The Bromeliad 2 - Diggers

Chapter 11

I. We will come out of the woodwork.

II. We will come out of the floor.

III. They will wish they had never seen us.

-From the Book of Nome, Humans I, v. I-III The human lowered its newspaper and listened.

There was a rustling in the walls. There was a scratching under thefloor.

Its eyes swivelled to the table beside it.

A group of small creatures were dragging its packet of sandwiches acrossthe tabletop. It blinked.

Then it roared and tried to stand up, and it wasn't until it was nearlyupright that it found that its feet were tied very firmly to the legs ofits chair.

It crashed forward. A crowd of tiny creatures, moving so fast that itcould hardly see them, charged out from under the table and wrapped alength of old electrical wire around its outflung arms. Within seconds itwas trussed awkwardly> but very firmly, between the furniture.

They saw its great eyes roll. It opened its mouth and mooed at them.

Teeth like yellow plates clashed at them.

The wire held.

The sandwiches turned out to be cheese and pickle and the Thermos, oncethey got the top off, was full of coffee. "Store food," said one nome toanother. "Good Store food, like we used to know."

They poured into the room from every crack and mousehole. There was anelectric fire by the table and they sat in solemn rows in front of itsglowing red bar or wandered around the crowded office.

"We done it," they said, "Just like that Gullible Travels. The biggerthey come, the harder they fall!"

There was a school of thought that said they should kill the human, whosemad eyes followed them around the floor. This was when they found thebox.

It was on one of the shelves. It was yellow. It had a picture of a veryunhappy-looking rat on the front. It had the word Scramoff in big redlettering too. On the back ...

Grimma's forehead wrinkled as she tried to read the smaller words on the back.

"It says, They Take a Bite, but They Don't Come Back for More!' " shesaid. "And apparently it contains polydichloromethylinlon-4, whatever Aatis. 'Clears Outhouses of Troublesome ...'" She paused.

"Troublesome what?" said the listening nomes. "Troublesome what?"

Grimma lowered her voice.

"It says, 'Clears Outhouses of Troublesome Vermin in a Trice!' " shesaid. "It's poison. It's the stuff they put under the floor."

The silence that followed this was black with rage. The nomes had raisedquite a lot of children in the quarry. They had very firm views aboutpoison.

"We should make the human eat it," said one of them. "Fill up its mouthwith Polypuththeketlon or whatever it is. Troublesome vermin."

"I think they think we're rats," said Grimma.

"And that would be all right, would it?" said a nome with witheringsarcasm. "Rats are okay. We've never had any trouble with rats. No callto go around giving them poisoned food."

In fact, the nomes got on rather well with the local rats, probablybecause their leader was Bobo, who had been a pet of Angalo's when theylived in the Store. The two species treated each other with the distantfriendliness of creatures who could, at a pinch, eat one another but haddecided not to.

"Yeah, the rats'd thank us for getting rid of a human," he went on.

"No," said Grimma. "No. I don't think we should do that. Dorcas alwayssaid that they'reg nearly as intelligent as we are. You can't go aroundpoisoning intelligent creatures."

"They tried!"

"They're not nomes. They don't know how to behave," said Grimma. "Anyway, be sensible. More humans will come along in the morning. If they find adead human, there'll be a lot of trouble."

That was a point. But they had shown themselves to a human. No nomecould remember its ever being done before. They'd had to do it, or starveand freeze, but there was no knowing where it would end. How it would endwas a bit more certain. It would probably end badly.

"Go and put it somewhere where the rats can't get it," said Grimma.

"I reckon we should just give it a taste-" said the nome.

"No! Just take the stuff away. We'll stay here the rest of the night andthen move out before it's light."

"Well, all right. If you say so. I just hope we're not sorry about itlater, that's all." The nomes carried the dreadful box away.

Grimma wandered over to where the human lay. It was well trussed up bynow, and couldn't move a finger. It looked just like the picture ofGullible or whoever he was, except the nomes had got hold of what thenomes in those days had never heard of, which was lots of electricalwire. It was a lot tougher than rope. And they were a lot angrier.

Gullible hadn't been driving a great big truck round the place andputting down rat poison.

They'd gone through its pockets and piled up the contents in a heap.

There'd been a big square of white cloth among them, which a group ofnomes had managed to tie around the human's mouth after its mooing goton everyone's nerves.

Now they stood around eating pieces of bread and cheese and pickle andwatching the human's eyes.

Humans can't understand nomes. Their voices are too fast and too high, like a bat squeak. It was probably just as well.

"I say we should find something sharp and stick it into it," said a nome.

