Truckers (16 page)

He hadn't been very good at reading, but he'd tried until his brain hurt when the Stationeri found him some books with trucks on the front. Now he probably knew more about them than any other nome. Which wasn't a lot, Masklin had to admit.

He listened to Angalo muttering to himself as he struggled into the straps.

“Gear,” he said. “Shift. Steering Wheel. Wipers. Auto Transmission. Breaker Break Good Buddy. Smoky. Truckers.” He looked up and smiled thinly at Masklin. “Ready,” he said.

“Now remember,” said Masklin, “they don't always leave the windows open, so if they're closed, one pull on the rope and we'll pull you back up, okay?”

“Ten-four.”

“What?”

“It's Trucker for ‘yes,'” explained Angalo.

“Oh. Fine. Now, when you're in, find somewhere to hide so you can watch the driver—”

“Yes, yes. You explained it all before,” said Angalo impatiently.

“Yes. Well. Have you got your sandwiches?”

Angalo patted the package at his waist. “And my notebook,” he said. “Ready to go. Put the Pedal to the Metal.”

“What?”

“It means ‘go' in Truck.”

Masklin looked puzzled. “Do we have to know all this to drive one?”

“Negatory,” said Angalo proudly.

“Oh? Well, so long as you understand yourself, that's the main thing.”

Dorcas, who was in charge of the rope detail, tapped Angalo on the shoulder.

“You sure you won't take the Outside suit?” he said hopefully.

It was cone shaped, made out of heavy cloth over a sort of umbrella frame of sticks so that it folded up, and had a little window to look out of. Dorcas had insisted on building it, to protect Outsidegoers.

“After all,” he'd said to Masklin, “
you
might be used to the Rain and the Wind—perhaps your heads have grown specially hard. Can't be too careful.”

“I don't think so, thank you,” said Angalo politely. “It's so heavy, and I don't expect I'll go outside the truck this trip.”

“Good,” said Masklin. “Well, let's not hang about. Except for you, Angalo. Haha. Ready to take the strain, lads? Over you go, Angalo,” he said, and then, because it paid to be on the safe side and you never knew, it might help, he added, “May Arnold Bros (est. 1905) watch over you.”

Angalo eased himself over the edge and slowly became a small spinning shape in the gloom as the team carefully let the thread out. Masklin prayed that they'd brought enough of it; there hadn't been time to come and measure.

There was a desperate tugging on the thread. Masklin peered down. Angalo was a small shape a yard or so below him.

“If anything should happen to me, no one is to eat Bobo,” he called up.

“Don't you worry,” said Masklin. “You're going to be all right.”

“Yes, I know. But if I'm not, Bobo is to go to a good home,” said Angalo.

“Right you are. A good home. Yes.”

“Where they don't eat rat. Promise?”

“No rat eating. Fine,” said Masklin.

Angalo nodded. The gang started to pay out the thread again.

Then Angalo was down and hurrying across the sloping roof to the side of the cab. It made Masklin dizzy just to look down at him.

The figure disappeared. After a while came two tugs, meaning “pay out more thread.” They let it slip past gradually. And then there were three tugs, faint but—well, three. And a few seconds later they came again.

Masklin let out his breath in a whoosh.

“Angalo has landed,” he said. “Pull the thread back up. We'll leave it here, in case—I mean, for when he comes back.”

He risked another look at the forbidding bulk of the truck. The trucks went out, the trucks came back, and it was the considered opinion of nomes like Dorcas that they were the same trucks. They went out loaded with goods, and they came back loaded with goods, and why Arnold Bros (est. 1905) felt the need to let goods out for the day was beyond anyone's understanding. All that was known with any certainty was that they were always back within a day, or two at the outside.

Masklin looked down at the truck that now contained the explorer. Where would it go, what would happen to it? What would Angalo
see
, before he came back again? If he didn't come back, what would Masklin tell his parents? That someone had to go, that he'd
begged
to go, that they had to see how a truck was driven, that everything depended on him? Somehow, he knew, it wouldn't sound very convincing in those circumstances.

Dorcas leaned over next to him.

“It'll be a job and a half getting everyone down this way,” he said.

“I know. We'll have to think of some better way.”

The inventor pointed down toward one of the other silent trucks. “There's a little step there,” he said, “just by the driver's door, look. If we could get to that and get a rope around the handle—”

Masklin shook his head.

“It's too far up,” he said. “It's a small step for a man, but a giant leap for nomekind.”

V. Thus the Outsider said, Those who believe not in the Outside, see, one will be sent Outside to Prove This Thing;

VI. And one went upon a Truck, and went Outside, to see where there may be a new Home;

VII. And there was much waiting, for he did not return
.

From
The Book of Nome, Goods Outward v. V–VII

M
ASKLIN HAD TAKEN
to sleeping in an old shoebox in the Stationery Department, where he could find a little peace. But when he got back, there was a small deputation of nomes waiting for him. They were holding a book between them.

