Wings (12 page)

"Ah," said the Thing. "Take me to your larder."

"Pardon?"

"I will explain. I have told you that I monitor communications?"

"All the time."

"There is a joke, that is, a humorous anecdote or story, known to humans. It concerns a ship from another world landing on this planet, and strange creatures get out and say to a gas pump, garbage can, slot-machine, of similar mechanical device, 'Take me to your leader.' I surmise this is because they are unaware of the shape of humans. I have substituted the similar word 'larder,' referring to a place where food is stored. This is a humorous Pun or play on words, for hilarious effect." It paused.

"Oh," said Masklin. He thought about it. "These would be the little green men you mentioned?"

"Very - wait a moment. Wait a moment."

"What? What?" said Masklin urgently.

"I can hear the Ship." Masklin listened as hard as he could.

"I can't hear a thing," he said.

"Not sound. Radio."

"Where is it? Where is it, Thing? You've always said the Ship's up there, but where?"

The remaining tree frogs crouched among the moss to escape the heat of the afternoon sun. Low in the eastern sky was a sliver of white. It would be nice to think that the tree frogs had legends about it. It would be nice to think that they thought the sun and moon were distant flowers - a yellow one by day, a white one by night. It would be nice to think they had legends about them, and said that when a good frog died its soul would go to the big flowers in the sky.

The trouble is that it's frogs we're talking about here. Their name for the sun was... mipmip... Their name for the moon was... mipmip... Their name was everything was... mipmip... and when you're stuck with a vocabulary of one word it's pretty hard to have legends about anything at all.

The leading frog, however, was dimly aware that there was something wrong with the moon.

It was growing brighter.

"We left the Ship on the moon?" said Masklin. "Why?"

"That's what your ancestors decided to do," said the Thing.

"So they could keep an eye on it, I assume." Masklin's face lit up slowly, like clouds at sunrise.

"You know," he said, excitedly, "Right back before all this, right back when we used to live in the old hole, I used to sit out at nights and watch the moon. Perhaps in my blood I really knew that, up there -"

"No, what you were experiencing was probably primitive superstition," said the Thing.

Masklin deflated. "Oh. Sorry."

"And now, please be quiet. The Ship is feeling lost and wants to be told what to do. It has just woken up after fifteen thousand years."

"I'm not very good at mornings myself," Masklin said.

There is no sound on the moon, but this doesn't matter, because there is no one to hear anything. Sound would just be a waste.

But there is light.

Fine moon-dust billowed high across the ancient plains of the moon's dark crescent, expanding in boiling clouds that went high enough to catch the rays of the sun. They glittered.

Down below, something was digging itself out.

"We left it in a hole?" said Masklin.

Lights rippled back and forth across all surfaces of the Thing.

"Don't say that's why you always lived in holes," it said. "Other nomes don't live in holes."

"No, that's true," said Masklin. "I ought to stop thinking only about the -" He suddenly went quiet. He stared out of the glass tank, where a human was trying to interest him in marks on a blackboard.

"You've got to stop it," he said.

"Right now. Stop the Ship. We've got it all wrong. Thing, we can't go! It doesn't belong to just us! We can't take the Ship!" The three nomes lurking near the shuttle launching place watched the sky. As the sun neared the horizon the moon sparkled like a Christmas decoration.

"It must be caused by the Ship!" said Angalo. "It must be!" He beamed at the others. "That's it, then. It's on its way!"

"I never thought it would work." Gurder said.

Angalo slapped Pion on the back, and pointed.

"See that, my lad?" he said. "That's the Ship, that is! Ours!" Gurder rubbed his chin, and nodded thoughtfully at Pion.

"Yes," he said, "That's right. Ours."

"Masklin says there's all kinds of stuff up there," said Angalo dreamily. "And masses of space. That's what space is well known for, lots of space. Masklin said the Ship goes faster than light goes, which is probably wrong, otherwise how'd you see anything? You'd turn the lights on and all the light would drop backward out of the room. But it's pretty fast."

Gurder looked back at the sky again. Something at the back of his mind was pushing its way to the front, and giving him a curious argy feeling.