"In all the soft parts."

"There's things we could do with matches," said Granny Morkie, toGrimma's surprise.

"And nails," said a middle-aged nome.

The human growled behind its gag and strained at the wires.

"We could pull all its hair out," said Granny Morkie. "And then wecould-"

"Do it, then," said Grimma, coming up behind them.

They turned.

"What?"

"Do it, if you want to," said Grimma. "There it is, right in front ofyou. Do what you like."

"What, we?" Granny Morkie nome drew back. "I didn't ... not me. Ididn't mean me. I meant well, us. Nomekind."

"There you are, then," said Grimma. "And nomekind is only nomes. Besides, it's wrong to hurt prisoners. I read it in a book. It's called the GenevaConvention. When you've got people at your mercy, you shouldn't hurtthem."

"Seems like the ideal time to me," said a nome. "Hit them when they can't hit back, that's what I sav. Anyway, it's not as if humans are the sameas real people." But he shuffled backward anyway.

"Funny, though, when you see their faces close up," said Granny Morkie, putting her head to one side. "They look a lot like us. Only bigger."

One of the nomes peered into the human's frightened eyes.

"Hasn't it got a hairy nose?" he said. "And ears too."

"Like a cow," said Granny.

"You could almost feel sorry for them, with great big noses like that."

Grimma peered into the human's eyes. I wonder, she thought. They'rebigger than us, so there must be room for brains. And they've got greatbig eyes. Surely they must have seen us once? Masklin said we've beenhere for thousands of years. In all that time, humans must have seen us.

They must have known we were real people. But in their minds they turnedus into pixies. Perhaps they didn't want to have to share the world.

The human was definitely looking at her.

Could we share? she thought. They live in a big, long, slow world and welive in a small, short, fast one, and we can't understand each other.

They can't even see us unless we stand still as I'm standing now. Wemove too quickly for them. They don't think we exist.

She stared up into the big frightened eyes.

We've never tried to-what was the word-communicate with them before.

Not properly. Not as though they were real people, thinking realthoughts. How can we tell them we're really real and really here?

But perhaps when you're lying down on the floor and tied up by littlepeople you can hardly see and don't believe in, that's not the best timeto start communicating. Perhaps we should try it another time. Not signs, not shouting, just trying to get them to understand us.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could? They could do the big slow jobs forus, and we could do-oh, little fast things. Fiddly things that thosegreat fingers can't do ... but not paint flowers or mend their shoes.

"Grimma? You ought to see this, Grimma," said a voice behind her.

The nomes were clustered around a white heap on the floor.

Oh, yes. The human had been looking at one of those big sheets of paper.

The nomes had spread it out flat on the floor. It looked a lot like thefirst one they'd seen, except this one was called READ IT FIRST IN YOURSOARAWAY

BLACKBURY EVENING POST AND GAZETTE. It had more of the great blocky writing, some of the letters nearly as big as anome's head.

Grimma shook her own head as she tried to make sense of it. She could understand the books quite well, she considered, but the papers seemed to use a different language. It was full of probes and shocks and fuzzypictures of smiling humans shaking hands with other humans (ELKS RAISE.455 FOR HOSPITAL APPEAL). It wasn't difficult to work out what eachword meant, but when they were put together they either didn't meananything at all or something quite unbelievable (civic CENTER TAXBATTLE).

"No, this is the bit," said one of the nomes. "This page here. Look, someof the words, they're the same as last time, look! It's about GrandsonRichard, 39!"

Grimma ran the length of a story about somebody slamming somebody'splan for something.

There was indeed a fuzzy picture of Grandson Richard, 39, under thewords: TV-IN-THE-SKY HITCH.

She knelt down and stared at the smaller words below it.

"Read it aloud!" they said.

"'Richard Arnold, the Blackbury-based chairman of the ArncoInternational Group, said in Florida today,' " she read, " 'thatscientists are still trying to r-r-regain control of Arnsat 1, the multi- roillion-pound corn ... communications sat ... tellite ...' "

The nomes looked at one another.

"Multimillion pound," they said, "That's really heavy."

'Hopes were high after yesterday's s-s-successful l-lunch in Florida,'

" Grimma read uncertainly " 'that Arnsat 1 would begin testtr-tr-transmissions today. Instead, it is s-sending a stream of strangesig ... signals. "It's like some sort of c-code," said Arnold, 39 ..." ' "

There was an appreciative murmur from the listeners.

" 'It's as if it had a mind of its own,' " Grimma read.

There was more stuff about "teething troubles," whatever that meant, butGrimma didn't bother to read it.

