The Bromeliad 1 - Truckers

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 holding a book between them.

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

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

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

'Can you repair it?' said Masklin.

'I mean, I know how we can get a human to drive the lorry for us!' Masklin sighed. 'We've thought about this, but it really won't work. If we show ourselves to a human--' 'Don't matter! Don't matter! He won't do any­thing, the reason being, we'll have -you'll like this we'll have a gnu!' Vinto beamed at him, like a dog who's just done a difficult trick.

'A gnu,' repeated Masklin weakly.

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

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

'No, no, no, what you do is, you get a gnu, then you point it at the driver and someone says, "Look out, he's got a gnu!" and you say, "Take us where we want to go or I'll fire this gnu at you!" and then he-' 'Right, right. Fine,' said Masklin, backing away. 'Jolly good. Splendid idea. We'll definitely give it some thought. Well done.' 'That was clever of me, wasn't it,' said Vinto, jumping from one foot to the other.

'Yes. Certainly. Er. You don't think you might be better reading a more practical kind of-' Masklin hesitated. Who knew what kind of books were best? He staggered inside his box and pulled the cardboard over the door and leaned against it.

'Thing?' he said.

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

'What's a gnu?' There was a brief pause. Then the Thing said: 'The gnu, a member of the genus Connochaetes and the family Bovidae, is an African antelope with down-curving horns. Body length is up to 2m (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 Depart­ment?' Masklin knew what that was. The subject had come up yesterday, when Vinto had sug­gested taking a herd of guinea pigs to raise for meat.

'No,' he said.

'Then I should think the chance is remote.' 'Oh. Just as well, really.' Masklin sagged down on his bed. 'You see,' he said, 'we've got to be able to control where we're going. We need to find some­where a little way from humans. But not too far. Somewhere safe.' 'You must look for an atlas or map.' 'What do they look like?' 'They may have the words "atlas" or "map" written on them.' 'I'll ask the Abbot to have a search made.' Masklin yawned.

'You must sleep,' said the Thing.

'People always want me to do things. Anyway, you don't sleep.' 'It's different for me.' 'What I need,' said Masklin, 'is a way. We can't use a gnu. They all think I know the way to do it and I don't know the way. We know what we need, but we'll never get it all into a lorry in one night. They all think I know all the answers, but I don't. And I don't know the way...' He fell asleep, and dreamed of being human-­sized. Everything was so easy, if you were human-sized.

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

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

'That was no trouble,' he said. 'We have dozens of these every year. It's called-' he read the gold lettering slowly '-Pocket Diary. And it has this map all at the back, look.' Masklin stared down at the small pages of blue and red blobs. Some of the blobs had names, like Africa and Asia.

'We-ell,' he said, and 'Ye-ss. I suppose so. Well done. Where are we, exactly?' 'In the middle,' said Gurder promptly. 'That's logical.' And then the 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 sitting down and getting his breath back.

'I tried all the windows,' he said. 'They're all shut. Couldn't see anyone in there. It's very dark.' 'Are you sure it's the right lorry?' said Masklin to the head watcher.

'They've all got numbers on the front of them,' he was told. 'I was particularly sure to remember the one he went out on, so when it comes back this afternoon I-' 'We've got to get inside to have a look,' said Masklin firmly. 'Someone go and get... no, it'll take too long. Lower me down.' 'What?' 'Lower me down,' Masklin repeated. 'All the way to the floor.' 'It's a long way down,' said one of them doubt­fully.

'I know! Far too long to go all the way around by the stairs.' Masklin handed the end of the thread to a couple of nomes. 'He could be in there hurt, or anything.' '"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. Some­how, 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 minute or two he found a metal wall ahead of him, with holes in it to take even more bundles of wires. It was possible, with a certain amount of pain, to squeeze through. Inside- There was carpet. Odd thing to find in a lorry.

Here and there a sweet wrapper lay, large as a newspaper to a nome. Huge pedal-shaped things stuck out of greasy holes in the floor. In the distance was a seat, behind a huge wheel. Presum­ably it was something for the human in the lorry to hold on to, Masklin thought.

'Angalo?' he called out, softly.

There was no answer. He poked around aim­lessly 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 recog­nized 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-' 'Ah,' said the nomes, nodding.

'-but not like that! He should have been per­fectly all right if he stayed in the lorry! I.told him not to go exploring-' He was aware of a sudden silence. The nomes weren't looking at him but past him, at something behind him.

The Duke de Haberdasheri was standing there, with some of his soldiers. 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?' Masklin looked into the old man's eyes. They were like two eggs that weren't quite cooked yet. And he thought about the size of everything out­side, and the size of a nome. And then he thought: a leader should know all about truth and hones­ ty, and when to see the difference. Honestly, the chance of finding Angalo out there is greater than the whole Store taking wings and flying, but the 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 people-' '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 bewil­dered. 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!' 'I expected him to say fifty was too many and beat me down to twenty or so,' said Masklin. 'But I think we will need them all, soon.' The reading programme wasn't going the way he expected. There were useful things in books, it was true, but it was a hard job to find them among all the strange stuff.

Like the girl in the rabbit hole.

It was Vinto who came up with that one.

'...and she fell down this hole and there was a white rabbit with a watch, I know about rab­bits, 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.

'I thought we came from one of them,' said Masklin. 'You said-' 'They are different names. Currently I cannot identify them.' 'What was the name of the star that nomes came from?' said Masklin, lying back in the dark­ness.

'It was called: The Sun.' 'But the sun's here!' '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 num­ber 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.