"Our Ship," he said. "The one that brought nomes here." "Yeah, that's right," said Angalo, hardly hearing him.

"And it'll take us all back," Gurder went on.

"That's what Masklin said, and -"

"All nomes," said Gurder. His voice was as flat and heavy as a sheet of lead.

"Sure. Why not? I expect I'll soon work out how to drive it back to the quarry, and we can pick them all up. And Pion here, of course."

"What about Pion's people?" said Gurder.

"Oh, they can come too," said Angalo expansively. "There's probably even room for their geese!"

"And the others?" Angalo looked surprised.

"What others?"

"Shrub said there were lots of other groups of nomes. Everywhere."

Angalo looked blank. "Oh, them. Well, I don't know about them. But we need the Ship. You know what it's been like ever since we left the Store."

"But if we take the Ship away, what will they have if they need it?" Masklin had just asked the same question.

The Thing said, "01001101010101110101010010110101110010."

"What did you say?" The Thing sounded tetchy. "If I lose concentration, there might not be a Ship for anyone," it said. "I am sending fifteen thousand instructions per second." Masklin said nothing.

"That's a lot of instructions," the Thing added.

"By rights the Ship must belong to all the nomes in the world," said Masklin.

"010011001010010010 -"

"Oh, shut up and tell me when the Ship is going to get here." "0101011001... Which do you want me to do?... 01001100..." "What?"

"I can shut up or I can tell you when the Ship is going to arrive. I can't do both."

"Please tell me when the Ship is going to arrive," said Masklin patiently, "and then shut up."

"Four minutes."

"Four minutes!"

"I could be three seconds off," said the Thing. "But I calculate it as four minutes. Only now it's three minutes thirty-eight seconds. It'll be three minutes and thirty-seven seconds any second now -"

"I can't hang around in here if it's coming that soon!" said Masklin, all thoughts of his duty to the nomes of the world temporarily forgotten. "How can I get out? This thing's got a lid on."

"Do you want me to shut up first, or get you out and then shut up?" said the Thing.

"Please!"

"Have the humans seen you move?" said the Thing.

"What do you mean?"

"Do they know how fast you can run?"

"I don't know," said Masklin. "I suppose not."

"Get ready to run, then. But first, put your hands over your ears." Masklin thought it would be best to obey. The Thing could be deliberately infuriating at times, but it didn't pay to ignore its advice.

Lights on the Thing made a brief star-shaped pattern.

It started to wail. The sound went up and then went beyond Masklin's hearing. He could feel it even with his hands over his ears; it seemed to be making unpleasant bubbles in his head.

He opened his mouth to shout at the Thing, and the walls exploded. One moment there was glass, and the next there were bits of glass, drifting out like a jigsaw puzzle where every piece had suddenly decided it wanted some personal space. The lid slid down, almost hitting him.

"Now, pick me up and run," ordered the Thing, before the shards had spilled across the table.

Humans around the room were turning to look in that slow, clumsy way humans had.

Masklin grabbed the Thing and took off across the polished surface.

"Down," he said. "We're high up, how do we get down?" He looked around desperately. There was some sort of machine at the other end of the table, covered with little dials and lights. He'd watched one of the humans using it.

"Wires," he said, "There's always wires!" He skidded around, dodged easily around a giant hand as it tried to grab him, and hared along the table.

"I'll have to throw you over," he panted. "I can't carry you down!"

"I'll be all right" Masklin slid to a stop by the table edge and threw the Thing down. There were wires running down toward the floor. He leapt for one, swung around madly, and then half fell and half slid down it.

Humans were lurching toward him from everywhere. He picked up the Thing again, hugging it to his chest, and darted forward. There was a foot - brown shoe, dark blue sock. He zigged. There were two more feet - black shoes, black socks. And they were about to trip over the first foot.

He zagged.

There were more feet, and hands reaching vainly down. Masklin was a blur, dodging and weaving between feet that could flatten him. And then there was nothing but open floor. Somewhere an alarm sounded, its shrill note sounding deep and awesome to Masklin.

