Truckers (17 page)

“'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 truck slide past him. Somehow, they'd looked smaller outside.

The floor was greasy with
all
. He ran under the truck 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 truck 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 truck. Here and there a candy 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 truck to hold on to, Masklin thought.

“Angalo?” he called out softly.

There was no answer. He poked around aimlessly for a while, 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 truck! 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.

Masklin 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?”

“Um. 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 truck 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 honesty, 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 truck 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 onto 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 program 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 truck.”

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 labeled “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 truck!

Put like that, it seemed ridiculous.

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

O
N THE FOURTH
day, Angalo returned, wild-eyed and grinning like a maniac.

The nome on guard came running into the department, with Angalo swaggering behind him and a gaggle of younger nomes trailing, fascinated, in his wake. He was grimy, and ragged, and looked as though he hadn't slept for hours—but he walked proudly, with a strange swaying motion, like a nome who has boldly gone where no nome has gone before and can't wait to be asked about it.

“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!” he 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 color!”

Now he was the center 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
.

Then he went to bed, still babbling excitedly about trucks and hills and cities, whatever they were, and slept for two hours.

Later on, Masklin went to see him.

Angalo was sitting up in bed, his eyes still shining like bright marbles in the paleness of his face.

“Don't you get him tired,” warned Granny Morkie, who always nursed anyone too ill to prevent it. “He's very weak and feverish. It's all that rattling around in those great noisy things; it's not natural. I've just had his dad in here, and I had to toss 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 sickroom.”

“I need to talk to Angalo,” 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 overexcited,” 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 trucks, and big things sticking out of the floor that had green things all over them—