The Bromeliad 2 - Diggers

Chapter 13

IV. Dorcas said, This is the Cat, Great Beast withteeth.

V. Needs Must. If we are driven, let us Drive.

-From the Book of Nome, Cat II, v. IV-V

Sometimes words need music too. Sometimes the descriptions are notenough. Books should be written with soundtracks, like films.

Something deep, on an organ, perhaps.

Grimma stared. Soundtrack on: Deedle-dah-DEEdleDAHda-dum It can't really be alive, she thought desperately. It's not really aboutto bite me. Dorcas wouldn't have brought me in here if he knew there wasa monster about to bite me. I'm not going to be frightened. I'm notfrightened at all. I am a thinking nome and I'm not frightened'.

"I think the knobby wheels are just to make it grip the ground better," said Dorcas, his voice sounding a long way off. "Now, I've had a goodlook around it and, you know, there's nothing really wrong with it, it's just very old-"

Grimma's gaze travelled along the huge yellow neck.

Deedle-dah-deedle-dah-DUM

"Then I thought, I'm sure it could be started up. These diesel enginesare quite easy really, and of course there were pictures in one of thebooks, although I'm not sure about these pipes, hydraulics I think itscalled, but there was this book on one of the benches, Workshop Manual, and I've put grease on things and cleaned it up," Dorcas gabbled.

Dah-dah-dah-DUM

"I suppose the humans, or whatever, knew they would be coming back, andI've been up and looked at the controls and, you know, it's probablyeasier than the truck was, only of course there's these extra leversfor the hydraulics, but that shouldn't be a problem if there's enoughgas, which ..."

He stopped, aware of her silence.

"Is there something the matter?" he said.

"What is it?" said Grimma.

"I was just telling you," said Dorcas. "It's fascinating. You see, these pipes pump some sort of stuff which made those parts up there move, and those pistons are forced out, which makes the arm thing over there-"

"I didn't ask you what it does, I asked you what lt is," said Grimma, impatiently. "Because I know one thing. It's not a cat, Dorcas."

"You're wrong about that," said Dorcas. "See what's painted on it. Justup there, look."

She looked where he pointed. Grimma's brow wrinkled.

"C ... A ... T," she said. "Cat? But ... but ... Dorcas, that can't beright. Not really right. Look, a cat's got, well, whiskers. And hair. Andit's a whole lot smaller."

"Dunno," said Dorcas, and he shrugged. "It's written right there. I'm notabout to argue with things that are written right there. Maybe it's a bigcat. Maybe all the whiskers dropped out a long time ago. You know? Likesome old nomes lose their hair?"

"W-well," said Grimma, uncertainly. "But even the shape isn't right, and-"

"What do I know about this?" said Dorcas. "I'm not an expert in naturalhistory. Anyway, come over to this side."

She followed him dreamily, and, once more, stared into the darkness underthe tarp.

"There," he said. "There's no mistaking what they are, I hope."

"Oh, my," said Grimma, and raised her hand to her mouth.

"Yes," said Dorcas. "That's what I thought. When I first found this Ithought, oh, it's a sort of truck, well, well, and then I walked up hereand I found that it was a truck with-"

"Teeth," said Grimma, softly. "Great big metal teeth. A mouth at bothends?"

"That's right," said Dorcas proudly. "The Cat. A sort of truck. A truckwith two heads. A truck with teeth."

Dah-DUM

"Does it-does it work?" said Grimma. "It should. It should. I've tested what I can. Basic principle is like a truck, but there's a lot of extra levers and things-"

"Why didn't you tell me about this before?" Grimma demanded.

"Dunno. Because I didn't have to, I suppose," said Dorcas.

"But it's huge. You can't keep something like this to yourself!"

"Everyone has to have something they can keep to themselves," said Dorcas vaguely. "Anyway, the size isn't important. It's just so, well, soperfect." Dorcas patted a knobby tire. "You know, you said humans thinksomeone made the world in a week? When I saw the Cat for the first time I thought, okay, this is what he used."

He stared up into the shadows.

"First thing we've got to do is get the tarp off," he said. "It'll be very heavy, so we'll need lots of people. You'd better warn them. The Cat can be a bit scary when you see it for the first time."

"Didn't frighten me a bit," said Grimma.

"I know," said Dorcas. "I was watching your face."

The nomes looked expectantly at Grimma.

"The thing to remember," she said, "is that it's just a machine. Just a sort of truck. But when you first see it, it can be rather frightening, so hold on to small children's hands. And run smartly backward when thetarp comes down."

There was a chorus of nods.

"All right. Grab hold."

Six hundred nomes spat on their hands and grasped the edge of the heavy cloth.

"When I say pull, I want you to pull."