"Head for the door," suggested the Thing.

"But more humans'll be coming in," hissed Masklin.

"That's good, because we're going out." Masklin reached the door just as it opened. A gap of a few inches appeared, with more feet behind it.

There wasn't any time to think. Masklin ran over the shoe, jumped down on the other side, and ran on.

"Where now? Where now?"

"Outside."

"Which way is that?"

"Every way."

"Thank you very much!" Doors were opening all along the corridor. Humans were coming out. The problem was not evading capture - it would take a very alert human even to see a nome running at full speed, let alone catch one - but simply avoiding being trodden on by accident.

"Why don't they have mouse holes? Every building should have mouse holes!" Masklin moaned.

A boot stamped down an inch away. He jumped.

The corridor was filling with humans. Another alarm started to sound.

"Why's all this happening? I can't be causing all this! There can't be all this trouble over just one nome!"

"It's the Ship. They have seen the Ship." A shoe almost awarded Masklin the prize for the most perfectly flattened nome in Florida. As it was, he almost ran into it. Unlike most shoes, it had a name on it. It was a Crucial Street Drifter with Real Rubber Soul, Pat'd. The sock above it looked as though it could be a Hi-style Odorprufe, made of Guaranteed 85% Polyputheketlon, the most expensive sock in the world.

Masklin looked farther up. Beyond the great sweep of blue trouser and the distant clouds of sweater was a beard.

It was Grandson Richard, 39.

Just when you thought there was no one watching over nomes, the universe went and tried to prove you wrong.

Masklin took a standing jump and landed on the trouser leg, just as the foot moved. It was the safest place. Humans didn't often tread on other humans.

The foot took a step and came down again. Masklin swung backward and forward, trying to pull himself up the rough cloth. There was a seam an inch away.

He managed to grab it; the stitches gave a better handhold.

Grandson Richard, 39, was in a crush of people all heading the same way. Several other humans banged into him, almost jarring Masklin loose. He kicked his boots off and tried to grip with his toes.

There was a slow thumping as Grandson Richard's feet hit the ground.

Masklin reached a pocket, got a decent foothold, and climbed on. A bulky label helped him up to the belt. Masklin was used to labels in the Store, but this was pretty big even by big label standards. It was covered in lettering and had been riveted to the trousers, as if Grandson Richard, 39, were some sort of machine.

" 'Grossbergers Hagglers, the First Name in Jeans,'" he read. "And there's lots of stuff about how good they are, and pictures of cows and things. Why d'you think he wants labels all over himself?"

"Perhaps if he hasn't got labels, be doesn't know what his clothes are," said the Thing.

"Good point. He'd probably put his shoes on his head." Masklin glanced back at the label as he grabbed the sweater.

"It says here that these jeans won a Gold Medal in the Chicago Exhibition in 1910," he said. "They've certainly lasted well."

Humans were streaming out of the building.

The sweater was much easier to climb. Masklin hauled himself up quickly. Grandson Richard, 39, had quite long hair, which also helped when it was time to climb up onto the shoulder.

A door-frame passed briefly overhead, and then the deep blue of the sky.

"How long, Thing?" Masklin asked. Grandson Richard's ear was only a few inches away.

"Forty-three seconds." The humans spilled out of the wide concrete space in front of the building. Some more hurried out of the building, carrying machinery. They kept running into one another because they were all staring at the sky.

Another group was clustered around one human who was looking very worried.

"What's going on, Thing?" Masklin whispered.

"The human in the middle of the group is the most important one here. It came to watch the shuttle launch. Now all the others are telling it that it's got to be the one to welcome the Ship."

"That's a bit of cheek. It's not their Ship."

"Yes, but they think it's coming to talk to them."

"Why should they think that?"

"Because they think they 're the most important creatures on the planet."

"Hah!"

"Amazing, isn't it?" said the Thing.

"Everyone knows nomes are more important," said Masklin.

"At least... every nome does." He thought about this for a moment, and shook his head. "So that's the head human, is it? Is it some sort of extra wise one, or something?"