mayflies sit around complaining about how life this minute isn t a patch on
the good old minutes of long ago, when the world was young and the sun
seemed so much brighter and larvae showed you a bit of respect. Whereas
the trees, which are not famous for their quick reactions, may just have
time to notice the way the sky keeps flickering before the dry rot and
woodworm set in.
   It's all a sort of relativity. The faster you live, the more time stretches
out. To a nome, a year lasts as long as ten years does to a human Re-
member it Don't let it concern you They don't. They don't even know.

   In the beginning...
   I. There was the Site.
   II. And Arnold Bros (est. 1905) Moved upon the face of the Site, and
Saw that it had Potential.
   III. For it was In the High Street.
   IV. Yea, it was also Handy for the Buses.
   V. And Arnold Bros (est. 1905) said, Let there be a Store, And Let it be
a Store such as the World has not Seen hitherto;
   VI. Let the length of it be from Palmer Street even unto the Fish Market,
and the Width of It, from the High Street right back to Disraeli Road;
   VII. Let it be High even Unto Five Storeys plus Basement, And bright
with Lifts; let there be the Eternal Fires of the Boiler-Room in the sub-
basement and, above all other floors, let there be Customer Accounts to
Order All Things;
   VIII. For this must be what all shall Know of Arnold Bros (est. 1905): All
Things Under One Roof. And it shall be called: the Store of Arnold Bros
(est. 1905).
   IX. And Thus it Was.
   X. And Arnold Bros (est. 1905) divided the Store into Departments, of
Ironmongery, Corsetry, Modes and others After their Kind, and Created
Humans to fill them with All Things saying, Yea, All Things Are Here. And
Arnold Bros (est. 1905) said, Let there be Lorries, and Let their Colours be
the country lanes, smashing through street lamps and swinging from side
to side and shattering shop windows and rolling to a halt when the police
chased it. And when the baffled men went back to their car to report Listen,
will you, listen? There isn't anyone driving it!, it became the story of the
lorry that started up again, rolled away from the astonished men, and van-
ished into the night.
    But the story didn't end there.
    It didn't start there, either.

    The sky rained dismal. It rained humdrum. It rained the kind of rain that
is so much wetter than normal rain, the kind of rain that comes down in big
drops and splats, the kind of rain that is merely an upright sea with slots in
it.
    It rained a tattoo on the old hamburger boxes and chip papers in the
wire basket that was giving Masklin a temporary hiding place.
    Look at him. Wet. Cold. Extremely worried. And four inches high.
    The waste-bin was usually a good hunting ground, even in winter. There
were often a few cold chips in their wrapping, sometimes even a chicken
bone. Once or twice there had been a rat, too. It had been a really good
day when there had last been a rat - it had kept them going for a week. The
trouble was that you could get pretty fed up with rat by the third day. By the
third mouthful, come to that.
    Masklin scanned the lorry park.
    And here it came, right on time, crashing through the puddles and pull-
ing up with a hiss of brakes.
    He'd watched this lorry arrive every Tuesday and Thursday morning for
the last four weeks. He timed the driver's stop carefully.
    They had exactly three minutes. To someone the size of a nome, that's
more than half an hour.
    He scrambled down through the greasy paper, dropped out of the bot-
tom of the bin, and ran for the bushes at the edge of the park where
Grimma and the old folk were waiting.
    'It's here!' he said. 'Come on!'
     They re frightened, she said. You go on. I ll bring them out.
    There wasn't time to argue. Masklin ran back across the soaking mud of
the park, unslinging the rope and grapnel. It had taken him a week to make
the hook, out of a bit of wire teased off a fence, and he'd spent days prac-
ticing; he was already swinging it around his head as he reached the lorry's
wheel.
    The hook caught the tarpaulin high above him at the second try. He
tested it once or twice and then, his feet scrabbling for a grip on the tire,
pulled himself up.
    He'd done it before. Oh, he'd done it three or four times. He scrambled
under the heavy tarpaulin and into the darkness beyond, pulling out more
line and tying it as tightly as possible around one of the ropes that were as
thick as his arm.
    Then he slid back to the edge and, thank goodness, Grimma was herd-
ing the old people across the gravel. He could hear them complaining
about the puddles.
    Masklin jumped up and down with impatience. It seemed to take hours.
He explained it to them millions of times, but people hadn't been pulled up
on to the backs of lorries when they were children and they didn't see why
they should start now. Old Granny Morkie insisted that all the men look the
other way so that they wouldn't see up her skirts, for example, and old Tor-
rit whimpered so much that Masklin had to lower him again so that Grimma
could blindfold him. It wasn't so bad after he'd hauled the first few up, be-
cause they were able to help on the rope, but time still stretched out.
    He pulled Grimma up last. She was light. They were all light, if it came
to that. You didn't get rat every day.
    It was amazing. They were all on board. He'd worked with an ear
cocked for the sound of foot-steps on gravel and the slamming of the
driver's door, and it hadn't happened.
    'Right,' he said, shaking with the effort. 'That's it, then. Now if we just go
-'
      We can t go without it, said Grimma.
     'Of course we can. It's just a, a thing. We won't need the wretched ob-
ject where we're going.'
     He felt guilty as soon as he'd said it, amazed at his own lips for uttering
such words. Grimma looked horrified. Granny Morkie drew herself up to her
full, quivering height.
     'May you be forgiven!' she barked. 'What a terrible thing to say! You tell
him, Torrit.' She nudged Torrit in the ribs.
     'If we ain't taking the Thing, I ain't going,' said Torrit sulkily.
     'It's not-'
     'That's your leader talkin' to you,' interrupted Granny Morkie. 'So you do
what you're told. Leave it behind, indeed! It wouldn't be decent. It wouldn't
be right. So you go and get it, this minute.'
     Masklin stared wordlessly down at the soaking mud and then, with a
desperate motion, threw the line over the edge and slid down it.
     It was raining harder now, with a touch of sleet. The wind whipped at
him as he dropped past the great arc of the wheel and landed heavily in the
puddle. He reached out and scooped up the Thing- And the lorry started to
move.
     First there was a roar, so loud that it went beyond sound and became a
solid wall of noise. Then there was a blast of stinking air and a vibration
that shook the ground.
     He pulled sharply on the line and yelled at them to pull him up, and re-
alized that even he couldn't hear his own voice. But Grimma or someone
must have got the idea because, just as the big wheel began to turn, the
rope tightened and he felt his feet lifted off the mud.
     He bounced and spun back and forth as, with painful slowness, they
pulled him past the wheel. It turned only a few inches away from him, a
black, chilly blur, and all the time the hammering sound battered at his
     head.

   I'm not scared, he told himself. This is much worse than anything I've
   ever faced, and it's not frightening. It's too terrible to be
    Hands reached down and caught him under the arms and dragged him
into
    the booming space under the tarpaulin and, with some difficulty, prised
    the Thing out of his grip.

   Behind the speeding lorry fresh curtains of grey rain dragged across the
   empty fields.

   And, across the whole country, there were no more nomes.

   There had been plenty of them, in the days when it didn't seem to rain
   so much. Masklin could remember at least forty. But then the motorway
   had come; the stream was put in pipes under-ground, and the nearest
   hedges were grubbed up. Nomes had always lived in the corners of the
   world, and suddenly there weren't too many corners any more.

    The numbers started going down. A lot of this was due to natural
causes,
    and when you're four inches high natural causes can be anything with
    teeth and speed and hunger. Then Pyrrince, who was by way of being
the
    most adventurous, led a desperate expedition across the carriageway
one
    night, to investigate the woods on the other side. They never came
back.
    Some said it was hawks, some said it was a lorry. Some even said
they'd
    made it halfway and were marooned on the cen-tral reservation be-
tween
    endless swishing lines of cars.

   Then the cafe had been built, a little further along the road. It had
   been a sort of improvement. It depended how you looked at it. If cold
   Hunting by yourself was like dying a bit at a time. Most of the things
   you were hunting were also hunting you. And even if you were lucky and
   made a kill, how did you get it home? It had taken two days with the
   rat, including sitting out at night to fight off other creatures. Ten
   strong hunters could do anything - rob bees' nests, trap mice, catch
   moles, anything but one hunter by himself, with no one to watch his
back
   in the long grass, was simply the next meal for everything with talons
   and claws.

     To get enough to eat, you needed lots of healthy hunters. But to get
     lots of healthy hunters, you needed enough to eat.

     'It'll be all right in the autumn,' said Grimma, bandaging his arm where
     a stoat had caught it. 'There'll be mushrooms and berries and nuts and
     everything.'

     Well, there hadn't been any mushrooms and it rained so much that most
of
     the berries rotted before they ripened. There were plenty of nuts,
     though. The nearest hazel tree was half a day's journey away. Masklin
     could carry a dozen nuts if he smashed them out of their shells and
     dragged them back in a paper bag from the bin. It took a whole day to
do
     it, risking hawks all the way, and it was just enough food for a day as
     well.

     And then the back of the burrow fell in, because of all the rain. It was
     almost pleasant to get out, then. It was better than listening to the
     grumbling about him not doing essential repairs. Oh, and there was the
     fire. You needed a fire at the burrow mouth, both for cooking and for
     keep-ing away night prowlers. Granny Morkie went to sleep one day and
     let it go out. Even she had the decency to be embarrassed.
   them You ought to bring back another fag-end, boy, I m right out of
   tobac-co," and "We never have fish these days, you might find the time
   to go down to the river," and "Self, self, self, that's all you young
   people think about, in my day-"

   Grimma sighed. 'They do their best,' she said. 'It's just that they
   don't realize. There were hun-dreds of us when they were young.'

   'It's going to take days to get that fire lit,' said Masklin. They had a
   spectacle lens; it needed a very sunny day to work.

   He poked aimlessly in the mud by his feet.

   'I've had enough,' he said quietly, 'I'm going to leave.!

   'But we need you!'

   'I need me, too. I mean, what kind of life is this?'

   'But they'll die if you go away!'

   'They'll die anyway,' said Masklin.

   'That's a wicked thing to say!'

   'Well, it's true. Everyone dies anyway. We'll die anyway. Look at you.
   You spend your whole time washing and tidying up and cooking and
chasing
   after them. You're nearly three! It's about time you had a life of your
   own.'

   'Granny Morkie was very kind to me when I was small,' said Grimma
   defensively. 'You'll be old one day.'
   brave ones had gone long ago, one way or the other. Good old Masklin,
   they'd said, stout chap, you look after the old folk and we'll be back
   before you know it, just as soon as we've found a better place. Every
   time good old Masklin thought about this he got indignant with them for
   going and with himself for staying. He always gave in, that was his
   trouble. He knew it. Whatever he promised him- self at the start, he
   always took the way of least resistance.

   Grimma was glaring at him.

   He shrugged.'

   'All right, all right, so they can come with us,' he said.

   'You know they won't go,' she said. 'They're too old. They all grew up
   round here. They like it here.'

   'They like it here when there's us around to wait on them,' muttered
   Masklin.

   They left it at that. There were nuts for dinner. Masklin's had a maggot
   in it.

   He went out afterwards and sat at the top of the bank with his chin in
   his hands, watching the motorway again.

   It was a stream of red and white lights. There were humans inside those
   boxes, going about whatever mysterious business humans spent their
time
   on. They were always in a hurry to get to it, whatever it was.

   He was prepared to bet they didn't eat rat. Humans had it really easy.
   They were big and slow, but they didn't have to live in damp burrows
     and setting out across the fields with the bad weather coming on didn t
     bear thinking about.

     Of course, he'd never do it. You never actually did it, in the end. You
     just dreamed about following those swishing lights.

   And above the rushing lights, the stars. Torrit said the stars were very
   important. Right at the moment, Masklin didn't agree. You couldn't eat
   them. They weren't even much good for seeing by. The stars were
pretty
   useless, when you thought about it...

     Somebody screamed.

     Masklin's body got to his feet almost before his mind had even thought
     about it, and sped silently through the scrubby bushes towards the
     burrow.

     Where, its head entirely underground and its brush waving excitedly at
     the stars, was a dog fox. He recognized it. He'd had a couple of close
     shaves with it in the past.

     Somewhere inside Masklin's head, the bit of him that was really him -
     old Torrit had a lot to say about this bit was horrified to see him
     snatch up his spear, which was still in the ground where he had plunged
     it, and stab the fox as hard as he could in a hind leg.

     There was a muffled yelp and the animal struggled backwards, turning
an
     evil, foaming

     mask to its tormentor. Two bright yellow eyes focused on Masklin, who
     leaned panting on his spear. This was one of those times when time
   away from him.

   As the red tongue lolled out, he knew that he had two choices. He could
   run, or he could die. So he attacked instead. The spear soared from his
   hand like a bird, catching the fox in the lip. It screamed and pawed at
   the wound, and Masklin was running, running across the dirt, propelled
   by the engine of his anger, and then jumping and grabbing handfuls of
   rank red fur and hauling him-self up the fox's flank to land astride its
   neck and drawing his stone knife and stabbing, stabbing, at everything
   that was wrong with the world...

   The fox screamed again and leapt away. If he was capable of thinking
   then Masklin would have known that his knife wasn't doing much more
than
   annoying the creature, but it wasn't used to meals fighting back with
   such fury and its only thought now was to get away. It breasted the
   embankment and rushed headlong down it, towards the lights of the
   motorway.

   Masklin started to think again. The rushing of the traffic filled his
   ears. He let go and threw himself into the long grass as the creature
   galloped out on to the asphalt.

   He landed heavily and rolled over, all the breath knocked out of him.

   But he remembered what happened next. It stayed in his memory for a
long
   time, long after

   he'd seen so many strange things that there really should have been no
   room for it.

   The fox, as still as a statue in a headlight's beam, snarled its
   darkness and leaned against the bank. He stuck out a weary hand and
   pushed the stick aside.

   'We didn't know where you'd gone,' she said, her voice on the edge of
   hysteria. 'We just heard the noise and there it was you should have
been
   here and it got Mr Mert and Mrs Coom and it was dig-ging at the-'

   She stopped, and seemed to sag.

   'Yes, thank you,' said Masklin coldly, 'I'm all right, thank you very
   much.'

   'What what happened?'

   He ignored her, and trooped into the darkness of the burrow and lay
   down. He could hear the old ones whispering as he sank into a deep,
   chilly sleep.

   I should have been here, he thought.

   They depend on me.

   We're going. All of us.

   It had seemed a good idea, then.

   It looked a bit different, now.

   Now the nomes clustered at one end of the great dark space inside the
   lorry. They were silent. There wasn't any room to be noisy. The roar of
   the engine filled the air from edge to edge. Sometimes it would falter,
   and start again. Occasionally the whole lorry lurched.
      They re hungry, you see.

      They always were. Masklin looked hopelessly at the huddle of old ones.
      One or two of them were watching him expectantly.

      'There isn't anything I can do,' he said. 'I'm hungry too, but there's
      nothing here. It's empty.'

   'Granny Morkie gets very upset when she's missed a meal,' said
Grimma.

      Masklin gave her a long, blank stare. Then he crawled his way to the
      group and sat down between Torrit and the old woman.

      He'd never really talked to them, he realized. When he was small they
      were giants who were no concern of his, and then he'd been a hunter
      among hunters, and this year he'd either been out looking for food or
      deep in an exhausted sleep. But he knew why Torrit was the leader of
the
  tribe. It stood to reason, he was the oldest nome. The oldest was always
  leader, that way there couldn't be any arguments. Not the oldest
woman,
  of course, because everyone knew this was unthinkable; even Granny
  Morkie was quite firm about that. Which was a bit odd, because she
  treated him like an idiot and Torrit never made a decision without
  looking at her out of the corner of his eye. Masklin sighed. He stared
  at his knees.

      'Look, I don't know how long-' he began.

   'Don't you worry about me, boy,' said Granny Morkie, who seemed to
have
   quite recovered. 'This is all rather excitin', ain't it?'
  Torrit, who was sitting with the Thing on his skinny knees, peered
  shortsightedly at him.

  We have the Thing,' he said. 'It will show us the Way, it will.'

  Masklin nodded gloomily. Funny how Torrit always knew what the Thing
  wanted. It was just a black square thing, but it had some very defi-nite
  ideas about the importance of regular meals and how you should always
  listen to what the old folk said. It seemed to have an answer for
  every-thing.

  'And where does this Way take us?' said Masklin.

  'You knows that well enough. To the Heavens.'

  'Oh. Yes,' said Masklin. He glared at the Thing. He was pretty certain
  that it didn't tell old Torrit anything at all; he knew he had pretty
  good hear-ing, and he never heard it say anything. It never did
  anything, it never moved. The only thing it ever did was look black and
  square. It was good at that.

  'Only by followin' the Thing closely in all par-ticulars can we be sure
  of going to the Heavens,' said Torrit, uncertainly, as if he'd been told
  this a long time ago and hadn't understood it even then.

  'Yes, well,' said Masklin. He stood up on the swaying floor and made his
  way to the tarpaulin.

   Then he paused to screw up his courage and poked his head under the
gap.

  There- was nothing but blurs and lights,. and strange smells.
  The lorry turned a corner and rumbled down into blackness and then,
  without warning, stopped. He found himself looking into a huge lighted-
  space, full of lorries, full of humans...

  He pulled his head back quickly and scuttled across the floor to Torrit.

  'Er,' he said.

  'Yes, lad?'

  'Heaven. Do humans go there?'

  The old nome shook his head. 'The Heavens,' he said. 'More than one
  of'em see? Only nomes go there.'

  'You're absolutely certain?'

  'Oh, yes.' Torrit beamed. 'O'course, they may have heavens of their
  own,' he said, 'I don't know about that. But they ain't ours, you may
  depend upon it.'

  'Oh.'

  Torrit stared at the Thing again.

  We've stopped,' he said. 'Where are we?'

  Masklin stared wearily into the darkness.

  'I think I had better go and find out,' he said.

  There was whistling outside, and the distant rumble of human voices.
The
      It was not entirely human. There were defi-nitely the right number of
      arms and legs, and

      - the additional bits like eyes and so on were in the usual places, but
      the figure that was now creeping across the darkened floor in its
      mouseskins looked like a brick wall on legs. Nomes are so stocky that a
      Japanese Sumo wrestler would look half-starved by comparison, and
the
      way this one moved sug-gested that it was considerably tougher than
old
      boots.

   Masklin was, in fact, terrified out of his life. There was nothing here
   that he recognized, except for the smell of all, which he had come to
   associate with humans and especially with lorries (Torrit had told him
   loftily that all was a burning water that lorries drank, at which point
   Masklin knew the old nome had gone mad. It stood to reason. Water
didn't
   burn).

   None of it made any sense. Vast cans loomed above him. There were
huge
   pieces of metal that had a made look about them. This was definitely
   apart of a human heaven. Humans liked metal.

      He did skirt warily around a cigarette-end,

      and made a mental note to take it back for Torrit.

      There were other lorries in this place, all of them silent. It was,
      Masklin decided, a lorry nest. Which meant that the only food in it was
      probably all.
   and sleeker than the things that fought the nomes for the scraps from
   the waste-bin. It dropped on all fours and trotted towards him.

   Masklin felt that he was on firmer ground here. All these huge dark
   shapes and cans and ghastly smells were quite beyond him, but he
knew
   what a rat was all right, and what to do about one.

   He dropped the core, brought his spear back slowly and carefully, aimed
   at a point just between the creature's eyes.

   Two things happened at once.

   Masklin noticed that the rat had a little red collar.

   And a voice said: 'Don't! He took a long time to train. Bargains Galore!
   Where did you come from?'

   The stranger was a nome. At least, Masklin had to assume so. He was
   certainly nome height, and moved like a nome.

   But his clothes. .

   The basic colour for a practical nome's clothes is mud. That was com-
mon
   sense. Grimma knew fifty ways of making dyes from wild plants and
they
   all yielded a colour that was, when you came right down to it, basically
   muddy. Sometimes yel-low mud, sometimes brown mud, sometimes
even
   greenish mud but still, well, mud. Because any nome who ventured out
   wearing jolly reds and blues would have a life expectancy of perhaps
   half an hour before something digestive happened to him.
'What were you doing on there? Answer me!'

Masklin pulled himself up. 'We were travelling,' he said.

The nome glared at him. 'What's travelling?' he snapped.

'Moving along,' said Masklin. 'You know? Com-ing from one place and
going to another place.'

This seemed to have a strange effect on the stranger. If it didn't
actually make him polite, at least it took the edge off his tone.

'Are you trying to tell me you came from Out-side?' he said.

'That's right.'

'But that's impossible!'

'Is it?' Masklin looked worried.

'There's nothing Outside!'

'Is there? Sorry,' said Masklin. 'But we seem to have come in from it,
anyway. Is this a problem?

'You mean really Outside?' said the nome sidling closer.

'I suppose I do. We never really thought about it What's this p1-'

'What's it like?'

'What?'
With, you know, things in it-

'Is it true the ceiling is so high you can't see it?' said the nome,
apparently beside himself with excitement.

'Don't know. What's a ceiling?' said Masklin.

'That is,' said the nome, pointing up to a gloom. roof of girders and
shadows.

'Oh, I haven't seen anything like that,' said Masklin. 'Outside it's
blue or grey, with white things floating around in it.'

'And, and, the walls are such a long way off, and there's a sort of
green carpet thing that grows on the ground?' said the nome, hopping
from one foot to the other.

'Don't know,' said Masklin, even more mystified 'What's a carpet?'

Wow!' The nome got a grip on himself and e tended a shaking hand. 'My
name's Angalo,' he said. 'Angalo de Haberdasheri. Haha. Of course that
won't mean anything to you! And this is Bobo.'