She remembered the way Masklin had talked about the stars, and why theystayed up. And there was the Thing. He'd taken it with him. The Thingcould talk to electricity, couldn't it? It could listen to theelectricity in wires, and the stuff in the air that Dorcas called"radio." If anything could send strange signals, the Thing could. / maygo even further than the Long Drive, he'd said.

"They're alive," she said, to no one in particular. "Masklin and Gurderand Angalo. They got to the Florida place and they're alive."

She remembered him trying to tell her, sometimes, about the sky and theThing and where nomes first came from, and she'd never really understood, any more than he'd understood about the little frogs.

"They're alive," she repeated. "I know they are. I don't know exactly howor where, but they've got some sort of plan and they're alive."

The nomes exchanged meaningful glances, and the kind of meaning they werefull of was, She's fooling herself, but it'd take a braver nome than meto tell her.

Granny Morkie patted her gently on the shoulder.

"Yes, yes," she said soothingly. "And thank goodness they had asuccessful lunch. I bet they needed to get some food inside of them. Andif I was you, my girl, I'd get some sleep."

Grimma dreamed.

It was a confused dream. Dreams nearly always are. They don't come neatlypackaged. She dreamed of loud noises and flashing lights. And eyes.

Little yellow eyes. And Masklin, standing on a branch, climbing throughleaves, peering down at little yellow eyes.

Fm seeing what he's doing now, she thought. He's alive. I always knew hewas, of course. But outer space has got more leaves than I thought. Orperhaps none of it is real and Pm just dreaming ...

Then someone woke her up.

It's never wise to speculate about the meaning of dreams, so she didn't.

It snowed again in the night, on an icy wind. Some of the nomes scoutedaround the sheds and came back with a few vegetables that had been"missed, but it was a pitifully small amount. The tied-up human went tosleep after a while, and snored like someone sawing a thick log with athin saw.

"The others will come looking for it in the morning," Grimma warned.

"We mustn't be here then. Perhaps we should-"

She stopped. They all listened.

Something was moving around under the floorboards.

"Is anyone still down there?" Grimma whispered.

The nomes near her shook their heads. No one wanted to be in the chillyspace under the floor when there was the warmth and light of the officefor the having.

"And it can't be rats," she said.

Then someone called out in that half-loud, half-soft way of someone whowants to make himself heard while at the same time remaining as quiet aspossible.

It turned out to be Sacco.

They dragged aside the floorboards the humans had loosened and helped himup. He was covered in mud and swaying with exhaustion.

"I couldn't find anyone!" he gasped. "I looked everywhere and I couldn'tfind anyone and we saw the trucks come here and I saw the lights on and Ithought the humans were still here and I came in and I heard your voicesand you've got to coine because it's Dorcas!"

"He's alive?" said Grimma. "If he isn't, he can swear pretty well for a dead person," said Sacco, sagging to the floor. "We thought you were all de-" Grimma began. "We're all fine except for Dorcas. He hurt himself jumping out of the truck! Come on, pleaseV "You don't look in any state to go anywhere," said Grimma. She stood up.

"You just tell us where he is." "We got him halfway up the road and we got so tired and I left them and came on ahead," Sacco blurted out. "They're under the hedge and-" His eyes fell on the snoring bulk of the human. He stared at Grimma. "You've captured a humanf' he said. He stumbled sideways. "Need a bit of a rest. So tired. So tired," he repeated, vaguely. Then he fell forward. Grimma caught him and laid him down as gently as she could. "Someone put him somewhere warm and see if there's any food left," she said to the nomes in general. "And I want some of you to help me look for the others. Come on. This isn't a night for being outside." The expression on the faces of some of the nomes said that they definitely agreed with this point of view, and that among the people who shouldn't be out on a night like this was themselves. "It's snowing quite a lot," said one of them, uncertainly. "We'll never find them in all the dark and snow." Grimma glared at him. "We might," she said. "We might find them in all the dark and snow. We won't find them by staying in the light and warm, I know that much." Several nomes pushed their way forward. Grimma recognized Nooty's people, and the parents of some of the lads. Then there was a bit of a commotion from under the table, where the oldest nomes were clustering together to keep warm and have a good moan. "I'm comin' too," said Granny Morkie. "Do me good to have a drop of fresh air. What you all lookin' at me like that for?" "I think you ought to stay inside, Granny," said Grimma gently. "Don't you come the bein'-tactful-to-old-people to me, my gel," said Granny, prodding her with her stick. "I bin out in deep snow before you was even thought of." She turned to the rest of the nomes. "Nothin' to it if you acts sensible and keeps yellin' out so's everyone knows where everyone is. I went out to help look for my uncle Joe before I was a year old," she said, proudly. "Dreadful snow, that was. It come down sudden, like, when the men were out huntin'. We found nearly all of him too." "Yes, yes, all right, Granny," said Grimma quickly. She looked at the others. "Well, we're going," she said.

