Diggers (8 page)

For the second time, the alarm bell rang out across the quarry.

This time, the hand on the switch belonged to Nisodemus.

II. And Nisodemus said, You are betrayed, People of the Store;

III. Falsely you were led into This Outside of Rain and Cold and Sleet and Humans and Order, and Yet it Will become Worse;

IV. For there will be Sleet and Snow, and Hunger in the Land;

V. And There will come Robins;

VI. Um.

VII. Yet those who brought you here, where are they Now?

VIII. They said, We go to seek Grandson Richard, 39, but tribulation abounds on every side and no help comes. You are betrayed into the hands of Winter.

IX. It is time to put aside things of the Outside. . . .

From
The Book of Nome,
Complaints v. II–IX

“Y
ES.
W
ELL.
T
HAT'S
hard to do, isn't it?” said a nome uneasily. “I mean, we
are
Outside.”

“But I have a
plan
,” said Nisodemus.

“Ah,” said the nomes in unison. Plans were the thing. Plans were what was needed. You knew where you were, with a plan.

Grimma and Dorcas, almost the last to arrive, sidled their way into the crowd. The old engineer was going to push his way to the front, but Grimma restrained him.

“Look at the others up there,” she whispered.

There were quite a few nomes behind Nisodemus. Many of them Dorcas recognized as Stationeri, but there were a few others from some of the great departmental families. They weren't looking at Nisodemus as he spoke, but at the crowd. Their eyes flickered back and forth, as though they were searching for something.

“I don't like the look of this,” said Grimma quietly. “The big families never used to get on too well with the Stationeri, so why are they up there now?”

“Grubby pieces of work, some of them,” said Dorcas.

Some of the Stationeri had been particularly upset about common, everyday nomes learning to read. They said it gave people ideas, Dorcas gathered, which were not a good thing unless they were the right kind of ideas. And some of the great families hadn't been too happy about nomes being able to go where they pleased, without having to ask permission.

They're all up there, he thought. The nomes who haven't done so well since the Drive. They all lost a little power.

Nisodemus was explaining his plan.

As he listened, Dorcas's mouth slowly dropped open.

It was magnificent in its way, that plan. It was like a machine where every single bit was perfectly made, but which had been put together by a one-handed nome in the dark. It was crammed full of good ideas that you couldn't sensibly argue with, but they had been turned upside down. The trouble was, they were
still
ones you couldn't sensibly argue with, because the basically good idea was still in there somewhere. . . .

Nisodemus wanted to rebuild the Store.

The nomes stood in horrified admiration as the Stationeri explained that yes, Abbot Gurder
had
been right: When they left the Store, they had taken Arnold Bros (est. 1905) with them
inside their heads
. And if they could show him that they really
cared
about the Store, he would come out again and put a stop to all these problems and reestablish the Store here, in this green unpleasant land.

That was how it all arrived in Dorcas's head, anyway. He'd long ago decided that if you spent all your time listening to what people actually
said
, you'd never have time to work out what they
meant
.

But it wouldn't mean building the whole Store, said Nisodemus, his eyes shining like two bright black marbles. They could change the quarry in other ways. Go back to living in proper departments instead of any old how all over the place. Put up some signs. Get back to the Good Old Ways. Make Arnold Bros (est. 1905) feel at home. Build the Store
inside their heads
.

Nomes didn't often go mad. Dorcas vaguely recalled an elderly nome who had once decided that he was a teapot, but he'd changed his mind after a few days.

Nisodemus, though, had definitely been getting too much fresh air.

It was obvious that one or two other nomes thought so too.

“I don't quite see,” said one of them, “how Arnold Bros (est. 1905) is going to stop these humans. No offense meant.”

“Did humans interfere with us when we were in the Store?” demanded Nisodemus.

“Well, no, because—”

“Then trust in Arnold Bros (est. 1905)!”

“But that didn't stop the Store being demolished, did it?” said a voice. “When it came to it, you all trusted Masklin and Gurder and the Truck. And yourselves! Nisodemus is always telling you how clever you are. Try and
be
clever, then!”

Dorcas realized it was Grimma. He'd never seen anyone so angry.

She pushed her way through the apprehensive nomes until she was face to face, or at least, since Nisodemus was standing on something and she wasn't, face to chest. He was one of those people who liked standing on things.

“What will actually
happen
, then?” she shouted. “When you've built the Store, what will
happen
? Humans came into the Store, you know!”

Nisodemus's mouth opened and shut for a while. Then he said, “But they obeyed the Regulations! Yes! Um! That's what they did! And things were better then!”

She glared at him.

“You don't really think people are going to accept that, do you?” she said.

There was silence.

“You've got to admit,” said an elderly nome, very slowly, “things
were
better then.”

The nomes shuffled their feet.

That was all you could hear.

Just people, shuffling their feet.

“They just accepted it!” said Grimma. “Just like that! No one's bothered about the Council anymore! They just do what he tells them!”

