The Bromeliad 2 - Diggers Page 4

"I heard it say something," said Sacco helpfully, in case the pointhadn't sunk in.

  "That's right," said Nooty. "We both heard it, didn't we, Sacco?"

  "And what was it?" said Dorcas encouragingly. I don't really deserve this sort of thing, he thought. Not at my time of life. I'd rather be in myworkshop, trying to get this radio business sorted out.

  "It said," Sacco took a deep breath, his eyes bulged, and he attemptedthe foghorn mooing that was human sound, " 'Bbbllllooooooooddddyyykkiiiddddddssss!'"

  Dorcas looked at the others.

  "Anyone got any ideas?" he said. "It almost s seems to mean something, doesn't it? I tell you, if only we could understand them-"

  "This must have been one of the stupid ones," said Nooty. "It was tryingto get in!" "Then it'll come back," said Dorcas gloomily. He shook hishead.

  "All right, you two," he said. "Well done. Get back on watch. Thank you."

  He watched them go off hand in hand, and then he wandered away across thequarry, heading for j the old manager's office.

  I've seen Christmas Fayre come around six times, he thought. That's sixwhatd'youcall'ems, years. And almost one more, I think, although it'shard to j be sure out here. No one puts up any signs to say what'shappening, the heating just gets turned down. Seven years old. Just aboutthe time when a nome ought to be taking it easy. And I'm out here, wherethere aren't any proper walls to the world, and the water goes cold andhard as glass some mornings, and the ventilation and heating systems arequite shockingly out of control. Of course-he pulled himself together abit-as a scientist I find all these phenomena extremely interesting. Itwould just be nicer to find them extremely interesting from somewherenice and snug, inside.

  Ah, inside. That was the place to be. Most of the older nomes sufferedfrom the fear of the Outside, but no one liked to talk about it much. Itwasn't too bad in the quarry, with its great walls of rock. If you didn'tlook up too much, or look toward the fourth side with its terribly hugeviews across the countryside, you could almost believe you were back inthe Store. Even so, most of the older nomes preferred to stay in thesheds, or in the cozy gloom under the floorboards. That way you avoidedthis horrible exposed feeling, the dreadful sensation that the sky waswatching you.

  The children seemed to quite like the Outside, though. They weren'treally used to anything else. They could just about remember the Store, but it didn't mean much to them. They belonged Outside. They were usedto it. And the young men who went out hunting and gathering ... well, young men liked to show how brave they were, didn't they? Especially infront of other young men. And young women.

  Of course, Dorcas thought, as a scientist and rational-thinking nome Iknow we weren't really intended to live under floorboards the wholetime. It's just that, as a nome who is probably seven years old andfeeling a bit creaky, I've got to admit I'd find it sort of comforting tohave a few of the good old signs around the place. "Amazing Reductions," perhaps, or just a little sign saying, "Mammoth Sales Start Tomorrow." Itwouldn't hurt, and I'm sure I'd feel happier. Which is of course totallyridiculous, when you look at it rationally.

  It'd just be like Arnold Bros. (est. 1905), he thought sadly. I'm prettysure he doesn't exist in the way I was taught he does, when I was young.

  But when you saw things like "If you do not see what you require, pleaseask" on the walls, you felt that everything was somehow all right.

  He thought: These are very wrong thoughts for a rational thinking nome.

  There was a crack in the woodwork by the door of the manager's office.

  Dorcas slipped into the familiar gloom under the floor and padded alonguntil he found the switch.

  He was rather proud of this idea. There was a big red bell on the outsidewall of the office, presumably so that humans could hear the telephonering when the quarry was noisy. Dorcas had changed the wiring so that hecould make it ringj whenever he liked.

  He pressed the switch.

  Nomes came running from all corners of the quarry. Dorcas waited as the underfloor space filled up, and then dragged up an empty matchbox to stand on.

  "The human has been back," he announced. "It didn't get in, but it'll keep trying."

  "What about your wire?" said one of the nomes.

  "I'm afraid there are such things as wire cutters."

  "So much for your theory about, um, humans being intelligent. A intelligent human would know enough not to go, um, where it wasn't wanted," said Nisodemus sourly.

