Truckers (14 page)

The priest was almost in tears.

“No, but—”

“I saw one like these once.” It was old Torrit again. He looked very gray in the face and was trembling.

“You shut up, you,” said Granny. “You never saw nothing.”

“I did too,” said Torrit. “When I was a little lad. Grandpa Dimpo took some of us across the fields, through the wood, and there was all these big stone houses where humans lived, and they had little fields in front full of flowers like what they got here, and grass all short, and ponds with orange fish, and we saw one of these. It was sitting on a stone toadstool by one of these ponds.”

“It never was,” said Granny automatically.

“It was an' all,” said Torrit levelly. “And I mind Grandpa sayin', ‘That ain't no life, out there in all weathers, birds doing their wossname on your hat and dogs widdlin' all over you.' He tole us it was a giant nome who got turned to stone on account of sitting there for so long and never catching no fish. And he said, ‘Wot a way to go. That ain't for me, lads—I want to go sudden like,' and then a cat jumped out on him. Talk about a laugh.”

“What happened?” said Masklin.

“Oh, we gave it a good seeing-to with our spears and picked him up, and we all run like bu—run very fast,” said Torrit, watching Granny's stern expression.

“No, no!” wailed the priest. “It's not like that at all!” and then he started to sob.

Granny hesitated for a moment and then patted him gently on the back.

“There, there,” she said. “Don't you worry about it. Daft old fool says any old thing that comes into his head.”

“I don't—” Torrit began. Granny's warning look stopped him.

They went back slowly, trying to put the terrible stone images out of their minds. Torrit trailed along behind, grumbling like a worn-out thunderstorm.

“I did see it, I'm telling you,” he whispered. “Damn great grinning thing, it were, sitting on a spotty stone mushroom. I did see it. Never went back there, though. Better safe than sorry, I always said. But I did see it.”

It seemed taken for granted by everyone that Gurder was going to be the new Abbot. The old Abbot had left strict instructions. There didn't seem to be any argument.

The only one against the idea, in fact, was Gurder.

“Why me?” he said. “I never wanted to lead anyone! Anyway . . . you know . . .” He lowered his voice. “I have Doubts, sometimes. The old Abbot knew it, I'm sure. I can't imagine why he'd think I'd be any good.”

Masklin said nothing. It occurred to him that the Abbot might have had a very definite aim in mind. Perhaps it was time for a little doubt. Perhaps it was time to look at Arnold Bros (est. 1905) in a different way.

They were off to one side in the big underfloor area the Stationeri used for important meetings; it was the one place in the Store, apart from the Food Hall, where fighting was strictly forbidden. The heads of the families, rulers of departments and subdepartments, were milling around out there. They might not be allowed to bear weapons, but they were cutting one another dead at every opportunity.

Getting them to even think of working together would be impossible without the Stationeri. It was odd, really. The Stationeri had no real power at all, but all the families needed them and none of them feared them, and so they survived and, in a strange sort of way, led. A Haberdasheri wouldn't listen even to common sense from an Ironmongri, on general principles, but he would if the speaker was a Stationeri because everyone knew the Stationeri didn't take sides.

Masklin turned to Gurder.

“We need to talk to someone in the Ironmongri. They control the electric, don't they? And the truck nest.”

“That's the Count de Ironmongri over there,” said Gurder, pointing. “Thin fellow with the mustache. Not very religious. Doesn't know much about electric, though.”

“I thought you told me—”

“Oh, the
Ironmongri
do. The underlings and servants and whatnot. But not people like the Count. Good heavens.” Gurder smiled. “You don't think the Duke de Haberdasheri ever touches a pair of scissors, do you, or Baroness del Icatessen goes and cuts up food her actual self?”

He looked sideways at Masklin. “You've got a plan, haven't you?” he said.

“Yes. Sort of.”

“What are you going to tell them, then?”

Masklin picked absently at the tip of his spear.

“The truth. I'm going to tell them they can leave the Store and take it all with them. I think it should be possible.”

Gurder rubbed his chin. “Hmm,” he said. “I
suppose
it's possible. If everyone carries as much food and stuff as they can. But it'll soon run out, and anyway, you can't carry electric. It lives in wires, you know.”

“How many Stationeri can read Human?” said Masklin, ignoring him.

“All of us can read a bit, of course,” said Gurder. “But only four of us are any real good at it, if you must know.”

“I don't think that's going to be enough,” said Masklin.

“Well, there's a trick to it, and not everyone can get the hang of it. What
are
you planning?”

“A way to get everyone,
everyone
, out. Carrying everything we'll ever need, ever,” said Masklin.

“They'll be squashed under the weight!”

“Not really. Most of what they'll be carrying doesn't weigh anything at all.”

Gurder looked worried.

“This isn't some mad scheme of Dorcas's, is it?” he said.

“No.”

Masklin felt that he might explode. His head wasn't big enough to hold all the things the Thing had told him.