The rat appeared to grin. Masklin had never heard a rat called anything,
except perhaps, if you were driven to it, 'dinner'.

'I'm Masklin,' he said. 'Is it all right if the rest of us come down? It
was a long journey.'

'Gosh, yes! All from Outside? My father'll never believe it!'

'I'm. sorry,' said Masklin. 'I don't understand. What's so special? We
were outside. Now we're inside.'
   Someone who s not too old for a smacked bot-tom, said Granny
Morkie.
  'If I looked just like you, my lad, I'd look a great deal better. Pointy
  heads, indeed!'

      Angalo's mouth opened and shut silently. Then he said: 'It's amazing! I
      mean, Dorcas said that even if there was a possibility of life outside
      the Store, it wouldn't be life as we know it! Please, please, all follow
      me.'

      They exchanged glances as Angalo scurried away towards the edge of
the
    lorry nest, but followed him anyway. There wasn't much of an alterna-
tive.

      'I remember when your old dad stayed out too in the sun one day. He
      talked rubbish, too, just like this one,' said Granny Morkie quietly.
      Torrit appeared to be reaching a conclusion. They waited for it politely.

      'I reckon,' he said at last, 'I reckon we ought to eat his rat.'

      'You shut up, you,' said Granny, automatically. 'I'm leader, I am.
      You've got no right, talking like that to a leader,' Torrit whined.

      'O'course you're leader,' snapped Granny Mor-kie 'Who said you weren't
      leader? I never said you. weren't leader. You're leader.'

      'Right,' sniffed Torrit.

      'And now shut up,' said Granny. Masklin tapped Angalo on the shoulder.
      'Where is this place?' he said.

      Angalo stopped by the wall, which towered up into the distance.
  XIII. And in the Store there was neither Night nor
  Day, only Opening Time and Closing Time. Rain fell
  not, neither was there Snow.

  XIV. And the nomes grew fat and multiplied as the
  years passed, and spent their time in Rivalry and
  Small War, Department unto Department, and forgot
  all they knew of the Outside.

  XV. For they said, Is it not so, Arnold Bros (est.
  1905) has put All Things Under One Roof'?

  XVI. And those who said, Perhaps Not All Things,
  were cruelly laughed at, and prodded.

  VXVII. And other nomes said, Even if there were an
  Outside, What can it hold that we would need? For
  here we have the power of the Electric, the Food
  Hall, and All manner of Diversions.

  XVIII. And thus the Seasons fell thicker than the
  cushions that are in Soft Furnishings (3rd Floor).

  XIX. Until a Stranger came from afar, crying out
  in a loud voice, and he cried, woe, woe.

   -- From The Book of Nome, First Floor v.XII-XIX


   They tripped over one another, they walked with their heads turned
   upward and their mouths open they gawked. Angalo had stopped by a
hole
   'It's a rat hole!'

   'That's just what it looks like,' said Angalo. 'It' a disguised
   entrance, that's all.'

   'Your rat just went through it,' said Granny Morkie triumphantly. 'I've
   got eyes. It's a rat hole.'

   Angalo gave Grimma a pleading look and ducked through the hole. She
   poked her head through after him.

   'I don't think it's a rat hole, Granny,' she said, in a slightly muffled
   voice.

   'And why is that, pray?'

   'Because there's stairs inside. Oh, and dear little lights.'

   It was a long climb. They had to stop and wail several times for the old
   ones to catch up, and Torrit had to be helped most of the way. At the
   top, the stairs went through a more dignified sort of door into-

  Even when he was young, Masklin had never seen more than forty
nomes all
  together at once There were more that that here. And there was food. It
  didn't look like anything he recognized, but it had to be food. After
  all, people were eating it A space about twice as high as he was
  stretched away into the distance. Food was stacked in neat piles with
  aisles between them, and these were thronged with nomes. No one paid
  much attention to the little group as it shuffled obediently behind
  Angalo,, who had got some of his old swagger back.
front of all these folk; do you? Be a leader. Act proud.

They weren't very good at it. They walked in stunned silence. Fruits and
vegetables were attacked behind trestle tables, with nomes working
industriously on them. There were other things, too, which he couldn't
begin to recognize. Masklin didn't want to show his ignorance, but
curiosity got the better of him.

'What's that thing over there?' he said, pointing. 'It's a salami
sausage,' said Angalo. 'Ever had it before?'

'Not lately,' said Masklin, truthfully.

'And they're dates,' said Angalo. 'And that's a banana. I expect you've
never seen, a banana before, have you?'

Masklin opened his mouth, but Granny Morkie beat him to it.

'Bit small, that one,' she said, and sniffed.

'Quite tiny, in fact, compared to the ones we got at home.' -

'It is, is it?' said Angalo, suspiciously.

'Oh, yes,' said Granny, beginning to warm to her subject. 'Very puny.
Why, the ones we got at home,' she paused and looked at the banana,
lying on a couple of trestles like a canoe, and her lips moved as she
thought fast, 'why,' she added triumphantly, 'we could hardly dig them
out o' the ground!'

She stared victoriously at Angalo, who tried to outstare her and gave up.

'Well, whatever,' he said vaguely, looking away. 'You may all help
worked in
  the Store, but he had an obscure feeling that if you didn't face them
  with dignity you could end up doing things you weren't entirely happy
  about.

   'You're not hungry?' said Angalo.

   'I'm hungry,' admitted Masklin, 'I'm just not eating. Where does all the
   food come from?'

   'Oh, we take it from the humans,' said Angalo airily. 'They're rather
   stupid, you know.'

   'And they don't mind?'

   'They think it's rats,' sniggered Angalo. We take up rat doodahs with
   us. At least, the Food Hall families do,' he corrected himself.
   'Sometimes they let other people go up with them. Then the humans
just
   think it's rats.'

   Masklin's brow wrinkled.

   'Doodahs?' he said.

   'You know,' said Angalo. 'Droppings.'

   Masklin nodded. 'They fall for that, do they?' he said doubtfully.

   'They're very stupid, I told you.' The boy walked around Masklin. 'You
   must come and see my father,' he said. 'Of course, it's a foregone
   conclusion that you'll join the Haberdasheri.'
'Your father?' he said.

'The Duke de Haberdasheri,' said Angalo proud-ly. 'Defender of the
Mezzanine and Autocrat of the Staff Canteen.'

'He's three people?' said Masklin, puzzled.

'Those are his titles. Some of them. He's nearly the most powerful nome
in the Store. Do you have things like fathers Outside?'

Funny thing, Masklin thought. He's a rude little twerp except when he
talks about the Out-side, then he's like an eager little boy.

'I had one once,' he said. He didn't want to dwell on the subject.

'I bet you had- lots of adventures!'

Masklin thought about some of the things that had happened to him - or,
more accu-rately, had nearly happened to him - recent-ly.

'Yes,' he said.

'I bet it was tremendous fun!'

Fun, Masklin thought. It wasn't a familiar word. Perhaps it referred to
running through muddy ditches with hungry teeth chasing you. 'Do you
hunt?' he asked.

'Rats, sometimes. In the boiler-room. Of course, we have to keep them
down.' He scratched Bobo behind an ear.

'Do you eat them?'
Angalo repeated it.

'You don't look very impressed,' he said, when Masklin's expression
didn't change.

Masklin looked hard at the end of his spear. It was a piece of flint
he'd found in a field one day, and he'd spent ages teasing a bit of
binder twine out of the haybale in order to tie it on to a stick. Right
now it seemed about the one familiar thing in a bewildering world.

'I don't know,' he said. What is a thousand?'

Duke Cido de Haberdasheri, who was also Lord

Protector of the Up Escalator, Defender of the Mezzanine and Knight of
the Counter, turned the Thing over in his hands, very slowly. Then he
tossed it aside.

'Very amusing,' he said.

The nomes stood in a confused group in the Duke's palace, which was
currently under the

- floorboards in the Soft Furnishings Department. The Duke was still in
armour, and not very amused.

'So,' he said, 'you're from Outside, are you? Do you really expect me to
believe you?'

'Father, I-' Angalo began.

'Be quiet! You know the words of Arnold Bros (est. 1905)! Everything
     He s altogether too fond of going to look at lorries, and he listens to
     silly stories and his brain gets overheated. Now I am not an
     unreasonable nome,' he added, daring them to disagree, 'and there is
     always room for a strong lad like yourself in the Haberdashen guards.
So
     let us forget this nonsense, shall we?'

     'But we really do come from outside,' Masklin persisted.

  'There is no Outside!' said the Duke. 'Except of course when a good
nome
  dies, if he has led a proper life. Then there is an Outside, where they
  will live in splendour for ever. Come now,' he patted Masklin on the
  shoulder, 'give up this foolish chatter, and help us in our valiant
  task.'

     'Yes, but what for?' said Masklin.

     'You wouldn't want the Ironmongri to take our department, would you?'
     said the Duke. Masklin glanced at Angalo, who shook his head urgently.

     'I suppose not,' he said, 'but you're all nomes, aren't you? And there's
     masses for everyone. Spending all your time squabbling seems a bit
     silly.'

     Out of the corner of his eye he saw Angalo put his head in his hands.

     The Duke went red.

     'Silly, did you say?'

     Masklin leaned backwards to get out of his-way, but he'd been brought
up
   'Why?' said Masklin.

  'Why?' said the Duke 'Because they have always been our enemies.
And now
  you may go,' he added.

   'Where?' said Masklin.

   'To the Ironmongri, or the Millineri. Or the Stationeri, they're just
   the people for you. Or go back Outside, for all I care,' said the Duke
   sarcas-tically.

   'We want the Thing back,' said Masklin stolidly.

   The Duke picked it up and threw it at him.

   'Sorry,' said Angalo, when they had got away.

   'I should have told you father had rather a temper.'

  'What did you go and upset him for?' said Grimma irritably. 'If we've
  got to- join up with someone, why not with him? What happens to us
now?'

   'He was very rude,' said Granny Morkie stoutly.

   'He'd never heard of the Thing,' said Torrit. 'Terrible, that is. Or
   Outside. Well, I was borned and bred outside. Ain't no dead people
   there. Not living in any splendour, anyway.'

   They started to squabble, which was fairly usual.
    be stealing from us, not the other way around. They might be big and
    slow, but they're quite bright, really.

    And he wanted to add: I wouldn't be surprised if they're at least as
    intelligent as rats, say.

    But he didn't say any of this, because while he was thinking his eyes
    fell on the Thing, clasped in Torrit's arms.

    He was aware that there was a thought he ought to be having. He made
a
    space in his head politely and waited patiently to see what it was and
    then, just as it was about to arrive, Grimma said to Angalo: 'What
    happens to nomes who aren't in a department?'

    'They lead very sad lives,' said Angalo. 'They just have to get along as
    best they can.'

   He looked as if he was about to cry. 'I believe you,' he said. 'My
   father says it's wrong to watch the lorries. They can lead you into
   wrong thoughts, he says. Well, I've watched them for months. Some-
times
   they come in wet. It's not all a dream Outside, things happen. Look, why
   don't you sort of hang around, and I'm sure he'll change his mind.'

   The Store was big. Masklin had thought the lorry was big. The Store
was
   bigger. It went on for ever, a maze of floor and walls and long, tiring
   steps. Nomes hurried or sauntered past them on errands of their own,
and
   there seemed to be no end of them. In fact the word 'big' was too small.
   The Store needed a whole new word.
   She stared at him. But we ve only just arrived! Why on earth-?

   'I don't know. It's all wrong here. It just feels wrong. I keep thinking
   that if I stay here any longer I'll stop believing there's anything
   outside, and I was born there. When I've got you all settled down I'm
   going out again. You can come if you like,' he added, 'but you don't
   have to.'

   'But it's warm and there's all this food!'

   'I said I couldn't explain. I just feel we're being, well, watched.'

    Instinctively she stared upwards at the ceiling a few inches above them.
    Back home anything watching them usually meant something was
thinking
    about lunch. Then she remembered her-self, and gave a nervous laugh.

   'Don't be silly,' she said.

   'I just don't feel safe,' he said wretchedly.

   'You mean you don't feel wanted,' said Grimma quietly.

   'What?'

   'Well, isn't that true? You spend all your time scrimping and scraping
   for everyone, and then you don't need to any more. It's a funny feeling,
   isn't it.'

   She swept away.

   Masklin stood and fiddled with the binding on his spear. Odd, he
   thought. I never thought any-one else would think like that. He had a
    This is the edge of Haberdasheri territory at the moment, he said.
   'Over there is Millineri country. We're a bit cool with them at the
   moment. Er. You're bound to find some department to take you in. . .
'He
   looked at Grimma.

   'Er,' he said.

   'We're going to stay together,' said Granny Morkie. She looked hard at
   Masklin, and then turned back imperiously and waved her hand at An-
galo.

   'Go away, young man,' she said. 'Masklin, stand up straight. Now. . .
   forward.'

   Who're you, saying forward?' said Torrit. 'I'm the leader, I am. It's my
   job, givin' orders.'

   'All right,' said Granny Morkie. 'Give 'em, then.' Torrit's mouth worked
   soundlessly. 'Right,' he managed. 'Forward.'

   Masklin's jaw dropped.

   'Where to?' he said, as the old woman shooed them along the dim
space.

   'We will find somewhere. I lived through the Great Winter of 1986,1
   did,' said Granny Morkie haughtily. 'The cheek of that silly old Duke
   man! I nearly spoke up. He wouldn't of lasted long in the Great Winter,
   I can tell you.'

   'No 'arm can befall us if we obey the Thing,' said Torrit, patting it
   carefully.
   'You're just making it up as you go along!'

  'How date you speak to him like that-' Grimma began Masklin flung
down
  his spear

   'Well, I'm fed up with it!' he muttered. The Thing says this, the Thing
   says that, the Thing says every blessed thing except anything that might
   be useful!'

   The Thing has been handed down from nome to nome for hundreds of
years,'
   said Grimma. 'It's very important.'

   'Why?'

   Grimma looked at Torrit. He licked his lips.

   'It shows us-' he began, white-faced.

   'Move me closer to the electricity.'

    'The Thing seems to be more important than what are you all looking
like
    that for?' said Masklin.

   'Closer to the electricity.'

   Torrit, his hands shaking, looked down at the Thing.

   Where there had been smooth black surfaces there were now little
dancing
The Thing does tell you things. . . said Mask-lin. Gosh!

Torrit waved his hands frantically. 'Not like that! Not like that! It
ain't supposed to talk out loud! It's ain't done that before!'

'Closer to the electricity!'

'It wants the electricity,' said Masklin.

'Well, I'm not going to touch it!'

Masklin shrugged and then, using his spear gingerly, pushed the Thing
across the floor until it was under the wires.

'How does it speak? It hasn't got a mouth,' said Grimma.

The Thing whirred. Coloured shapes flickered across its surfaces faster
than Masklin's eyes could follow. Most of them were red.

Torrit sank to his knees. 'It is angry,' he moaned. We shouldn't have
eaten rat, we shouldn't have come here, we shouldn't-'

Masklin also knelt down. He touched the bright areas, gingerly at first,
but they weren't hot.

He felt that strange feeling again, of his mind wanting to think certain
thoughts without having the right words.

'When the Thing has told you things before,' he said slowly, 'you know,
how we should live proper lives-'

Torrit gave him an agonized expression.
   Now Torrit looked like a very frightened, trapped animal.

   Well?' said the old woman, menacingly. 'Ahem,' said Torrit. 'Er. What
   old Voozel said was, think about what the Thing ought to say, and then
   say it. Keep people on the right path, sort of thing. Help them get to
   the Heavens. Very important, getting to the Heavens. The Thing can
help
   you get there, he said. Most important thing about it.'

   'What?' shouted Granny.

   'That's what he told me to do. It worked, didn't it?'

  Masklin ignored them. The coloured lines moved over the Thing in
  hypnotic patterns. He felt that he ought to know what they meant. He
was
  certain they meant something.

  Sometimes, on fine days back in the times when he didn't have to hunt
  every day, he'd climb further along the bank until he could look down
  on the place where the lorries parked. There was a big blue board
  there, with little shapes and pictures on it. And in the litter-bins
  the boxes and papers had more shapes and pictures on them; he re-
membered
  the long argument they'd had about the chicken boxes with the pictures
  of the old man

   with the big whiskers on them. Several nomes had insisted that this was
   a picture of a chicken, but Masklin had rather felt that humans didn't
   go around eating old men. There had to be more to it than that. Perhaps
   old men made chicken.
Masklin shrugged. It seemed to be up to him.

'Passed what?' he said.

The Thing gave the impression that it was thinking busily. At last it
said: 'Do you still know the meaning of the words Flight Navigation and
Recording Computer?'

'No,' said Masklin earnestly. 'None of them.'

The light pattern moved.

'Do you know anything about interstellar travel?'

'No.'

The box gave Masklin the distinct impression that it was very
disappointed in him.

'Do you know you came here from a place far away?' it said.

'Oh, yes. We know that.'

'A place further than the moon.'

'Er.' Masklin hesitated. The journey bad taken a long time. It was
always possible that they had gone past the moon. He had often seen it
on the horizon, and he was certain that the lorry had gone further than
that.

'Yes,' he said. 'Probably.'
  'What is your name for this place?'

  'It's called. . . the Store.'

  'The store.' The lights moved, as if the Thing was thinking again.

   'Young man, I don't want to stand here all day exchanging nonsense
with
   the thing,' said Granny Morkie. What we need to do now is sort out
where
   we're going and what we're going to do.'

  That's right,' said Torrit defiantly.

  'Do you even remember that you are ship-wrecked?'

  'I'm Masklin,' said Masklin. 'I don't know who Shipwrecked is.'

  The lights changed again. Later, when he got to know the Thing better,
  Masklin always thought that particular pattern was its way of sighing
  deeply.

  'My purpose is to serve you and guide you,' said the Thing.

  'See?' said Torrit, who was feeling a bit out of things. 'We was right
  about that!'

  Masklin prodded the box. 'You've been keeping a bit quiet about it
  lately, then,' he said.

   The Thing hummed. 'This was to maintain internal power. However, I
can
'I was listening.'

'Oh.'

'And now I await instructions.'

'In where?' said Grimma.

'I think it wants us to tell it what to do,' said Masklin. He sat back
on his heels and watched the lights.

What can you do?' he said.

'I can translate, calculate, triangulate, assimi-late, -correlate and
extrapolate.'

'I don't think we want anything like that,' said Masklin. 'Do we want
anything like that?' he asked the others.

Granny Morkie appeared to think about it. 'No,' she said eventually, 'I
don't think we wants any of that stuff. Another banana'd be nice, mind.'

'I think all we really want is to go home and be safe,' said Masklin.

'Go home.'

'That's right.'

'And be safe.'

'Yes.'
Thank goodness for that, said Grimma. What a horrible voice. What
shall we do now?'

'According to that Angalo boy,' said Granny, 'we have to live very sad
lives.'


Chapter 3

I. For they did not know it, but they had brought
with them the Thing, which awoke in the presence
of Electricity, and it alone knew their History;

II. For nomes have memories of Flesh and Blood,
while the Thing had a memory of Silicon, which is
Stone and perisheth not, whereas the memory of
nomes blows away like dust;

III. And they gave it Instructions, but knew it
not.

IV. it is, they said, a Box with a Funny Voice.

V. But the Thing began to Compute the task of
keeping all nomes safe.

VI. And the Thing also began to Compute the task
of taking all nomes home.

VII. All the way Home.

-- From The Book of Nome, Mezzanine v.I-VII
    A few more lights were flashing on the Thing, and it had grown a little,
    cup-shaped, smaller thing that went round and round very slowly.

    'Should we look for the Food Hall again?' said Torrit, hopefully.

    'I think you have to be a member of a depart-ment,' said Masklin. 'But
    it can't be the only place with food, can it?'

    'It wasn't as noisy as this when we came here,' said Granny. 'What a
    din!'

    Masklin looked around. There was a space between the woodwork, and
a
    distant gleam of very bright light. He edged towards it, and stuck his
    eye to the crack.

    'Oh,' he said weakly.

    'What is it?' Grimma called out.

    'It's humans. More humans than you've ever seen before.'

    The crack was where the ceiling joined the wall of a room nearly as big
    as the lorry nest and it was, indeed, full of humans. The Store had
    opened.

   The nomes had always known that humans lived very slowly. Masklin
had
   almost walked into humans once or twice, when he was hunting, and
knew
   that even before one of their huge stupid faces could swivel its eyes he
   could be off the path and hiding behind a clump of something.
   and then it s put in a bag, and they go away. They almost look, well, as
   if they mean what they're doing.'

   'No, it's like ants,' said Torrit authoritatively. 'They seems
   intelligent, I'll grant you, but when you looks closely there's nothing
   really clever about them.'

   'They build things,' said Masklin, vaguely.

   'So do birds, my lad.'

   'Yes, but-'

   'Humans are a bit like magpies, I've always said. They just want things
   that glitter.'

    'Hmm.' Masklin decided not to argue. You couldn't argue with old Torrit,
    unless you were Granny Morkie, of course. He only had room for a cer-
tain
    number of ideas in his head, and once one had taken root you couldn't
    budge it. But Masklin wanted to say: if they're so stupid, why isn't it
    them hiding from us?

   An idea struck him. He lifted up the Thing.

   'Thing?' he said.

   There was a pause. Then the tinny little voice said: 'Operations on main
   task suspended. What is it that you require?'

   'Do you know what humans are?' said Masklin.

   'Yes. Resuming main task.'
   was correct in every respect.

