The Bromeliad Trilogy Page 8

  "He's in there?" she said.

  "Well, there's beans in bean tins and fire in fire buckets," said Masklin helpfully. "The door's not shut, look. Want me to go and see?"

  Gurder nodded wretchedly. Masklin walked over to the door, leaned against it, and pushed it until his arms ached. Eventually it swung in a little way.

  There was no light inside, but by the faint glow from the corridor through the glass he could see he was entering a large room. The carpet was much thicker, it was like wading through grass. Several meters away was a large rectangular wooden thing; as he walked around it he saw a chair behind it. Perhaps this was where Arnold Bros (est. 1905) sat.

  "Where are you, Arnold Bros (est. 1905)?" he whispered.

  Some minutes later the other two heard him calling softly. They peered around the door.

  "Where are you?" hissed Grimma.

  "Up here," came Masklin's voice. "This big wooden thing. There's sticking-out bits you can climb on. There's all kinds of things up here. Careful of the carpet, there could be wild animals in it. If you wait a minute, I can help you up."

  They waded through the deep pile of the carpet and waited anxiously by the wooden cliff.

  "It's a desk," said Gurder, loftily. "There's lots of them in Furnishing. Amazing Value in Genuine One Hundred Per Cent Oak Veneer."

  "What's he doing up there?" said Grimma. "I can hear clinking noises."

  "A Must In Every Home," said Gurder, as if saying the words gave him some comfort. "Wide Choice of Styles to Suit Every Pocket."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Sorry. It's the sort of thing Arnold Bros (est. 1905) writes on the signs. I just feel better for saying it."

  "What's that other thing up there?"

  He looked where she was pointing. "That? It's a chair. Swivelled Finish For That Executive Look."

  "It looks big enough for humans," she said thoughtfully.

  "I expect humans. sit there when Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is giving them their instructions."

  "Hmm," she said.

  There was a clinking noise by her head.

  "Sorry," Masklin called down. "It took me a while to hook them together."

  Gurder looked up at the heights, and the gleaming chain that now hung down.

  "Paperclips," he said, amazed. "I never would have thought it."

  When they clambered to the top they found Masklin wandering across the shiny surface, prodding things with his spear. This was paper, Gurder explained airily, and things for making marks.

  "Well, Arnold Bros (est. 1905) doesn't seem to be around," Masklin said. "Perhaps he's gone to bed, or whatever."

  "The Abbot said he saw him here one night, sitting at the desk right here," said Gurder. "Watching over the Store."

  "What, sitting on that chair?" said Grimma.

  "I suppose so."

  "So he's big, then, is he?" Grimma pressed on relentlessly. "Sort of human-sized?"

  "Sort of," Gurder agreed reluctantly.

  "Hmm."

  Masklin found a cable as thick as his arm winding off across the top of the desk. He followed it.

  "If he's human-shaped and human-sized," said Grimma, "then perhaps he's a –"

  "Let's just see what we can find up here, shall we?" said Gurder hurriedly. He walked over to a pile of paper and started reading the top sheet by the dim light coming in from the corridor. He read slowly, in a very loud voice.

  " 'The Arnco Group,' " he read, " 'incorporating Arnco Developments (UK), United Television, Arnco-Schultz (Hamburg) AG, Arnco Airlines, Arnco Recording, the Arnco Organization (Cinemas) Ltd, Arnco Petroleum Holdings, Arnco Publishing, and Arnco UK Retailing plc.' "

  "Gosh," said Grimma flatly.

  "There's more," said Gurder excitedly, "in much smaller letters, perhaps they're meant to be right for us. Listen to all these names: 'Arnco UK Retailing plc includes Bonded Outlets Ltd, the Grimethorpe Dye and Paint Company, KwikKleen Mechanical Sweepers Ltd, and – and – and –'

  "Something wrong?"

  "– 'Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'." Gurder looked up. "What do you think it all means? Bargains Galore preserve us!"

  There was a light. It skewered down on the two of them, white and searing, so that they stood over a black pool of their own shadows.

  Gurder looked up in terror at the brilliant globe that had appeared above them.

  "Sorry, I think that was me," said Masklin's voice from the shadows. "I found this sort of lever thing and when I pushed it, it went click. Sorry."

