Wings (10 page)

From A Scientific Encyclopaedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

It wasn't the Thing that woke Masklin up. It was Gurder.

Masklin lay with his eyes half closed, listening. Gurder was talking to the Thing in a low voice.

"I believed in the Store," he said, "and then I found out it was just a - a sort of thing built by humans. And I thought Grandson Richard, 39, was some special person and he turned out to be a human who sings when he wets himself -"

"Takes a shower!"

"And now there's thousands of nomes in the world! Thousands! Believing all sorts of things! That stupid Topknot person believes that the going-up shuttles make the sky. Do you know what I thought when I heard that? I thought, if he'd been the one arriving in my world instead of the other way around, he'd have thought I was just as stupid! I am just as stupid!... Thing?"

"I was maintaining a tactful silence."

"Angalo believes in silly machinery and Masklin believes in, oh, I don't know. Space. Or not believing in things. And it all works for them. I try to believe in important things, and they don't last for five minutes. Where's the fairness in that?"

"Only another tactful and understanding silence suffices at this point."

"I just wanted to make some sense out of life."

"This is a commendable aim."

"I mean, what is the truth of everything?"

There was a pause. Then the Thing said: "I recall your conversation with Masklin about the origin of nomes. You wanted to ask me. I can answer now. I was made, I know this is true. I know that I am a thing made of metal and plastic, but also that I am something which lives inside that metal and plastic. It is impossible for me not to be absolutely certain of it. This is a great comfort. As to nomes, I have data that says nomes originated on another world and came here thousands of years ago. This may be true. It may not be true. I am not in a position to judge."

"I knew where I was, back in the Store," said Gurder, half to himself. "And even in the quarry it wasn't too bad. I had a proper job. I was important to people. How can I go back now, knowing that everything I believed about the Store and Arnold Bros. (est. 1905) and Grandson Richard, 39, is just... is just an opinion?"

"I cannot advise. I am sorry."

Masklin decided it was a diplomatic time to wake up. He made a grunting noise just to be sure that Gurder heard him.

The Abbot was very red in the face.

"I couldn't sleep," he said shortly.

Masklin stood up.

"How long, Thing?"

"Twenty-seven minutes."

"Why didn't you wake me up!"

"I wished you to be refreshed."

"But it's still a long way off. We'll never get you onto it in time. Wake up, you." Masklin prodded Angalo with his foot. "Come on, we'll have to run. Where's Pion? Oh, there you are. Come on, Gurder."

They jogged on through the scrub. In the distance, there was the low mournful howl of sirens.

"You're cutting it really fine, Masklin," said Angalo.

"Faster! Run faster!" Now that they were closer, Masklin could see the shuttle. It was quite high up. There didn't seem to be anything useful at ground level.

"I hope you've got a good plan, Thing," he panted, as the four of them dodged between the bushes, "because I'll never be able to get you all the way up there."

"Do not worry. We are nearly close enough."

"What do you mean? It's still a long way off!"

"It is close enough for me to get on."

"What is it going to do? Take a flying leap?" said Angalo.

"Put me down." Masklin obediently put the black box on the ground. It extended a few of its probes, which swung around slowly for a while and then pointed toward the going-up jet.

"What are you playing at?" said Masklin. "This is wasting time."

Gurder laughed, although not in a very happy way.

"I know what it's doing," he said. "It's sending itself onto the shuttle. Right, Thing?"

"I am transmitting an instruction subset to the computer on the communications satellite," said the Thing.

The nomes said nothing.

"Or to put it another way... yes, I am turning the satellite computer into a part of me. Although not a very intelligent one."

"Can you really do that?" said Angalo.

"Certainly."

"Wow. And you won't miss the bit you're sending?"

"No. Because it will not leave me."

"You're sending it and keeping it at the same time?"

"Yes."

Angalo looked at Masklin. "Did you understand any of that?" he demanded.

"I did," said Gurder. "The Thing's saying it's not just a machine, it's a sort of - a sort of collection of electric thoughts that lives in a machine. I think." Lights flickered around on top of the Thing.