The nomes took the strain.

"Pull!"

The creases in the tarp flattened out and disappeared.

"Pull!"

It began to move. Then, as it slid over the Cat's angular shape, its own weight started to tug at it.

"Run!"

It came down like an oily green avalanche, piling up into a mountain of folds, but no one bothered about it because the sun shone through thedusty, cobwebbed windows and made the Cat glow.

Several nomes screamed. Mothers picked up their children. There was amovement toward the doors.

The light twinkled on the tips of the teeth.

It does look like a head, Grimma thought. On a long neck. And he's gotanother one at the other end. What am I saying? It has got another one atthe other end.

"I said it's all right!" she shouted over the rising din. "Look! It's noteven moving!"

"Hey!" shouted another voice. She looked up. Nooty and Sacco had climbedout along the Cat's neck, and were sitting there, waving cheerfully.

That did it. The tide of nomes reached the wall and stopped. You alwaysfeel foolish, running away from something that isn't chasing you. Theyhesitated and then slowly inched their way back.

"Well, well," said Granny Morkie, hobbling forward. "So that's whatthey look like. I always wondered."

Grimma stared at her.

"What what look like?" she said.

"Oh, the big diggers," said Granny. "They'd all gone when I was born, butour dad saw 'em. Great big yellow things with teeth that et dirt, hesaid. I always thought he was having me on."

The Cat was still not eating people. Some of the more adventurous nomesstarted to climb on it.

"It was when the big highway was built," Granny went on, leaning on herstick. "They were all over the place, Dad said. Big yellow things withteeth and knobby tires."

Grimma stared at her with the kind of expression reserved for peoplewho turn out, against all expectation, to have interesting and secrethistories.

"And there was others too," the old woman went on. "Things that shoveddirt in piles and everything. This would have been, oh, fifteen yearsago now. Never thought I'd see one."

"You mean the highways were made?" said Grimma. The Cat was covered withyoung nomes now. She could see Dorcas in the back of the cab, explainingwhat various levers did.

"That's what he said," said Granny. "You didn't think they was natch'ral, did you?"

"Oh. No. No. Of course not," said Grimma. "Don't be silly."

And she thought, I wonder if Dorcas is right? Perhaps everything wasmade. Everything in the whole world. Some parts early, some parts later.

You start with hills and clouds and things, and then you add highways andStores. Perhaps the job of humans is to make the world, and they're stilldoing it. That's why the machines have to suit them.

Gurder would have understood this sort of thing. I wish he were back.

And then Masklin would be back too.

She tried to think about something else.

Knobby tires. That was a good start. The Cat's back wheels were nearly ashigh as a human. It doesn't need highways. Of course it doesn't. It makeshighways. So it has to be able to go where highways aren't.

She pushed her way through the crowds to the back of the cab, whereanother group of nomes were already nomehandling a plank into position, and scrambled up to where Dorcas was trying to make himself heard in themiddle of an excited crowd.

"You're going to drive this out of here?" she demanded.

He looked up.

"Oh, yes," he said happily. "I think so. I hope so. I imagine we've gotat least an hour before any more humans come, and it's not a lotdifferent from a truck."

"We know how to do it!" shouted one of the younger nomes. "My dad told meall about the strings and stuff!"

Grimma looked around the cab. It seemed to be full of levers.

It'd been more than half a year since the Long Drive, and she'd nevertaken much notice of mechanical things, but she couldn't help thinkingthe old truck cab had been a lot less crowded. There had been some pedalsand a lever and the steering wheel, and that had been about it.

She turned back to Dorcas.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"No," he said. "You know I'm never sure. But a lot of the controls arefor its mou-for the bucket. The thing with the teeth in it. At the end ofits neck. I mean, the control arms. We needn't bother with them. They'reamazingly ingenious, though, and all you have to do-"

"Where's everyone going to sit? There isn't much room."

Dorcas shrugged. "I suppose the older people can travel in the cab. Theyoungsters will have to hang on where they can. We can wrap wires andthings around the place. For handholds, I mean. Look, don't worry. We'llbe driving in the light and we don't have to go fast."

"And then we'll get to the barn, won't we, Dorcas?" said Nooty. "Whereit'll be warm and there's lots of food."

"I hope so," said Dorcas. "Now, let's get on with things. We haven't gotmuch time. Where's Sacco with the battery?"

Grimma thought, Will there be lots of food at the barn? Where did we getthat idea? Angalo said that turnips or something were stored up there, and there may be some potatoes. That's not exactly a feast.

Her stomach, thinking thoughts of its own, rumbled in disagreement. Ithad been a very long night to pass on a tiny piece of cheese sandwich.

Anyway, we can't stay here now. Anywhere will be better than here.