And he was the only one. Oh, the Abbot had known, and died with his eyes full of stars, but even he didn't understand. The galaxy! The old man thought it was just a great big room outside the Store, just the biggest department ever. Perhaps Gurder wouldn't comprehend either. He'd lived all his life under a roof. He had no idea of the sort of distances involved.

Masklin felt a slight surge of pride at this. The Store nomes
couldn't
understand what the Thing was saying, because they had no experiences to draw on. To them, from one end of the Store to the other was the biggest possible distance in the world.

They wouldn't be able to come to grips with the fact that the stars, fr'instance, were much farther away. Even if you ran all the way, it'd probably take
weeks
to reach them.

He'd have to lead up to it gently.

The stars! And a long, long time ago, nomes had traveled between them on things that made trucks look tiny—and had been built by nomes. And one of the great ships, exploring around a little star on the edge of nowhere, had sent out a smaller ship to land on the world of the humans.

But something had gone wrong. Masklin hadn't understood that bit, except that the thing that moved the ships was very, very powerful. Hundreds of nomes had survived, though. One of them, searching through the wreckage, had found the Thing. It wasn't any good without electricity to eat, but the nomes had kept it nevertheless, because it had been the machine that steered the Ship.

And the generations passed by, and the nomes forgot everything except that the Thing was very important.

That was enough for one head to carry, Masklin thought. But it wasn't the most important bit, it wasn't the bit that made his blood fizz and his fingers tingle.

This
was the important bit. The big Ship, the one that could fly between stars, was still up there somewhere. It was tended by machines like the Thing, patiently waiting for the nomes to come back. Time meant nothing to them. There were machines to sweep the long corridors, and machines that made food and watched the stars and patiently counted the hours and minutes in the long, dark emptiness of the Ship.

And they'd wait forever. They didn't know what Time was, except something to be counted and filed away. They'd wait until the sun went cold and the moon died, carefully repairing the Ship and keeping it ready for the nomes to come back.

To take them Home.

And while they waited, Masklin thought, we forgot all about them, we forgot everything about ourselves, and lived in holes in the ground.

He knew what he had to do. It was, of course, an impossible task. But he was used to impossible tasks. Dragging a rat all the way from the woods to the hole had been an impossible task. But it wasn't impossible to drag it a little way, so you did that, and then you had a rest, and then you dragged it a little way again. . . . The way to deal with an impossible task was to chop it down into a number of merely very difficult tasks, and break each one of
them
into a group of horribly hard tasks, and each one of
them
into tricky jobs, and each one of them . . .

Probably the hardest job of all was to make nomes understand what they once were and could be again.

He did have a plan. Well, it had started off as the Thing's plan, but he'd turned it over and over in his mind so much, he felt it belonged to him. It was probably an impossible plan. But he'd never know unless he tried it.

Gurder was still watching him cautiously.

“Er,” Masklin said. “This plan . . .”

“Yes?” said Gurder.

“The Abbot told me that the Stationeri have always tried to make nomes work together and stop squabbling,” said Masklin.

“That has always been our desire, yes.”

“
This
plan will mean they'll
have
to work together.”

“Good.”

“Only I don't think you're going to like it much,” said Masklin.

“That's unfair! How can you make assumptions like that?”

“I think you'll laugh at it,” said Masklin.

“The only way to find out is to tell me,” said Gurder.

Masklin told him. When Gurder was over the shock, he laughed and laughed.

And then he looked at Masklin's face, and stopped.

“You're not serious?” he said.

“Let me put it like this,” said Masklin. “Have you got a better plan? Will you support me?”

“But how will you—how can nomes—is it even possible that we can—?” Gurder began.

“We'll find a way,” said Masklin. “With Arnold Bros (est. 1905)'s help, of course,” he added diplomatically.

“Oh. Of course,” said Gurder weakly. He pulled himself together. “Anyway, if I'm to be the new Abbot, I have to make a speech,” he said. “It's expected. General messages of goodwill and so on. We can talk about this later. Reflect upon it at leisure in the sober surroundings of—”

Masklin shook his head. Gurder swallowed.

“You mean
now
?” he said.

“Yes. Now. We tell them
now
.”

I. And the leaders of the nomes were Assembled, and the Abbot Gurder said unto them, Harken to the Words of the Outsider;

II. And some waxed wroth, saying, He is an Outsider, wherefor then shall we harken to him?

III. The Abbot Gurder said, Because the old Abbot wished it so. Yea, and because I wish it so, also
.

IV. Whereupon they grumbled, but were silent
.

V. The Outsider said, Concerning the Rumors of Demolition, I have a Plan
.

VI. Let us not go like Woodlice fleeing from an overturned log, but like Brave Free People, at a time of our choosing
.

VII. And they interrupted him, saying, What's Woodlice? Whereupon the Outsider said, All right, Rats
.

VIII. Let us take with us the things that we need to begin our life anew Outside, not in some other Store, but under the sky. Let us take all nomes, the aged and the young, and all the food and materials and information that we need
.

IX. And they said, All? And he said, All. And they said unto him, We cannot do this thing
. . . .