The Bromeliad 2 - Diggers Read online

  Chapter 8

  VII. And Grimma said, We have two choices.

  VIII. We can run, or we can hide.

  IX. And they said, Which shall we do?

  X. She said, We shall Fight.

  -From the Book of Nome, Quarries III, v. VII-X

  It wasn't much of a snowfall, just one of those m nippy littlesprinklings that come early in the winter to make it absolutely clearthat it is, well, the winter. That's what Granny Morkie said.

  She'd never been very interested in the council anyway. She liked tospend her time with the other old people, exchanging grumbles and, as sheput it, cheerin' them up and takin' them out o' themselves.

  She strutted around in the snow as if it belonged! to her.

  The old-Store nomes watched her in horrified silence.

  " 'Course, this is nothing to some of 'em," she said. "I mind we've hadsnow so deep we couldn't walk around in it, we had to dig tunnels! Talkabout laugh!"

  "Er madam," said a very old nome, gravely, "Does it always drop out ofthe sky like this?"

  " 'Course! Sometimes it gets blown along by the wind. You get great bigpiles!"

  "We thought it-you see, on the cards-that is, in the Store-well, wethought it just sort of appeared on things," said the old nome. "In arather jolly and festive way," he added, looking embarrassed.

  They watched it pile up. Over the quarry the clouds hung like overstuffedmattresses.

  "At least it means we won't have to go to that horrid barn place," said anome.

  "That's right," said Granny Morkie. "You could catch your death, goingout in this." She looked cheerful.

  The old nomes grumbled among themselves, and scanned the sky anxiouslyfor the first signs of robins or reindeer.

  The snow closed the quarry in. You couldn't see out across the fields.

  Dorcas sat in his workshop and stared at the snow piling up against thedirty window, giving the shed a dull gray light.

  "Well," he said quietly, "we wanted to be shut away. And now we are. Wecan't run away, and we Gan t hide. We ought to have gone when Masklin left."

  He heard footsteps behind him. It was Grimma. She spent a long time near the gate these days, but the snow had driven her indoors at last.

  "He wouldn't be able to come," she said. "Not in the snow."

  "Yeah. Right," said Dorcas uncertainly.

  "It's been eight days now."

  "Yes. Quite a long time."

  "What were you saying when I came in?" she said.

  "I was just talking to myself. Does this snow stuff stay for a long time?"

  "Granny says it does, sometimes. Weeks and weeks, she says."

  "Oh."

  "When the humans come back, they'll be here for good," said Grimma.

  "Yes," said Dorcas sadly. "Yes, I think you're right."

  "How many of us would be able to ... you know ... go on living here?"

  "A couple of dozen, perhaps. If they don't eat much, and lie low during the day. There's no Food Hall, you see." He sighed. "And there won't bemuch hunting. Not with humans around the quarry the whole time. All thegame up in the thickets will run away." '

  "But there's thousands of us!"

  Dorcas shrugged.

  "It's hard enough for me to walk through this snow," he said. "There's hundreds of older nomes who'll never do it. And young ones, come to that.

  "So we've got to stay, just as Nisodemus wants," said Grimma.

  "Yes. Stay and hope. Perhaps the snow will be-"

  "We could make a run for the thickets or something," he said vaguely.

  "We could stay and fight," said Grimma. Dorcas growled. "Oh, that's easy. We fight all the time. Bicker, bicker, bicker. That's nomish nature for you."

  "I mean, fight the humans. Fight for the quarry."

  There was a long pause.

  Then Dorcas said, "What, us? Fight humans'?"

  "Yes."

  "But they're bumansV

  "Yes."

  "But they're so much bigger than we are!" said Dorcas desperately.

  "Then they'll make better targets," said Grimma, her eyes alight. "And we're faster than them, and smarter than them, and we know they exist and we have," she added, "the element of surprise."

  "The what?" said Dorcas, totally lost.

  "The element of surprise. They don't know we're here," she explained.

  He gave her a sidelong glance.

  "You've been reading strange books again," he said.

  "Well, it's better than sitting around wringing your hands and saying, 'Oh dear, oh dear, the humans are coming and we shall all be squashed.' "

  "That's all very well," said Dorcas. "But what are you suggesting?

