The Bromeliad 3 - Wings Read online

  Masklin tapped the Thing. "Do you know where the jet plane is that's going to Florida?"

  "Yes."

  "Lead us there, then. Avoiding as many humans as you can."

  "And where does the orange juice come into all this?" said Gurder.

  "I'm not too sure about the orange juice bit," said Masklin.

  It was raining softly, and because it was early evening, lights were coming on around the airport.

  Absolutely no one heard the faint tinkle as a little ventilation grille dropped off an outside wall.

  Three blurred shapes lowered themselves down onto the concrete and sped away, toward the planes.

  Angalo looked up. And up some more. And there was still more up to come.

  He ended up with his head craned right back.

  He was nearly in tears.

  "Oh, wow!" he kept saying.

  "It's too big," muttered Gurder, trying not to look. Like most of the nomes who had been born in the Store, he hated looking up and not seeing a ceiling. Angalo was the same, but more than being Outside he hated not going fast.

  "I've seen them go up in the sky," said Masklin. "They really do fly.

  Honestly."

  "Wow!"

  It loomed over them, so big that you had to keep on stepping back and back to see how big it was. Rain glistened on it. The airport lights made smears of green and white bloom on its flanks. It wasn't a thing, it was a bit of shaped sky.

  "Of course, they look smaller when they're a long way off," Masklin muttered.

  He stared up at the plane. He'd never felt smaller in his life.

  "I want one," moaned Angalo, clenching his fists. "Look at it. It looks as though it's going too fast even when it's standing still!"

  "How do we get on it, then?" said Gurder.

  "Can't you just see their faces back home if we turned up with this?" said Angalo.

  "Yes. I can. Horribly clearly," said Gurder. "But how do we get on it?"

  "We could ..." Angalo began. He hesitated. "Why did you have to ruin everything?" he snapped.

  "There's the holes where the wheels stick through," said Masklin. "I think we could climb up there."

  'Wo," said the Thing, which was tucked under Masklin's arm. "You would not be able to breathe. You must be properly inside. Where the planes go, the air is thin."

  "I should hope so," said Gurder, stoutly. "That's why it's air."

  "You would not be able to breathe," said the Thing patiently.

  "Yes, I would," said Gurder. "I've always been able to breathe."

  "You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You gets lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."

  "Why not?" said Gurder.

  "Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."

  Masklin waded through the puddles on the concrete so that he could see down the far side of the aircraft. Some way away a couple of humans wereusing some sort of machines to load boxes into a hole in the side of theplane. He walked back, around the huge tires, and squinted up at a long, high tube that stretched from the building.

  He pointed.

  "I think that's how humans are loaded onto it," he said.

  "What, through a pipe? Like water?" said Angalo.

  "It's better than standing out here getting wet, anyway," said Gurder.

  "I'm soaked through already."

  "There are stairs and wires and things," said Masklin. "It shouldn't be too difficult to climb up there. There's bound to be a gap we can slip in by." He sniffed. "There always is," he added, "when humans build things."

  "Let's do it!" said Angalo. "Oh, wow!"

  "But you're not to try to steal it," said Masklin, as they helped the slightly plump Gurder lumber into a run. "It's going where we want to go anyway-"

  "Not where I want to go," moaned Gurder. "I want to go home!"

  "And you're not to try to drive it. There's not enough of us. Anyway, I expect it's a lot more complicated than a truck. It's a-do you know what it's called. Thing?"

  "A Concorde."

  "There," said Masklin. "It's a Concorde. Whatever that is. And you've got to promise not to steal it."

  Chapter 2

  Concorde: It goes faster than a bullet and you get smoked salmon. - From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

  Squeezing through a gap in the humans-walking-onto-planes pipe wasn't as hard as coming to terms with what was on the other side.

  The floor of the sheds in the quarry had been bare boards or stamped earth. In the airport building it was squares of a sort of shiny stone.

  But here ... Gurder flung himself face down and buried his nose in it.