  "Ahaha," said Gurder, mirthlessly. "An electric light. Of course. Ahaha. Gave me quite a start for a moment."

  Masklin appeared in the circle of brightness, and looked at the paper.

  "I heard you reading," he said. "Anything interesting?"

  Gurder pored over the print again. " 'Notice to all Staff,' " he read, " 'I am sure we are all aware of the increasingly poor financial performance of the store in recent years. This rambling old building, while quite suitable for the leisured shopper of 1905, is not appropriate in the exciting world of the Nineties, and as we all know, there have unfortunately been marked stock losses and a general loss of custom following the opening of newer major outlets in the town. I am sure our sorrow at the closure of Arnold Bros, which as you know was the foundation of the Arnco fortunes, will be lessened by the news of plans by the Group to replace it with an Arnco Super Saverstore in the Neil Armstrong Shopping Mall. To this end, the store will close at the end of the month, and will shortly be demolished to make way for an exciting new Arnco Leisure Complex... '."

  Gurder fell silent, and put his head in his hands.

  "There's those words again," said Masklin slowly. "Closure. Demolished."

  "What's leisure?" said Grimma. The Stationeri ignored her.

  Masklin took her gently by the arm.

  "I think he wants to be alone for a while," he said. He pulled the tip of his spear across the broad sheet of paper, creasing it, and folded it up until it was small enough to carry.

  "I expect the Abbot will want to see it," he said. "He'll never believe us if we –"

  He stopped. Grimma was staring over his shoulder. He turned, and looked out through the glass part of the great door into the corridor beyond. There was a shadow out there. Human-shaped. And growing bigger.

  "What is it?" she said.

  Masklin gripped the spear. "I think," he said, "it may be Prices Slashed."

  They turned and hurried over to Gurder.

  "There's someone coming," Masklin whispered. "Get down to the floor, quickly!"

  "Demolished!" moaned Gurder, hugging himself and rocking from side to side. "Everything Must Go! Final Reductions! We're all doomed!"

  "Yes, but do you think you could go and be doomed on the floor?" said Masklin.

  "He's not himself; you can see that," said Grimma. "Come on," she added, in a horribly cheerful voice. "Upsydaisy."

  She lifted him up bodily and helped him towards the rope of clips. Masklin followed them, walking backwards with his eye on the door.

  He thought: he has seen the light. It should be dark in here now, and he has seen the light. But I'll never get it off in time and anyway, it won't make any difference. I don't believe in any demon called Prices Slashed and now, here he comes. What a strange world.

  He sidled into the shade of a pile of paper, and waited.

  He could hear Gurder's feeble protests, down around floor level, suddenly stop. Perhaps Grimma had hit him with something. She had a way of taking obvious action in a crisis.

  The door drifted open, very slowly. There was a figure there. It looked like a human in a blue suit. Masklin wasn't much of a judge of human expressions, but the man didn't look very happy. In one hand he held a metal tube. Light shone out of one end. His terrible light, Masklin thought.

  The figure came closer, in that slow-motion, sleep-walking way that humans had. Masklin peered around the paper, fascinated despite himself. He looked up into a round, red face, felt the br
eath, saw the peaked hat.

  He'd learned that humans in the Store had their names on little badges, because he'd been told – they were so stupid they wouldn't remember them otherwise. This man had his name on his hat. Masklin squinted and made out the shape of the letters: S… E… C… U… R… I… T… Y. He had a white moustache.

  The man straightened up and started to walk around the room. They're not stupid, Masklin told himself. He's bright enough to know there shouldn't be a light on, and he wants to find out why. He's bound to see the others if he just looks in the right place. Even a human could see them.

  He gripped his spear. The eyes, he thought, I'd have to go for the eyes...

  Security drifted dreamily around the room, examining cupboards and looking in corners. Then he headed back towards the door.

  Masklin dared to breathe and, at that moment, Gurder's hysterical voice came from somewhere below him.

  "It is Prices Slashed! Oh, Bargains Galore, save us! We're all mmphmmphmmph –"

  Security stopped. He turned back, a look of puzzlement spreading across his face as slowly as treacle.