   'Well, tell me what humans are!'

   'Humans are the indigenous inhabitants of the world you now call
   Thestore. Resuming main task.'

   'There!' said Torrit, nodding wisely. 'I told you, didn't I? They're
   indigenous. Clever, yes, but basi-cally just indigenous. Just a lot of
   indigenouses.' He hesitated. 'Indigenice,' he corrected himself.

   'Are we indigenous?' said Masklin.

   'Main task interrupted. No. Main task resumed.'

   ''Course not,' said Torrit witheringly. 'We've got a bit of pride.'

   Masklin opened his mouth to ask what in-digenous meant. He knew he
   didn't know, and he was certain that Torrit didn't. And after that he
   wanted to ask a lot more questions, and before he asked them he'd
have
   to think about the words he used.

   I don't know enough words, he thought. Some things you can't think,
   unless you know the right words.

   But he didn't get around to it, because a voice behind him said,
   Powerful strange things, ain't they? And very busy just lately. I wonder
   what's got into them?'

   It was an elderly, rather stocky nome. And drably dressed, which was
   unusual in the Store. Most of his clothing was a huge apron, its pockets
   bulging mysteriously.
   'We're just people,' said Granny.

   'Not indigenous, either,' Torrit added quickly. The stranger grinned,
   and slid off the wooden beam he'd been sitting on.

   'Fancy that,' he said. 'You must be these new things I've heard about.
   Outsiders?'

   He held out his hand. Masklin looked at it cautiously.

   'Yes?' he said politely.

   The stranger sighed. 'You're supposed to shake it,' he said.

   'I am? Why?'

   'It's traditional. My name's Dorcas del Ica-tessen.' The stranger gave
   Masklin a lopsided grin. 'Do you know yours?' he said.

   Masklin ignored this. 'What do you mean, you watch humans?' he said.

   'I watch humans. Study them, you know. It's what I do. You can learn a
   lot about the future by watching humans.'

   'A bit like the weather, you mean?' said Masklin. 'Weather! Of course,
   weather!' The nome grinned hugely, 'You'd know all about the weather.
   Powerful stuff, weather?'

   'You've heard of it?' said Masklin.

   'Only the old stories. Hmm.' Dorcas looked him up and down. 'I reck-
oned
   'My word,' said Dorcas. 'What a tiny radio. They get smaller all the
   time, don't they.'

   Where Dorcas led them was just a hole. Big, square, deep and dark. A
few
   cables, fatter than a nome, disappeared down into the depths.

   'You live down here?' said Grimma.

    Dorcas fumbled in the darkness. There was a click. Far above, some-
thing
    went bang and there was a distant roaring sound.

   'Hmm? Oh, no,' he said. 'Took me ages to sort out, did this. It's a sort
   of floor on a rope. It goes up and down, you know. With humans in it. So
   I thought, I'm not getting any younger, all those stairs were playing
   gyp with my legs, so I had a look at the way it worked. Perfectly
   simple. It'd have to be, o' course, otherwise humans wouldn't know how
   to use it. Stand back, please.'

   Something huge and black came down the shaft and stopped a few
inches
   above their heads. There were clangs and thumps and the now-familiar
   sound of clumsy humans walking about.

   There was also, slung under the lift's floor, a small wire basket tied
   on with bits of string.

   'If you think,' said Granny Morkie, 'that I'm going to get into a, a
   wire nest on a string, then you've got another-'

   'Is it safe?' said Masklin.
     There was a clang above them, and a slight jerk as they began to rise.

     'Good isn't it,' said Dorcas. 'Took me ages to bypass all the switches.
     You'd have thought they'd notice wouldn't you? They press the button to
     go down, but if I want to go up, we go up. I used to worry that the
     humans would think it odd that the lifts seemed to go up and down by
     themselves, but they seem powerful dense. Here we are.'

     The lift stopped with another jerk, leaving the nome's basket level with
     another underfloor gap.

     'Electrical and Domestic Appliances,' said Dor-cas. 'Just a little place
     I call my own. No one bothers me here, not even the Abbot. I'm the only
     one who knows how things work, see.'

     It was a place of wires. They ran under the floor in every direction,
     great bundles of the things. A few young nomes were taking something
to
     pieces in the middle of it all.

     'Radio,' said Dorcas. 'Amazing thing. Trying to figure out how it
     talks.' He rummaged among piles of thick paper, pulled out a sheet, and
     sheepishly passed it to Masklin.

     It showed a small pinkish cone, with a little tuft of hair on top.

     The nomes had never seen a limpet. If they had, they'd have known that
     this drawing looked exactly like one. Except for the hair.

     'Very nice,' said Masklin, uncertainly. 'What is it?'

     'Urn. It was my idea of what an Outsider would look like, you see,'
   Dorcas pointed. Yes, it has. Tiny ones. Tucked in under the hair so
   they won't get blinded by the Sun. That's a big bright light in the
   sky,' Dorcas added helpfully.

   'We've seen it,' said Masklin.

   'What's he sayin'?' said Torrit.

   'He's saying you ought to of looked like that,' said Granny Morkie
   sarcastically.

   'My head ain't that sharp!'

   'You're right there, you,' said Granny. 'I think you've got it a bit
   wrong,' said Masklin slowly. 'It's not like that at all. Hasn't anyone
   been to look?'

   'I saw the big door open once,' said Dorcas. 'The one down in the
   garage,! mean. But there was just a blinding white light outside.'

   'I expect it would seem like it, if you spend all your time in this
   gloom,' said Masklin.

   Dorcas pulled up an empty cotton reel. 'You must tell me about it,' he
   said. 'Everything you can remember about the Outside.'

   In Torrit's lap, the Thing began to flash another green light.

    One of the young nomes brought some food after a while. And they
talked,
    and argued, and often contradicted one another, while Dorcas listened,
    and asked questions.
   up with him sometimes wondering, out loud, about the Outside. Pro-
vided
   he wasn't too loud.

   'I shan't remember it all,' he sighed. 'What was the other light, the
   one that you get at Closing Time? Sorry, I mean bite.'

   'Night,' corrected Masklin. 'It's called the moon.'

   'Moon,' said Dorcas, roffing the word around his mouth. 'But it's not as
   bright as the sun? Strange, really. It'd be more sensible to have the
   brightest light at night, not during the day, when you can see anyway. I
   suppose you've no idea why, have you?'

   'It just happens,' said Masklin.

   'I'd give anything to see for myself. I used to go and watch the lorries
   when! was a lad, but! never had the courage to get on one.' He leaned
   closer.

   'I reckon,' he said, 'that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) put us in the Store
   to find out things. To learn about it. Otherwise, why have we got
   brains? What do you think?'

   Masklin was rather flattered at being asked, but he was interrupted as
   soon as he opened his mouth. 'People keep talking about Arnold Bros
   (est. 1905),' said Grimma. 'No one actually says who he is, though.'

   Dorcas leaned back. 'Oh, he created the Store. In 1905, you know. The
   Bargain Basement, Con-sumer Accounts, and everything between. I
can't
   deny it. I mean, someone must have done it. But I keep telling people,
   that doesn't mean we shouldn't think about-'
   I have urgent information to impart to the lead-ers of this community.
  Are you aware that you are living in a constructed entity with a limited
  life?'

  'Fascinating,' said Dorcas. 'All those words. You could imagine you
  could almost understand what it's saying. There's things up there,' he
  jerked his thumb to the floorboards above them, 'that're just like that.
  Radios, they're called. With pictures, too. Amazing.'

  'Vitally important I communicate information of utmost significance to
  community leaders, concerning imminent destruction of this artifact,'
  intoned the Thing.

  'I'm sorry,' said Masklin. 'Could you try that again?'

  'You do not comprehend?'

  'I don't know what "comprehend" means.'

  'Evidently language has changed in ways I do not understand.'

  Masklin tried to look helpful.

  'I will endeavour to clarify my statement,' said the Thing. A few lights
  flashed.

  'Jolly good,' said Masklin.

  'Big-fella Store him go Bang along plenty soon enough chop-chop?' said
  the Thing, hopefully.

    The nomes watched one another's faces. There didn't seem to be any
light
Chapter 4

I. Woe unto you, Ironmongri and Haberdasheri; woe
unto you, Millineri and Del Icatessen; woe unto
you, Young Fashiones, and unto you, you bandits of
Corsetry. And even unto to you, Stationeri.

II. For the Store is but a Place inside the
Outside.

III. Woe unto you, for Arnold Bros (est. 1905) has
opened the Last Sale. Everything Must Go.

IV. But they mocked him and said, You are an
Outsider, You don't even Exist.

-- From The Book of Nome, Goods Inwards v.I-IV


Overhead the humans plodded through their slow and incomprehensible
lives. Below, so that that the din was muffled by carpet and floorboards
into a distant rumbling, the nomes straggled hurriedly along their dusty
passageways.

'It couldn't of meant it,' said Granny Morkie. 'This place is too big.
Place as big as this can't be de-stroyed Stands to reason.'

'I tole you, dint I?' panted Torrit, who always cheered up immensely at
any news of devastation and terror. 'They always said the Thing knows
things. And don't you go tellin' me to shut up,

you.'
Look, he said, with impatient patience. What do you think nomes
should do, eh, if the Store is destroyed?'

'Go outside, of-' Masklin began.

'But most of them don't even believe the Outside really exists! Even I'm
not quite sure about it, and I have an extremely intelligent and
questioning mind! There isn't anywhere to go. Do you under-stand me?'

'There's masses of outside-'

'Only if you believe in it!'

'No, it's really there!'

'I'm afraid people are more complicated than you think. But we ought to
see the Abbot, anyway Dreadful old tyrant, of course, but quite bright
in his way. It's just a rather stuffy way.' He looked hard at them.

'Possibly best if we don't draw attention to our-selves,' he added.
'People tend to leave me alone, but it's not a wise thing for people to
wander around outside their department without good reason. And since
you haven't got a department at all...'

He shrugged. He managed, in one shift of his shoulders, to hint at all
the unpleasant things that could happen to departmentless wanderers.

It meant using the lift again. It led into a dusty underfloor area,
dimly lit by well-spaced, weak bulbs. No one seemed to be around. After
the bustle of the other departments it was almost unpleas-antly quiet.
Even quieter, Masklin thought, than the big fields. After all, they were
meant to be quiet. The underfloor spaces should have nomes in.
'Search me. To see 'em better, I suppose. You can never tell, with
humans,' said Dorcas.

'But you know what trees are, then,' said Masklin. 'I didn't think you'd
have them in the Store.'

'Of course I know,' said Dorcas. 'Big green things with plastic prickles
on. Some of 'em are made of tinsel. You can't move for the damn things
every Christmas Fayre, I told you.'

'The ones we have outside are huge,' Masklin ventured. 'And they have
these leaves, which fall off every year.'

Dorcas gave him an odd look.

'What do you mean, fall off?' he said.

'They just curl up and fall off,' said Masklin. The other nomes nodded.
There were a lot of things lately they weren't certain about, but they
were experts on what happened to leaves every year.

'And this happens every year?' said Dorcas.

'Oh, yes.'

'Really?' said Dorcas. 'Fascinating. And who sticks them back on?'

'No one,' said Masklin. 'They just turn up again, eventually.'

'All by themselves?'

They nodded. When there's one thing you're certain of, you hang on to
  his grin so much worse.

  'Oh, dear,' said Dorcas.

  'Who're they?' hissed Masklin. 'Bandits. That's always a problem in
  Corsetry,'

  said Dorcas, raising his hands. 'What's bandits?' said Masklin blankly.
  What's Corsetry?' said Grimma. Dorcas pointed a finger at the
  floorboards over-head. 'It's up there,' he said. 'A department. Only no
  one's really interested in it because there's nothing in it of any use.
  It's mainly pink,' he added. 'Sometimes the elastic-'

  'Orr ossessionz orr orr ife,' said the head bandit impatiently.

  'Pardon?' said Grimma.

  'I edd, orr ossessionz orr orr ife!'

  'I think it's the knife,' said Masklin. 'I think we'd understand you if
  you took the knife out.'

  The bandit glared at them with his one good eye, but took the knife
  blade out of his mouth.

  'I said, your possessions or your life!' he repeated.

   Masklin gave Dorcas a questioning look. The old nome waved his
hands.

  'He wants you to give him everything you have,'he said. 'He won't kill
  you, of course, but they can be rather unpleasant.'
Masklin turned around.

'We've decided,' he said. 'If it's the same to you, we'll keep what we
have. Sorry.'

He gave Dorcas and the bandit a bright smile. The bandit returned it. At
least, he opened his mouth and showed a lot of teeth.

'Er,' said Dorcas, 'you can't say that, you know. You can't say you
don't want to be robbed!' He saw Masklin's look of complete
bewilderment. 'Robbed,' he repeated. 'It means having your things taken
away from you. You just can't say you don't want it to happen!'

'Why not?' said Grimma.

'Because-' the old nome hesitated. 'I don't know, really. Tradition, I
suppose.'

The bandit chief tossed his knife from one hand to the other. 'Tell you
what I'll do,' he said, 'you being new and everything. We'll hardly hurt
you at all. Get them!'

Two bandits grabbed Granny Morkie.

This turned out tobe a mistake. Her bony right hand flashed out and
there were two ringing slaps.

'Cheek!' she snapped, as the nomes staggered sideways, clutching their
ears.

A bandit who tried to hold old Torrit got a pointed elbow in his
stomach. One waved a knife at Grimma, who caught his wrist; the knife
'So I think perhaps it would be a good idea if you go away, don't you?'

He let go. The bandit scrabbled on the floor for his knife, gave Masklin
another anxious grin, and ran for it. The rest of the band hurried after
him, or at least limped fast.

Masklin turned to Dorcas, who was shaking with laughter.

Well,' he said, 'what was that all about?'

Dorcas leaned against a wall for support.

'You really don't know, do you?' he said.

'No,' said Masklin patiently. 'That's why! asked, you see.'

'The Corsetri are bandits. They take things that don't belong to them.
They hide out in Corsetry because it's more trouble than it's worth to
anyone to drag them out,' said Dorcas. 'Usually they just try to
frighten people. They're really just a bit of a nuisance.'

'Why'd that one have his knife in his mouth?' said Grimma.

'It's supposed to make him look tough and devil-may- care, I think.'

'I think it makes him look silly,' said Grimma flatly.

'He'll feel the back of my hand if he comes back here,' said Granny
Morkie.

'I don't think they'll be back. I think they were a bit shocked to have
people hit them, in fact,' said Dorcas. He laughed. 'You know, I'm
   didn t see a lot of difference between the two. And there was no doubt
   that the other great families distrusted the Stationeri, who they
   reckoned had strange and terrifying powers.

   After all, they could read and write. Anyone who can tell you what a
   piece of paper is saying must be strange.

   They also understood Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s messages in the sky.

   But it is very hard to meet someone who believes you don't exist.

   Masklin had always thought that Torrit looked old, but the Abbot looked
   so old that he must have been around to give Time itself a bit of a
   push. He walked with the aid of two sticks, and a couple of younger
   nomes hovered behind him in case he needed support. His face was a
bag
   of wrinkles, out of which his eyes stared like two sharp black holes.

   The tribe clustered up behind Masklin, as they always did now when
they
   were worried.

   The Abbot's guest hall was an area walled with cardboard, near one of
   the lifts. Occasionally one went past, shaking down some dust.

   The Abbot was helped to his chair and sat down slowly, while his
   assistants fussed around him. Then he leaned forward.

   'Ah,' he said, 'Del Icatessen, isn't it? Invented anything lately?'

   'Not lately, my lord,' said Dorcas. 'My lord, I have the honour to
   present to you-'
     priests behind the Abbot sniggered to themselves, and the Abbot
     permitted himself a faint smile.

     'Dear me,' he said. 'And when is this terrible event likely to occur?'

     'In twenty-one days, my lord.'

     Well, then,' said the Abbot in a kindly voice, 'you run along now and,
     afterwards, tell us what it was like.'

     This time the priests grinned.

     'My lord, this is no-'

     The Abbot raised a gnarled hand. 'I'm sure you know a great deal about
     electricity, Dorcas, but you must know that every time there is a Grand
     Final Sale excitable people say "The end of the Store is nigh". And,
     strangely enough, life goes on.' -

     Masklin felt the Abbot's gaze on him. For some-one who was invisible,
he
     seemed to be attracting considerable attention.

     'My lord, it is rather more than that,' said Dorcas stiffly.

     'Oh? Did the electricity tell you?' said the Abbot mockingly.

     Dorcas nudged Masklin in the ribs. 'Now,' he said.

     Masklin stepped forward and put the Thing down on the floor.

     'Now,' he whispered.
telephone wires. Sometimes they are in other computers. There is a
computer in the Store. It pays humans their wages. I can hear it think.
It thinks: no more Store soon, no more payroll, no more accounts. The
telephone wires they say, Is that Grimethorpe Demolition Co.?, can we
discuss final arrangements for the demolition, all stock will be out by
the twenty--first-'

'Very amusing,' said the Abbot. 'How did you make it?'

'I didn't make it, my lord. These people brought it here-'

Which people?' said the Abbot, looking straight through Masklln.

'What happens if I go and pull his nose?' whispered Granny, in a hoarse
whisper.

'It would be extremely painful,' said Dorcas.

'Good.'

'I mean, for you.'

The Abbot rose hesitantly to his feet.

'I am a tolerant nome,' he said. 'You speculate about things Outside,
and I do not mind, I say it is good mental exercise. We wouldn't be
nomes if we didn't sometimes allow our minds to wander. But to insist
that it is real, that is not to be tolerated. Little tricksy toys ...'
He hobbled forward and brought one stick down sharply on the Thing,
which buzzed. 'Intolerable! There is nothing Out-side, and no one to
live in it! Life in other Stores, pah! Audience concluded! Be off with
you.'
   to understand in order to survive among other nomes. Things like: be
   very careful when you tell people things they don't want to hear. And:
   the thought that they may be wrong makes people very angry.

   Some of the lesser Stationeri ushered them hurriedly through the
   doorway. It was done quite expertly, without any of them actually
   touching

   Masklin's people or even looking them in the face. Several of them
   scattered hastily away from Torrit when he picked up the Thing and held
   it protec-tively.

   Finally Granny Morkie's temper, which was never particularly long,
   shortened to vanishing point. She grabbed the nearest monk by his
black
   robe and held him up inches in front of her nose. His eyes crossed
   frantically with the effort of not seeing her. She poked him violently
   in the chest.

   'Do you feel my finger?' she demanded. 'Do you feel it? Not here, am I?'

   'Indigenous!' said Torrit.

   The monk solved his immediate problem by giving a little whimper and
   fainting.

     'Let's get away from here,' said Dorcas hur-riedly. 'I suspect it's only
     a small step between not seeing people and making sure they don't ex-
ist.'

   'I don't understand,' said Grimma. 'How can people not see us?'

   'Because they know we're from Outside,' said Masklin.
   Where s the sense in that?

   'That's nomish nature for you,' said Dorcas.

   'Don't see that it matters much,' said Granny, grimly. 'Come three weeks
   and they'll all be Out-siders. Serve them right. They'll have to go
   around not looking at themselves. See how they like that, eh?' She
stuck
   her nose in the air. 'Ho, hexcuse me, Mr Abbot, went and tripped over
   hyou there, didn't see hyou hi'am sure...'

   'I'm sure they'd understand if only they'd listen,' said Masklin.

   'Shouldn't think so,' said Dorcas, kicking at the dust. 'Silly of me to
   think they would, really. The Stationeri never listen to new ideas.'

   'Excuse me,' said a quiet voice behind them.

   They turned, and saw one of the Stationeri standing there. He was
young,
   and quite plump, with curly hair and a worried expression. In fact he
   was nervously twisting the corner of his robe.

   'You want me?' said Dorcas.

   'Er. I was, er, I wanted to talk to the, er, Outsiders,' said the little
   man carefully. He bobbed

   a curtsey in the direction of Torrit and Granny Morkie.

   'You've got better eyesight than most, then,' said Masklin.

   'Er, yes,' said the Stationeri. He looked back down the corridor. 'Er,
Masklin gave Dorcas a hopeful look.

That's a thing for making noise,' Dorcas explained loftily.

'Is it?' said Masklin, and shrugged. 'I don't know. We've just had it a
longtime. It says it came with nomes from a long way away, a long time
ago. We've looked after it for generations, haven't we, Torrit.'

The old man nodded violently. 'My dad had it before me, and his father
before him, and his father before him, and his brother at the same time
as him, and their uncle before them-' he began.

The Stationeri scratched his head.

'It's very worrying,' he said. 'The humans are acting very strangely.
Things aren't being replaced in the Store. There's signs we've never
seen before. Even the Abbot's worried, he can't work out what Arnold
Bros (est. 1905) expects us to do. So, er. . .' He bunched up his robe,
untwisted it hurriedly, and went on. 'I'm the Abbot's assistant, you
see. My name is Gurder. I have to do the things he can't do himself. So,
er...'

Well, what?' said Masklin.

'Could you come with me? Please?'

'Is there food?' said Granny Morkie, who could always put her finger on
the important points.

'We'll certainly have some sent up,' said Gurder hurriedly. He backed
off through the maze of joists and wiring. Please, follow me. Please.'
Week, or Spring lnto Spring Fashions, or Summer
Bar-gains, or other Signs we know in their Season;

IV. For the Signs say Clearance Sale. We are
sorely Troubled.

-- From The Book of Nome, Complaints v.I-IV


Gurder, bobbing and curtseying, led them deeper into Stationeri
territory. It had a musty smell. Here and there were stacks of what
Masklin was told were books. He didn't fully understand what they were
for,, but Dorcas obviously thought they were important.