"Dorcas," she said, "Is there anything I can help with?"

He looked up. "You could read the instruction book," he said. "See if itsays how to drive it."

"Don't you know?"

"Er. Not in so many words. Not exactly. I mean, I know how to do it, it'sjust that I don't know what to do."

It was under the bench on one side of the shed. Grimma propped it up andtried to concentrate despite the noise. I bet he does know, shethought. But this is his moment, and he doesn't want me getting in theway.

The nomes moved like people with a purpose. Things were far too bad tospend time grumbling. Funny thing, she thought as she turned the dirtypages, that people only seem to stop complaining when things get reallybad. That's when they start using words like pulling together, shouldersto the wheel, and noses to the grindstone. She'd found "nose to thegrindstone" in a book. Apparently it meant "to keep on with things." Shedidn't see why people were supposed to work hard if you ground theirnoses; it seemed more likely that they'd work hard if you promised togrind their noses if they didn't.

It had been the same with "Road Works Ahead" on the Long Drive. The roadahead works. How could it mean anything else? But the road had been fullof holes. Where was the sense in that? Words ought to mean what theymeant.

She turned the page.

There was a big brown ring on this one, where a human had put down a cup.

And the words Caterpillar Tractor Company, She gave them a blank look.

This is just what I mean, she thought. A caterpillar is a babybutterfly. A tractor is a sort of truck humans use in fields. Company iswhat you have when you're not alone. The words all mean something, andthen they get put together, and who knows what they mean then?

Across the floor a group of nomes swarmed around the slowly moving bulkof the battery. They were rolling it on rusty ball bearings.

The can of fuel wobbled after it.

Grimma turned another page and stared at the pictures of levers withnumbers on them. Suddenly people were keen on the barn, she thought. Suddenly, when things were not just averagely awful but promising to bereally dreadful, they seemed almost happy. Masklin had known about that.

It's amazing what people would do, he said, if you found the right placeto push.

She went on reading.

Back hoe. Now, what was that supposed to mean? Maybe you had to shoutinstructions to the Cat? Like, maybe, "Back, hoe!" And "Forward, hey!" Ormaybe not?

She stared at the pages, and tried to get interested in levers.

The clouds running before the sun were spreading across the pink of thesky. Red sky in the morning, Grimma had read once. It meant sailorswere unhappy. She didn't know what sailors were, though, or why they madethe sky red when they were unhappy.

In the dark office the human awoke, mooed for a while, and tried to jerkfree of the cobweb of wires that held it down. After a lot of effort it wriggled most of one arm free.

What the human did next would have surprised most nomes. It caught holdof a chair and, with a great deal of grunting, managed to tip it over. Itpulled it across the floor, manipulated the leg under a couple ofstrands of wire, and heaved.

A minute later it was sitting upright, pulling more wires free.

Its huge eyes fell on the scrap of paper on the floor.

It stared at it for a moment, rubbing its arms, and then it picked up thetelephone.

Dorcas prodded vaguely at a wire.

"Are you sure the battery is connected the right way, sir?" said Sacco.

"I can tell the difference between red wires and black wires, you know," said Dorcas mildly, prodding another wire.

"Then perhaps the battery doesn't have enough electricity," said Grimmahelpfully, trying to see over their shoulders. "Perhaps it's all run tothe bottom, or gone dry."

Dorcas and Sacco exchanged glances.

"Electricity doesn't sink," said Dorcas patiently. "Or dry up, as far asI know. It's either there or it isn't. Excuse me." He peered up into themass of wires again, and gave one a poke. There was a pop, and a fat bluespark.

"It's there all right," he added. "It's just that it isn't where itshould be."

Grimma walked back across the greasy floor of the cab. Groups of nomeswere standing around, waiting. Hundreds of them were clutching the wiresattached to the big steering wheel above them. Other teams stood by withbits of wood pressing, like battering rams, on the pedals.

"Just a bit of a delay," she said. "All the electricity's got lost."

There were nomes everywhere. On the Long Drive there had been a wholetruck for them. But the Cat's cab was smaller, and people had to packthemselves in where they could.

What a ragged bunch, Grimma thought. And it was true. Even in the suddenrush from the Store the nomes had been able to bring a lot of stuff. Andthey had been plump and well dressed.

Now they were thinner and leaner and much dirtier and all they weretaking with them were the torn and grubby clothes they stood up in. Even the books had been left behind. A hundred books took up the space ofthree hundred nomes, and while Grimma privately thought that some of thebooks were more useful than many of the nomes, she'd accepted Dorcas'spromise that they would come back one day and try to retrieve them fromtheir hiding place under the floor.

Well, thought Grimma. We tried. We really made an effort. We came to thequarry to dig in, look after ourselves, live proper lives. And we failed.

