The Bromeliad 3 - Wings Read online

  Angalo looked around. There was a line of light in the distance. And there was also a strange sound, so quiet that you could miss it but that, once you had noticed it, also seemed to fill up the world.

  He stood up to get a better view.

  There was a faint thump.

  "Ouch!"

  Angalo reached up to rub his head. His hand touched metal. Crouching a little, he risked turning his head to see what it was he'd hit. He got very thoughtful for a while. Then he said, "Gurder, you're going to find this amazingly hard to believe."

  "This time," said Masklin to the Thing, "I want you to translate exactly, do you understand? Don't try to frighten him!"

  Humans had surrounded the Ship. At least, they were trying to surround it, but you'd need an awful lot of humans to surround something the size of the Ship. So they were just surrounding it in places.

  More trucks were arriving, many of them with sirens blaring. Grandson Richard, 39, had been left standing by himself, watching his own shoulder nervously.

  "Besides, we owe him something," said Masklin. "We used his satellite.

  And we stole things."

  "You said you wanted to do it your way. No help from humans, you said," said the Thing.

  "It's different now. There is the Ship," said Masklin. "We've made it.

  We're not begging anymore."

  "May I point out that you're sitting on his shoulder, not him on yours," said the Thing.

  "Never mind that," said Masklin. "Tell it-1 mean, ask him to walk toward the Ship. And say 'please.' And say that we don't want anyone to get hurt. Including me," he added.

  Grandson Richard's reply seemed to take a long time. But he did start to walk toward the crowds around the Ship.

  "What did he say?" said Masklin, hanging on tightly to the sweater.

  "I don't believe it, " said the Thing.

  "He doesn't believe me?"

  "He said his grandfather always talked about the little people, but he never believed it until now. He said, Are you like the ones in the old Store?"

  Masklin's mouth dropped open. Grandson Richard, 39, was watching him intently.

  "Tell him yes," Masklin croaked.

  "Very well. But I do not think it'll be a good idea."

  The Thing boomed. Grandson Richard rumbled a reply.

  "He says his grandfather made jokes about little people in the Store," said the Thing. "He used to say they brought him luck."

  Masklin felt the horrible sensation in his stomach that meant the world was changing again, just when he thought he understood it.

  "Did his grandfather ever see a nome?" he said.

  "He says no. But he says that when his grandfather and his grandfather's brother were starting the Store, and stayed late every night to do the office work, they used to hear sounds in the walls and they used to tell each other there were little Store people. It was a sort of joke.

  He says that when he was small, bis grandfather used to tell him about little people who came out at night to play with the toys."

  "But the Store nomes never did things like that!" said Masklin.

  "I didn 't say the stories were true."

  The Ship was a lot closer now. There didn't seem to be any doors or windows anywhere. It was as featureless as an egg.

  Masklin's mind was in turmoil. He'd always believed that humans were quite intelligent. After all, nomes were very intelligent. Rats were quite intelligent. And foxes were intelligent, more or less. There ought to be enough intelligence sloshing around in the world for humans to have some too. But this was something more than intelligence.

  He remembered a book called Gulliver's Travels. It had been a big surprise to the nomes. There had never been an island of small people. He was certain of that. It was a-a-a made-up thing. There had been lots of books in the Store that were like that. They'd caused no end of problems for the nomes. For some reason, humans needed things that weren't true.

  They never really thought nomes existed, he thought, but they wanted to believe that we did.

  "Tell him," he said, "tell him I must get into the Ship."

  Grandson Richard, 39, whispered. It was like listening to a gale.

  "He says there are too many people."

  "Why are all the humans around it?" said Masklin, bewildered. "Why aren't they frightened?"

  Grandson Richard's reply was another gale.

  "He says they think some creatures from another world will come out and talk to them."

  "Why?"

  "I don't know," said the Thing. "Perhaps they don Y want to be alone."

  "But there's no one in it! It's our Ship-" Masklin began.

  There was a wail. The crowd put their hands over their ears.

  Lights appeared on the darkness of the Ship. They twinkled all over the hull in patterns that raced backward and forward and disappeared. There was another wail.

  "There isn't anyone in it, is there?" said Masklin. "No nomes were left on it in hibernation or anything?"

  High up on the Ship a square hole opened. There was a whiffling noise anda beam of red light shot out and set fire to a patch of scrub severalhundred yards away.

  People started to run.