'Look at 'em,' he said. 'Powerful lot of stuff in there that we could
find useful, and the Stationeri guard it like, like-'

'Like something well guarded?' said Masklin.

'Right. Right. That's exactly right. They keep

looking hard at 'em. Reading, they call it. But they don't understand
any of it.'

There was a whirr from the Thing in Torrit's arms, and a few lights lit
up.

'Books are repositories of knowledge?' it said.

'There's said to be a lot in them,' said Dorcas.

'It is vital that you obtain books,' said the Thing. 'Stationeri hold on
to 'em,' said Dorcas. 'Unless you know how to read books properly they
   Masklin prodded Gurder. It was bad enough just now, he said. Why
are
   we doing this again?'

     Gurder gave him a look which seemed to say:

     Trust me, this is the only way.

     'Have you arranged for some food, Gurder?' said the Abbot.

     'My lord, I was just-'

     'Go and do it now.'

     'Yes, my lord.'

     Gurder gave Masklin another desperate look and scurried away.

   The nomes stood sheepishly, wondering what was going to happen
next.

     The Abbot spoke.

     'I am nearly fifteen years old,' he said. 'I am older even than some
     departments in the Store. I have seen many strange things, and soon I
am
     going to meet Arnold Bros (est. 1905) in the hope that I have been a
     good and dutiful nome. I am so old that there are nomes who think that
     in some way I am the Store, and fear that when I am gone the Store will
     end. Now you tell me this is so. Who is in charge?'

     Masklin looked at Torrit. But everyone else looked at him.
   wait.

   'Urn,' said Masklin, 'no.'

   There was a pause.

   Then the Abbot said, quite softly, 'Why not?'

   'Because, you see, urn, we're all together,' said Masklin. 'We've never
   been split up.'

   'A very commendable sentiment. You'll find, however, that life doesn't
   work like that. Come, now. I can hardly harm you, can I?'

   'You talk to him, Masklin,' said Grimma. We won't be far away. It's not
   important.'

   He nodded reluctantly.

   When they had left, the Abbot turned around. Close to, he was even
older
   than he had looked before. His face wasn't just wrinlded, it was one big
   wrinlde. He was middle-aged when old Torrit was born, Masklin told
   himself. He's old enough to be Granny Morkie's grandfather!

   The Abbot smiled. It was a difficult smile. It was as if he'd had
   smiling explained to him but had never had chance to practice.

   'Your name, I believe, is Masklin,' he said.

   Masklin couldn't deny it.
      'Oh, yes. Politics, you see. Abbots can't go changing their minds all
      the time. You'll find this out. The important thing about being a leader
      is not being right or wrong, but being certain. Otherwise people
      wouldn't know what to think. Of course, it helps to be right as well,'
      the Abbot conceded. He leaned back.

      'There were terrible wars in the Store, once,' he said. 'Terrible wars.
      A terrible time. Nome against nome. Decades ago, of course. It seemed
      that there was always some nome who thought his family should rule
the
      Store. The Battle of the Freight Elevator, the Goods Inwards Campaign,
      the dreadful Mezzanine Wars. . . But that's past, now. And do you know
      why?'

      'No,' said Masklin.

   'We stopped it. The Stationeri. By cunning and common sense and
   diplomacy. We made them see that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) expects
nomes
   to be at peace with one another. Now then. Supposing that I, in there,
   had said I believed you. People would have thought, the old boy has
gone
   off his head:' The Abbot chuckled. 'And then they'd have said, have the
   Stationeri been wrong all this time? They would have panicked. Well, of
   course, that would never do. We must hold the nomes together. You
know
   how they bicker at every opportunity.'

      'That's true,' said Masklin. 'And they always blame you for everything
      and say, what're you going to do about it?'

      'You've noticed, have you?' said the Abbot, smiling. 'It seems to me
     I will, said Masklin, not knowing what else to say.

     'You don't believe in Arnold Bros (est. 1905), do you?' said the Abbot.
     It was more a statement than a question.

     'Well, er-'

   'I've seen him, you know. When I was a boy. I climbed all the way up to
   Consumer Accounts, by myself and hid, and I saw him at his desk writ-
ing.'

     'Oh?'

     'He had a beard.'

     'Oh.'

     The Abbot drummed his fingers on his stick. He seemed to be making
up
  his mind about something. Then he said, 'Hmm. Where was your
home?'

     Masklin told him. Funnily, it seemed a lot better now he looked back on
     it. More summers

     than winters, more nuts than rat. No bananas or electric or carpets, but
     plenty of fresh air. And in memory there didn't seem to be as much
     drizzle and frost. The Stationeri listened politely.

     'It was a lot better when we had more people,' Masklin finished. He
     glanced at his feet. 'You could come and stay. When the Store is
     demo-thinged.'
     Masklin did so. The Abbot poked it with his stick.

     'Black box,' he said, 'what are you, and what is your purpose?'

  'Jam the Flight Recorder and Navigation Com-puter of the starship
Swan.
  I have many functions. My current major function is to guide and advise
  those nomes shipwrecked when their scout ship crashed here fifteen
  thousand years ago.'

     'It talks like this all the time,' said Masklin apologetically.

     'Who are these nomes of which you speak?' said the Abbot.

     'All nomes.'

     'Is that your only purpose?'

     'I have also been given the task of keeping nomes safe and taking them
     home.'

     'Very commendable,' said the Abbot. He looked up at the other two.

     'Run along, then,' he commanded. 'Show him a little of the world,
     Gurder. And then I shall have a task for both of you.'

     Educate him a little, the Abbot had said.

     That meant starting with The Book of Nome, which consisted of pieces
of
     paper sewn together with marks on them.

     'Humans use it for cigarettes,' said Gurder, and read the first dozen
       The Site. Gurder looked uncomfortable. You see, the Abbot says there
      is nothing outside the Store. Urn.'

      'But we've come-'

      'He says that tales of Outside are just dreams.'

      'So when I said all that about where we lived, he was just laughing at
      me?' said Masklin.

      'It is often very hard to know what the Abbot really believes,' said
      Gurder. 'I think most of all he believes in Abbots.'

   'You believe us, don't you?' said Grimma. Gurder nodded, half-
hesitantly.

   'I've often wondered where the lorries go, and where the humans come
   from,' he said. 'The Abbot gets very angry when you mention it, though.
   The other thing is, there's been a new season. That means something.
   Some of us have been watching humans, and when there's a new sea-
son
   something unusual is happening.'

      'How can you have seasons when you don't know about weather?' said
      Masklin.

      Weather has got nothing to do with seasons. Look, someone can take
the
      old people down to the Food Hall, and I'll show you two. It's all very
      odd. But-' and now Gurder's face was a picture of misery '-Arnold Bros
      (est. 1905) wouldn't destroy the Store, would he?'
VI. On the Lifts, let the Sign Be: This Lift to
Carry Ten Persons;

VII. And Arnold Bros (est. 1905) waxed wroth, for
oftimes the Lifts carried only two or three;

VIII. And Arnold Bros (est. 1905) said, Truly
Humans are Stupid, who do not understand plain
language.

-- From The Book of Nome, Regulations v.III-VIII


It was a long walk through the busy underfloor world.

They found that Stationeri could go where they liked. The other
departments didn't fear them, because the Stationeri weren't a true
department. There were no women and children, for one thing.

'So people have to join?' said Masklin.

We are selected,' Gurder corrected. 'Several intelligent boys from each
department every year. But when you're a Stationeri, you have to forget
about your department and serve the whole Store.'

Why can't women be Stationeri, then?' said Grimma.

'It's a well-known fact that women can't read,' said Gurder. 'It's not
their fault, of course. Appar-ently their brains get too hot. With the
strain, you know. It's just one of those things.'

'Fancy,' said Grimma. Masklin glanced side-ways at her. He'd heard her
any
   numbers that big. A world made up of people.

      He remembered hunting alone, running along the deep furrows in the
big
      field behind the motorway. There was nothing around but earth and
      flints, stretching into the distance. The whole sky was an upturned bowl
      with him at the centre.

      Here, he felt that if he turned round sudden-ly he would knock someone
      over. He wondered what it would be like, living here and never knowing
      anywhere else. Never being cold, never being wet, never being afraid.

      You might start thinking it was never possible to be anything else...

   He was vaguely aware that they'd gone up a slope and out through an-
other
   gap into the big emptiness of the Store itself. It was night -Closing
   Time - but there were bright lights in the sky, except that he'd have to
   start learning to call it the ceiling.

      'This is the Haberdashery Department,' said Gurder. 'Now, do you see
the
      sign hanging up there?'

      Masklin peered into the misty distance and nodded. He could see it. It
      had huge red letter shapes ona white banner.

   'It 'should say Christmas Fayre,' said the Stationeri. 'That's the right
   season, it comes after Summer Bonanza and before Spring Into Spring
   Fashions. But instead it says-' Gurder narrowed his eyes, and his lips
   moved soundless-ly for a moment '-Final Reductions. We've been won-
dering
   Finally Reduced was too horri-ble to think about.

   Well, that one over there says Everything Must Go,' said Gurder. 'But
   that turns up every year. It's Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s way of telling
   us that we must lead good lives because we all die eventually. And
those
   two over there, they're always there too.' He looked solemn. 'No one
   really believes them any more. There were wars over them, years ago.
   Silly superstition, really. I mean, I don't think there is a monster
   called Prices Slashed who walks around the Store at night, seeking out
   bad people. It's just something to frighten naughty children with.'

   Gurder bit his lip. 'There's another odd thing,' he said. 'See those
   things against the wall? They're called shelves. Sometimes humans
take
   things off them, sometimes they put things on them. But just lately ...
   well, they just take things away.'

   Some of the shelves were empty.

   Masklin wasn't too familiar with the subtleties of human behaviour.
   Humans were humans, in the same way that cows were just cows.
Obvi-ously
   there was some way that other cows or humans told them apart, but
he'd
   never been able to spot it. If there was any sense in any-thing they
   did, he'd never been able to work it out.

   "Everything Must Go",' he said.

   'Yes, but not go,' said Gurder. 'Not actually go. You don't really think
   it means actually go, do you? I'm sure Arnold Bros (est. 1905) wouldn't
   allow it. Would he?'
   Well, it is, she said defiantly. You know the others think so, too.
   It's warm and there's amaz-ing food, even if they have funny ideas
about
   women's brains.' She turned back to Gurder. Why can't you ask Arnold
   Bros (eat. 1905) what is going on?'

   'Oh, I don't think we should do that!' said Gurder hurriedly.

   'Why not? Make's sense, if he's in charge,' said Masklin. 'Have you ever
   even seen Arnold Bros (eat. 1905)?'

   'The Abbot did, once. When he was young he climbed all the way up to
   Consumer Accounts. He doesn't talk about it, though.'

   Masklin thought hard about this as they walked back. There had never
   been any religion or politics back home. The world was just too big

   to worry about things like that. But he had serious doubts about Arnold
   Bros (est. 1905). After all, if he had built the Store for nomes, why
   hadn't he made it nome-sized? But, he thought, it was probably not the
   time to ask

   r questions like that.

   If you thought hard enough, he'd always considered, you could work out
   everything. The wind, for example. It had always puzzled him until the
   day he'd realized that it was caused by all the trees waving about.

   They found the rest of the group near the Abbot's quarters. Food had
   been brought up for them. Granny Morkie was explaining to a couple of
   baffled Stationeri that the pineapples weren't a patch on the ones she
   used to catch at home.
    kill, no ferreting around in dirty bins...

   He saw the others glaring at him, and lapsed into shame-faced mutter-
ing.

    'Shut up, you daft old fool,' said Granny. Well, we dint have no foxes,
    I expect?' said Torrit. 'Like Mrs Coom and my old mate Mert, they never-
'

    Her furious glare finally worked. His face went white.

    'It just wasn't all sunshine,' he whispered, shaking his head. 'Not all
    sunshine, that's all I'm saying.'

    What does he mean?' said Gurder, brightly. 'He don't mean nothing,'
    snapped Granny. 'Oh.' Gurder turned to Masklin. 'I know what a fox is,'
    he said. 'I can read Human books, you know. Quite well. I read a book
    called-' he hesi-tated '-Our Furry Friends, I think it was. A handsome
    and agile hunter, the red fox scav-enges carrion, fruit and small
    rodents. It - I'm sorry, is something wrong?'

    Torrit was choking on his bread while the others slapped him hurriedly
    on the back. Masklin took the young Stationeri by the arm and quickly
    walked him away.

    Was it something I said?' said Gurder.

    'In a way,' said Masklin. 'And now I think the Abbot wants to see us,
    doesn't he?'

    The old man was sitting very still, with the Thing on his lap, staring
    at nothing.
   Yes, sir!

   'Oh. Good.'

   There was silence. Gurder coughed politely. 'You wanted to see us, sir?'
   he repeated. 'Ah.' The Abbot nodded gently. 'Oh. Yes. You, there. The
   young man with the spear.'

   'Me?' said Masklin.

   'Yes. Have you spoken to this, this thing?' The Thing? Well, in a way.
   It talks funny, though. It's hard to understand.'

  'It has talked to me. It has told me it was made by nomes, a long time
  ago. It eats electric. It says it can hear electric things. It has
  said-' he glared at the thing in his lap '-it has said that it has
  heard Arnold Bros (est. 1905) plans to demolish the Store. It is a mad
  thing, it talks about stars, it says we came from a star, flying. But..
  . there is talk of strange events. I wonder to myself, is this a
  messenger from the Management, sent to warn us? Or is it a trap set by
  Prices Slashed? So!' He thumped the Thing with a wrinkled hand. We
must
  ask Arnold Bros (eat 1905). We will learn his truth.'

   'But, sir!' Gurder burst out. 'You're far too -I mean, it wouldn't be
   right for you to go all the way to the Top again, it's a terrible
   dangerous journey!'

   'Quite so, boy. So you will go instead. You can read Human, and your
   boisterous friend with the spear can go with you.'

   Gurder sagged to his knees. 'Sir? All the way to the Top? But I am not
   worthy-' His voice faded away.
It s a good job you don t believe in him, then, said Masklin.

'Of course I don't,' agreed Gurder.

'Your teeth are chattering, though.'

'That's because my teeth believe in him. And so do my knees. And my
stomach. It's only my head that doesn't, and it's being carried around
by a load of superstitious cowards. Excuse me, I'll go and collect my
things. It's very important that we set out at once.'

Why?' said Masklin.

'Because, if we. wait any longer, I'll be too scared to go.'

The Abbot sat back in his chair.

'Tell me again,' he said, 'about how we came

here. You mentioned a colour. Mauve, wasn't it?'

'Marooned,' said the Thing.

'Ah, yes. From something that flew.'

'A galactic survey ship,' said the Thing.

'But it got broken, you said.'

'There was a fault in one of the everywhere-engines. it meant we could
not return to the main ship. Can it be that this is forgotten? in the
early days we managed to communicate with humans, but the different
metabolic rates and time sense eventually made this impossible. It was
   now. Agriculture? it said.

   'That's right. A Griculture. Important, is it?'

   'it is the basis of civilization.'

   'What does that mean?'

   'It means "yes".'

   The Abbot sat back while the Thing went on talking. Strange words
washed
   over him, like planets and electronics. He didn't know what they meant,
   but they sounded right. Nomes had taught humans. Nomes came from a
long
   way away. From a distant star, apparently.

   The Abbot didn't find this astonishing. He didn't get about much these
   days, but he had seen the stars in his youth. Every year, around the
   season of Christmas Fayre, stars would appear in most of the
   departments. Big ones, with lots of pointy bits and glitter on them, and
   lots of lights. He'd always been very impressed by them. It was quite
   fitting that they should have belonged to nomes, once. Of course, they
   weren't out all the time, so presumably there was a big store-room
   somewhere, where the stars were kept.

   The Thing seemed to agree with this. The big room was called the gal-
axy.
   It was somewhere above Consumer Accounts.

   And then there were these 'light years'. The Abbot had seen nearly
   fifteen years go past, and they had seemed quite heavy at the time -
   full of problems, swollen with responsibilities. Lighter ones would have
   Ask.

   -- From The Book of Nome, Regulations v.XXI -XXII


   'She can't come,' said Gurder.

   'Why not?' said Masklin.

   'Well, it's dangerous."

   'So?' Masklin looked at Grimma, who was wear-ing a defiant expres-
sion.

   'You shouldn't take girls anywhere dangerous,' said Gurder virtuously.

  Once again Masklin got the feeling he'd come to recognize often since
  he'd arrived in the Store. They were talking, their mouths were opening
  and shutting, every word by itself was perfect-ly understandable, but
  when they were all put together they made no sense at all. The best
  thing to do was ignore them. Back home, if women weren't to go any-
where
  dangerous, they wouldn't go anywhere.

   'I'm coming,' said Grimma. 'What danger is there, anyway? Only this
   Price Slasher, and-'

   'And Arnold Bros (est. 1905) himself,' said Gurder nervously.

   Well, I'm going to come anyway. People don't need me and there's
nothing
   to do,' said Grimma. What can happen, anyway? It's not as if something
   terrible could happen,' she added sarcastically, 'like me reading
      He gave Masklin a desperate look.

      'You tell her she mustn't get in the way,' he said.

      'Me?' said Masklin. 'I've never told her any-thing.'

      The journey was less impressive than he'd expected. The old Abbot had
      told of staircases that moved, fire in buckets, long empty corridors
      with nowhere to hide.

  But since then, of course, Dorcas had put the lifts in. They only went
  as far as Kiddies Klothes and Toys, but the Kiothians were a friendly
  people who had adapted well to life on a high floor and always wel-
comed
  the rare travellers who came with tales of the world below.

      'They don't even come down to use the Food Hall,' said Gurder. 'They
get
      everything they want from the Staff rest-room. They live on tea and
      biscuits, mainly. And yoghurt.'

      'How strange,' said Grimma.

      They're very gentle,' said Gurder. 'Very thought-ful. Very quiet. A
      little bit mystical, though. It must be all that yoghurt and tea.'

      'I don't understand about the fire in buckets, though,' said Masklin.

      'Er,' said Gurder, 'we think that the old Abbot might, er, we think his
      memory... after all, he is extremely old...'

      'You don't have to explain,' said Grimma. 'Old Torrit can be a bit like
      that.'
   It was almost like being outside. Faint breezes blew the dust into grey
   drifts; there was no light except what filtered through from odd cracks.
   In the darkest places the guide had to light matches. He was a very
   small nome, who smiled a lot in a shy way and said nothing at all when
   Grimma tried to talk to him.

   'Where are we going?' said Masklin, looking back at their deep
   footprints.

   'To the moving stairs,' said Gurder.

   'Move? How do they move? Bits of the Store move around?'

   Gurder chuckled patronizingly.

   'Of course, all this is new to you. You mustn't worry if you don't
   understand everything,' he said.

   'Do they move or don't they?' said Grimma. 'You'll see. It's the only
   one we use, you know. It's a bit dangerous. You have to be topsides,
you
   see. It's not like the lifts.'

   The little Klothian pointed forward, bowed and hurried away.

   Gurder led them up through a narrow crack in the ancient floorboards,
   into the bright emptiness of a passageway, and there-

   -the moving stair.

   Masklin watched it hypnotically. Stairs rose out of the floor, squeaking
   eerily as they did so, and whirred up into the distant heights.
Have you ever been here before? he asked. Oh, yes. Millions of times.
Often,' said Gurder, picking up a fold of his robe and twisting it
between his fingers.

'So what do we do now?'

Gurder tried to speak slowly but his voice began to go faster and faster
of its own accord:

'You know, the Klothians say that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) waits at the
top, you know, and when nomes die-'

Grimma looked reflectively at the rising stairs, and shivered again.
Then she ran forward.

'What're you doing?' said Masklin.

'Seeing if they're right!' she snapped. 'Other-wise we'll be here all
day!'

Masklin ran after her. Gurder gulped, looked behind him, and scurried
after both of them.

Masklin saw her run towards the rising bulk of a stair, and then the
floor below her came up and she was suddenly rising, wobbling as she
fought for balance. The floor below him pushed against his feet and he
rose after her, one step below.

'Jump down!' he shouted. You can't trust ground that moves by itself!'

Her pale face peered over the edge of her stair.

'What good will that do?' she said.
Arnold Bros (est. 1905) was not waiting at the top.

It was simply a long brown corridor lined with doors. There were words
painted on some of them.

But Grimma was waiting. Masklin waved a finger at her as he staggered
off his stair, which mysteriously folded itself down into the floor.

'Never, ever, do anything like that again!' he shouted.

'If I hadn't, you'd still be at the bottom. You could see Gurder was
scared out of his wits!' she snapped.

'But there could have been all sorts of dangers up here!'

'Like what?' said Grimma haughtily.

Well, there could be ...' Masklin hesitated. 'That's not the point, the
point is-'

At this point Gurder's stair rolled him almost to their feet. They
picked him up.

'There,' said Grimma brightly. We're all here, and everything's
perfectly all right, isn't it.'

Gurder stared around him. Then he coughed, and adjusted his clothes.

'I lost my balance there,' he said. 'Tricky, these moving stairs. But
you get used to them eventu-ally.' He coughed again, and looked along
the corridor. 'Well, we'd better get a move on,' he said.

The three nomes crept forward, past the rows of doors.
'Don't know.'

Masklin brought up the rear, turning slow-ly to keep all the corridor in
view. It was too open. There was no cover, nothing to hide behind.