  Dorcas liked to see eagerness in a young nome, but Nisodemus vibrated with a peculiarly hungry kind of eagerness that was unpleasant to see. He gave him as sharp a look as he dared. "Humans out here might be different from the ones in the Store," he snapped. "Anyway-" "Order must have sent it," said Nisodemus. "It's a judgment, um, on us!"

  "None of that. It's just a human," said Dorcas. Nisodemus glared at him as he went on, "Now, we really should be sending some of the women and children to the-" There was the sound of running feet outside and the gate guards piled in through the crack.

  "It's back! It's back!" panted Sacco. "The human's back!" "All right, all right," said Dorcas. "Don't worry about it, it can't-"

  "No! No! No!" yelled Sacco, jumping up and down. "It's got a pair of cutter things! It's cut the wire and the chain that holds the gates shut and it-" They didn't hear the rest of it.

  They didn't need to.

  The sound of an engine coming closer said it all.

  It grew so loud that the shed shook, and then it stopped suddenly, leaving a nasty kind of silence that was worse than the noise. There wasthe crump of a metal door slamming. Then the rattle and squeak of theshed door.

  Then footsteps. The boards overhead buckled and dropped little clouds ofdust as the great thumping steps wandered around the office.

  The nomes stood in absolute silence. They moved nothing except theireyes, but they moved in perfect time to the footsteps, marking theposition, flicking backward and forward as the human crossed the roomabove. A baby started to whimper.

  There was some clicking, and then the muffled sound of a human voicemaking its usual incomprehensible noises. This went on for some time.

  Then the footsteps left the office again. The nomes could hear themcrunching around outside, and then more noises. Nasty, clinking metalnoises.

  A small nome said, "Mom, I want to go, Mom-"

  "Shh!"

  "I really mean it, Mom!"

  "Will you be quiet!"

  All the nomes stood stock-still as the noises went on around them. Well, nearly all. One small nome hopped from one foot to the other, going veryred in the face.

  Eventually the noise stopped. There was the thunk of a truck doorclosing, the growl of its engine, and the motor noise died away.

  Dorcas said, very quietly, "I think perhaps we can relax now."

  Hundreds of nomes breathed a sigh of relief.

  "Mom!"

  "Yes, all right, off you go."

  And after the sigh of relief, the outbreak of babble. One voice roseabove the rest.

  "It was never like this in the Store!" said Nisodemus, climbing onto halfa brick. "I ask you, fellow nomes, is this what we were led, um, to expect?" There was a mumbled chorus of "nos" and "yesses" as Nisodemus went on.

  "A year ago we were safe in the Store. Do you remember what it was likeat Christmas Fayre? Do you remember what it was like in the Food Hall?

  Anyone remember, um, roast beef and turkey?"

  There were one or two embarrassed cheers. Nisodemus looked triumphant.

  "And here we are at the same time of year-well, they tell us it's thesame time of year," he said sarcastically, "and what we're expected toeat are knobbly things actually grown in dirt! Um. And the meat isn'tproper meat at all, it's just dead animals cut up! Actual dead animals, actually cut up! Is this what you want your, um, children to get used to?

  Digging up their food? And now they tell us we might even have to go tosome barn that hasn't got proper floorboards for us to live under asArnold Bros. (est. 1905) i
ntended. Where next? we ask ourselves. Out ina field somewhere? Um. And do you know what is the worst thing about allof this? I'll tell you." He pointed a finger at Dorcas. "The people whoseem to be giving us all the orders now are the very people who, um, got us into this trouble in the first place!"

  "Now, just you hold on-" Dorcas began.

  "You all know I'm right!" shouted Nisodemus. "Think about it, nomes! Whyin the name of Arnold Bros. (est. 1905) did we have to leave theStore?"

  There were a few more vague cheers and several arguments broke out amongthe audience.

  "Don't be stupid," said Dorcas. "The Store was going to be demolished!"

  "We don't know that!" shouted Nisodemus.

  "Of course we do!" roared Dorcas. "Masklin and Gurder saw-"

  "And where are they now, eh?"

  "They've gone to ... well, they've gone to ..." Dorcas began. He wasn'tmuch good at this, he knew. Why did it have to be him? He preferredmessing around with wires and bolts and things. Bolts didn't keepshouting at you.