"Does it take a long time to do?" said Masklin.

"Yes. Please do not take up vital communication power at this point."

"I think he means he doesn't want us to talk to him," said Gurder. "He's concentrating."

"It," said Angalo. "It's an it. And it made us run all the way here just so we can hurry up and wait."

"It probably has to be close up to do... whatever it is it's doing," said Masklin.

"How long's it going to take?" said Angalo. "It seems ages since it was twenty-seven minutes ago."

"Twenty-seven minutes at least," said Gurder.

"Yeah. Maybe more." Pion pulled at Masklin's arm, pointed to the looming white shape with his other hand, and rattled off a long sentence in Floridian, or if the Thing was right, nearly original nomish.

"I can't understand you without the Thing," said Masklin. "Sorry." "No speaka da goose-oh," said Angalo.

A look of panic spread across the boy's face. He shouted this time, and tugged harder.

"I think he doesn't want to be near the going-up jets when they start up," said Angalo. "He's probably afraid of the noise. Don't... like... the... noise, right?" he said.

Pion nodded furiously.

"They didn't sound too bad at the airport," said Angalo. "More of a rumble. I expect they might frighten unsophisticated people."

"I don't think Shrub's people are particularly unsophisticated," said Masklin thoughtfully. He looked up at the white tower. It had seemed a long way away, but in some ways it might be quite close.

Really very close.

"How safe do you think it is here?" he said. "When it goes up, I mean."

"Oh, come on," said Angalo. "The Thing wouldn't have let us come right here if it wasn't safe for nomes."

"Sure, sure," said Masklin. "Right. You're right. Silly to dwell on it, really."

Pion turned and ran.

The other three looked back at the shuttle. Lights moved in complicated patterns on the top of the Thing.

Somewhere another siren sounded. There was a sensation of power, as though the biggest spring in the world was being wound up.

When Masklin spoke, the other two seemed to hear him speak their own thoughts.

"Exactly how good," he said, very slowly, "do you think the Thing is at judging how close nomes can stand to a going-up jet when it goes up? I mean, how much experience has it got, do you think?" They looked at one another.

"Maybe we should back off a little bit?" Gurder suggested.

They turned and walked away.

Then each one of them couldn't help noticing that the others seemed to be walking faster and faster.

Faster and faster.

Then, as one nome, they gave up and ran for it, fighting their way through the scrub and grass, skidding on stones, elbows going up and down like pistons. Gurder, who was normally out of breath at anything above walking pace, bounded along like a balloon.

"Have... you... any - any... idea... how - how... close -" Angalo panted.

The sound behind them started like a hiss, like the whole world taking a deep breath. Then it turned into... not noise, but something more like an invisible hammer that smacked into both ears at once.

SPACE: There are two types: a) something containing nothing and b) nothing containing everything. It is what you have left when you haven't got anything else. There is no air or gravity, which is what holds people onto things. If there weren't space, everything would be in one place. It is designed to be a place for satellites, shuttles, planets, and the Ship.

From A Scientific Encyclopaedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

After some time, when the ground had stopped shaking, the nomes picked themselves up and stared blearily at one another.

"!" said Gurder.

"What?" said Masklin. His own voice sounded a long way away, and muffled.

"?" said Gurder.

"?" said Angalo.

"What? I can't hear you! Can you hear me?" Masklin saw Gurder's lips move.

He pointed to his own ears and shook his head. "We've gone deaf!" "?"

"Deaf, I said." Masklin looked up.

Smoke billowed overhead and out of it, rising fast even to a nome's high-speed senses, was a long, growing cloud tipped with fire. The noise dropped to something merely very loud and then, very quickly, disappeared.

Masklin stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around.

The absence of sound was replaced by the terrible hiss of silence.

"Anyone listening?" he ventured. "Anyone hearing me?" "That," said Angalo, his voice sounding blurred and unnaturally calm, "was pretty loud. I don't reckon many things come much louder."