He pointed to a row of giant red things hanging halfway up the opposite
wall. Gurder whispered that they were buckets.

'There's pictures of them in Colin and Susan Go to the Seaside,' he
confided.

'What's that written on them?'

Gurder squinted.' "Fire",' he said. 'Oh, my. The Abbot was right.
Buckets of fire!'

'Fire in buckets?' said Masklin. 'Buckets of fire? I can't see any
flames.'

'They must be inside. Perhaps there's a lid. There's beans in bean tins,
and jam in jam jars. There should be fire in fire buckets,' said Gurder
vaguely. 'Come on.'

Grimma stared at this word, too. Her lips moved silently as she repeated
it to herself. Then she hurried after the other two.

Eventually they reached the end of the corridor. There was another door
there, with glass in the top half.

Gurder stared up at it.

'I can see there's words,' said Grimma. 'Read them out. I'd better not
      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 car-
pet
  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 wood-en 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 Ve-
neer.'

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

      'A Must In Every Home,' said Gurder, as if say-ing the words gave him
      '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 gleam-ing 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, sit-ting 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
   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, '"incorporat-ing Arnco Developments
(UK),
   United Television, Arnco-Schultz (Hamburg) AG, Arnco Airlines,

   Arnco Recording, the Arnco Organization (Cin-emas) Ltd, Arnco Petro-
leum
   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, Kwik-Kleen Mechanical Sweepers Ltd, and - and -and-"

   'Something wrong?'

   '-"Arnold Bros (eat. 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.
   Gurder pored over the print again. "Notice to all Staff,"' he read, '"I
   am sure we are all aware of the increasingly poor. finan-cial
   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 slow-ly. '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
  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
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 lorry noise.
      It didn't seem to worry the man, who just pulled the door open and
      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?'
   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 magi-cal 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 fifing 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 occasion-ally 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 Kid-dies 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 Monkie looked up as they were ushered into the Abbot's bed-
room.
   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
     He looked at Masklin and, with a great effort, beckoned him to come
     closer.

     'You'll have to lean oven,' 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 stomach-ache 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.
      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 uni-verse. 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 every-one, 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.
    I hear you.

    'Is he dead?'

    'I detect no life functions.'

    What does that mean?'

    'It means "yes".'

    'Oh.' Masklin considered this. 'I thought 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
    brother to your great Gardening Department beyond Consumer Ac-
counts,
    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 Leader-
ship,
   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 after-wards. 'In my young day, if a person died, we
   buried 'em. In the ground.'

   'Ground?' said Gurder.
    In the Store, said Gurder slowly, as if he was explaining things to a
   rather backward child, 'when a nome dies, if he has been a good nome,
   Arnold Bros (eat. 1905) sends them back to see us before they go to a
   Better Place.'

   'How can-' Granny began.

   'The inner bit of them, I mean,' said Gurder. 'The bit inside you that's
   really you.'

   They looked at him politely, waiting for him to make any sort of sense.

   Gurder sighed. 'All right,' he said, 'I'll get some-one to show you.'

   They were taken to the Gardening Department. It was a strange place,
   Masklin thought. It was like the world outside but with all the
   difficult bits taken away. The only light was the faint glow of indoor
   suns, which stayed on all night. There was no wind, no rain, and there
   never would be. There was grass, but it was just painted green sacking
   with bits sticking out of it. There were mountain-ous cliffs of nothing
   but seeds in packets, each one with a picture that Masklin suspected
was
   quite unreal. They showed flowers, but flowers unlike any he'd ever
seen
   before.

   'Is the Outside like this?' said the young priest who was guiding them.
   'They say, they say, er, they say you've been there. They say you've
   seen it.' He sounded hopeful.

   'There was more green and brown,' said Mask-lin flatly.

   'And flowers?' said the priest.
   painted wheelbarrows. And every single one of them was grinning.

   The tribe stood in silence for some time.

   Then Grimma said, very softly, 'How horrible.'

   'Oh, no!' said the priest, horrified. 'It's marvel-lous! Arnold Bros
   (est. 1905) sends you back smart and new, and then you leave the
Stone
   and go to a wonderful place!'

   'There's no women,' said Granny. 'That's a mercy, anyway.'

   'Ah, well,' said the priest, looking a bit embar-rassed. 'That's always
   been a bit of a debatable question, we're not sure why but we think-'

   'And they don't look like anyone,' said Granny. They all look the same.'

   Well, you see-'

   'Catch me coming back like that,' said Granny. 'If you come back like
   that, I don't want to go.'

   The priest was almost in tears.

   'No, but-'

   'I saw one like these once.' It was old Torrit again. He looked very
   grey in the face and was trembling.

   'You shut up, you,' said Granny. 'You never saw nothing.'

   'I did too,' said Torrit. 'When I was a little lad.
 That ain t no life, out there in all weathers, birds doing their
wossname on your hat and dogs widdlin' all over you." He tole us it was
a giant nome who got turned to stone on account of sitting there for so
long and never catching no fish. And he said, "Wot a way to go, that
ain't for me, lads, I want to go sudden like," and then a cat jumped out
on him. Talk about laugh.'

What happened?' said Masklin.

'Oh, we gave it a good seeing-to with our spears and picked him up and
we all run like bu - run very fast,' said Torrit, watching Granny's
stern expression.

'No, no!' wailed the priest. 'It's not like that at all!' and then he
started to sob.

Granny hesitated for a moment, and then patted him gently on the back.

'There, there,' she said. 'Don't you worry about it. Daft old fool says
any old thing that comes into his head.'

'I don't-.-' Torrit began. Granny's warning look stopped him.

They went back slowly, trying to put the terrible stone images out of
their minds. Torrit trailed along behind, grumbling like a worn-out
thunderstorm.

'I did see it, I'm telling you,' he whispered.

'Damn great grinning thing, it were, sitting on

a spotty stone mushroom. I did see it. Never
    Why me? he said. I never wanted to lead any-one! Anyway ... you
know
   ...' He lowered his voice. 'I have Doubts, sometimes. The old Abbot
knew
   it, I'm sure, I can't imagine why he'd think I'd be any good.'

       Masklin said nothing. It occurred to him that the Abbot might have had a
       very definite aim in mind. Perhaps it was time for a little doubt.
       Per-haps it was time to look at Arnold Bros (est.1905) in a different
       way.

       They were off to one side in the big underfloor area the Stationeri used
       for important meetings; it was the one place in the Store, apart from
       the Food Hall, where fighting was strictly forbidden. The heads of the
       families, rulers of departments and sub-departments, were milling
       around out there. They might not be allowed to bear weapons, but they
       were cutting one another dead at every opportunity.

       Getting them to even think of working together would be impossible
       without the Stationeri. It was odd, really. The Stationeni had no real
       power at all, but all the families needed them and none of them feared
       them and so they survived and, in a strange sort of way, led. A
       Haberdasheri wouldn't listen even to common sense from an Irorimon-
gri,
       on general principles, but they would if the speaker was a Stationeri
       because everyone knew the Stationeri didn't take sides.

       He turned to Gurder.

       'We need to talk to someone in the Ironmongri. They control the
       electric, don't they? And the lorry nest.'

       'That's the Count de Ironinongri over there,' said Gurder, pointing.
He looked sideways at Masklin.

'You've got a plan, haven't you?' he said.

'Yes. Sort of.'

What are you going to tell them, then?'

Masklin picked absently at the tip of his spear. 'The truth. I'm going
to tell them they can leave the Store and take it all with them. I think
it should be possible.'

Gurder rubbed his chin. 'Hmm,' he said. 'I sup-pose it's possible. If
everyone carries as much food and stuff as they can. But it'll soon run
out and, anyway, you can't carry electric. It lives in wires, you know.'

'How many Stationeri can read Human?' said Masklin, ignoring him.

'All of us can read a bit, of course,' said Gurder.

'But only four of us are any real good at it, if you must know.'

'I don't think that's going to be enough,' said Masklin.

Well, there's a trick to it, and not everyone can get the hang of it.
What are you planning?'

'A way to get everyone, everyone, out. Carrying everything we'll ever
need, ever,' said Masklin.

'They'll be squashed under the weight!'

'Not really. Most of what they'll be carrying doesn't weigh anything at
    And he was the only one. Oh, the Abbot had known, and died with his
eyes
    full of stars, but even he didn't understand. The galaxy! The old man
    thought it was just a great big room outside the Store, just the biggest
    department ever. Per-haps Gurder wouldn't comprehend, either, He'd
lived
    all his life under a roof. He had no idea of the sort of distances
    involved.

   Masklin felt a slight surge of pride at this. The Store nomes couldn't
   understand what the Thing was saying, because they had no experi-
ences to
   draw on. To them, from one end of the Store to the other was the big-
gest
   possible distance in the world.

     They wouldn't be able to get to grips with the fact that the stars,
     fr'instance, were much further away. Even if you ran all the way, it'd
     probably take weeks to reach them.

     He'd have to lead up to it gently.

     The stars! And a long, long time ago nomes had travelled between them
on
  things that made lorries look tiny - and had been built by nomes. And
  one of the great ships, exploring around a little star on the edge of
  nowhere, had sent out a smaller ship to land on the world of the hu-
mans.

   But something had gone wrong. Masklin hadn't understood that bit, ex-
cept
   that the thing that moved the ships was very, very powerful. Hun-dreds
   of nomes had survived, though. One of them, searching through the
      This was the important bit. The big ship, the one that could fly between
      stars, was still up there somewhere. It was tended by machines like the
      Thing, patiently waiting for the nomes to come back. Time meant noth-
ing
   to them. There were machines to sweep the long corridors, and ma-
chines
   that made food and watched the stars and patiently counted the hours
and
   minutes in the long, dark emptiness of the ship.

      And they'd wait for ever. They didn't know what Time was, except
      something to be counted and filed away. They'd wait until the sun went
      cold and the moon died, carefully repairing the ship and keeping it
      ready for the nomes to come back.

      To take them Home.

      And while they waited, Masklin thought, we forgot all about them, we
      forgot everything about ourselves, and lived in holes in the ground.

      He knew what he had to do. It was, of course, an impossible task. But
he
   was used to them. Dragging a rat all the way from the wood to the hole
   had been an impossible task. But it wasn't impossible to drag it a
   little way, so you did that, and then you had a rest, and then you
   dragged it a little way again. . . The way to deal with an impossible
   task was to chop it down into a number of merely very difficult tasks,
   and break each one of them into a group of horribly hard tasks, and
each
   one of them into tricky jobs, and each one of them...

   Probably the hardest job of all was to make nomes understand what
they
   Yes? said Gurder.

  'The Abbot told me that the Stationeri have always tried to make nomes
  work together and stop squabbling,' said Masklin.

  'That has always been our desire, yes.'

  'This plan will mean they'll have to work together.'

  'Good.'

  'Only I don't think you're going to like it much,' said Masklin.

  That's unfair! How can you make assumptions like that?'

  'I think you'll laugh at it,' said Masklin.

  'The only way to find out is to tell me,' said Gurder.

   Masklin told him. When Gurder was over the shock, he laughed and
laughed.

  And then he looked at Masklin's face, and stopped.

  'You're not serious?' he said.

  'Let me put it like this,' said Masklin. 'Have you got a better plan?
  Will you support me?'

  'But how will you - how can nomes is it even possible that we can-?'
  Gurder began.

  We'll find a way,' said Masklin. With Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s help, of
You mean now? he said.

'Yes. Now. We tell them now.'


Chapter 8

I. And the leaders of the nornes were Assembled,
and the Abbot Gurder said unto them, Harken to the
Words of the Outsider;

II. And some waxed wroth, saying, He is an
Out-sider, wherefore then shall we harken to him?

III. The Abbot Gurder said, Because the old Abbot
wished it so. Yea, and because I wish it so, also.

IV. Whereupon they grumbled, but were silent.

V. The Outsider said, Concerning the Rumours of
Demolition, I have a Plan.

VI. Let us not go like Woodlice fleeing from an
overturned log, but like Brave Free People, at a
time of our choosing.

VII. And they interrupted him, saying, What's
Woodlice? Whereupon the Outsider said, All right,
Rats.

VIII. Let us take with us the things that we need
to begin our life anew Outside, not in some other
Store, but under the sky. Let us take all nomes,
      The Count de Ironmongri raised an eyebrow.

      'The big smelly things with wheels at each cor-ner?' he said.

      'Yes,' said Masklin. All eyes were on him. He felt himself beginning to
      blush.

      The nome's a fool!' snapped the Duke de Haber-dasheri. 'Even if the
      Store was in danger, and I see no reason, no reason I say, to believe
      it, the idea is quite preposterous.'

      'You see,' said Masklin, beginning to blush, 'there's plenty of room, we
      can take everyone, we can steal books that tell us how to do things-'

      'The mouth moves, the tongue waggles, but no sense comes out,' said
the
   Duke. There was nerv-ous laughter from some of the nomes around
him. Out
   of the corner of his eye Masklin saw Angalo standing by his father, his
   face shining.

    'No offence to the late Abbot,' said one of the lesser lords hesitantly,
    'but I've heard there are other Stores Out There. I mean to say, we must
    have lived somewhere before the Store.' He swal-lowed. 'What I'm get-
ting
    at, if the Store was built in 1905, where did we live in 1904? No
    offence meant.'

      'I'm not talking about going to another Store,' said Masklin. 'I'm
      talking about living free.'

      'And I'm listening to no more of this nonsense. The old Abbot was a
Carry on, young man.

'Well, that's about it,' Masklin admitted. 'I can't plan anything more
until I've found out more things. For example, can you make electric?
Not steal it from the Store, but make it?'

The Count stroked his chin.

'You are asking me to give you departmental secrets?' he said.

'My lord,' said Gurder sharply, 'if we take this desperate step it is
vital that we are open with one another and share our knowledge.'

'That's true,' said Masklin.

'Quite,' said Gurder sternly. 'We must all act for the good of all
nomes.'

Well said,' said Masklin. 'And that's why the Stationeri, for their
part, will teach all nomes who request it to read.'

There was a pause. It was broken by the faint wheezing noise of Gurder
trying not to choke.

'To read-!' he began.

Masklin hesitated. Well, he'd gone this far.

Might as well get it over with. He saw Grimma staring at him.

Women too,' he said.

This time it was the Count who looked sur-prised. The Baroness, on the
      co-operation.

      'Young man,' said the Baroness, 'what you say might be true, but do
      these precious books tell us how one may control one of these lorry
      things?'

   Masklin nodded. He had been ready for this one. Grimma came up be-
hind
   him, dragging a thin. book that was nearly as big as she was. Masklin
   helped her prop it up so they could all see it.

   'See, it's got words on it,' he said proudly. 'I've learned them
   already. They say . ..' he pointed each one out with his spear as he
   said them, '... The . . . High... Way... Code. High Way Code. It's got
   pictures inside. When you learn The High Way Code you can drive. It
says
   so. High Way Code,' he added, uncertainly.

      'And I've been working out what some of the words mean,' said Grimma.

      'And she's been reading some of the words,' Masklin agreed. He could-
n't
      help noticing that this fact interested the Baroness.

      'And that is all there is to it?' said the Count.

      'Er,' said Masklin. He'd been worrying about this himself. He had an
      obscure feeling that it couldn't be as easy as that, but this was no
      time to worry about details that could be sorted out later. What was it
      the Abbot had said? The impor-tant thing about being a leader was not
so
      much being right or wrong as being certain. Being right helped, of
      course.
   'People,' said Masklin simply. 'As many as you can spare. Especially
   the ones you can't spare.

   And they'll need to be fed.'

   The Baroness glanced at the Count. He nodded, so she nodded.

   'I'd just like to ask the young gel,' she said, 'whether she feels all
   right. With this reading, I mean.'

   'I can only do some words,' said Grimma quickly. 'Like Left and Right
   and Bicycle.'

   'And you haven't experienced any feelings of pressure in the head?'
said
   the Baroness carefully.

   'Not really, ma'am.'

   'Hmm. That's extremely interesting,' said the Baroness, staring fixedly
   at Gurder.

   The new Abbot was sitting down now. he began.

   Masklin groaned inwardly. He'd thought it would be difficult, learning
   to drive, learning how a lorry worked, learning to read, but they were,
   well, just tasks. You could see all the difficulties before you started.
   If you worked at them for long enough, then you were bound to suc-
ceed.
   He'd been right. The difficult thing was going to be all the people.

   ***
  The Thing told me, said Masklin. It s some-thing called critical path
  analysis. It means there's always something you should have done first.
  For example, if you want to build a house you need to know how to
make
  bricks, and before you can make bricks you need to know what kind of
  clay to use. And so on.'

   "What's clay?'

   'Don't know.'

   'What're bricks?'

   'Not sure.'

   Well, what's a house?' she demanded.

   'Haven't quite worked it out,' said Masklin. 'But anyway, it's all very
   important. Critical path analysis. And there's something else called
   prog-ress chasing.'

   'What's that?'

   'I think it means shouting at people, "Why hav-en't you done it yet?"'
   Masklin looked down at his feet. 'I think we can get Granny Morkie to do
   that,' he said. 'I don't reckon she will be interested in learning to
   read, but she knows how to shout.'

   'What about me?'

   'I want you to learn to read even more.'

   Why?'
Masklin nodded. 'There you are, then. They don't know, and they don't
even know they don't know. What is it that we don't know? We ought to
read everything that we can. Gurder doesn't like it. He says only the
Stationeri should read. But the

F trouble is, they don't try to understand things.' Gurder had been
furious.

'Reading,' he'd said. 'Every stupid nome coming up here and wearing all
the printing out with looking at it! Why don't you give away all our
skills while you're about it? Why don't we teach everyone to write, eh?'

'We can do that later,' said Masklin mildly.

'What!'

'It isn't so important, you see.'

Gurder thumped the wall. 'Why in the name of Arnold Bros (est. 1905)
didn't you ask my per-'mission first?'

Would you have given it?'

'No!'

'That's why, you see,' said Masklin.

When I said I'd help you I didn't expect this!' shouted Gurder.

'Nor did I!' snapped Masklin.

The new Abbot paused.
   Me? But-

  'You said yourself that you're the best reader.'

  Well, yes, of course, this is the case, but-'

  'Good.'

  They grew used to that word, later. Masklin developed a way of saying it
  that indicated that everything was all sorted out, and there was no
  point in saying anything more.

   Gurder waved his hands wildly. What do you want me to do?' he said.
'How
   many books are there?' said Masklin. 'Hundreds! Thousands!'

  'Do you know what they're all about?' Gurder looked at him blankly. 'Do
  you know what you're saying?' he said.

  'No. But I want to find out.'

  They're about everything! You'd never believe it! They're full of words
  even I don't under-stand!'

  'Can you find a book which tells you how to understand words you don't
  understand?' said Masklin. This is critical path analysis, he thought.
  Gosh, I'm doing it without thinking.

  Gurder hesitated. 'It's an intriguing thought,' he said.

  'I want to find out everything about lorries, and electric, and food,'
  said Masklin. 'And then I want you to find a book about, about...'
  'Ye-ss,' said Masklin uncertainly, 'and it says you have to know The
  High Way Code before you

  can drive. But somehow I get the feeling that it might not be as simple
  as that.'

  'Bargains Galore preserve us!'

  'I hope so,' said Masklin. 'I really do.'

  And then it was time to put it all to the test. It was cold in the lorry
  nest, and stank of all. It

  was also a long way to the ground if they fell off the girder. Masklin
  tried not to look down. There was a lorry below them. It looked much
  bigger indoors. Huge,. red and terrible in the gloom.

  'This is about far enough,' he said. We're right over the sticking-out
  bit where the driver site.'

  The cab,' said Angalo.

  Right. The cab.'

  Angalo had been a surprise. He'd turned up in the Stationery Depart-
ment,
  breathing heavily, his face red, and demanding to be taught to read.

  So he could learn about lorries. They fascinated him.

  'But your father objects to the whole idea,'
     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 Bud-dy. Smoky. Double Egg And Chips And
Beans.
  Yorkiebar. 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 Lorry driver 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 Lorry.'
   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 u8ed 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 polite-ly. 'It's so heavy,
   and I don't expect I'll go outside the lorry 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 spin-
ning
   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 metre 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
   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 lorry. The lorries
   went out, the lorries came back, and it was the considered opinion of
   nomes like Dorcas that they were the same lorries. 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 lorry which 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 lorry 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.
      Chapter 9

      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 Lorry, 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 Outwards v.V-VII


      Masklin 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 hold-
ing
      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
      prob-lem 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 Iron-mongri. He sighed.
Vinto
   was one of the keenest and fastest readers, just not a particularly good
   one, and he tended to get carried away.
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.
(6.5 ft), the shoulder height is about 140cm (4.5 ft), and weight is up
to270kg (600lb). 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 Depart-ment?'

Masklin knew what that was. The subject had come up yesterday, when
Vinto had sug-gested 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 some-where 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.
   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 tele-scope 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 lorry 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 sit-
ting
     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 doubt-fully.

   '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.'

     '"Tisn't our fault,' said a nome. 'There were humans all over the place
     when it came in. We had to wait.'

     'It's no one's fault. Some of you, go around the long way and meet me
     down there. Don't look so upset, it's no one's fault.'

     Except perhaps mine, he thought, as he spun

     around in the darkness. He watched the huge shadowy bulk of the lorry
     slide past him. Some-how, they'd looked smaller outside.

     The floor was greasy with all. He ran under the lorry into a world
     roofed with wires and pipes, far too high to reach, but he poked around
     near one of the benches and came back dragging a length of wire and,
     with great difficulty, bent it into a hook at one end.

