The Bromeliad 3 - Wings

Chapter 5

Florida (or Floridia): A place where alligators, long-necked turtles, and space shuttles may befound. A place that is warm and wet, and there aregeese. Only foolish people think it is really anorange drink. Bacon, lettuce, and tomatosandwiches may be found here also. A lot more interesting than many other places. The shape whenseen from the air is like a bit stuck on a biggerbit. - From A Scientific Encyclopedia for theEnquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Let the eye of your imagination be a camera... .

This is the globe of the world, a glittering blue and white ball like theornament on some unimaginable Christmas tree.

Find a continent ... Focus.

This is a continent, a jigsaw of yellows, greens, and browns.

Find a place... . Focus.

This is a bit of the continent, sticking out into the warmer sea to thesoutheast. Most of its inhabitants call it Florida.

Actually, they don't. Most of its inhabitants don't call it anything.

They don't even know it exists. Most of them have six legs, and buzz. Alot of them have eight legs, and spend a lot of time in webs waiting forsix-legged inhabitants to arrive for lunch. Many of the rest have fourlegs, and bark or moo or even lie in swamps pretending to be logs. Infact, only a tiny proportion of the inhabitants of Florida have twolegs, and even most of them don't call it Florida. They just go tweet, and fly around a lot.

Mathematically, an almost insignificant number of living things inFlorida call it Florida. But they're the ones who matter. At least, intheir opinion. And their opinion is the one that matters. In theiropinion.

Find a highway... . Focus... . Traffic swishing quietly through thesoft warm rain ... focus ... high weeds on the bank ... focus ...

grass moving in a way that isn't quite like grass moving in the wind ... Focus ... a pair of tiny eyes... .

Focus... . Focus... . Focus. ... Click!

Masklin crept back through the grass to the nomes' camp, if that's whatyou could call a tiny dry space under a scrap of thrown-away plastic.

It had been hours since they'd run away from Grandson Richard, 39, asGurder kept on putting it. The sun was rising behind the rain clouds.

They'd crossed a highway while there was no traffic, they'd blunderedaround in damp undergrowth, scurrying away from every chirp andmysterious croak, and finally they'd found the plastic. And they'd slept.

Masklin stayed on guard for a while, but he wasn't certain what he wasguarding against.

There was a positive side. The Thing had been listening to radio andtelevision and had found the place the going-straight-up shuttles wentfrom. It was only eighteen miles away. And they'd definitely madeprogress. They'd gone-oh, call it half a mile. And at least it was warm.

Even the rain was warm. And the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich washolding up.

But there were still almost eighteen miles to go.

"When did you say the launch is?" said Masklin.

"Four hours time," said the Thing.

"That means we'll have to travel at more than four miles an hour," saidAngalo gloomily.

Masklin nodded. A nome, trying hard, could probably cover a mile and ahalf in an hour over open ground.

He hadn't given much thought to how they could get the Thing into space.

If he'd thought about it at all, he'd imagined that they could find theshuttle plane and wedge the Thing on it somewhere. If possible maybethey could go, too, although he wasn't too sure about that. The Thingsaid it was cold in space, and there was no air.

"You could have asked Grandson Richard, 39, to help us!" said Gurder.

"Why did you run away?"

"I don't know," said Masklin. "I suppose I thought we ought to be able tohelp ourselves."

"But you used the Truck. Nomes lived in the Store. You used the Concorde.

You 're eating human food."

Masklin was surprised. The Thing didn't often argue like that.

"That's different," he said.

"How?"

"They didn't know about us. We took what we wanted. We weren't given it.

They think it's their world, Thing! They think everything in it belongsto them! They name everything and own everything! I looked up at him, and I thought, here's a human in a human's room, doing human things. Howcan he ever understand about nomes? How can he ever think tiny people arereal people with real thoughts? I can't just let a human take over. Notjust like that!"

The Thing blinked a few lights at him.

"We've come too far not to finish it ourselves," Masklin mumbled. Helooked up at Gurder.

"Anyway, when it came to it, I didn't exactly see you rushing up, readyto shake him by the finger," he said.

"I was embarrassed. It's always embarrassing, meeting deities," saidGurder.

They hadn't been able to light a fire. Everything was too wet. Not thatthey needed a fire, it was just that a fire was more civilized. Someonehad managed to light a fire there at some time, though, because therewere still a few damp ashes.

"I wonder how things are back home?" said Angalo, after a while.

"All right, I expect," said Masklin.

"Do you really?"

"Well, more hope than expect, to tell the truth."

"I expect your Grimma's got everyone organized," said Angalo, trying to grin.

"She's not my Grimma," snapped Masklin.