  Masklin shrunk further back into the shadows. This is it, then, he thought. If I can get a good run at him.

  Something outside the door started to roar. It was almost a truck noise. It didn't seem to worry the man, who just pulled the door open and looked out.

  There was a human woman in the passage. She looked quite elderly, as far as Masklin was any judge, with a pink apron with flowers on it and carpet slippers on her feet. She held a duster in one hand, and with the other she was...

  Well, it looked as though she was holding back a sort of roaring thing, like a bag on wheels. It kept rushing forward across the carpet, but she kept one hand on its stick and kept pulling it back.

  While Masklin watched she gave the thing a kick. The roaring died away as Security started to talk to her. To Masklin the conversation sounded like a couple of foghorns having a fight.

  Masklin ran to the edge of the desk and half climbed, half fell down the chain of clips. The other two were waiting in the shadow of the desk. Gurder's eyes were rolling; Grimma had one hand clamped firmly over his mouth.

  "Let's get out of here while he's not looking!" said Masklin.

  "How?" said Grimma. "There's only the doorway."

  "Mmphmmph."

  "Well, let's at least get somewhere better than this." Masklin stared around across the rolling acres of dark carpet. "There's a cupboard thing over there," he said.

  "Mmphmmph!"

  "What are we going to do with him?"

  "Look," said Masklin to Gurder's frightened face. "You're not going to go on about doom, doom again, are you? Otherwise we'll have to gag you. Sorry."

  "Mmph."

  "Promise?"

  "Mmph."

  "Okay, you can take your hand away."

  "It was Bargains Galore!" hissed Gurder excitedly.

  Grimma looked up at Masklin. "Shall I shut him up again?" she said.

  "He can say what he likes as long as he keeps quiet," said Masklin. "It probably makes him feel better. He's had a bit of a shock."

  "Bargains Galore came to protect us! With her great roaring Soul-Sucker..." Gurder's brow wrinkled in puzzlement.

  "It was a carpet-cleaner, wasn't it?" he said slowly. "I always thought it was something magical and it was just a carpet-cleaner. There's lot's of them in Household Appliances. With Extra Suction for Deep-Down Carpet Freshness."

  "Good. That's nice. Now, how do we get out of here?"

  Some searching behind the filing cabinets found a crack in the floorboards just big enough to squeeze through with difficulty. Getting back took half a day, partly because Gurder would occasionally sit down and burst into tears, but mainly because they had to climb down inside the wall itself. It was hollow and had wires and odd bits of wood in it, tied into place by the Klothians, but it was still a tedious job. They came out under Kiddies Klothes. Gurder had pulled himself together by then, and haughtily ordered food and an escort.

  And so at last they came back to the Stationery Department.

  Just in time.

  Granny Morkie looked up as they were ushered into the Abbot's bedroom. She was sitting by the bed with her hands on her knees.

  "Don't make any loud noises," she ordered. "He's very ill. He says he's dyin'. I suppose he should know."

  "Dying of what?" said Masklin.

  "Dyin' of bein' alive for such a long time," said Granny.

  The Abbot lay, wrinkled and even smaller than Masklin remembered him, among his pillows. He was clutching the Thing in two thin, claw-like hands.

  He looked at Masklin and, with a great effort, beckoned him to come closer.

  "You'll have to lean over," Granny ordered. "He can't talk above a croak, poor old soul."

  The Abbot gently grabbed Masklin's ear and pulled it down to his mouth.

  "A sterling woman," he whispered. "Many fine qualities, I am sure. But please send her away before she gives me any more medicine."

  Masklin nodded, Granny's remedies, made from simple, honest and generally nearly poisonous herbs and roots, were amazing things. After one dose of stomachache jollop, you made sure you never complained of stomach ache ever again. In its way, it was a sort of cure.

  "I can't send," he said, "but I can ask."

  She went out, shouting instructions, to mix up another batch.

  Gurder knelt down by the bed.

  "You're not going to die, are you, sir?" he said.

  "Of course I am. Everyone is. That's what being alive is all about," whispered the Abbot. "Did you see Arnold Bros (est. 1905)?"