     A moment later he was crawling among the pipes. It wasn't hard. Most
of
     the underneath of the lorry seemed to be pipes or wires, and after a
      'Angalo?' he called out, softly.

      There was no answer. He poked around aim-lessly for awhile, and had
      nearly given up when he spotted something in the drifts of fluff and
      paper under the seat. A human would have thought it was just another
      scrap of rubbish. Masklin recog-nized Angalo's coat.

   He looked carefully at the rubbish. It was just possible to imagine
   someone had been lying there, watching. He rummaged among it and
found a
   small sandwich wrapper.

      He took the coat back out with him; there didn't seem to be much else to
      do.

      A dozen nomes were waiting anxiously on the all- soaked floor under
the
      engine. Masklin held out the coat, and shrugged.

      'No sign,' he said. 'He's been there, but he's not there now.'

      'What could have happened to him?' said one of the older nomes.

      Someone behind him said darkly: 'Perhaps the Rain squashed him. Or
he
      was blown away by the fierce Wind.'

      'That's right,' said one of the others. 'There could be dreadful things,
      Outside.'

      'No!' said Masklin. 'I mean, there are dreadful things-'
He stared woodenly at Masklin, and then held out his hands without
saying a word.

Masklln gave him the coat. The Duke turned it over and over, staring at
it. The silence stretched out thinner and thinner, until it almost
hummed.

'I forbade him to go,' said the Duke softly. 'I told him it would be
dangerous. You know, that was foolish of me. It just made him more
determined.' He looked back up at Masklin.

Well?' he said.

'Er?' said Masklin.

'Is my son still alive?'

'Urn. He could be. There's no reason why not.'

The Duke nodded, vaguely.

This is it, thought Masklin. It's all going to end here.

The Duke stared up at the lorry, and then looked around at his guards.

'And these things go Outside, do they?' he said.

'Oh, yes. All the time,' said Masklin.

The Duke made an odd noise in the back of his throat.

'There is nothing Outside,' he said. 'I know this. But my son knew
differently. You think we should go Out. Will I see my son then?'
   truth is that- It s possible, he said, and felt terrible. But it

   was possible.

   'Very well,' said the Duke, his expression unchanged. 'What do you
need?'

   'What?' said Masklin, his mouth dropping open. 'I said, what do you
   need? To make the lorry go Outside?' said the Duke.

   Masklin floundered. 'Well, er, at the moment, I suppose, we need peo-
ple-'

   'How many?' snapped the Duke.

   Masklin's mind raced.

   'Fifty?' he ventured.

   'You shall have them.'

   'But-' Masklin began. The Duke's expression changed now. He no
longer
   looked totally lost and alone. Now he looked his usual angry self.

   'Succeed,' he hissed, and spun on his heel and stalked off.

   That evening fifty Haberdasheri turned up, gawping at the garage and
   acting generally bewil-dered. Gurder protested, but Masklin put all
   those who looked even vaguely capable on to the reading scheme.

   'There's too many!' said Gurder. 'And they're common soldiers, for
   Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s sake!'
'...and she fell down this hole and there was a white rabbit with a
watch, I know about rab-bits, and then she found this little bottle of
stuff that made her BIG, I mean really huge, and then she found some
more stuff which made her really small,' he'd said breathlessly, his
face glowing with enthusiasm, 'so, all we need do is, we just find some
more of the BIG stuff and then one of us can drive the lorry.'

Masklin didn't dare ignore it. If just one nome could be made the size
of a human, it would be easy. He'd told himself that dozens of times. It
had to be worth an effort.

So they'd spent nearly all the night searching the Store for any bottles
labelled 'Drink Me'. Either the Store didn't have it and Gurder wasn't
prepared to accept that, because the Store had Everything Under One
Roof- or it just wasn't real. There seemed to be lots of things in books
that weren't real. It was hard to see why Arnold Bros (est. 1905) had
put so many unreal things in' books.

'So the faithful can tell the difference,' Gurder had said.

Masklin had taken one book himself. It just fitted his box. It was
called A Child's Guide to the Stars and most of it was pictures of the
sky at night. He knew that was real.

He liked to look at it when he had too much to think about. He looked at
it now.

They had names, like Sirius and Rigel or Wolf 359 or Ross 154.

He tried a few on the Thing.

'I do not know the names,' it said.
     'All stars are called The Sun by the people who live nearby. It is
     because they believe them to be important.'

     'Did they - I mean, did we visit many?'

     'I have 94,563 registered as having been visited by nomes.'

     Masklin stared up at the darkness. Big numbers gave him trouble, but
he
     could see that this num-ber was one of the biggest. Bargains Galore! he
     thought, and then felt embarrassed and corrected it to Gosh! All those
     suns, miles apart, and all I have to do is move one lorry!

     Put like that, it seemed ridiculous.


     Chapter 10

     X. When Lo! One returned, saying, I have Gone upon
     Wheels, and I have Seen the Outside.

     XI. And they said to him, What is the Outside?

     XII. And he said, It is Big.

     -- From The Book of Nome, Accounts v.X-XII


   On the fourth day Angalo returned, wild-eyed and grinning like a ma-
niac.

     The nome on guard came running into the department, with Angalo
   Where ve I been? he said. Where ve I been? Where haven t I been,
more
  like. You should see what's out there!'

  'What?' they asked.

  'Everywhere!' be said, his eyes glowing. 'And you know what?'

  'What?' they chorused.

  'I've seen the Store from the outside! It's. . .' he lowered his voice,
  'it's beautiful. All columns and big glass windows full of colour!'

  Now he was the centre of a growing crowd as the news spread.

  'Did you see all the departments?' said a Stationeri.

  'No!'

  'What?'

  'You can't see the departments from outside! It's just one big thing!
  And, and. . .' in the sudden silence he fumbled in his pouch for his
  notebook, which was now a lot fatter, and thumbed through the pages,
  'it's got a great big sign outside it and I copied it down because it's
  not Trucker language and I didn't understand it but this is what it was.'

  He held it up.

  The silence got deeper. Quite a few nomes could read by now.

  The words said CLOSING DOWN SALE.
just had his dad in here, and I had to turf him out after five minutes.

'You got rid of the Duke?' said Masklin. 'But how? He doesn't listen to
anyone!'

'He might be a big nome in the Store,' said Granny in a self-satisfied
tone of voice, 'but he's just an awkward nuisance in a sick-room.'

'I need to talk to him,' said Masklin.

'And I want to talk!' said Angalo, sitting up. 'I want to tell everyone!
There's everything out there! Some of the things I've seen-'

'You just settle down,' said Granny, gently pushing him back into the
pillows. 'And I'm not too happy about rats in here, either.' Bobo's
whiskers could just be seen under the end of the blankets.

'But he's very clean and he's my friend,' said Angalo. 'And you said you
like rats.'

'Rat. I said rat. Not rats,' said Granny. She prodded Masklin. 'Don't
you let him get over-excited,' she commanded.

Masklin sat down by the bed while Angalo talked with wild enthusiasm
about the world outside, like someone who had spent his life with a
blindfold on and had just been allowed to see. He talked about the big
light in the sky, and roads full of lorries, and big things sticking out
of the floor which had green things all over them- 'Trees,' said Masklin.

-and great buildings where things went on the lorry or came off it. It
was at one of these that Angalo got lost. He'd climbed out when it
stopped for a while, to go to the lavatory, and hadn't been able to get
back before the driver returned and drove away. So he'd climbed on to
     -there weren t any Store lorries. Or perhaps there were, but there were
     so many other types he couldn't find one. Eventually he'd camped out
on
     the edge of a lorry park, living on scraps, until by sheer luck one had
     turned up. He hadn't been able to get into the cab, but he had managed
     to climb up a tyre and find a dark place where he had to hold on to
     cables with his hands and knees to stop himself falling off on to the
     rushing road, far below.

     Angalo produced his notebook. It was stained almost black.

     'Nearly lost it,' he said. 'Nearly ate it once, I was so hungry.'

     'Yes, but the actual driving,' Masklin said insistently, with one eye on
     the impatient Granny Morkie. 'How do they do the actual driving?'

     Angalo flicked through the book. 'I made a note somewhere,' he said.
     'Ah, here.' He passed it over.

   Masklin looked at a complicated sketch of levers and arrows and num-
bers.

     '"Turn the key ... one, two . . . press the red button ... one, two ...
     push pedal number one down with the left foot, push big lever left and
up

     one, two. . . let pedal one up gently, push pedal number two down. . ."
     'He gave up. 'What does it all mean?' he said, dreading the answer. He
     knew what it was going to be.

     'It's how you drive a lorry,' said Angalo.

     'Oh. But, er, all these pedals and buttons and levers and things,' said
   he d measured the height of what he called the Gear Lever, which
seemed
   very important. It was five times the height of a nome. And the big
   wheel that moved and seemed to be very important was as wide as
eight
   nomes standing side by side.

   And you had to have keys. Masklin hadn't known about the keys. He
hadn't
   known about anything.

  'I did well, didn't I?' said Angalo. 'It's all in there.'

  'Yes. Yes. You did very well.'

  'You have a good look, it's all in there. All about the
  going-around-corners flasher and the horn,' Angalo went on
  enthusiastically.

  'Yes. Yes, I'm sure it is.'

  'And the go-faster pedal and the go-slower pedal and everything!

  'Only you don't look very pleased.'

  'You've given me a lot to think about, I'm sure.'

  Angalo grabbed him by the sleeve. 'They said there was only one Store,'
  he said urgently. 'There isn't, there's so much outside, so much.
  There's other Stores. I saw some. There could be nomes living in 'em!
  Life in other Stores! Of course, you know.'

  'You get some more sleep,' said Masklin, as kindly as he could manage.
anyway.

'Madam, I assure you he'll be well looked after!' he was saying.

'Humph! Wotdo you people know about doctrin'? You hardly ever have
anything go wrong here! Where I come from,' said Granny, proudly, 'it's
sick, sick, sick all year round. Colds and sprains and bellyache and
bites the whole time. That's what you call experience. I reckon I've
seen more ifi people than you've had hot dinners and,' she prodded the
Duke in the stomach, 'you've had a few of those.'

'Madam, I could have you imprisoned!' roared the Duke.

Granny sniffed. 'And what has that got to do with it?' she said.

The Duke opened his mouth to roar back, and then caught sight of
Masklin. He shut it again.

'Very well,' he said. 'You are, in fact, quite right. But I will visit
him every day.'

'No longer than two minutes, mind,' sniffed Granny.

'Five!' said the Duke.

'Three,' said Granny.

'Four,' they agreed.

The Duke nodded, and beckoned Masklin towards him.

'You have spoken to my son,' he said.
     with importance and authority. It had gone now.

     The Duke looked worried and uncertain. 'Ah,' he said, looking
     approximately at Mask-lin's left ear. 'I think I sent you some people,
     didn't I?'

     'Yes.'

     'Satisfactory, are they?'

     'Yes, sir.'

     'Let me know if you need any more help, won't you? Any help at all.' The
     Duke's voice faded to a mumble. He patted Masklin vaguely on the
     shoul-der and wandered away.

     'What's up with him?' said Masklin. Granny Morkie started to roll
     bandages in a businesslike way. No one needed them, but she believed
in
     having a good supply. Enough for the whole world, apparently.

     'He's having to think,' she said. 'That always worries people.'

     'I just never thought it would be as hard as this!'

     Masklin wailed.

   'You mean you didn't have any idea how we can drive one?' said Gur-
der.

     'None at all?' said Grimma.
The cardboard door slid open and a small, cheerful face appeared.

'You'll like this one, Mr Masklin,' he said, 'I've been doing some more
reading.'

'Not now, Vinto. We're a bit busy,' said Masklin. Vinto's face fell.

'Oh, you might as well listen to him,' said Grimma. 'It's not as if
we've got anything more important to do now.'

Masklin hung his head.

'Well, lad,' said Gurder, with forced cheerfulness, 'what idea have you
come with this time, eh? Pul-ling the lorry with wild hamsters, eh?'

'No, sir,' said Vinto.

'Maybe you think we could make it grow wings and fly away in the sky?'

'No, sir. I found this book, it's how to capture humans, sir. And then
we can get a gnu-'

Masklin gave the others a sick little smile.

'I explained to him that we can't use humans,' he said. 'I told you,
Vinto. And I'm really not cer-tain about threatening people with
antelopes-'

With a grunt of effort, the boy swung the book open.

'It's got a picture in it, sir.'
Masklin stared.

'Yes, you're a good boy, well done,' said Gurder, his voice sounding far
off. 'Thank you very much, Vinto, and now please go away.'

Masklin stared. His mouth dropped open. He felt the ideas fizz up inside
him and slosh into his head.

'The ropes,' he said.

'It's just a picture,' said Gurder.

'The ropes! Grimma, the ropes!'

'The ropes?'

Masklin raised his fists and stared up at the ceiling. At times like
this, it was almost possible to believe that there was someone up there,
above Kiddies Klothes.

'I can see the way!' he shouted, while the three of them watched in
astonishment. 'I can see the way! Arnold Bros (est. 1905), I can see
the way!'

After Closing Tune that evening several dozen small and stealthy
figures crept across the garage floor and disappeared under one of the
parked lorries. Anyone listening would have heard the occasional tiny
clink, thud or swear word. After ten minutes they were in the cab.

They stood in wonder, looking around. :Masklin wandered over to one of
the pedals,

which was taller than he was, and gave it an experimental push. It
   'What d'you think?' he said.

   Dorcas rubbed his nose. 'It's all down to levers and pulleys,' he said.
   'Amazing things, levers. Give me a lever long enough, and a firm
enough
   place to stand, and I could move the Store.'

   'Just one of these pedals would be enough for now,' said Masklin
   politely.

   Dorcas nodded. 'We'll give it a try,' he said. 'All right, lads. Bring
   it up.'

   A length of wood, carried all the way down from the Home Handyman
   Department, was nomehandled into the cab. Dorcas ambled around,
   measuring distances with a piece of thread, and finally had them wedge
   one end into a crack in the metal floor. Four nomes lined up at the
   other end and hauled the wood across until it was resting on the lever.

   'Right, lads,' said Dorcas again.

   They pushed down. The pedal went all the way to the floor. There was a
   ragged cheer.

   'How did you do that?' said Masklin.

   'That's levers for you,' said Dorcas. '0-kay.' He looked around,
   scratching his chin. 'So we'll need three levers.' He looked up at the
   great circle of the steering wheel. 'You have any ideas about that?' he
   said.

   'I thought ropes,' said Masklin.
  thought, someone could stand right up there, by the big window in the
  front, and sort of tell them what to do?' said Masklin, looking
  hopefully at the old nome.

  'These're powerful noisy things, young Angalo said,' said Dorcas. He
  scratched his chin again. 'I reckon I can do something about that. Then
  there's this big lever here, the Beer Lever-'

  'Gear Lever,' said Masklin.

  'Ah. Ropes again?'

  'I thought so,' said Masklin earnestly. 'What do you think?'

  Dorcas sucked in his breath. 'We-ell,' he said. 'What with teams pulling
  the wheel, and teams shifting the Gear Lever, and people working the
  pedals with levers, and someone up there telling them all what to do,
  it's going to take a powerful lot of practising. Supposing I rig up all
  the tackle, all the ropes and such: how many nights will we have to
  practise? You know, get the hang of it?'

  'Including the night we, er, leave?'

  'Yes,' said Dorcas.

  'One,' said Masklin.

   Dorcas sniffed. He stared upwards for a while, bumming under his
breath.

  'It's impossible,' he said.
   Dorcas hummed under his breath again. Mask-lin got the impression
that
   he always did that if he was going to break some bad news.

   'Well, laddie,' he said, 'I'm six, I've seen a lot of people, and I've
   got to tell you, if you lined up ten nomes and shouted "Pull!", four of
   them would push and two of them would say "Pardon?" That's how
people
   are. It's just nomish nature.'

   He grinned at Masklin's crestfallen expression. 'What you ought to do,'
   he said, 'is find us a little lorry. To practise on.'

   Masklin nodded gloomily.

   'And,' said Dorcas, 'have you thought again about how you're going to
   get everyone on? Two thousand nomes, mind. Plus all this stuff we're
   taking. You can't have old grannies and little babbies shinning up ropes
   or crawling through holes, can you?'

   Masklin shook his head. Dorcas was watching him with his normal mild
   grin.

   This nome, Masklin thought, knows his stuff. But if I say to him leave
   it all to me, he'll leave it all to me, just to serve me right. Oh,
   critical path analysis! Why is it always people?

   'Have you got any ideas?' he said. 'I really would appreciate your help.'

   Dorcas gave him a long thoughtful look, and then patted him on the
   shoulder.

   'I've been looking around this place,' he Said.
were concerned, though, life was going on as normal.

In fact the Store was, if anything, busier than usual

Of all the family heads, only the Count seemed at all willing to take an
interest, and Masklin suspected that even he didn't really think the
Store was going to end. It just meant that the Ironmongri could learn to
read and it annoyed the Haberdasheri, which amused the Count. Even
Gurder didn't seem so sure as he had been.

Masklin went back to his box and slept, and woke up an hour later.

The terror had started.


Chapter 11

Run to the Lifts
Lifts, won't you carry me?
Run to the Walls,
Walls, won't you hide me?
Run to the Lorry,
Lorry, won't you take me?
All on that Day.
-- From The Book of Nome, Exits Chap. 1, v.I


It started with silence when there should have been noise. All the nomes
were used to the dis-tant thumping and murmuring of the humans during
the long daylight hours, so they didn't notice it. Now it was gone they
could hear the strange, oppressive silence. There were days, of course,
when humans didn't come into the Store for instance, Arnold Bros (est.
   floor level.

   Emptiness stretched away between the familiar counters. And there
didn't
   seem to be much stock around.

   'It's always like this after a Sale,' they said. 'And then, before you
   know where you are, all the shelves are filled up again. Nothing to get
   upset about at all. It's all part of Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s great
   plan.'

   And they sat in silence, or hummed a little tune, or found something to
   occupy their minds, to stop thinking unpleasant thoughts. It didn't work.

   And then, when the humans came in and started taking the few things
that
   were left off the shelves and counters, and piling them in great boxes
   and taking them down to the garage and loading them on to the lorries...

   And started taking up the floorboards...

   Masklin awoke. People were prodding him. Somewhere in the distance
other
   people were shouting. It was somehow familiar.

   'Get up, quickly!' said Gurder.

   What's happening?' said Masklin, yawning.

   'Humans are taking the Store to bits!'

   Masklin sat bolt upright.
   It s starting now!

  'This is probably the removal of remaining stock to new premises, and
  preliminary works,' said the Thing.

  'Oh, good. That should make everyone feel a lot better. Why didn't you
  tell us?'

  '1 was not aware you did not know.'

  'Well, we didn't. So what do you suggest we. do now?'

  'Leave as soon as possible.'

   Masklin snarled. He bad expected two more weeks to solve all the
   problems. They could have stockpiled stuff to take with them. They
could:

   have made proper plans. Even two weeks was hardly long enough. Now
even
   the thought of one week was a luxury.

  He went out into the milling, disorganized crowd. Fortunately the boards
  hadn't been taken up in an inhabited area - some of the more sensible
  refugees said that only a few had been taken up in the far end of the
  Gardening Department, so the humans could get at the water pipes but
  nomes living nearby were taking no chances.

  There was a thump overhead. A few minutes later a breathless nome
  arrived and reported that the carpets were being rolled up and taken
  away.

  That caused a terrified silence. Masklin realized that they were all
But we were - you said we should take as much as we could from the
Store, all the wire and tools and things. And books,' said Gurder.

We'll be lucky if we can just take ourselves. There's no time!'

Another messenger came running up. It was one of Dorcas's group. He
whispered something to Masklin, who gave a strange smile.

'Can it be that Arnold Bros (est. 1905) has abandoned us in our hour of
need?' said Gurder.

'I don't think so. He may be helping us,' said Masklin. 'Because, well,
you'll never guess where the humans are putting all this stuff...'


Chapter 12

I. And the Outsider said, Glory to the Name of
Arnold Bros (est. 1905).

II. For he hath Sent us a Lorry, and the Humans
are loading it now with all manner of Things
needful to nomes. It is a Sign. Everything Must
Go. Includ-ing us.

-- From The Book of Nome, Exits Chap. 2, v.I-II


Half an hour later Masklin lay on the girder with Dorcas, looking down
at the garage.

He had never seen it so busy. Humans sleep-walked across the floor,
carrying bundles of carpet into the backs of some of the lorries. Yellow
   'Could be. It's mostly carpets at the moment, and some of the big
   frozen humans from Fash-ions.'

   Masklin made a face. According to Gurder, the big pink humans that
stood
   in Fashions, and Kid-dies Klothes, and Young Living, and never moved
at
   all, were those who had incurred Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s displeasure.
   They had been turned into horrible pink stuff, and some said they could
   even be taken apart. But certain Klothian philosophers said no, they
   were particularly good humans, who had been allowed to stay in the
Store
   for ever and not made to disappear at Closing Time. Religion was very
   hard to understand.

   As Masklin watched, the big roller door creaked upwards and a lorry
   nearby started with a roar and ground slowly out into the blinding
   day-light.

   What we need,' he said, 'is a lorry with a lot of stuff from the
   Ironmongery Department. Wire, you know, and tools and things. Have
you
   seen any food?'

   'Looked like a lot of stuff from the Food Hall on the first lorry out,'
   said Dorcas.

   'We'll have to make do, then.'