"Isn't she? Whose is she, then?"

"She's ..." Masklin hesitated. "Hers, I suppose," he said lamely.

"Oh. I thought the two of you were set to-" Angalo began.

"We're not. I told her we were going to get married, and all she could talk about was frogs," said Masklin.

"That's females for you," said Gurder. "Didn't I say that letting them learn to read was a bad idea? It overheats their brains."

"She said the most important thing in the world was little frogs living in a flower," Masklin went on, trying to listen to the voice of his ownmemory. He hadn't been listening very hard at the time. He'd been tooangry.

"Sounds like you could boil a kettle on her head," said Angalo.

"It was something she'd read in a book, she said."

"My point exactly," said Gurder. "You know I never really agreed with letting everyone learn to read. It unsettles people."

Masklin looked gloomily at the rain.

"Come to think of it," he said, "It wasn't frogs exactly. It was the idea of frogs. She said there are these hills where it's hot and rains all thetime, and in the rain forests there are these very tall trees and rightin the top branches of the trees there are these like great big flowerscalled ... bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flowers andmakes little pools and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the poolsand tadpoles hatch and grow into new frogs and these little frogs livetheir whole lives in the flowers right at the top of the trees and don'teven know about the ground, and once you know the world is full of thingslike that, your life is never the same."

He took a deep breath.

"Something like that, anyway," he said.

Gurder looked at Angalo.

"Didn't understand any of it," he said.

"It's a metaphor," said the Thing. No one paid it any attention.

Masklin scratched his ear. "It seemed to mean a lot to her," he said.

"It's a metaphor," said the Thing.

"Women always want something," said Angalo. "My wife is always on about dresses."

"I'm sure he would have helped," said Gurder. "If we'd talked to him.

He'd probably have given us a proper meal and, and-"

"Given us a home in a shoebox," said Masklin.

"And given us a home in a shoebox," said Gurder automatically. "No! I mean, maybe. I mean, why not? A decent hour's sleep for a change. And then we-"

"We'd be carried around in his pocket," said Masklin.

"Not necessarily. Not necessarily."

"We would. Because he's big and we're small."

"Launch in three hours and fifty-seven minutes," said the Thing.

Their temporary camp overlooked a ditch. There didn't seem to be any winter in Florida, and the banks were thick with greenery.

Something like a flat plate with a spoon on the front sculled slowly past. The spoon stuck out of the water for a moment, looked at the nomes vaguely, and then dropped down again.

"What was that thing, Thing?" said Masklin.

The Thing extended one of its sensors.

"A long-necked turtle."

"Oh."

The turtle swam peacefully away.

"Lucky, really," said Gurder.

"What?" said Angalo.

"Its having a long neck like that and being called a Long-Necked Turtle.

It'd be really awkward having a name like that if it had a short neck."

"Launch in three hours and fifty-six minutes.'"

Masklin stood up.

"You know," said Angalo, "I really wish I could have read more of The Spy with No Trousers. It was getting exciting."

"Come on," he said. "Let's see if we can find a way."

Angalo, who had been sitting with his chin in his hands, gave him an odd look.

"What now?"

"We've come too far just to stop, haven't we?"

They pushed their way through the weeds. After a while a fallen log helped them across the ditch.

"Much greener here than at home, isn't it?" said Angalo.

Masklin pushed through a thick stand of leaves.

"Warmer too," said Gurder. "They've got the heating fixed here*."

[* For generations the Store nomes had known that temperature was caused by air conditioning and the heating system;]

like many of them, Gurder never quite gave up certain habits of thinking.

"No one fixes heating Outside, it just happens," said Angalo.

"If I get old, this is the kind of place I'd like to live, if I had to live Outside," Gurder went on, ignoring him.

"It's a wildlife preserve," said the Thing.

Gurder looked shocked. "What? Like jam? Made of animals'?"

"No. It is a place where animals can live unmolested."

"You're not allowed to hunt them, you mean?"

"Yes."

"You're not allowed to hunt anything, Masklin," said Gurder.

Masklin grunted.

There was something nagging at him. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Probably it was to do with the animals after all.

"Apart from turtles with long necks," he said, "what other animals are there here, Thing?"

The Thing didn't answer for a moment. Then it said, "I find mention of sea cows and alligators."

Masklin tried to imagine what a sea cow looked like. But they didn't sound too bad. He'd met cows before. They were big and slow and didn't eat nomes, except by accident.

"What's an alligator?" he said.

The Thing told him.

"What?" said Masklin.

"What?" said Angalo.

"What?" said Gurder. He pulled his robe tightly around his legs.

"You idiot!" shouted Angalo.