  Well. Er." Gurder hesitated. "We found some Writing, sir. It's true, it says the Store will be demolished. That means the end of everything, sir, whatever shall we do?"

  "You will have to leave," said the Abbot.

  Gurder looked horrified.

  "But you've always said that everything outside the Stone could only be a dream!"

  "And you never believed me, boy. And maybe I was wrong. That young man with the spear, is he still here? I can't see very well."

  Masklin stepped forward.

  "Oh, there you are," said the old nome. "This box of yours."

  "Yes?" said Masklin.

  "Told me things. Showed me pictures. Store's a lot bigger than I thought, there's this room they keep the stars in, not just the glittery ones they hang from the ceiling at Christmas Fayre, but hundreds of the damn things. It's called the universe. We used to live in it, it nearly all belonged to us, it was our home. We didn't live under anyone's floor. I think Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is telling us to go back there."

  He reached out and his cold white finger gripped Masklin's arm with surprising strength.

  "I don't say you're blessed with brains," he said. "In fact I reckon you're the stupid but dutiful kind who gets to be leader when there's no glory in it. You're the kind who sees things through. Take them home. Take them all home."

  He slumped back on to the pillows, and shut his eyes.

  "But – leave the Store, sir?" said Gurder. "There's thousands of us, old people and babies and everyone, where can we go? There's foxes out there, Masklin says, and wind and hunger and water that drops out of the sky in bits! Sir? Sir?"

  Grimma leaned over and felt the old nome's wrist.

  "Can he hear me?" said Gurder.

  "Maybe," said Grimma. "Perhaps. But he won't be able to answer you, because he's dead."

  "But he can't die! He's always been here!" said Gurder, aghast. "You've got it wrong. Sir? Sir!"

  Masklin took the Thing out of the Abbot's unresisting hands as other Stationeri, hearing Gurder's voice, hurried in.

  "Thing?" he said quietly, walking away from the crowd around the bed,

  "I hear you."

  "Is he dead?"

  "I detect no life functions."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means 'yes'."

  "Oh." Masklin considered this. "I th
ought you had to be eaten or squashed first. I didn't think you just sort of stopped."

  The Thing didn't volunteer any information.

  "Any idea what I should do now?" said Masklin. "Gurder was right. They are not going to leave all this warmth and food. I mean, some of the youngsters might, for a lark. But if we're going to survive outside we'll need lots of people. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. And what am I supposed to say to them: Sorry, you've all got to leave it all behind?"

  The Thing spoke.

  "No," it said.

  Masklin had never seen a funeral before. Come to that, he'd never seen a nome die from being alive too long. Oh, people had been eaten, or had never come back, but no one had simply come to an end.

  "Where do you bury your dead?" Gurder had asked. "Inside badgers and foxes, often," he'd replied, and hadn't been able to resist adding, "You know. The handsome and agile hunters?"

  This was how the nomes said farewell to their dead:

  The body of the old Abbot was ceremoniously dressed in a green coat and a pointy red hat. His long white beard was carefully combed out and then he lay, peacefully, on his bed as Gurder read the service.

  "Now that it has pleased you, Arnold Bros (est. 1905), to take our brother to your great Gardening Department beyond Consumer Accounts, where there is Ideal Lawn Edging and an Amazing Floral Display and the pool of eternal life in Easy-to-Lay Polythene with Real Crazy-Paving Edging, we will give him the gifts a nome must take on his journey."

  The Count de Ironmongri stepped forward. "I give him," he said, laying an object beside the nome, "the Spade Of Honest Toil."

  "And I," said the Duke de Haberdasheri, "lay beside him the Fishing Rod of Hope."

  Other leading nomes brought other things: the Wheelbarrow of Leadership, the Shopping Basket of Life. Dying in the Store was quite complicated, Masklin gathered.

  Grimma blew her nose as Gurder completed the service and the body was ceremoniously carried away.

  To the sub-basement, they later learned, and the incinerator. Down in the realms of Prices Slashed, the Security, where he sat at night-times, legend said, and drank his horrible tea.

  "That's a bit dreadful, I reckon," said Granny Morkie, as they stood around aimlessly afterwards. "In my young day, if a person died, we buried 'em. In the ground."