  "Carpet!" he said, almost in tears. "Carpet! I never thought I'd see you again!"

  "Oh, get up," said Angalo, embarrassed at the Abbot acting like that in front of someone who, however much of a friend he was, hadn't been born a Store nome.

  Gurder stood up awkwardly. "Sorry," he mumbled, brushing himself off.

  "Don't know what possessed me there. It just took me back, that's all.

  Real carpet. Haven't seen real carpet for months."

  He blew his nose noisily. "We had some beautiful carpets in the Store, you know. Beautiful. Some of them had patterns on them."

  Masklin looked up the pipe. It was like one of the Store's corridors, and was quite brightly lit.

  "Let's move on," he said. "It's too exposed here. Where are all the humans, Thing?"

  "They will be arriving shortly."

  "How does it knoisV Gurder complained.

  "It listens to other machines," said Masklin.

  "There are also many computers on this plane," said the Thing.

  "Well, that's nice," said Masklin vaguely. "You'll have someone to talk to, then."

  "They are quite stupid," said the Thing, and managed to express disdain without actually having anything to express it with.

  A few feet away the corritlor opened into a new space. Masklin could see a curtain, and what looked like the edge of a chair.

  "All right, Angalo," he said. "Lead the way. I know you want to."

  It was two minutes later.

  The three of them were sitting under a seat.

  Masklin had never really thought about the insides of aircraft. He'd spent days up on the cliff behind the quarry, watching them take off. Of course, he'd assumed there were humans inside. Humans got everywhere. Buthe'd never really thought about the insides. If ever there was anythingthat looked made up of outsides, it was a plane.

  But it had been too much for Gurder. He was in tears.

  "Electric light," he moaned. "And more carpets! And big soft seats!

  They've even got antimacassars on them! And there isn't any mud anywhere!

  There are even signs'."

  "There, there," said Angalo helplessly, patting him on the shoulder. "Itwas a good Store, I know." He looked up at Masklin.

  "You've got to admit it's unsettling," he said. "I was expecting ...

  well, wires and pipes and exciting levers and things. Not somethinglike the Arnold Bros. Furnishings Department!"

  "We shouldn't stay here," said Masklin. "There'll be humans all over theplace pretty soon. Remember what the Thing said."

  They helped Gurder up and trotted under the rows of seats with himbetween them. But it wasn't like the Store in one important way, Masklin realized. There weren't many places to hide. In the Store there wasalways something to get behind or under or wriggle through.

  He could already hear distant sounds. In the end they found a gap behinda curtain, in a part of the aircraft where there were no seats. Masklincrawled inside, pushing the Thing in front of him.

  They weren't distant sounds now. They were very close. He turned hishead, and saw a human foot a few inches away.

  At the back of the gap there was a hole in the metal wall where somethick wires passed through. It was just big enough for Angalo andMasklin, and big enough for a
terrified Gurder with the two of thempulling on his arms. There wasn't too much room, but at least theycouldn't be seen.

  They couldn't see, either. They lay packed together in the gloom, trying to make themselves comfortable on the wires.

  After a while Gurder said, "I feel a bit better now."

  Masklin nodded.

  There were noises all around them. From somewhere far below came a series of metallic clanks. There was the mournful sound of human voices, and then a jolt.

  "Thing?" he whispered.

  "Yes?"

  "What's happening?"

  "The plane is getting ready to become airborne."

  "Oh."

  "Do you know what that means?"

  "No. Not really."

  "It is going to fly in the air. 'Borne' means to be carried, and 'air'

  means air. To be borne in the air. Airborne."

  Masklin could hear Angalo's breathing.

  He settled himself as best he could between the metal wall and a thick bundle of wires, and stared into the darkness.

  The nomes didn't speak. After a while there was a faint jerk and a sensation of movement.

  Nothing else happened. It went on not happening.

  Eventually Gurder, his voice trembling with terror, said, "Is it too late to get off, if we-?"