  Bashing them over the head would be really tricky, take it from me." "Not their heads," said Grimma. Dorcas stared at her. Fight humans? It was such a novel idea it was hard to get your mind around it.

  But ... well, there was that book, wasn't there? The one Masklin had found in the Store, the one that had given him the idea for driving thetruck. What was it? Gulliver's Travels? And there'd been this picture ofa human lying down, with what looked like nomes tying it up with hundredsof ropes. Not even the oldest nomes could remember it ever happening; itmust have been a long time ago.

  A snag struck him.

  "Hang on a minute," he said. "If we start fighting humans ..." His voice trailed off.

  "Yes?" said Grimma impatiently.

  "They'll start fighting us, won't they? I know they're not very bright, but it'll dawn on them that something's happening and they'll fight back. Retaliation, that's called."

  "That's right," said Grimma. "And that's why it's vitally important we retaliate right at the start." Dorcas thought about this. It seemed a logical idea. "But only in self-defense," he said. "Only in self-defense. Even with humans. I don't want there to be any unnecessary suffering."

  "I suppose so," she said.

  "You really think we could fight humans?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "So ... how?"

  Grimma bit her lip. "Hmm," she said, "Young Sacco and his friends. Can you trust them?"

  "They're keen lads. And lasses, one or two of them." He smiled. "Always ready for something new." "Right. Then we shall need some nails ..."

  "You've really been thinking hard, haven't you?" said Dorcas. He was almost in awe. Grimma was often bad tempered. He thought perhaps it was because her mind worked very fast, sometimes, and she was impatient with people who weren't keeping up. But now she was furious. You could begin to feel sorry for any humans who got in her way.

  "I've been doing a lot of reading," she said.

  "Er, yes. Yes, I can see," said Dorcas. "But, er, I wonder if it wouldn't be more sensible to-"

  "We're not going to run away again," she said flatly. "We shall fight them on the tracks. We shall fight them at the gates. We shall fight them in the quarry. And we shall never surrender."

  "What does 'surrender' mean?" said Dorcas, desperately.

  "We don't know the meaning of surrender," said Grimma.

  "Well, I don't," said Dorcas.

  Grimma leaned against the wall.

  "Do you want to hear something strange?" she Dorcas thought about it.

  "I don't mind," he said.

  "There's books about us."

  "Like Gulliver, you mean?"

  "No. That was about a human. About us, I mean. Ordinary-size people, like us. But wearing all green suits and with little knobbly stalks on their heads. Sometimes humans put out bowls of milk for us and we do all the housework for them. And we have wings, like bees. That's what gets put in books about us. They call us pixies. It's in a book called Fairy Tales for Little Folk.'" "I don't think the wings would work," said Dorcas doubtfully. "I don't think you could get the lifting power."

  "And they think we live in mushrooms," Grimma finished.

  "Hmm? Doesn't sound very practical to me," said Dorcas.

  "And they think we repair shoes." "That's a bit more like it," said Dorc
as. "Good solid work."

  "And the book said we paint the flowers to make them pretty colors," said Grimma. I Dorcas thought about this.

  "Nah," he said eventually. "I've looked at the colors on flowers. They'redefinitely built-in."

  "We're real," said Grimma. "We do real things. So why do you think thatsort of thing goes in books?"

  "Search me," said Dorcas. "I only read manuals.

  It's not a proper book, I've always said, unless it's got lists and linedrawings in it."

  "If ever humans do catch us, that's what we'll become," said Grimma.

  "Sweet little people, painting flowers. They won't let us be anythingelse. They'll turn us into little people." She sighed. "Do you ever getthe feeling you'll never know anything you ought to know?"

  "Oh, yes. All the time."

  Grimma frowned.

  "I know one thing," she said. "When Masklin comes back, he's going tohave somewhere to come back to."

  "Oh," said Dorcas.

  "Oh," he repeated. "Oh. I see."

  It was bitterly cold in the Cat's lair. Other nomes never came in, because it was drafty and stank. That suited Dorcas fine.

  He padded across the floor and went under the huge tarpaulin where theCat lived. It took quite a long time to climb up to his preferred perchon the monster, even using the bits of wood and string he'd painstakinglytied to him ... it.