  "Yes, they've gone!" Nisodemus lowered his voice to a sort of angry hiss.

  "Think about it, you nomes! Use your, um, brains! In the Store we knewwhere we were, things worked, everything was exactly as Arnold Bros.

  (est. 1905) decreed. And suddenly we're out here. Remember how you usedto despise Outsiders? Well, the Outsiders are us! Um. And now it's allpanic again, and it always will be until we mend our ways and ArnoldBros. (est. 1905) graciously allows us back into the Store as better, wiser nomes!"

  "Let's just get this clear," said a nome. "Are you saying that the Abbotlied to us?"

  "I'm not saying anything like that," said Nisodemus, sniffing. "I'm justpresenting you with the facts. Um. That's all I'm doing."

  "But ... but ... but the Abbot has gone to get help," said a ladynome uncertainly. "And ... and ... after all, I'm sure the Store wasdemolished. I mean, we wouldn't have gone to all this troubleotherwise, would we? Er." She looked desperate.

  "I know this, though," said the nome beside her, "Say what you like, butI don't fancy this old barn everyone's talking about. There's not evenany electric there."

  "Yes, and it's in the middle of"-another nome "egan, and then lowered hisvoice-"you know. Things. You know what I'm talking about."

  "Yeah," said an elderly nome. '''Things. I've seen 'em. My lad took meblackberryin' a month or two back, up above the quarry, and I seen 'em."

  "I don't mind seeing them a long way off," said the worried lady nome.

  "It's the thought of being in the middle of them that makes me come overall shaky."

  They don't even like to say the words open fields, thought Dorcas. I knowhow they feel.

  "It's snug enough here, I'll grant you," said the first nome. "But allthis stuff you get outside, what d'you call it, begins with an N-"

  "Nature?" said Dorcas weakly. Nisodemus was smiling madly, his eyessparkling.

  "That's right," said the nome. "Well, it's not natural. And there's asight too much of it. 'S not like a proper world at all. You've only gotto look at it. The floor's all rough, 'n' it should be flat. There'shardly any walls. All them little starry lights that come out at night, well, they're not much help, are they? And now these humans go where theyplease, there's no proper regulations like there was in the Store."

  "That's why Arnold Bros. established the Store in 1905," said Nisodemus.

  "A proper place for, urn, nomes to live."

  Dorcas gently grabbed Sacco's ear and pulled the young nome toward him.

  "Do you know where Grimma is?" he whispered.

  "Isn't she here?"

  "I'm quite sure she isn't," said Dorcas. "She'd have had something verysharp to say by now if she was. She may have stayed in the schoolholewith the children when the bell went off. It's just as well."

  Nisodemus has something on his mind, he thought. I'm not certain what itis, but it smells bad.

  And it got worse as the day wore on, especially since it began to rain. Anasty, freezing sort of rain. Sleet, according to Granny Morkie. It wassoggy, not really water but not quite ice. Rain with bones.

  Somehow it seemed to find its way into places where ordinary rain hadn'tmanaged to get. Dorcas organized younger nomes to dig drainage trenchesand rigged up a few of the big lightbulbs for heat. The older nomes sathunched around them, sneezing and grumbling.

  Granny Morkie did her best to cheer them up. Dorcas began to really wishthe old woman wouldn't do that.

  "This ain't nothing," she said. "I remember the Great Flood. Made ourhole cave right in, we was cold and drenched for days!" She cackled androcked backward and forward. "Liked drownded rats, we was! Not a drystitch on, you know, and no fire for a week. Talk about laugh!"

  The Store nomes stared at her, and shivered. And you don't want to goworrying about Grossing them open fields," she went on, conversationally.

  "Nine times out o' ten you don't get et by anything."

  "Oh, dear," said a lady nome, faintly.

  "Yes, I've been out in fields hundreds o' times. It's a doddle if youstay close to the hedge and keep your eyes open, you hardly ever have torun very much," said Granny.

  No one's temper was improved when they; learned that the Land-Rover had parked right on the patch of ground theywere going to plant things in. The nomes had spent ages during the summerhacking the hard ground into something resembling soil. They'd evenplanted seeds, which hadn't grown. Now there were two great ruts in it, and a new padlock and chain on the gate.

  The sleet was already filling the ruts. Oil had leaked in and formed arainbow sheen on the surface.