"Me?" said Masklin hotly. "How should I know? How should I know? Is it my fault? Did I miss a sign at the airport saying 'Welcome to Floridia, home of large meat-eating reptiles up to twelve feet long'?"

They watched the grasses. A damp warm world inhabited by insects and turtles was suddenly a disguise for horrible terrors with huge teeth.

Something's watching us, Masklin thought. I can feel it.

The three nomes stood back-to-back. Masklin crouched down, slowly, and picked up a stone.

The grass moved.

"The Thing did say they don't all grow to twelve feet," said Angalo, in the silence.

"We were blundering around in the darkness!" said Gurder. "With things like that around!"

The grass moved again. It wasn't the wind that was moving it.

"Pull yourself together," muttered Angalo.

"If it is alligators," said Gurder, trying to look noble, "I shall show them how a nome can die with dignity."

"Please yourself," said Angalo, his eyes scanning the undergrowth. "I'm planning to show them how a nome can run away with speed."

The grasses parted.

A nome stepped out.

There was a crackle behind Masklin. His head spun around. Another nome stepped out.

And another.

And another.

Fifteen of them.

The three travelers swiveled like an animal with six legs and three heads.

It was the fire that I saw, Masklin told himself. We sat right down by the ashes of a fire, and I looked at them, and I didn't wonder who could have made them.

The strangers wore gray. They seemed to be all sizes. And every single one of them had a spear.

I wish I had mine, Masklin thought, trying to keep as many of the strangers as possible in his line of sight.

They weren't pointing their spears at him. The trouble was, they weren't exactly not pointing them, either.

Masklin told himself that it was very rare for a nome to kill another nome. In the Store it was considered bad manners, while Outside ...

well, there were so many other things that killed nomes in any case.

Besides, it was wrong. There didn't have to be any other reasons.

He just had to hope that these nomes felt the same way.

"Do you know these people?" said Angalo.

"Me?" said Masklin. "Of course not. How could I?"

"They're Outsiders. I dunno, I suppose I thought all Outsiders would know each other."

"Never seen them before in my life," said Masklin.

"I think," said Angalo, slowly and deliberately, "that the leader is that old guy with the big nose and the topknot with a feather in it. What do you think?"

Masklin looked at the tall, thin old nome who was scowling at the three of them.

"He doesn't look as if he likes us very much."

"I don't like the look of him at all," said Angalo.

"Have you got any suggestions, Thing?" said Masklin.

"They are probably as frightened of you as you are of them."

"I doubt it," said Angalo.

"Tell them you will not harm them."

"I'd much rather they told me they're not going to harm us."

Masklin stepped forward, and raised his hands.

"We are peaceful," he said. "We don't want anyone to be hurt."

"Including us," said Angalo. "We really mean it."

Several of the strangers backed away and raised their spears.

"I've got my hands raised," said Masklin over his shoulder, "Why should they be so upset?"

"Because you're holding a large rock," said Angalo flatly. "I don't know about them, but if you walked toward me holding something like that Pd be pretty scared."

"I'm not sure I want to let go of it," said Masklin.

"Perhaps they don't understand us."

Gurder moved.

He hadn't said a word since the arrival of the new nomes. He'd just gone very pale.

Now some sort of internal timer had gone off. He gave a snort, leapt forward, and he bore down on Topknot like an enraged balloon.

"How dare you accost us, you-you Outsider!" he screamed.

Angalo put his hands over his eyes. Masklin got a firm hold on his rock.

"Er, Gurder ..." he began.

Topknot backed away. The other nomes seemed puzzled by the smallexplosive figure that was suddenly among them. Gurder was in the gripof the kind of anger that is almost as good as armor.

Topknot screeched something back at Gurder.

"Don't you harangue me, you grubby heathen," said Gurder. "Do you thinkall these spears really frighten us?"

"Yes," whispered Angalo. He sidled closer to Masklin. "What's got intohim?" he said.

Topknot shouted something at his nomes. A couple of them raised theirspears, uncertainly. Several of the others appeared to argue.

"This is getting worse," said Angalo.

"Yes," said Masklin. "I think we should-"

A voice behind them snapped out a command. All the Floridians turned. Sodid Masklin.

Two nomes had come out of the grass. One was a boy. The other was asmall, dumpy woman, the sort you'd cheerfully accept an apple pie from.

Her hair was tied in a bun, and like Topknot's, it had a long grayfeather stuck through it.

The Floridians looked sheepish. Topknot spoke at length. The woman said acouple of words. Topknot spread his arms above him and muttered somethingat the sky.

The woman walked around Masklin and Angalo as if they were items ondisplay. When she looked Masklin up and down he caught her eye andthought: She looks like a little old lady, but she's in charge. If shedoesn't like us, we're in a lot of trouble.