  He sat down and waited until he got his breath back.

  "I only want to help people," he said quietly. Like giving them thingslike electricity and making their lives better. But they never saythank you, y°u know. They wanted me to paint signs, so I Painted signs.

  Now Grimma wants to fight humans. She's got lots of ideas out of books.

  I know she's doing it to help forget about Masklin but no good will comeof it, you mark my words. But if I don't help, things will only getworse. I don't want anybody to get hurt. People like us can't be repairedas easily as people like you."

  He drummed his heels on the Cat's. What would it be? The Cat's neck, probably.

  "It's all right for you," he said. "Sleeping quietly here all the time.

  Having a nice rest ..."

  He stared at the Cat for a long while.

  Then, very quietly, he said, "I wonder ... ?"

  Five long minutes went past. Dorcas appeared and reappeared among thecomplicated shadows, muttering to himself, saying things like, "That's dead, that's no good, we need a new battery," and "Seems okay, nothingthat a good clean couldn't put right," and "Hmm, not much in your tank ..."

  Finally he walked out from under the dusty tarp and rubbed his handstogether.

  Everyone has a purpose in life, he thought. It's what keeps them going.

  Nisodemus wants things to be as they were. Grimma wants Masklin back. AndMasklin . . no one knows exactly what it is that Masklin wants, exceptthat it's very big.

  But they all have this purpose. If you have a purpose in life, you canfeel six inches tall.

  And now I've found one.

  Wow.

  The human came back later and it did not come alone. There was the Land-Rover and a much larger truck, with the words Blackbury Stone andGravel Inc. painted on the side. Its tires turned the thin coating ofsnow into glistening mud.

  It ~iolted up the dirt road, slowed down as it came out into the openarea in front of the quarry gates, and stopped.

  It wasn't a very good stop. The back of the vehicle swung around andnearly hit the hedge. The engine coughed into silence.

  There was the sound of hissing. And, very slowly, the truck sank.

  Two humans got out. They walked around the truck, looking at each tire inturn.

  "They're only flat at the bottom," whispered Grimma, in their hidingplace in the bushes.

  "Don't worry about it," hissed Dorcas. "The thing about tires is, theflat bit always sinks to the bottom. Amazing what you can do with a fewnails, isn't it?"

  The smaller truck stopped behind the first one. Two humans got out ofthat, too, and joined the others. One of them was holding the longestpair of pliers Dorcas had ever seen. While the rest of the humans bentdown by one of the flat tires it strolled up to the gate, fiddled theteeth of the pliers onto the padlock, and squeezed.

  It was an effort, even for a human. But there was a snap loud enough tobe heard even in the bushes, and then a long drawn-out clinking noise asthe chain fell away.

  Dorcas groaned. He'd had great hopes for that chain. It was the Cat's; atleast, it was in a big yellow box bolted to part of the Cat, sopresumably it had belonged to the Cat. But it had been the padlock thathad broken, not the chain. Dorcas felt oddly proud about that.

  "I don't understand it," Grimma muttered. "They can see they're notwanted, so why are they so stupid?"

  "It's not as if there aren't masses of stone around," agreed Sacco.

  The human pulled at the gate and swung it enough to allow itself inside.

  "It's going to the manager's office," said Sacco. "It's going to make noises in the telephone."

  "No, it's not," Dorcas prophesied.

  "But it will be ringing up Order," said Sacco. "It'll be saying, in Human, I mean, it'll be saying, Some of Our Wheels Have Gone Flat."

  "No," said Dorcas, "It'll be saying, Why Doesn't the Telephone Work?"

  "Why doesn't the telephone work?" said Nooty.

  "Because I know which wires to cut," said Dorcas. "Look, it's coming back out."

  They watched it walk around the sheds. The snow had covered the nomes'

  sad attempts at cultivation. There were plenty of nome tracks, though, like little bird trails in the snow. The human didn't notice them. Humans hardly ever noticed anything.

  "Trip wires," said Grimma.

  "What?" said Dorcas,

  "Trip wires. We should put trip wires down. The bigger they are," said Grimma, "the harder they fall."

  "Not on us, I hope," said Dorcas.