  And all the time Nisodemus was reminding people how much better it hadbeen in the Store. They didn't really need much persuading. After all, ithad been better. Much better.

  I mean, thought Dorcas, we can keep warm and there's plenty of food, although there is a limit to the number of ways you can cook rabbit andpotatoes. The trouble is, Masklin thought that once we got outside theStore we'd all be digging and building and hunting and facing thefuture with strong chins and bright smiles. Some of the youngsters aredoing well enough, I'll grant you. But us old 'uns are too set in ourways. It's all right for me, I in tinkering with things, I can be useful, but the rest of them, well ... all they've really got to occupythemselves is grumbling, and they've become really good at that.

  I wonder what Nisodemus's game is? He's too keen, if you ask me.

  I wish Masklin would come back.

  Even young Gurder wasn't too bad.

  It's been three days now.

  At a time like this, he knew he'd feel better if he went and looked atthe Cat.

  Chapter 6

  I. For in the hill was a Beast, from the days whenthe World was made.

  II. But it was old and broken and dying.

  III. And the mark of its name was on it.

  IV. And the mark was the mark of the Cat.

  -From the Book of Nome, Cat I, v. I-IV

  The Cat.

  The Cat was his. His little secret. His big secret, really. No one elseknew about the Cat, not even Dorcas's assistants.

  He'd been pottering around in the big old half-ruined sheds on the otherside of the quarry, one day back in the summer. He hadn't really got anyaim in mind, except perhaps the possibility of finding a useful bit ofwire or something.

  So he'd rummaged around in the shadows, straightened up, glanced abovehim and there the Cat was.

  With its mouth open.

  It had been a terrible few seconds until Dorcas's eyes adjusted to thedistance.

  After that he'd spent a lot of time with the Cat, poking around, findingout about him. Or it. The Cat was too big to be a him or a her, it had tobe an it. A terrible it, perhaps, and old and wounded, like a dragon thathad come here for one last final sleep. Or perhaps it was like one ofthose big animals Grimma had showed him in a book once. Diner soars.

  Dorcas had never seen a cat before, but he'd heard from Masklin that theywere dangerous, and Dorcas wasn't about to argue.<
br />
  But this cat was kind of peaceful to have around. It didn't grumble, andit didn't keep on asking Dorcas why he hadn't got around to inventingradio yet. Dorcas had spent many a peaceful hour getting to know the Cat.

  It was someone to talk to. It was the best kind of person to talk to, infact, because you didn't have to listen back at it.

  Dorcas shook his head. There was no time for that sort of thing now.

  Everything was going wrong.

  Instead, he went to find Grimma. She seemed to have her head screwed onright, even if she was a girl.

  The schoolhole was under the floor of the old shed with CANTEEN on the door. It was Grimma's personal world. She'd invented schools for children, on the idea that since reading and writing were quite difficult itwas best to get them over with early, The library was also kept there.

  In those last hectic hours the nomes had managed to rescue about thirtybooks from the Store. Some were very useful-Gardening All the Year Roundwas well thumbed, and Dorcas knew Essential Theory for the AmateurEngineer almost by heart -but some were, well, difficult, and not openedmuch.

  Grimma was standing in front of one of these when he wandered in. She wasbiting her thumb, which she always did when she was concentrating.

  He had to admire the way she read. Not only was Grimma the best readeramong the nomes, she also had an amazing ability to understand what shewas reading.

  "Nisodemus is causing trouble," he said, sitting down on a bench.

  "I know," said Grimma vaguely. "I've heard." She grabbed the edge of thepage in both hands, and turned it over with a grunt of effort.

  "I don't know what he's got to gain," said Dorcas.

  "Power," said Grimma. "We've got a power vacuum, you see."

  "I don't think we have," said Dorcas uncertainly. "I've never seen onehere. There were plenty in the store. 'Ninety-Nine Ninety-Five with Range of Attachments for Around-the-House Cleanliness,' " he added, remembering with a sigh the familiar signs.

  "No, it's not a thing like that," said Grimma, "It's what you get when no one's in charge. I've been reading about them." "I'm in charge, aren't I?" said Dorcas plaintively.

  "No," said Grimma. "Because no one really listens to you."