  A sudden distant thundering noise finished the sentence for him. A dull rumbling shook everything around them very gently but very firmly.

  Then there was a heavy pause, like the moment a ball must feel between the time it's thrown up and the time it starts to come down, and something picked up all three of them and slid them into a struggling heap.

  The floor tried to become the wall.

  The nomes hung on to one another, stared into one another's faces, and screamed.

  After a while, they stopped. There didn't seem much point in continuing.

  Besides, they were out of breath.

  The floor very gradually became a proper floor again, and didn't show any further ambitions to become a wall.

  Masklin pushed Angalo's foot off his neck.

  "I think we're flying," he said.

  "Is that what it was?" said Angalo weakly. "It looks kind of more graceful when you see it from the ground."

  "Is anyone hurt?"

  Gurder pulled himself upright.

  "I'm all bruises," he said. He brushed himself down. And then, because there is no changing nomish nature, he added, "Is there any food around?"

  They hadn't thought about food.

  Masklin stared behind him into the tunnel of wires.

  "Maybe we won't need any," he said, uncertainly. "How long will it take to get to Florida, Thing?"

  "The captain has just said it will be many hours," said the Thing.*

  [* An hour lasts nearly as long as half a day, to a nome.]

  "We'll starve to death!" said Gurder.

  "Maybe there's something to hunt?" said Angalo hopefully.

  "I shouldn't think so," Masklin said. "This doesn't look a mouse kind ofplace."

  "The humans'll have food," said Gurder. "Humans always have food."

  "I knew you were going to say that," said Angalo.

  "It's just common sense."

  "I wonder if we can see out a window?" said Angalo. "I'd like to see howfast we're going. All the trees and things whizzing past, and so on?"

  "Look," said Masklin, before things got out of hand. "Let's just wait fora while, eh? Everyone calm down. Have a bit of a rest. Then maybe we canlook for some food."

  They settled down again. At least it was warm and dry. Back in the dayswhen he'd lived in a hole in a bank Masklin had spent far too much timecold and wet to turn up his nose at a chance to sleep warm and dry.

  He dozed.

  Airborne.

  Air ... born ...

  Perhaps there were hundreds of nomes who lived in the airplanes in thesame way that nomes had lived in the Store. Perhaps they got on withtheir lives under the carpeted floor somewhere, while they were whiskedto all the places Masklin had seen on the only map the nomes had everfound. It had been in a pocket diary, and the names of the faraway placeswritten on it were like magic-Africa, Australia, China, Equator, Printedin Hong Kong, Iceland... .

  Perhaps they'd never looked out the windows. Perhaps they'd never knownthat they were moving at all.

  He wondered if this was what Grimma had meant by all the stuff about thefrogs in the flower. She'd read it in a book. You could live your wholelife in some tiny place and think it was the whole world. The troublewas, he'd been angry. He hadn't wanted to listen.

  Well, he was out of the flower now and no mistake.

  The frog had brought some other young frogs to its spot among the leavesat the edge of the world of the flower.

  They stared at the branch. There wasn't just one flower out there, therewere dozens, although the frogs weren't able to think like this becausefrogs can't count beyond one.

  They saw lots of ones.

  They stared at them. Staring is one of the few things frogs are good at.

  Thinking isn't. It would be nice to say that the tiny frogs thought longand hard about the new flower, about life in the old flower, about theneed to explore, about the possibility that the world was bigger than a pool with petals around the edge.

  In fact, what they thought was ... mipmip ... mipmip ... mipmip.

  But what they felt was too big for one flower to contain.

  Carefully, slowly, not at all certain why, they plopped down onto the branch.

  There was a polite beeping from the Thing.

  "You may be interested to know," it said, "that we've broken the sound barrier."

  Masklin turned wearily to the others.

  "All right, own up," he said. "Who broke it?"

  "Don't look at me," said Angalo. "I didn't touch anything."