   'What'll I do,' said Dorcas slowly, 'if they load it all up on a lorry
   and drive it away? They're working powerful fast, for humans.'
      Dorcas grinned. 'I'll find a way. The lads are getting used to this
      place.'

      Refugees were flowing into the Ironmongery Department from all over
the
   Store, filling all the space under the floor with a frightened buzz of
   whispered conversation. Many of them looked up as Masklin walked
past,
   and what he saw in their faces terrified him.

      They believe I can help, he thought. They're looking at me as if I'm
      their only hope.

   And I don't know what to do. Probably none of it will work, we should
   have had more time. He forced himself to look brimful of confidence,
and
   it seemed to satisfy people. All they wanted to know was that someone,
   somewhere, knew what they were doing. Masklin wondered who it was;
it
   certainly wasn't him.

    The news was bad from everywhere. A lot of the Gardening Department
had
    been cleared. Most of the Clothes departments were empty. The coun-
ters
    were being ripped out of Cosmetics, although fortunately not many
nomes
    lived there. Masklin could hear, even here, the thud and crunch of the
    work going on.

      Finally he could stand it no longer. Too many people kept staring at
      him. He went back down to the garage, where Dorcas was still watching
    We ve got to stop them driving it out! said Masklin. Dorcas grinned.

    'The machinery that raises the door won't work,' he said. 'The fuse has
    gone.'

    What's a fuse?' said Masklin.

    Dorcas picked up a long, thick red bar lying by his feet. 'This is,' he
    said.

    'You took it?'

    'Tricky job, we had to tie a bit of string round it. Made a powerful
    big spark when we pulled it out.'

    'But I expect they can put another one in,' said Masklin.

    'Oh, they did,' said Dorcas, with a self-satisfied expression. 'They're
    not daft. Didn't work though, because after we took the fuse out the
    lads went and cut the wires inside the wall in a couple of places. Very
    dangerous, but it'll take the humans for ever to find it.'

    'Hmm. But supposing they lever the door up?'

    'Won't do them any good. It's not as if the lorry will go, anyway.'

    'Why not?'

    Dorcas pointed downwards. Masklin watched, and after a moment saw
a
    couple of small figures scurry out from under the lorry and dive into
    the shadows by the wall. They were carrying a pair of pliers.
      'Temper, temper,' said Dorcas mildly.

      'You've thought of just about everything,' said Masklin, admiringly.

   'I hope so,' said Dorcas. 'But we'd better make sure, hadn't we.' He
   stood up and produced a large white flag, which he waved over his
head.
   There was an answering flicker of white from the shad-ows on the far
   side of the garage.

      And then the lights went out.

      'Useful thing, electricity,' said Dorcas, in the darkness. There was a
      rumble of annoyance from the humans below, and then a jangling noise
as
      one of them walked into something. After some grunting and a few more
      thuds, one of the humans found a doorway out into the basement, and
the
      rest of them followed it.

      'Don't you think they'll suspect something?' said Masklin.

      'There's other humans working in the Store, they'll probably think they
      caused it,' said Dorcas.

      'That electricity is amazing stuff,' said Masklin. 'Can you make it? The
      Count de Ironmongri was very mysterious about it.'

      'That's because the Ironmongri don't know any-thing,' sniffed Dorcas.
      'Just how to steal it. I can't seem to get the hang of the reading
      business, but young Vinto has been looking at books for me. He says
      making electricity is very simple. You just need to get hold of some
Masklin finished putting his possessions, such as they were, in a bag.

'When we leave,' he said, 'you won't be able to talk, will you? You need
electricity to drink.'

'That is the case, yes.'

'Can't you tell us which way we should go?'

'No. However, I detect radio traffic indicative of airline activity to
the north of here.'

Masklin hesitated. 'That's good, is it?'

'It means there are flying machines.'

'And we can fly all the way home?' said Masklin. 'No. But they may be
the next step. it may be possible to communicate with the starship. But
first, you must ride the lorry.'

'After that, I should think anything is possible,' said Masklin
gloomily. He looked expectantly at the Thing, and then noticed with
horror that its lights were going off, one by one.

'Thing!'

'When you are successful, we will talk again,' said the Thing.

'But you're supposed to help us!' said Masklin. 'I suggest you consider
deeply the proper mean-ing of the word "help",' said the box. 'Either
you are intelligent nomes, or just clever animals. It's up to you to
find out which.'
If anything, the box got darker. Masklin stared at it.

Then he thought: it's all very well for it. Every-one's relying on me.
I've got no one to rely on. I wonder if the old Abbot felt like this? I
wonder how he stood it for so long? It's always me who has to do
everything, no one ever thinks about me or what I want...

The shabby cardboard door swung aside and Grimma stepped in.

She looked from the darkened Thing to Mask-lin.

'They're asking for you out there,' she said quietly. 'Why is the Thing
all dark?'

'It just said goodbye! It said it won't help any more!' Masklin wailed.
'It just said we have to prove we can do things for ourselves and it
will speak to us when we're successful! What shall I do?'

I know what I could do, he thought. I could do with a cool flannel. I
could do with a bit of under-standing. I could do with a bit of
sympathy. Good old Grimma. You can rely on her.

What you'll do,' she said sharply, 'is jolly well stop moping and getup
and go out there and get things organized!'

'Wha-'

'Sort things out! Make new plans! Give people orders! Get on with it!'

'But-'

'Do it now!' she snapped.
      He lurched past. She tapped him on the shoul-der.

      'And learn to listen,' she added.

      'Eh? What do you mean?'

      'The Thing's a sort of thinking machine, isn't it? That's what Dorcas
      said. Well, machines say exactly what they mean, don't they?'

      'Yes, I suppose so, but-'

      Grimma gave him a bright, triumphant smile.

      'Well, it said "When",' she said. 'Think about it. It could have said
      "If ".'

  Night came. Masklin thought the humans were never going to leave.
One of
  them, with a torch and a box of tools, spent a long time examining fuse
  boxes and peering at the wiring in the base-ment. Now at last even it
  was gone, grumbling and slamming the door behind it.

      After a little while, the lights came on in the garage.

      There was a rustling in the walls, and then a dark tide flowed out from
      under benches. Some of the young nomes in the lead carried hooks on
the
      end of thread lines, which they swung up to the lorry's covers. They
      caught, one after another, and the nomes swarmed up them.

      Other nomes brought thicker string, which was tied to the ends of the
      thread and gradually dragged upwards...
   When he turned around and saw Masklin he made as if to hide his
hands
   behind his back, and then thought better of it. Both of them were thrust
   into what Masklin could now see were the fingers cut out of rubber
   gloves.

     'Ah,' said Dorcas, 'didn't know you were there. Bit of a trade secret,
     see? Electricity can't abide

     rubber. It stops the stuff from biting you.' He ducked as a team of
     nomes swung a long wooden beam across the cab and started to fasten
it
     to the gear lever.

     'How long's it going to take?' shouted Masklin, as another team ran past
     dragging a ball of string. There was quite a din in the cab now, and
     threads and bits of wood were moving in every direction in

     what he hoped was an organized way.

     'Could be an hour, maybe,' said Dorcas, and added, not unkindly, 'We'd
     get on quicker without people in the way.'

   Masklin nodded, and explored the rear of the cab. The lorry was old,
and
   he found another hole for a bundle of wires which, at a squeeze, would
   take a nome as well. He crawled out into the open air and then found
   another gap which let him into the rear of the lorry.

     The first nomes aboard had dragged up one end of a thin piece of wood,
     which was acting as a gangplank. The rest were scrambling up it now.

     Masklin had put Granny Morkie in charge of this. The old woman had a
   gratefully into the shadows of the cargo.

   'Everyone had better try to find somewhere soft to lie down,' said
   Masklin. 'It could be a rough journey. And you must send all the
   strongest nomes up towards the cab. We're going to need everyone we
can
   get, believe me.'

  She nodded, and then shouted at a family that was blocking the gang-
way.

   Masklin looked down at the endless stream of people climbing into the
   lorry, many of them'

   staggering under the weight of possessions.

   Funny, but now he felt he'd done everything he could. Everything was
   ticking over like a, like a, like something that went tick. Either all
   the plans would work, or they wouldn't. Either the nomes could act
   together, or they couldn't.

   He recalled the picture of Gulliver. It probably wasn't real, Gurder had
   said. Books often had things in them that weren't really real. But it
   would be nice to think that nomes could agree on something long
enough
   to be like the little people in the book...

   'Well, it's all going well, then,' he said vaguely.

   Well enough.' Granny nodded.

   'It would be a good idea if we found out exactly what was in all these
  Dorcas's nomes had already built a wooden platform above the steering
  wheel and right in front of the big window. Dorcas himself was back
down
  on the floor of the cab, drilling the driving teams.

   'Right!' he shouted. 'Give me. . . First Gear!'

   'Pedal Down ... two, three ...' chorused the team on the clutch pedal.

   'Pedal Up. . . two, three.. .' shouted the accel-erator team.

   'Lever Up. . . two, three. . .' echoed the nomes by the gear lever.

   'Pedal Up ... two, three, four!' the leader of the clutch team threw
   Dorcas a salute. 'Gear all changed, sir!' he shouted.

   'That was terrible. Really terrible,' said Dorcas. What's happened to
   the accelerator team, eh? Get that pedal down!'

   'Sorry, Dorcas.'

  Masklin tapped Dorcas on the shoulder. 'Keep doing it!' Dorcas
  commanded. 'I want you dead smooth all the way up to fourth. Yes?
What?
  Oh, it's you.'

   'Yes, it's me. Everyone's nearly on,' said Mask-lin. 'When will you be
   ready?'

   'This lot won't be ready ever.'

   'Oh.'
      Semaphore, said Dorcas firmly. Semaphore?

      'Signalling with flags. You just tell my lad up on the platform what you
      want done, and I'll watch the signals. If we'd had one more week I
      reckon I could have rigged up some sort of telephone.'

      'Flags,' said Masklin. Will that work?'

      'It'd better, hadn't it. We can give it a try later on.'

      And now it was later on. The last nome scouts had climbed aboard. In
the
      back of the lorry most of the people made themselves as comfortable as
      possible and lay, wide awake, in the darkness.

   Masklin was up on the platform with Angalo, Gurder and the Thing.
Gurder
   knew even less about lorries than Masklin, but it was felt best to have
   him there, just in case. After all, they were stealing Arnold Bros (est.
   1905)'s lorry. Someone might have to do some explaining. But he'd
drawn
   the line about having Bobo in the cab. The rat was back with everyone
   else.

  Grimma was there, too. Gurder asked her what she was doing there.
She
  asked him what he was doing there. They both looked at Masklin.

   'She can help me with the reading,' he said, secretly relieved. He
   wasn't, despite lots of effort, all that good at it. There seemed to be
   a knack he couldn't get the hang of. Grimma, on the other hand,
seemed
   to do it now without thinking. If her brain was exploding, it was doing
He looked enquiringly at Angalo, who shrugged.

'I don't know anything about that,' he said. 'My driver used to look at
it, but I don't know why.'

'Do you have to look for anything special? I mean, perhaps you have to
make a face in it or something,' said Masklin.

Whatever it is, we'd better do things properly,' said Gurder firmly. He
pointed. 'There's a mirror up there, near the ceiling.'

'Daft place to put it,' said Masklin. He managed to hook it with a
grapnel and, after some effort, pulled himself up to it.

'Can you see anything?' Gurder called out.

'Just me.'

Well, come on back down. You've done it, that's the main thing.'

Masklin slid back down to the decking, which wobbled under him.

Grimma peered at the Code.

'Then you've got to signal your intentions,' she' said. 'That's clear,
anyway. Signaller?'

One of Dorcas's assistants stepped forward a bit uncertainly, holding
his two white flags carefully downwards.

'Yes, sir ma'am?' he said.
     'Well, then,' said Masklin. 'This 'is it, then.'

     'Yes,' said Gurder, glaring at Grimma. 'Is there anything we've
     forgotten?'

     'Lots of things, probably,' said Masklin.

     'Too late now, at any rate,' said Gurder.

     'Yes.'

     'Yes.'

     'Right then.'

     'Right.'

     They stood in silence for a moment.

     'Shall you give the order, or shall I?' said Masklin.

     'I was wondering whether to ask Arnold Bros (est. 1905) to watch over
us
     and keep us safe,' said Gurder. 'After all, we may be leaving the Store
     but this is still his lorry.' He grinned wretchedly, and sighed. 'I wish
     he'd give us some sort of sign,' he said, 'to show he approved.'

   'Ready when you are, up there!' shouted Dorcas. Masklin went to the
edge
   of the platform and leaned on the flimsy rail.
He walked back and looked out into the bright emptiness of the garage.
There were a few other lorries parked against the opposite wall, and one
or two of the small yellow loading trucks stood where the humans had
left them. To think he'd once called it a lorry nest! Garage, that was
the word. It was amazing, the feeling you got from knowing the right
names. You felt in control. It was as if knowing what the right name was
gave you a sort of lever.

There was a whirring noise from somewhere in, front of them, and then
the platform shook to a thunder roll. Unlike thunder, it didn't die
away. The engine had started.

Masklin grabbed hold of the rail before he was shaken off, and felt
Angalo tug on his sleeve.

'It always sounds like this!' he shouted above the din. 'You get used to
it after a while!'

'Good!' It wasn't a noise. It was too loud to be called a noise. It was
more like solid air.

'I think we'd better practise a bit! To get the hang of it! Shall I tell
the signaller that we want to move forward very slowly?'

Masklin nodded grimly. The signaller thought for a moment, and then
waved his flags.

Masklin could distantly hear Dorcas yelling orders. There was a grinding
noise, followed by a jolt that almost knocked him over. He managed to
land on his hands and knees, and looked into Gurder's frightened face.

We're moving!' shouted the Stationeri.
  'But we're going backward! Signal them to go forward!'

  The signaller scrabbled for his other flag and waved frantically at the
  teams below.

  'No, don't signal forward, just signal them to sto-' Masklin began.

  There was a sound from the far end of the lor-ry. The only word to
  describe it was 'crunch', but that's far too short and simple a word to
  describe the nasty, complicated, metallic noise and the jolt that threw
  Masklin on his stomach again. The engine stopped.

  The echoes died away.

  'Sorree!' Dorcas called out, in the distance. They heard him talking in
  a low, menacing voice to the teams: 'Satisfied? Satisfied, are we? When
  I said move the Gear Lever up and left and up I meant up 'and left and
  up, not up and right and up! Right?'

  'Your right or our right, Dorcas?'

  'Any right!' 'No, but-'

  'Don't you but me!'

  'Yes, but-'

    Masklin and the others sat down as the argu-ment skidded back and
forth
    below them. Gurder was still lying on the planks.

  We actually moved!' he was whispering. 'Arnold Bros (est. 1905) was
'I shouldn't bother,' said Angalo. 'Let's just go forwards. And as soon
as possible, I think. I can smell dies-all. We must have knocked over
some drums of it or something.'

'That's bad, is it?' said Masklin.

'It burns,' said Angalo. 'It just needs a spark or something to set it
off.'

The engine roared into life again. This time they did inch forward,
after some grinding noises, and rolled across the floor until the lorry
was in front of the big steel door. It stopped with a slight jerk.

'Like to try a few practice turns,' shouted Dorcas. 'Smooth out a few
rough edges!'

'I really think it would be a very bad idea to stay here,' said Angalo
urgently.

'You're right,' said Masklin. 'The sooner we get out of here the better.
Signal Dorcas to open the door.'

The signaller hesitated. 'I don't think we've got a signal for that,' he
said. Masklin leaned over the rail.

'Dorcas!'

'Yes?'

'Open the door! We've got to get out now!'

The distant figure cupped his hand to its ear.
'Oh. Good.'

'Come on!' shouted Masklin. Dorcas's reply was lost in the din from the
engine.

'What?' shouted Masklin.

'What?'

'What did you say?'

'I said, in all this rush I clean forgot about the door!'

'What'd he say?' said Gurder.

Masklin turned and looked at the door. Dorcas had been very proud of
the way he'd stopped it opening. Now it had an extremely closed look If
something with no face could look smug, the door had managed it.

He turned back in exasperation, and also in time to see the small door
to the rest of the Store swing slowly open. There was a figure there,

behind a little circle of sharp white light.

His terrible torch, Masklin thought again.

It was Prices Slashed.

Masklin felt his mind begin to think very clearly and slowly.

It's just a human, it said. It's nothing scary. Just a human, with its
name on it in case it forgets who it is, like all those female humans in
   It s a cigarette. I ve seen humans with it before. What about it? said
   Masklin.

   'It's alight,' said Angalo. 'Do you think it can't even smell the
   dies-all?'

   'What happens if it catches alight, then?' said Masklin, suspecting that
   he knew the answer.

   'It goes whoomph,' said Angalo.

   'Just whoomph?'

   'Whoomph is enough.'

  The human came nearer. Masklin could see its eyes now. Humans
weren't
  very good at seeing nomes even when they were standing still, but even
a
  human would wonder why a lorry was driving itself around its garage in
  the middle of the night.

   Security arrived at the cab and reached out slowly for the door-handle.
   His torch shone in through the side window, and at that moment Gurder
   reared up, trembling with rage.

   'Begone, foul fiend!' he yelled,' illuminated as by a spotlight. 'Heed
   ye the Signs of Arnold Bros (est. 1905)! No Smoking! Exit This Way!'

   The human's face wrinkled in ponderous aston-ishment and then, as
slowly
   as the drift of clouds, became an expression of panic. It let go of the
   door-handle, turned, and began to head for the little door at what, for
   'What's going on?' shouted Dorcas. 'What about the door?'

   'We'll open the door! We'll open the door!' shouted Masklin.

   'How?'

   'Well, it didn't look very thick, did it?'

   The world of nomes is, to humans, a rapid world. They live so fast that
   the things that happen around them seem quite slow, so the lorry
seemed
   to drift across the floor, up the ramp and hit the door in a leisurely
   way. There was a long-drawn-out boom and the noise of bits of metal
   being torn apart, a scraping noise across the roof of the cab, and then
   there was no door at all, only darkness studded with lights.

   'Left! Go left!' Angalo screamed.

   The lorry skidded around slowly, bounced lazily off a wall, and rolled a
   little way down the street.

   'Keep going! Keep going! Now straighten up!'

   A bright light that shone briefly on the wall outside the cab.

   And then, behind them, a sound like 'whoomph'.


   Chapter 13

   I. Arnold Bros (est. 1905) said, A1t~ is now
   Fin-ished;
    Later on, when the next chapters of The Book of Nome came to be
written,
    they said the end of the Store started with a bang. This wasn't true,
    but was put in because bang sounded more impressive. In fact, the ball
    of yellow and orange fire that rolled out of the garage, carrying the
    remains of the door with it, just made a noise like a giant dog gently
    clearing its throat.

   Whoomph.

   The nomes weren't in a position to take much notice of it at the time.
   They were more con-cerned with the noise made by other things nearly
   hitting them.

    Masklin had been prepared for other vehicles on the road. The High
Way
    Code had a lot to say about it. It was important not to drive into them.
    What was worrying him was the way they seemed determined to run
into the
    lorry. They emitted long blaring noises, like sick cows.

   'Left a bit!' Angalo shouted. 'Then right just a smidgen, then go
   straight!'

   'Smidgen?' said the signaller, slowly. 'I don't think I know a code for
   smidgen. Could we-'

   'Slow! Now left a bit! We've got to get on the right side of the road!'

   Grimma peered over the top of The High Way Code.

   'We are on the right side,' she said.
   lorry hit it sideways on and bounced back on to the road in a shower of
   glass.

   'Now left, now left, now right, right! Straight! Left, I said left!'
   Angalo peered at the bewildering pattern of lights and shapes in front
   of them.

   'There's another road here,' he said. 'Left! Give me left! Lots and lots
   of left! More left than that. ... !'

   'There's a sign,' said Masklin, helpfully.

   'Left!' shrieked Angalo. 'Now right. Right! Right!'

   'You wanted left,' said the signaller accusingly.

   'And now I want right! Lots of right! Duck!'

   'We haven't got a signal for-'

   This time 'whoomph' wouldn't have done. It was definitely 'bang'. The
   lorry hit a wall, ground along it in a spray of sparks, rolled into a
   pile of dustbins and stopped.

   There was silence, except for the hissing sounds and pink, pink noises
   from the engine.

   Then Dorcas's voice came up from the dark-ness, slow and full of men-
ace.

   'Would you mind telling us down here,' it said, 'what you're doing up
   there?'
      'Not quite,' said Masklin. We've stopped to, er, sort out a few things.
      While they're doing that I think we'd better go back and check that
      everyone's all right. They must be getting pretty worried. You come too,
      Grimma.'

      They climbed down and left Angalo and Dorcas deep in argument about
      steering, lights, clear instructions and the need for a proper supply of
      all three.

      There was a gabble of voices in the back of the lorry, mixed with the
      crying of babies. Quite a few nomes had been bruised by the throwing
      about, and Granny Morkie was tying a splint to the broken leg of a nome
      who had been caught by a falling box when they hit the wall.

      Wee bit rougher than the last time,' she com-mented drily, tying a knot
      in the bandage. 'Why've we stopped?'

      'Just to sort out a few things,' said Masklin, trying to sound more
      cheerful than he felt. We'll be moving again soon. Now that everyone
      knows what to expect.' He gazed down at the dark shadowy length of
the
      lorry, and inquisitiveness overcame him.

      'While we're waiting, I'm going to take a look outside,' he said.

      'What on earth for?' said Grimma.

