished hewere back, yes, back in the hole. It hadn't been too bad, apart frompeople being cold and wet and getting eaten all the time. But at leasthe'd been with Grimma. They would have been cold and wet and hungrytogether. He wouldn't have been so lonely... .

There was a movement by him. It turned out to be Pion, holding a tray ofwhat had to be ... fruit, Masklin decided. He put aside being lonely fora moment, and realized that hunger had been waiting for an opportunity tomake itself felt. He'd never seen fruit that shape and color.

He took a slice from the proffered tray. It tasted like a nutty lemon.

"It's kept well, considering," he said, weakly. "Where did you get it?"

It turned out to come from a machine in a nearby corridor. It looked fairly simple. There were hundreds of pictures of different sorts offood. If you touched a picture, there was a brief humming noise and thenthe real food dropped onto a tray in a slot. Masklin tried pictures atrandom, and got several different sorts of fruit, a squeaky greenvegetable thing, and a piece of meat that tasted rather like smokedsalmon.

"I wonder how it does it?" he said aloud.

A voice from the wall beside him said: "Would you understand if I told you about molecular breakdown and reassembly from a wide range of raw materials?"

"No," said Masklin, truthfully.

"Then it's all done by Science."

"Oh. Well, that's all right, then. That is you, Thing, isn't it?"

"Yes."

Chewing on the fish-meat, Masklin wandered back to the control room and offered some of the food to Angalo. The big screen was showing nothing but clouds.

"Won't see any quarry in all this," he said.

Angalo pulled one of the levers back a bit. There was that brief feeling of extra weight again.

They stared at the screen.

"Wow," said Angalo.

"That looks familiar," said Masklin. He patted his clothes until he found the folded, crumpled map they'd brought all the way from the Store.

He spread it out, and glanced from it to the screen.

The screen showed a disc, made up mainly of different shades of blue and wispy bits of cloud.

"Any idea what it is?" said Angalo.

"No, but I know what some of the bits are called," said Masklin. "That one that's thick at the top and thin at the bottom is called South America.

Look, it's just like it is on the map. Only it should have the words

'South America' written on it."

"Still can't see the quarry, though," said Angalo.

Masklin looked at the image in front of them. South America. Grimma had talked about South America, hadn't she? That's where the frogs lived in flowers. She'd said that once you knew about things like frogs living in flowers, you weren't the same person.

He was beginning to see what she meant.

"Never mind about the quarry for now," he said. "The quarry can wait."

"We should get there as soon as possible, for everybody 's sake," saidthe Thing.

Masklin thought about this for a while. It was true, he had to admit. Allkinds of things might be happening back home. He had to get the Ship backquickly, for everybody's sake.

And then he thought: I've spent a long time doing things foreverybody's sake.

Just for once, I'm going to do something for me.

I don't think we can find other nomes with this Ship, but at least I knowwhere to look for frogs.

"Thing," he said, "take us to South America-and don't argue."