In the end fifteen of them went, many out of sheer embarrassment.

In the yellow light from the shed windows the snowflakes lookedbeautiful. By the time they reached the ground they were prettyunpleasant.

The Store nomes really hated the Outside snow. There had been snow in theStore, too, sprayed on merchandise around Christmas Fayre time. But itwasn't cold. And snowflakes were huge beautiful things that were hungfrom the ceilings on bits of thread. Proper snowflakes. Not ghastlythings which looked all right in the air but turned into freezing wetstuff which was allowed to just lie around on the floor.

It already was deep as their knees.

"What you do is," said Granny Morkie, "you lift your feet up really highand plonk them down. Nothin' to it."

The light from the shed shone out across the quarry, but the dirt roadwas a dark tunnel leading into the night.

"And spread out," said Grimma. "But keep together."

"Spread out and keep together," they muttered.

A senior nome put his hand up.

"You don't get robins at night, do you?" he asked cautiously.

"No, of course not," said Grimma.

"No, you don't get robins at night, silly," said Granny Morkie.

They looked relieved.

"No, you get foxes," Granny added, in a self-satisfied way. "Great bigfoxes. They get good and hungry in the cold weather. And maybe you getowls." She scratched her chin. "Cunnin' devils owls. You never hear 'em till they're almost on top o' you." She banged on the wall with herstick. "Look sharp, you lot. Best foot forward. Unless you're like myuncle Joe-a fox got 'is best foot, 'e 'ad to have a wooden leg, 'e waslivid."

There was something about Granny Morkie's cheering people up that alwaysgot them moving. Anything was better than being cheered up some more.

The snowflakes were caking up on the dried grasses and ferns on eitherbank. Every now and again some of it fell off, sometimes onto the dirtroad, often onto the nomes stumbling along it. They prodded the snowytussocks and peered doubtfully into the gloomy holes under the hedge, while the flakes continued to fall in a soft, crackly silence. Robins, owls, and other terrors of the Outside lurked in every shadow.

Eventually the light was left behind and they walked by the glow of thesnow itself. Sometimes one of them would call out, softly, and thenthey'd all listen.

It was very cold.

Granny Morkie stopped suddenly.

"Fox," she announced. "I can smell it. Can't mistake a fox. Rank."

They huddled together and stared apprehensively into the darkness.

"Might not still be around, mind," said Granny. "Hangs about for a longtime, that smell."

They relaxed a bit.

"Really, Granny," muttered Grimma.

"I was just tryin' to be a help," sniffed Granny Morkie. "You don't wantmy help, you've only got to say."

"We're doing this wrong," said Grimma. "It's Dorcas we're looking for. Hewouldn't just be sitting out in the open, would he? He knows aboutfoxes. He'd get the boys to find somewhere sheltered and as safe aspossible."

Nooty's father stepped forward.

"If you look the way the snow falls," he said hesitantly, "you can seethe air conditioning is blowing it this way." He pointed. "So it piles upmore on this side of things than that side. So they'd want to be as muchaway from the air conditioning as possible, wouldn't they?"

"It's called the wind, when it's Outside," said Grimma gently. "Butyou're right. That means"-she peered at the hedges-"they'd be on theother side of the hedge. In the field, up against the bank. Come on."

They scrambled up through the masses of dead leaves and dripping twigsand into the field beyond.

It was desolate. A few tufts of dead grass stuck above the endlesswilderness of snow. Several of the nomes groaned.

It's the size, Grimma thought. They don't mind Ae quarry, or the thicketsabove it, or even the ~ad, because a lot of it is closed in and you canpretend there are sort of walls around you. It's too big for them here.

"Stick close to the hedge," she said, more cheerfully than she felt.

"There's not so much snow there."

Oh, Arnold Bros. (est. 1905), she thought. Dorcas doesn't believe in you, and I certainly don't believe in you, but if you could just see your wayclear to existing just long enough for us to find them, we'd allappreciate it very much. And perhaps if you could stop the snow and seeus all safely back to the quarry as well, that would be a big help.

That's crazy, she thought. Masklin always said that if there was anArnold Bros., he was sort of inside our heads, helping us think.

She realized that she was staring at the snow.

Why is there a hole in it? she thought.