She reached up and took the stone out of his hand. He didn't resist.

Then she touched the Thing.

It spoke. What it said sounded very much like the words the woman hadjust used. She pulled her hand away sharply, and looked at the Thing withher head on one side. Then she stood back.

At another command the Floridians formed, not a line, but a sort of Vshape with the woman at the tip of it and the travelers inside it.

"Are we prisoners?" said Gurder, who had cooled off a bit.

"I don't think so," said Masklin. "Not exactly prisoners, yet."

The meal was some sort of a lizard. Masklin quite enjoyed it; it remindedhim of his days as an Outsider. The other two ate it only because noteating it would be impolite, and it probably wasn't a good idea to beimpolite to people who had spears when you didn't.

The Floridians watched them solemnly.

There were at least thirty of them, all wearing identical gray clothes.

They looked quite like the Store nomes, except for being slightly darker and much skinnier. Many of them had large, impressive noses, which the Thing said was perfectly okay and all because of genetics.

The Thing was talking to them. Occasionally it would extend one of its sensors and use it to draw shapes in the dirt.

"Thing's probably telling them we-come-fromplace- bilong-far-on-big-bird-that-doesn't-go-flap," said Angalo.

A lot of the time the Thing was simply repeating the woman's own words back at her. Eventually Masklin couldn't stand it anymore.

"What's happening. Thing?" he said. "Why's the woman doing all the talking?"

"She is the leader of this group," said the Thing.

"A woman? Are you serious?"

"I am always serious. It's built in."

"Oh."

Angalo nudged Masklin. "If Grimma ever finds out, we're in real trouble," he said.

"Her name is Very-small-tree, or Shrub," the Thing went on.

"And you can understand her?" said Masklin.

"Gradually. Their language is very close to original nomish."

"What do you mean, original nomish?"

"The language your ancestors spoke."

Masklin shrugged. There was no point in trying to understand that now.

"Have you told her about us?" he said.

"Yes. She says-"

Topknot, who had been muttering to himself, stood up suddenly and spoke very sharply at great length, with a lot of pointing to the ground and to the sky.

The Thing flashed a few lights.

"He says you are trespassing on the land belonging to the Maker of Clouds. He says that is very bad. He said the Maker of Clouds will be very angry."

There was a general murmur of agreement from many of the nomes.

Shrub spoke to them sharply. Masklin stuck out a hand to stop Gurder from getting up.

"What does, er, Shrub think?" he said.

"I don't think she is very sympathetic to the topknot person. His name is Person-wbo-knows-what-the-Maker-of-Clouds-is-thinking."

"And what is the Maker of Clouds?"

"It's bad luck to say its true name. It made the ground and it is still making the sky. It-"

Topknot spoke again. He sounded angry.

We need to be friends with these people, Masklin thought. There has to be a way.

"The Maker of Clouds is"-Masklin thought hard-"a sort of Arnold Bros.

(est. 1905)?"

"Yes," said the Thing.

"A real thing?"

"I think so. Are you prepared to take a risk?"

"What?"

"I think I know the identity of the Maker of Clouds. I think I know when it will make some more sky."

"What? When?" said Masklin.

"In three hours and ten minutes."

Masklin hesitated.

"Hold on a moment," he said, slowly, "that sounds like the same sort of time that-"

"Yes. All three of you, please get ready to run. I will now write the name of the Maker of Clouds."

"Why will we have to run?"

"They might get very angry. But we haven't time to waste."

The Thing extended a sensor. It wasn't intended as a writing implement, and the shapes it drew were angular and hard to read.

It scrawled four shapes in the dust.

The effect was instantaneous.

Topknot started to shout again. Some of the Floridians leapt to their feet. Masklin grabbed the other two travelers.

"I'm really going to thump that old nome in a minute," said Gurder. "How can anyone be so narrow-minded?"

Shrub sat silent while the row went on around her. Then she spoke, very loud but very calmly.

"She is telling them," said the Thing, "that it is not wrong to write thename of the Maker of Clouds. It is often written by the Maker of Cloudsitself. 'How famous the Maker of Clouds must be, that even these strangers know its name,' she says."

That seemed to satisfy most of the nomes. Topknot started to grumble tohimself.

Masklin relaxed a bit, and looked down at the figures in the sand.

"N ... A ... S ... A?" he said.

"It's an S," said the Thing, "Not an 8."

"But you've only been talking to them for a little while!" said Angalo.

"How can you know something like this?"

"Because I know how nomes think," said the Thing. "You always believewhat you read, and you've all got very literal minds. Very literal mindsindeed."