  The Ship rose a few feet, wobbling alarmingly. It drifted sideways a little. Then it went straight up so fast that it was just a blur and jerked to a halt high over the crowd. And then it turned over. And then it went on its edge for a while.

  It floated back down again and landed, more or less. That is, one side touched the ground and the other rested on the air, on nothing.

  The Ship spoke, loudly.

  To the humans it must have sounded like a high-pitched chattering.

  What it actually said was: "Sorry! Sorry! Is this a microphone? Can't find the button that opens the door... . Let's try this one... ."

  Another square hole opened. Brilliant blue light flooded out.

  The voice boomed out across the country again.

  "Got it!" There was the distorted thud-thud of someone not certain if their microphone was working, and tapping it experimentally. "Masklin, are you out there?"

  "That's Angalo!" said Masklin. "No one else drives like that! Thing, tell Grandson Richard, 39, I must get on the Ship! Please!"

  The human nodded.

  Humans were milling around the base of the Ship. The doorway was too high up for them to reach.

  With Masklin hanging on grimly, Grandson Richard, 39, pushed his waythrough the throng.

  The ship wailed again.

  "Er," came Angalo's hugely amplified voice, apparently talking tosomeone else, "I'm not sure about this switch, but maybe it's... .

  Certainly I'm going to press it, why shouldn't I press it? It's next tothe door one, it must be safe. Look, shut up... ."

  A silver ramp wound out of the doorway. It looked big enough for humans.

  "See? See?" said Angalo's voice.

  "Thing, can you speak to Angalo?" said Masklin. "Can you tell him I'mout here, trying to get to the Ship?"

  'Wo. He appears to be randomly pressing buttons. It is to be hoped thathe does not press the wrong ones."

  "I thought you could tell the Ship what to do!" said Masklin.

  The Thing managed to sound shocked. "Not when a nome is in it," it said.

  "I can't tell it not to do what a nome tells it to do. That's what beinga machine is all about."

  Grandson Richard, 39, was shoving his way through the pushing, shoutingmass of humans, but it was hard going.

  Masklin sighed.

  "Ask Grandson Richard, 39, to put me down," he said. Then he added, "Andsay thank you. Say it ... it would have been nice to talk more."

  The Thing did the translation.

  Grandson Richard, 39, looked surprised. The Thing spoke again. Then hereached up a hand toward Masklin.

  If he had to make a list of terrifying moments, Masklin would have putthis one at the top. He'd faced foxes, he'd helped to drive the Truck, he'd flown on a goose-but none of them were ha
lf so bad as letting ahuman being actually touch him. The huge whorled fingers uncurled andpassed on either side of his waist. He shut his eyes.

  Angalo's booming voice said, "Masklin? Masklin? If anything bad'shappened to you, there's going to be trouble."

  Grandson Richard's finger gripped Masklin lightly, as though the humanwas holding something very fragile. Masklin felt himself being slowlylowered toward the ground.

  He opened his eyes. There was a forest of human legs around him.

  He looked up into Grandson Richard's huge face, and trying to make hisvoice as deep and slow as possible, said the last word any nome said toany human:

  "Good-bye."

  Then he ran through the maze of feet.

  Several humans with official-looking trousers and big boots were standing at the bottom of the ramp. Masklin scurried between them and ran on upward.

  Ahead of him blue light shone out of the open hatchway. As he ran he saw two dots appear on the lip of the entrance.

  The ramp was long. Masklin hadn't slept for hours. He wished he'd got some sleep on the bed when the humans were studying; it had looked quite comfortable.

  Suddenly, all his legs wanted to do was go somewhere close and lie down.

  He staggered to the top of the ramp and the dots became the heads of Gurder and Pion. They reached out and pulled him into the Ship.

  He turned around and looked down into a sea of human faces, below him.

  He'd never looked down on a human before.

  They probably couldn't even see him. They're waiting for the little green men, he thought.

  "Are you all right?" said Gurder urgently. "Did they do anything to you?"

  "I'm fine, I'm fine," murmured Masklin. "No one hurt me."

  "You look dreadful."

  "We should have talked to them, Gurder," said Masklin. "They need us."

  "Are you sure you're all right?" said Gurder, peering anxiously at him.

  Masklin's head felt full of cotton wool. "You know how you believed in Arnold Bros. (est. 1905)?" he managed to say.

  "Yes," said Gurder.

  Masklin gave him a mad, triumphant grin.

  "Well, he believed in you too! How about that?

  And Masklin folded up, very gently.

  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."