  "No. We could put more nails down," said Grimma.

  "Good grief."

  The humans clustered around the stricken truck. Then they appeared to reach a decision and walked back to the Land-Rover. They got in. Itcouldn't go forward, but reversed slowly down the dirt road, turnedaround in a field gateway, and headed back to the main road. The bigtruck was left alone.

  Dorcas breathed out.

  "I was afraid one of them would stay," he said.

  "They'll come back," said Grimma. "You've always said it. Humans'll come back and mend the wheels or whatever it is they do."

  "Then we'd better get on with it," said Dorcas. "Come on, everybody."

  He stood up and trotted toward the road. To Sacco's surprise, Dorcas was whistling under his breath.

  "Now, the important thing is to make sure they Gan't move it," he said as they ran to keep up. "If Aey can't move it, it means it stays blocking the dirt road. And if it stays blocking the dirt road, they can't get any more machines in."

  "Good thinking," said Grimma, in a slightly puzzled voice.

  "We must immobilize it," said Dorcas. "We'll take out the battery first.

  No electricity, no go."

  "Right," said Sacco.

  "It's a big square thing," said Sacco, "It'll need eight of you at least.

  Don't drop it, whatever you do."

  "Why not?" said Grimma. "We want to smash it, don't we?"

  "Er. Er. Er," said Dorcas urgently, like a motor trying to get started.

  "No, because, because it could be dangerous. Yes. Dangerous. Yes.

  Because, because, because of the acid and whatnot. You must take it outvery carefully, and I'll find somewhere safe to put it. Yes. Very safe.

  Off you go now. Two men to a wrench."

  They trotted off.

  "What else can we do?" said Grimma.

  "We'd better drain the gas out," said Dorcas firmly as they walked underthe shadow of the truck. It was much smaller than the one that had brought them out of the Store, but still quite big enough. He wanderedaround until he was unde
r the enormous swelling bulk of the gas tank.

  Four of the young nomes had dragged an empty can out of the bushes.

  Dorcas called them over and pointed to the tank above them.

  "There must be a nut on there somewhere," he said. "It'll be to let thestuff out. Get a wrench around it. Make sure the can's underneath it first!"

  They nodded enthusiastically and got to work. Nomes are good climbers andremarkably strong for their size.

  "And try not to spill any, please!" Dorcas shouted up after them.

  "I don't see why that matters," said Grimma, behind him. "All we wantto do is get it out of the truck. Where it goes doesn't matter, does it?"

  She gave him another thoughtful look. Dorcas blinked back at her, hismind racing.

  "Ah," he said. "Ah. Ah. Because. Becausebecausebecause. Ah. Becauseit's dangerous stuff. We don't want it polluting things, do we? Best toput it carefully in a can and-"

  "Keep it safe?" said Grimma suspiciously.

  "Right! Right," said Dorcas, who was starting to sweat. "Good idea. Nowlet's just go over here ..." He led Grimma away.

  There was sudden rush of air and a thump from right behind them. Thetruck's battery landed where they had been standing.

  "Sorry, Dorcas," Sacco called down. "It was a lot heavier than wethought. It got away from us."

  "You idiots!" Grimma shouted.

  "Yes, you idiots!" shouted Dorcas. "You might have damaged it! Just you come down here right now and get it into the hedge, quickly!"

  He might have damaged us!" said Grimma. Yes. Yes. Yes, that's what Imeant, of course," said Dorcas vaguely. "You wouldn't mind organizingthem a bit, would you? They're good boys, but always a little tooenthusiastic, if you know what I mean."

  He wandered off into the shadow, his head tilted backward.

  "Well!" said Grimma. She looked around at Sacco and his friends, who were sheepishly climbing down again.

  "Don't just stand there," she said. "Get it into the hedge. Hasn't Dorcas told you about using levers? Very important things. It's amazing what you can do with levers. We used them a lot on the Long Drive ..."

  Her voice trailed off. She turned and looked at the distant figure of Dorcas and her eyes narrowed. The cunning old devil is up to something, she thought.

  "Oh, just get on with it," she said, and ran after Dorcas.

  He was standing under the truck's engine, staring up intently into the masses of rusting pipework. As she came up she distinctly heard him say,