Masklin was getting a bit disillusioned with the books. Maybe all the things he wanted to know were written down somewhere, but the real problem was to find them. The books might have been put together especially to make it difficult to find things out. There seemed to be no sense in them. Or, rather, there was sense, but in nonsensical ways.

He recognized Vinto Pimmie, a very young Ironmongri. He sighed. Vinto was one of the keenest and fastest readers, just not a particularly good one, and he tended to get carried away.

“I've cracked it,” said the boy proudly.

“Can you repair it?” said Masklin.

“I
mean
, I know how we can get a human to drive the truck for us!”

Masklin sighed. “We've thought about this, but it really won't work. If we show ourselves to a human—”

“Don't matter! Don't matter! He won't do anything, the reason being, we'll have—you'll like this—we'll have a gnu!”

Vinto beamed at him, like a dog who's just done a difficult trick.

“A gnu,” repeated Masklin weakly.

“Yes! It's in this book!” Vinto proudly displayed it. Masklin craned to see. He was picking reading up as he went along, a little bit at a time, but as far as he could make out the book was about
Host Age at 10,000 Feet
.

“It's got something to do with lots of shoes?” he said hopefully.

“No, no, no, what you do is, you get a gnu, then you point it at the driver and someone says, ‘Look out, he's got a gnu!' and you say, ‘Take us where we want to go or I'll fire this gnu at you!' and then he—”

“Right, right. Fine,” said Masklin, backing away. “Jolly good. Splendid idea. We'll definitely give it some thought. Well done.”

“That was clever of me, wasn't it?” said Vinto, jumping from one foot to the other.

“Yes. Certainly. Er. You don't think you might be better reading a more
practical
kind of—” Masklin hesitated. Who knew what kind of books were best?

He staggered inside his box and pulled the cardboard over the door and leaned against it.

“Thing?” he said.

“I hear you, Masklin,”
said the Thing, from the heap of rags that was Masklin's bed.

“What's a gnu?”

There was a brief pause. Then the Thing said:
“The gnu, a member of the genus
Connochaetes
and the family Bovidae, is an African antelope with down-curving horns. Body length is up to 6.5 ft. The shoulder height is about 4.5 ft., and weight is up to 600 lb. Gnus inhabit grassy plains in central and southern Africa.”

“Oh. Could you threaten someone with one?”

“Quite possibly.”

“Would there be one in the Store?”

There was another pause.
“Is there a Pet Department?”

Masklin knew what that was. The subject had come up yesterday, when Vinto had suggested taking a herd of guinea pigs to raise for meat.

“No,” he said.

“Then I should think the chance is remote.”

“Oh. Just as well, really.” Masklin sagged down on his bed. “You see,” he said, “we've got to be able to control where we're going. We need to find somewhere a little way from humans. But not too far. Somewhere safe.”

“You must look for an atlas or map.”

“What do they look like?”

“They may have the words ‘atlas' or ‘map' written on them.”

“I'll ask the Abbot to have a search made.” Masklin yawned.

“You must sleep,”
said the Thing.

“People always want me to do things. Anyway, you don't sleep.”

“It's different for me.”

“What I need,” said Masklin, “is a way. We can't use a gnu. They all think I know the way to do it, and I don't know the way. We know what we need, but we'll never get it all into a truck in one night. They all think I know all the answers, but I don't. And I don't know the way . . .”

He fell asleep and dreamed of being human sized. Everything was so easy, if you were human sized.

Two days went past. The nomes kept watch from the girder over the garage. A small plastic telescope was rolled down from the Toy Department, and with its help the news came back that the big metal doors to the garage opened themselves when a human pressed a red button next to them. How could you press a button ten times higher than your head? It went down on Masklin's list of problems to solve.

Gurder found a map. It was in quite a small book.

“That was
no
trouble,” he said. “We have dozens of these every year. It's called”—he read the gold lettering slowly—“Pocket Diary. And it has this map all at the back, look.”

Masklin stared down at the small pages of blue and red blobs. Some of the blobs had names, like Africa and Asia.

“We-ell,” he said, and “Ye-ss. I suppose so. Well done. Where are we, exactly?”

“In the middle,” said Gurder promptly. “That's logical.”

And then the truck returned.

Angalo didn't.

Masklin ran along the girder without thinking of the drop on either side. The little knot of figures told him everything he didn't want to know. A young nome who had just been lowered over the edge was sitting down and getting his breath back.

“I tried all the windows,” he said. “They're all shut. Couldn't see anyone in there. It's very dark.”

“Are you sure it's the right truck?” said Masklin to the head watcher.

“They've all got numbers on the front of them,” he was told. “I was particularly sure to remember the one he went out on, so when it came back this afternoon, I—”

“We've got to get inside to have a look,” said Masklin firmly. “Someone go and get . . . no, it'll take too long. Lower me down.”

“What?”

“Lower me down,” Masklin repeated. “All the way to the floor.”

“It's a long way down,” said one of them doubtfully.

“I know! Far too long to go all the way around by the stairs.” Masklin handed the end of the thread to a couple of nomes. “He could be in there hurt, or anything.”