Now she was in Dorcas's workspace under a bench in the old quarry garage. My little sanctuary, he always called it. My little nook. Bits of wire and tin were scattered everywhere. The wall was covered with scrawls done with a bit of pencil lead.

Dorcas sat and twiddled a bit of wire aimlessly.

“You're being hard on people,” he said quietly. “You shouldn't yell at them like that. They've been through a lot. They get all confused if you shout at them. The Council was all right for when times were good—” He shrugged. “And without Masklin and Gurder and Angalo, well, it hardly seems worthwhile.”

“But after all that's happened!” She waved her arms. “To act so
stupidly
, just because he's offered them—”

“A bit of comfort,” said Dorcas. He shook his head. You couldn't explain things like this to people like Grimma. Nice girl, bright head on her, but she kept thinking that everyone else was as passionate about things as she was. All people
really
wanted, Dorcas considered, was to be left alone. The world was quite difficult enough as it was without people going around trying to make it better all the time.

Masklin had understood that. He knew the way to make people do what you wanted was to make them think it was their idea. If there was one thing that got right up a nome's nose, it was someone saying, “Here is a really sensible idea. Why are you too
stupid
to understand?”

It wasn't that people
were
stupid. It was just that people were people.

“Come on,” he said wearily. “Let's go and see how the signs are getting on.”

The whole of the floor of one of the big sheds had been turned over to the making of the signs. Or rather, the Signs. Another thing Nisodemus was good at was giving words capital letters. You could
hear
him doing it.

Dorcas had to admit that the Signs were a pretty good idea, though. He felt guilty about thinking this.

He'd thought that when Nisodemus had summoned him and asked if there was any paint in the quarry, only now the quarry was being called the New Store.

“Um,” Dorcas had said, “there's some old cans. White and red, mainly. Under one of the benches. We might be able to lever the tops off.”

“Then do it. It is very important. Um. We must make Signs,” said the Stationeri.

“Signs. Right,” said Dorcas. “Cheer the place up a bit, you mean?”

“No!”

“Sorry, sorry, I just thought—”

“Signs for the gate!”

Dorcas scratched his chin. “The gate?” he said.

“Humans obey Signs,” said Nisodemus, calming down. “We know that. Did they not obey the Signs in the Store?”

“Most of 'em,” agreed Dorcas.
Dogs and Strollers Must Be Carried
had always puzzled him. Lots of humans didn't carry either of them.

“Signs make humans do things,” said Nisodemus, “or stop doing things. So get to work, good Dorcas. Signs. Um. Signs that say
No
.”

Dorcas had given this a lot of thought as teams of nomes sweated to pry the lids off the paint-streaked cans. They still had
The High Way Code
from the Truck, and there were plenty of signs in there. And he could remember some of the signs from the Store.

Then there was a stroke of luck. Normally the nomes stayed at floor level, but Dorcas had taken to sending his young assistants onto the big desk in the manager's office occasionally, where there were useful scraps of paper. Now he needed to work out what the signs should say.

Sacco and Nooty came back with the news.

They'd found more signs. A great big grubby notice pinned to the wall, covered with signs.

“Masses of them,” Sacco said, coming back out of breath. “And you know what, sir? You know what? I read what it said on the notice, and it said,
Health And Safety At Work
, it said,
Obey These Signs
, it said, and it said,
They Are There For Your Protection
.”

“That's what it said?” said Dorcas.

“For Your Protection,”
Sacco repeated.

“Can you get it down?”

“There's a coat hook next to it,” said Nooty enthusiastically. “I bet we could sling a hook up and then pull it over toward the window, and then—”

“Yes, yes, you're good at that sort of thing,” said Dorcas. Nooty could climb like a squirrel. “I expect Nisodemus will be very pleased,” he added.

Nisodemus was, especially with the bit that said
For Your Protection
. It showed, he said, that, um, Arnold Bros (est. 1905) was on their side.

Every bit of board and rusty sheet of metal had to be pressed into service. The nomes went at it cheerfully enough, though, happy to be doing something.

Next morning the sun rose to see a variety of signs hanging, not always squarely, on the battered quarry gate.

They had been very thorough. The signs said:
No Etnry. Exit This Way. Dagner—Hard Hat Area. Blastign In Progres. All Trucks Report To Wieghbridge. Slipery When Wet. This Till Closed. Lift Out Fo Order. Beware Of Flaling Rocks. Road Floooded
.

And one that Dorcas had found in a book and was rather proud of:
Unexploded Bom
.

Just to be on the safe side, though, and without telling Nisodemus, he found some more chain and, in one of the greasy old toolboxes in Big John's shed, a padlock nearly as big as he was. It took four nomes to carry it.

The chain was massive. Some of the nomes found Dorcas painstakingly levering it along across the quarry floor, one link at a time. He didn't seem to want to tell them where he had found it.

The truck turned up around noon. The nomes waiting in the hedge by the side of the lane saw the driver get out, look at the signs, and . . .

No, that wasn't right. Humans couldn't do that sort of thing. It couldn't be true. But twenty nomes, peering out from the undergrowth, saw it happen.