We thought all we had to do was bring the right things from the Store, but we brought a lot of wrong things too. Next time we'll need to go asfar away from humans as possible, and I don't actually think anywhere isfar enough.

She climbed up onto the rickety driving platform, which had been madeby tying a plank across the cab. There were even nomes on this. Theywatched her expectantly.

At least driving the Cat should be easier. The leaders of the teams onthe controls could see her, so she wouldn't have to mess around withsemaphore and pieces of thread as they'd done when they left the Store.

And a lot of the nomes had done this before too ...

She heard Dorcas shout, "Try it this time!"

There was a click. There was a whirr. Then the Cat roared.

The sound bounced around the cave of the shed. It was so loud and so deepit wasn't really sound at all, just something that turned the air hardand then hit you with it. Nomes flung themselves flat on the tremblingdeck of the cab.

Grimma, clutching at her ears, saw Dorcas running across the floor, waving his hands. The team on the accelerator pedal gave him a "Who, us?" look and stopped pushing.

The sound died down to a deep, rumbling purr, a mummummummum that stillhad a feel-it-in-the-bone quality. Dorcas hurried back and climbed, witha lot of stopping for breath, up to the plank.

When he got there he sat down and rubbed his brow.

"I'm getting too old for this sort of thing," he said. "When a nome getsto a certain age, it's time to stop stealing giant vehicles. Well-knownfact. Anyway. It's ticking over nicely. You might as well take us out."

"What, all by myself?" said Grimma.

"Yes. Why not?"

"It's just that, well, I thought Sacco or someone would be up here." Ithought a male nome would be driving, she thought.

"They'd like to," said Dorcas. "They'd love to. And we'd be zipping allover the place, I don't doubt it, with them crying 'yippee!' and whatnot.

No. I want a nice peaceful drive across the fields, thank you very much.

The gentle touch."

He leaned down.

"Everyone ready down there?" he yelled.

There was a chorus of nervous "yesses," and one or two cheerful ones. "I wonder if putting Sacco in charge of the go-faster pedal is really a good idea," mused Dorcas. He straightened up.

"Er. You're not worried, are you?" he said.

Grimma snorted. "What? Me? No. Of course not. It does not," she added, "present a problem."

"O-kay," he said. "Let's go."

There was silence, except for the deep thrumming of the engine.

Grimma paused.

If Masklin were here, she thought, he'd do this better than me. No one mentions him anymore. Or Angalo. Or Gurder. They don't like thinkingabout them. That must be something nomes learned hundreds of years ago, in this world full of foxes and rushing things and a hundred nasty waysto die. If someone is missing, you must stop thinking about them, youmust put them out of your mind. But I think about him all the time.

I just went on about the frogs in the flowers, and I never thought about his dreams.

Dorcas gently put his arm around her. She was shaking. Everyone was shaking to the deep chugging of the motor. But she was shaking worse. "We should have sent some people to the airport to see what happened to him," she muttered. "It would have showed that we cared, and-"

"We didn't have the time, and we didn't have the people," said Dorcas softly. "When he comes back we can explain about that. He's bound to understand." "Yes," she whispered.

"And now," said Dorcas, standing back, "let's go!"

Grimma took a deep breath.

"First gear," she bellowed, "and go forward verrrry slowly."

The teams pushed and pulled their way over the deck. There was a slight shudder and the engine noise dropped. The Cat lurched forward and jolted to a stop. The motor coughed and died.

Dorcas looked thoughtfully at his fingernails. "Hand brake, hand brake, hand brake," he hummed softly.

Grimma glared at him, and cupped her hands around her mouth. "Take the hand brake off!" she shouted. "Right! Now, get into first gear and go forward very slowly!" There was a click, and silence.

"Startthemotor, startthemotor, startthemotor," murmured Dorcas, rocking back and forth on his heels.

Grimma sagged. "Put everything back where it was and start the motor," she screamed.

Nooty, in charge of the hand brake team, called up, "Do you want the handbrake on or off, miss?"

"What?"

"You haven't told us what to do with the hand brake, miss," said Sacco.

The nomes with him started to grin.

Grimma shook a finger at him. "Listen, mister," she snapped, "if I haveto come down there and tell you what to do with the hand brake, you'llall be extremely sorry, all right? Now stop giggling like that and getthis thing moving! Quickly!"

There was a click. The Cat howled again and started to move. A cheer wentup from the nomes.

"Right," said Grimma. "That's more like it."

"The doors, the doors, the doors, we didn't open the doors," hummedDorcas.

"Of course we didn't open the doors," said Grimma as the digger began togo faster. "We never open the doors! What do we need to open the doorsfor? This is the Cat!"