Masklin nodded. He felt as though he'd been pounded hard by something.

"You know about these things," he said weakly. "Humans ride on them, do they?"

"Oh, yes. Right at the top."

"No one makes them do it?"

"Er. I don't think so," said Angalo.

"I think the book said a lot of them want to do it."

"They want to do it?"

Angalo shrugged. "That's what it said." There was only a distant dot now, at the end of a widening white cloud of smoke.

Masklin watched it.

We must be mad, he thought. We're tiny and it's a big world and we never stop to learn enough about where we are before we go somewhere else. At least back when I lived in a hole I knew everything there was to know about living in a hole, and now it's a year later and I'm at a place so far away I don't even know how far away it is, watching something I don't understand go to a place so far up there is no down. And I can't go back. I've got to go right on to the end of whatever all this is, because I can't go back. I can't even stop.

So that's what Grimma meant about the frogs. Once you know things, you're a different person. You can't help it.

He looked back down. Something was missing.

The Thing.

He ran back the way they'd come.

The little black box was where he'd left it. The rods had withdrawn into it, and there weren't any lights.

"Thing?" he said uncertainly.

One red light came on faintly. Masklin suddenly felt cold, despite the heat around him.

"Are you all right?" he said.

The light flickered.

'Too quick. Used too much pow..." it said.

"Pow?" said Masklin. He tried hard not to wonder why the word hadn't been much more than a growl.

The light dimmed.

"Thing? Thing?" He tapped gently on the box. "Did it work? Is the Ship coming? What do we do now? Wake up! Thing?" The light went out.

Masklin picked the Thing up and turned it over and over in his hands.

"Thing?" Masklin and Gurder hurried up, with Pion behind them.

"Did it work?" said Angalo. "Can't see any Ship yet."

Masklin turned his face toward them.

"The Thing's stopped," he said.

"Stopped?"

"All the lights have gone out!"

"Well, what does that mean?" Angalo started to look panicky.

"I don't know!"

"Is it dead?" said Gurder.

"It can't die! It's existed for thousands of years!"

Gurder shook his head. "Sounds like a good reason for dying," he said.

"But it's a - a Thing." Angalo sat down with his arms around his knees.

"Did it say if it got everything sorted out? When's the Ship coming?"

"Listen, don't you care? It's run out of pow!"

"Pow?"

"It must mean electricity. It kind of sucks it out of wires and stuff. I think it can store it for a while too. And now it must have run out." They looked at the black box. It had spent thousands of years being handed down from nome to nome without ever saying a word or lighting a light. It had only woken up again when it had been brought into the Store, near electricity.

"It looks creepy, sitting there doing nothing," said Angalo.

"Can't we find it some electricity?" said Gurder.

"Around here? There isn't any!" Angalo snapped. "We're in the middle of nowhere!" Masklin stood up and gazed around. It was just possible to see some buildings in the distance. There was a movement of vehicles around them.

"What about the Ship?" said Angalo. "Is it on its way?"

"I don't know!"

"How will it find us?"

"I don't know!"

"Who's driving it?"

"I don't -" Masklin stopped in horror. "Noone! I mean, who could be driving it? There hasn't been anyone on it for thousands of years!"

"Who was going to bring it here, then?"

"I don't know! The Thing, maybe?"

"You mean it's on its way and no one's driving it?"

"Yes! No! I don't know!" A

ngalo squinted up at the blue sky. "Oh, wow," he said glumly.

"We need to find some electricity for the Thing," said Masklin. "Even if it's managed to summon the Ship, the Ship will still need to be told where we are."

"If it summoned the Ship," said Gurder. "It might have run out of pow before it had time."

"We can't be sure," said Masklin. "Anyway, we must help the Thing. I hate to see it like that."

Pion, who had disappeared into the scrub, came back dragging a lizard.

"Ah," said Gurder, without any enthusiasm. "Here comes lunch."

"If the Thing were talking, we could tell Pion you can get awfully tired of lizard, in time," said Angalo.

"In about two seconds," said Gurder.