      'Just to, you know, look around,' said Masklin awkwardly. He nudged
      Gurder. 'Want to come?' he said.

      'What? Outside? Me?' The Stationeri looked ter-rified,
  was damp, and a fine spray hung in the air. Masklin breathed deeply.
  This was outside, all right. Real air, with a slight chill to it. It
  smelled fresh, not as though it had been breathed by thousands of
nomes
  before him.

  'The sprinklers have come on,' said Gurder.

  'The what?'

  'The sprinklers,' said Gurder. 'They're in the ceiling, you know, in
  case of f.' He stopped, and looked up. 'Oh, my,' he said.

  'I think you mean the rain,' said Masklin.

  'Oh, my.'

  'It's just water coming out of the sky,' said Masklin. He felt something
  more was expected of him. 'It's wet,' he added, 'and you can drink it.
  Rain. You don't have to have pointy heads. It just rolls off anyway.'

  'Oh, my.'

  'Are you all right?'

  Gurder was trembling. 'There's no roof!' he moaned. 'And it's so big!'

  Masklin patted him on the shoulder.

  'Of course, all this is new to you,' he said. 'You mustn't worry if you
  don't understand everything.'

  'You're secretly laughing at me, aren't you!' said Gurder.
from one edge of the world to the other.

'Oh,' said Gurder weakly. 'Well, I think this will be enough outside to
be going on with. Very good.'

Masklin turned and looked up at the lorry. It was almost wedged in an
alleyway littered with rubbish. There was a large dent in the end of it.

The opening at the far end of the alley was bright with street lights in
the drizzle. As he watched, a vehicle swished by with a blue light
flashing. It was singing. He couldn't think of any other word to
describe it.

'How odd,' said Gurder.

'It used to happen sometimes at home,' said Masklin. It was secretly
rather pleasing, after all this time, to be the one who knew things~
'You'd hear ones go along the motorway like that. Dee-dah dee-dah
DEE-DAH DEE-DAH dee-dah. I think it's just to get people to get out of
the way.'

They crept along the gutter and craned to look over the pavement at the
corner, just as another bawling car hurtled past.

'Oh, Bargains Galore!' said Gurder, and put his hands over his mouth.

The Store was on fire.

Flames fluttered at some of the upper windows like curtains in a breeze.
A pall of smoke rose gently from the roof and made a darker column
against the rainy sky.

The Store was having its last sale. It was hold-ing a Grand Final
his voice level.

'It's. . . it's not how I imagined it,' he croaked.

'No,' said Masklin.

'We. . . we got out just in time.'

'Yes.'

Gurder coughed. It was as if he'd just had a long debate with himself
and had reached a deci-sion. 'Thanks to Arnold Bros (est. 1905),' he
said firmly.

Pardon?'

Gurder stared at Masklin's face. 'If he hadn't called you to the Store,
we'd all still be in there,' he said, sounding more confident with every
word.

'But-' Masklin paused. That didn't make any sense. If they hadn't left,
there wouldn't have been a fire. Would there? Hard to be sure. Maybe
some fire had got out of a fire bucket. Best not to argue. There were
some things people weren't happy to argue about, he thought. It was all
very puzzling.

'Funny he's letting the Store burn,' he said.

'He needn't,' said Gurder. 'There's the sprink-lers, and there's these
special things, to make the fire go out. Fire Exits, they're called. But
he let the Store burn because we don't need it any more.'

There was a crash as the entire top floor fell in on itself.
   Masklin shrugged. And then he saw, outlined against the firelight, the
   figure of Prices Slashed. There was no mistaking that hat. He was even
   holding his torch, and he was deep in conversa-tion with some other
   humans. When he half turned, Masklin saw his face. He looked very an-
gry.

   He also looked very human. Without the terrible light, without the
   shadows of the Store at night, Prices Slashed was just another human.

   On the other hand...

   No, it was too complicated. And there were more important things to do.

   'Come on,' he said. 'Let's get back. I think we should get as far away
   as possible as quickly as we can.'

   'I shall ask Arnold Bros (est. 1905) to guide us and lead us,' said
   Gurder firmly.

   'Yes, good,' said Masklin. 'Good idea. And why not? But now we really
   must-'

  'Has his Sign not said If You Do Not See What You Require, Please
Ask?'
   said Gurder.

   Masklin took him firmly by the arm. Everyone needs something, he
   thought. And you never

   know.

   'I pull this string,' said Angalo, indicating the thread over his
   There was a click. A big metal arm moved across the windscreen,
clearing
   away the rain-drops. They watched it for a while.

  'Doesn't really illuminate much, does it?' said Grimma.

  Wrong switch,' muttered Angalo. 'Signal to leave the wipers on but put
  on the lights.'

  There was some muffled argument below them, and then another click.
  Instantly the cab was filled with the dull throbbing sound of a human
  voice.

  'It's all right,' said Angalo. 'It's only the radio. But it's not the
  lights, tell Dorcas~'

  'I know what a radio is,' said Gurder. 'You don't have to tell me what a
  radio is.'

  'What is it, then?' said Masklin, who didn't know.

  'Twenty-Nine Ninety-Five, Batteries Extra,' said Gurder. 'With AM, FM,
  and Auto-Reverse Cassette. Bargain Offer, Not to Be Repeat-ed.'

  'Am and Fum?' said Masklin.

  'Yes.'

  The radio voice droned on.

  '-ggest fire in the town's history, with fire-men coming in from as far
  afield as Newtown. Meanwhile, police are searching for one of the
And turn off the radio, said Angalo. That mooing gets on my nerves.

'I wish we could understand it,' said Masklin. 'I'm sure they're fairly
intelligent, if only we could understand it.'

He nodded at Angalo. 'Okay,' he said. 'Let's go.' It seemed much better
this time. The lorry scraped along the wall for a moment and then came
free, and moved gently down the narrow

alley towards the lights at the far end. As the lorry came out from
between the dark walls,

Angalo called for the brakes, and it stopped with only a mild jolt.

Which way?' he said. Masklin looked blank.

Gurder fumbled through the pages of the diary.

'It depends on which way we're going,' he said. 'Look for signs saying,
er, Africa. Or Canada, perhaps.'

'There's a sign,' said Angalo, peering through the rain. 'It says Town
Centre. And then there's an arrow and it says-' He squinted. 'Onny-'

'One Way Street,' murmured Grimma.

'Town Centre doesn't sound like a good idea,' said Masklin.

'Can't seem to find it on the map, either,' said Gurder.

We'll go the other way, then,' said Angalo, haul-ing on a thread.

'And I'm not sure about One Way Street,' said Masklin. 'I think you
   - like the lost wail of a foghorn.

   'Shouldn't be allowed on the road, drivers like that,' said Angalo.
   There was a thump, and the remains of a street light bounced away.
'And
   they put all this stupid stuff in the roadway, too,' he added.

   'Remember to show consideration for other road- users,' said Masklin,
   severely.

   'Well, I am, aren't I? I'm not running into them, am I?' said Angalo.
   What was that thump?'

   'Some bushes, I think,' said Masklin.

   'See what I mean? Why do they put things like that in the road?'

   'I think the road is more sort of over to your right,' said Gurder.

   'And it moves around, as well,' said Angalo sullenly, pulling the
   right-hand string slight-ly.

   It was nearly midnight, and Grimethorpe was not a busy town after dark.
   Therefore there was no one rushing to run into the lorry as it slid out
   of Alderman Surley Way and roared up John Lennon Avenue, a huge
and
   rather battered shape under the yellow sodium glare. The rain had
   stopped, but there were wisps of mist coiling across the road.

   It was almost peaceful.

   'Right, third gear,' said Angalo, 'and a bit fast er. Now, what's that
   sign coming up?'
   it, said Angalo.

   'Maybe-'

  Masklin leaned over the edge of the platform. 'Stop!' he shouted. 'Lots
  and lots of stop!' The brake-pedal team looked up in astonish-ment, but
  obeyed. There was a scream from the tyres, yells from the nomes who
were
  thrown forward, and then a lot of crunching and clanging from the front
  of the lorry as it skidded through an assortment of barriers and cones.

   'There had better,' said Angalo, when it had finally stopped, 'be a very
   good reason for that.'

   'I've hurt my knee,' said Gurder.

   'There isn't any more road,' said Masklin, simply.

   'Of course there's road,' snapped Angalo. 'We're on it, aren't we?'

   'Look down. That's all. Just look down,' said Masklin.

   Angalo peered down at the road ahead. The most interesting thing
about
   it was that it wasn't. there. Then he turned to the signaller.

   'Can we please have just a wee bit of back-wards,' he said quietly.

   'A smidgen?' said the signaller.

   'And none of your cheek,' said Angalo. Grimma was also staring at the
   hole in the road. It was big. It was deep. A few pipes lurked in the
   depths.
    I was driving perfectly safely, said Angalo sulkily. It s not my
   fault if things are all wrong.'

   'So go slow, then.'

   They stared in silence at the rolling road. Another sign loomed up.
   'Roundabout,' said Angalo. 'And a picture of a circle? Well. Any ideas?'

   Grimma leafed desperately through the Code.

   'I saw a picture of a roundabout once,' said Gurder. 'If it's any help.
   It was in We Go to the Fair. It's a big shiny thing with lots of gold
   and horses on it.'

   'I'm sure that's not it,' muttered Grimma, turning the pages hurriedly.
   'I'm sure there's something in here some-'

   'Gold, eh?' said Angalo. 'Should be easy to spot, anyway. I think,' he
   glared at Grimma, 'that we can have a little third gear.'

   'Right you are, Mr Angalo sir,' said the sig-naller.

   'Can't see any golden horses,' said Masklin. 'You know, I'm not entirely
   certain-'

   'And there should be cheerful music,' said Gurder, pleased to be making
   a contribution.

   'Can't hear any cheer-' Masklin began. There was the long-drawn-out
   blast of a car born. The road stopped, and was replaced by a mound
   covered in bushes. The lorry roared up it, all wheels leaving the ground
   for a moment, then thumped down on the other side of the roundabout
and
  'I think,' he said, 'that although the signs mean what they say, what
  they say isn't what they mean.'

  Grimma pulled herself out from underneath the Code. Angalo untangled
  himself from the lengths of string and found himself looking into her
  furious scowl.

  'You,' she said, 'are a total idiot. And speed mad! Why don't you
  listen?'

  'You can't speak to me like that!' said Angalo, cowering back. 'Gurder,
  tell her she can't call me names like that!'

  Gurder sat trembling on the edge of the plat-form.

  'As far as I am concerned right now,' he said, 'she can call you what
  she likes. Go to it, young woman.'

   Angalo glowered. 'Hang on! You were the one who went on about
golden
   horses! I didn't see any golden horses? Did anyone see any golden
   horses? He confused me, going on about golden horses-'

  Gurder waved a finger at him. 'Don't you "he" me-' he began.

   'And don't you "young woman" me in that tone of voice!' screamed
Grimma.

  Dorcas's voice came up from the depths.

  'I don't want to interrupt anything,' it said, 'but if this happens one
  more time there are people down here who will be getting very angry. Is
     They stared at him. He was shaking with anger.

     'I've had just about enough of all of you!' he shouted. 'You make me
     ashamed! We were doing so well! I haven't spent ages trying to make all
     this happen just for a, a, a steering committee to ruin it all! Now you
     can all get up and get this thing moving again! There's a whole
     truckload of nomes back there! They're depending on you! Understand?'

     They looked at one another. They stood up sheepishly. Angalo pulled
up
     the steering strings. The signaller untangled his flags.

     'Ahem,' said Angalo quietly. 'I think .. . yes,

     I think a little bit of first gear might be in order here, if it's all
     the same to everybody?'

     'Good idea. Go ahead,' said Gurder.

     'But carefully,' said Grimma.

     'Thank you,' said Angalo politely. 'Is that all right by you Masklin?'
     he added.

     'Hmm? Yes. Yes. Fine. Go.'

     At least there were no more buildings. The lorry purred along the lonely
     road, its one remain-ing headlight making a white glow in the mist. One
     or two vehicles passed them on the other side of the road.

     Masklin knew that soon they should be look-ing for somewhere to stop.
It
  There was no doubt about it. The human was standing in the road,
waving
  its torch. There was a car beside him, with a blue flashing light on top.

   The others had seen it, too.

   'Prices Slashed!' moaned Gurder~ 'He's got here in front of us!'

   'More speed,' said Angalo grimly.

   'What are you going to do?' said Masklin~

   'We'll see how his torch can stand up to a lorry!' muttered Angalo.

   'You can't do that! You can't drive lorries into people!'

   'It's Prices Slashed!' said Angalo. 'It's not people!'

   'He's right,' said Grimma. 'You said we mustn't stop now!'

   Masklin grabbed the steering strings and gave one a yank. The lorry
   skewed around just as Prices Slashed dropped his torch and, with
   respectable speed, jumped into the hedge. There was a bang as the
rear
   of the lorry hit the car, and then Angalo had the threads again and was
   guiding them back into something like a straight line.

   'You didn't have to do that,' he said sullenly. 'It's all right to run
   into Prices Slashed, isn't it, Gurder?'

   Well. Er,' said Gurder. He gave Masklin an embarrassed look. 'I'm not
   sure it was Prices Slashed, in fact. He had darker clothes, for one
Noisy though it was in the cab, the words created their own sort of
silence.

Well, it's true,' said Angalo defensively. 'And Dorcas thinks the same
thing. And a lot of younger nomes.'

'We shall see,' said Gurder. 'However, I suspect that if Arnold Bros
(est. 1905) was ever any- where, then he's everywhere.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'I'm not sure myself. I need to think about it.'

Angalo sniffed. 'Well, think about it, then. But I don't believe it. It
doesn't matter any more. May Bargains Galore turn against me if I'm
wrong,' he added.

Masklin saw a blue light out of the corner of his eye. There were
mirrors over the wheels of the lorry and, although one of them was
smashed and the other one was bent, they still worked after a fashion.
The light was behind the lorry.

'He's coming after us, whoever it is,' he said mildly.

'And there's that dee-dah, dee-dah noise,' said Gurder.

'I think,' Masklin went on, 'that it might be a good idea to get off
this road.'

Angalo glanced from side to side.

'Too many hedges,' he said.
  Masklin soothingly. I ll be back in a minute.

  He lowered himself down the swaying ladder to Dorcas and his people.
  There wasn't too much going on at the moment, just little tugs on the
  big wheel from the steering groups and a steady pressure on the
  go-faster pedal. Many of the nomes were sitting down and trying to
  relax. There was a ragged cheer when Masklin joined them.

  Dorcas was sitting by himself, scribbling things on a piece of paper.

  'Oh, it's you,' he said. 'Everything working now? Have we run out of
  things to bump into?'

  We're being followed by someone who wants to make us stop,' said
Masklin.

  'Another lorry?'

  'A car, I think. With humans in it.'

  Dorcas scratched his chin.

  'What do you want me to do about it?'

  'You used things to cut the lorry wires when you didn't want it to go,'
  said Masklin.

  'Pliers. What about them?'

  'Have you still got them?'

  'Oh, yes. But you need two nomes to use them.'
   Hmm. Dorcas grinned nastily. You going to come?

   'Yes. I, er, I'm not sure nomes who've never been outside the Store will
   be able to cope.'

   Dorcas stood and yawned. 'Well, I'd like to try some of this "fresh air"
   stuff,' he said. 'I'm told it's very good for you.'

   If there had been watchers, peering over the hedge into that
   mist-wreathed country lane, they would have seen a lorry come thun-
dering
   along at quite an unsafe speed.

   They might have thought: that's an unusual vehicle, it seems to have
   lost quite a few things it should have, like one headlight, a bumper and
   most of the paint down one side, and picked up a number of things it
   shouldn't have, like some bits of bush and more dents than a sheet of
   corruga-ted iron.

   They might have wondered why it had a 'Road Works Ahead' sign
hanging
   from one door-handle.

   And they would have certainly wondered why it rolled to a stop.

   The police car behind it stopped rather more impressively, in a shower
   of gravel. Two men almost fell out of it and ran to the lorry, wrenching
   open the doors.

   If the watchers had been able to understand Human, they'd have heard
   someone say, All right, chummy, that's it for tonight and then say,
   Where's he gone? There's just a load of string in here! And then some-
one
A few seconds later they scurried back again. And, almost as soon as
they'd disappeared under the lorry, it started up.

The men shouted and ran back to their car.

But instead of roaring into life, it went whirr, whirr, whirr in the
misty night.

After a while one of them got out and lifted the bonnet.

As the lorry vanished into the mist, its single rear light a fading
glow, he knelt down, reached under the car, and held up a handful of
neatly cut wires...

This is what the watchers would have seen. In fact, the only watchers
were a couple of cows, and they didn't understand any of it.

Perhaps it nearly ends there.

A couple of days later the lorry was found in a ditch some way outside
the town. What was stran-ger was this: the battery, and every wire,
light bulb, and switch had been taken out of it. So had the radio.

The cab was full of bits of string.


Chapter 14

XV. And the nomes said, here is a New Place, to be
ours for Ever and Ever.

XVI. And the Outsider said Nothing.
   It doesn t matter how they settled in, found the few old tumbledown
   buildings, explored the caves and rock heaps, cleared out the rats. That
   wasn't too difficult. The harder part was persuading most of the older
   nomes to go outside; they felt happier with a floor over their heads.
   Granny Morkie came in useful there. She made them watch her walk up
and
   down outside, braving the terrible Fresh Air.

   Besides, the food taken from the Store didn't last for ever. There was
   hunger, and there were rabbits in the fields above. Vegetables, too. Not
   nice and clean, of course, as Arnold Bros (est. 1905) had intended they
   should be, but just sticking in the ground covered with dirt. There were
   complaints about this. The molehills that appeared in a nearby field
   were simply the result of the first experimental potato mine.

   After a couple of nasty experiences, foxes learned to keep away.

   And then there was Dorcas's discovery of elec-tricity, still in wires
   leading to a box in one of the deserted sheds. Getting at it while
   staying alive seemed to need nearly as much planning as the Great
Drive,
   with a lot of broom-handles and rubber gloves involved.

   After a lot of thought, Masklin had pushed the Thing near one of the
   electric wires. It had flashed a few lights but had kept silent. He felt
   it was listening. He could hear it listening.

   He'd taken it away again, and tucked it into a gap in one of the walls.
   He had an obscure feeling that it wasn't time to use the Thing yet. The
   longer they left it, he thought, the longer they'd have to work out for
   themselves what it was they were doing. He'd like to wake it up later
   and say, 'Look, this is what we've done, all by ourselves.'
  sheds, was hidden under a stone by his side. He d been promised radio,
  one of these days. One of these days might be quite soon, because
Dorcas
  had pupils now. They seemed to spend a lot of time in one of the
  tumbledown sheds, surrounded by bits of wire and looking very serious.

   Guard duty was quite popular, at least on sunny days.

   This was home, now. The nomes were settling in, filling in the corners,
   planning, spreading out, starting to belong.

   Especially Bobo. He'd disappeared on the first day, and turned up
again,
   scruffy and proud, as the leader of the quarry rats and father of a lot
   of little ratlings. Perhaps it was because of this that the rats and the
   nomes seemed to be getting along okay, politely avoiding each other
   whenever possible and not eating one another.

   They belong here more than we do, thought Masklin. This isn't really our
   place. This belongs to humans. They've just forgotten about it for a
   while, but one day they'll remember it. They'll come back here and we'll
   have to move on. We'll always have to move on. We'll always try to
   create our own little worlds inside the big world. We used to

   have it all, and now we think we're lucky to have a little bit.

   He looked down at the quarry below him. He could just make out
Grimma
   sitting in the sun with some of the young nomes, teaching them to read.

   That was a good thing, anyway. He'd never be that good at it, but the
   kids seemed to pick it up easily enough.
      One day we ll go back. We ll find a way to get to the big ship in the
      sky, and we'll go back. But not yet. It'll take some doing, and the hard
      part again will be getting people to understand. Every time we climb up
      a step we settle down and think we've got to the top of the stairs, and
      start bickering about things.

      Still, even knowing that the stairs are there is a pretty good start.

      From here, he could see for miles across the countryside. For instance,
      he could see the airport.

      It had been quite frightening, the day they'd seen the first jet go
      over, but a few of the nomes had recalled pictures from books they'd
      read and it turned out to be nothing more than a sort of lorry built to
      drive in the sky.

      Masklin hadn't told anyone why he thought that knowing more about the
      airport would be a good idea. Some of the others suspected, he knew,
but
      there was so much to do that they weren't thinking about it now.

      He'd led up to it carefully. He'd just said that it was important to
      find out as much about this new world as possible, just in case. He'd
      put it in such a way that no one had said, 'In case of what?' and,
      anyway, there were people to spare and the weather was good.

      He'd led a team of nomes across the fields to it; it had been a week's
      journey, but there were thirty of them and there had been no problems.
      They'd even had to cross a motorway, but they'd found a tunnel built for
      badgers, and a badger coming along it the other way turned around and
      hurried off when they approached. Bad news like armed nomes spreads
      quickly.
    Funnily enough, he felt quite optimistic about it. He'd had one glorious
    moment of feeling that, although they-argued and bickered and got
things
    wrong and tripped over themselves, nomes would come through in the
end.
    Because Dorcas had been watching the planes, too, clinging to the wire
    with a calculating look in his eyes. And Masklin bad said:

   'Just supposing, for the sake of argument, you understand we need to
   steal one of those, do you think it could be done?'

   And Dorcas had rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

   'Shouldn't be too hard to drive,' he said, and grinned. 'They've only
   got three wheels.'


   The End