  Masklin crawled to the edge of the hole and peered out.

  There were human feet out there. Female human feet, by the look of it.

  They usually were the ones with the less practical shoes.

  You could learn a lot about humans by looking at their shoes. It was about all a nome had to look at, most of the time. The rest of the human was normally little more than the wrong end of a pair of nostrils, a long way up.

  Masklin sniffed.

  "There's food somewhere," he said.

  "What kind?" said Angalo.

  "Never mind what kind," said Gurder, pushing him out of the way.

  "Whatever it is, I'm going to eat it."

  "Get back!" Masklin snapped, pushing the Thing into Angalo's arms. "I'll go! Angalo, don't let him go!"

  He darted out, ran for the curtain, and slid behind it. After a few seconds, he moved just enough to let one eye and a frowning eyebrow show.

  The room was some sort of food place. Human females were taking trays of food out of the wall. Nomish sense of smell is sharper than a fox's; it was all Masklin could do not to dribble. He had to admit it, it was all very well hunting and growing things, but what you got wasn't a patch on the food you found around humans.

  One of the females put the last tray on a trolley and wheeled it past Masklin. The wheels were almost as tall as he was.

  As it squeaked past, he jumped out of his hiding place and leapt onto it, squeezing himself among the bottles. It was a stupid thing to do, he knew. It was just better than being stuck in a hole with a couple of idiots.

  Rows and rows of shoes. Some black, some brown. Some with laces, some without. Quite a few of them without feet in them, because the humans had taken them off.

  Masklin looked up as the trolley inched forward.

  Rows and rows of legs. Some in skirts, but most in trousers.

  Masklin looked up farther. Nomes rarely saw humans sitting down.

  Rows and rows of bodies, topped with rows and rows of heads with faces at the front. Rows and rows of- Masklin crouched back among the bottles.

  Grandson Richard, 39, was watching him.

  It was
the face in the newspaper. It had to be. There was the little beard, and the smiling mouth with lots of teeth in it. And the hair thatlooked as though it had been dramatically carved out of something shinyrather than grown in the normal way.

  Grandson Richard, 39.

  The face stared at him for a moment, and then looked away.

  He can't have seen me, Masklin told himself. I'm hidden away here.

  What will Gurder say when I tell him?

  He'll go mad, that's what.

  I think I'll keep it to myself for a while. That might be an amazingly good idea. We've got enough to worry about as it is.

  Thirty-nine. Either there've been thirty-eight other Grandson Richards, and I don't think that's what it means, or it's a newspaper human way of saying he's thirty-nine years old. Nearly half as old as the Store. And the Store nomes say the Store is as old as the world. I know that can't be true, but ...

  I wonder what it feels like to live nearly forever?

  He burrowed farther into the things on the shelf. Mostly they were bottles, but there were a few bags containing knobbly things a bit smaller than Masklin's fist. He stabbed at the paper with his knife until he'd cut a hole big enough, and pulled one of them out.

  It was a salted peanut. Well, it was a start.

  He grabbed the packet just as a hand reached past.

  It was close enough to touch.

  It was close enough to touch him.

  He could see the red of its fingernails as they slid by him, closed slowly over another packet of nuts, and withdrew.

  It dawned on Masklin later that the giving-out-food female wouldn't have been able to see him. She just reached down into the tray for what she knew would be there, and this almost certainly didn't include Masklin.

  That's what he decided later. At the time, with a human hand almostbrushing his head, it all looked a lot different. He took a running diveoff the trolley, rolled when he hit the carpet, and scurried under thenearest seat.

  He didn't even wait to catch his breath. Experience had taught him thatit was when you stopped to catch your breath that things caught you. Hecharged from seat to seat, dodging giant feet, discarded shoes, droppednewspapers and bags. By the time he crossed the bit of aisle to the food- place, he was a blur even by nome standards. He didn't stop even when hereached the hole. He just leapt, and went through it without touching thesides.