'It's too far up,' he said. 'It's a small step for a man, but a giant leap for nomekind.'
9
v. Thus the Outsider said, Those who believe not in the Outside, see, one will be sent Outside to Prove This Thing; vi. And one went upon a Lorry, and went Outside, to see where there may be a new Home; vii. And there was much waiting, for he did not return.
From The Book of Nome, Goods Outwards v.V-VII Masklin had taken to sleeping in an old shoebox in the Stationery Department, where he could find a little peace. But when he got back there was a small deputation of nomes waiting for him. They were holding a book between them.
Masklin was getting a bit disillusioned with the books. Maybe all the things he wanted to know were written down somewhere, but the real problem was to find them. The books might have been put together especially to make it difficult to find things out. There seemed to be no sense in them. Or, rather, there was sense, but in nonsensical ways.
He recognized Vinto Pimmie, a very young Ironmongri. He sighed. Vinto was one of the keenest and fastest readers, just not a particularly good one, and he tended to get carried away.
'I've cracked it,' said the boy proudly.
'Can you repair it?' said Masklin.
'I mean, I know how we can get a human to drive the lorry for us!' Masklin sighed. 'We've thought about this, but it really won't work. If we show ourselves to a human--' 'Don't matter! Don't matter! He won't do anything, the reason being, we'll have -you'll like this we'll have a gnu!' Vinto beamed at him, like a dog who's just done a difficult trick.
'A gnu,' repeated Masklin weakly.
'Yes! It's in this book!' Vinto proudly displayed it. Masklin craned to see. He was picking reading up as he went along, a little bit at a time, but as far as he could make out the book was about Host Age at 10,000 Feet.
'It's got something to do with lots of shoes?' he said hopefully.
'No, no, no, what you do is, you get a gnu, then you point it at the driver and someone says, "Look out, he's got a gnu!" and you say, "Take us where we want to go or I'll fire this gnu at you!" and then he-' 'Right, right. Fine,' said Masklin, backing away. 'Jolly good. Splendid idea. We'll definitely give it some thought. Well done.' 'That was clever of me, wasn't it,' said Vinto, jumping from one foot to the other.
'Yes. Certainly. Er. You don't think you might be better reading a more practical kind of-' Masklin hesitated. Who knew what kind of books were best? He staggered inside his box and pulled the cardboard over the door and leaned against it.
'Thing?' he said.
'I hear you, Masklin,' said the Thing, from the heap of rags that was Masklin's bed.
'What's a gnu?' There was a brief pause. Then the Thing said: 'The gnu, a member of the genus Connochaetes and the family Bovidae, is an African antelope with down-curving horns. Body length is up to 2m (6.5 ft), the shoulder height is about 140cm (4.5 ft), and weight is up to270kg (600lb). Gnus inhabit grassy plains in central and southern Africa.' 'Oh. Could you threaten someone with one?' 'Quite possibly.' Would there be one in the Store?' There was another pause. 'Is there a Pet Department?' Masklin knew what that was. The subject had come up yesterday, when Vinto had suggested taking a herd of guinea pigs to raise for meat.
'No,' he said.
'Then I should think the chance is remote.' 'Oh. Just as well, really.' Masklin sagged down on his bed. 'You see,' he said, 'we've got to be able to control where we're going. We need to find somewhere a little way from humans. But not too far. Somewhere safe.' 'You must look for an atlas or map.' 'What do they look like?' 'They may have the words "atlas" or "map" written on them.' 'I'll ask the Abbot to have a search made.' Masklin yawned.
'You must sleep,' said the Thing.
'People always want me to do things. Anyway, you don't sleep.' 'It's different for me.' 'What I need,' said Masklin, 'is a way. We can't use a gnu. They all think I know the way to do it and I don't know the way. We know what we need, but we'll never get it all into a lorry in one night. They all think I know all the answers, but I don't. And I don't know the way...' He fell asleep, and dreamed of being human-sized. Everything was so easy, if you were human-sized.
Two days went past. The nomes kept watch from the girder over the garage. A small plastic telescope was rolled down from the Toy Department, and with its help the news came back that the big metal doors to the garage opened themselves when a human pressed a red button next to them. How could you press a button ten times higher than your head? It went down on Masklin's list of problems to solve.
Gurder found a map. It was in quite a small book.
'That was no trouble,' he said. 'We have dozens of these every year. It's called-' he read the gold lettering slowly '-Pocket Diary. And it has this map all at the back, look.' Masklin stared down at the small pages of blue and red blobs. Some of the blobs had names, like Africa and Asia.
'We-ell,' he said, and 'Ye-ss. I suppose so. Well done. Where are we, exactly?' 'In the middle,' said Gurder promptly. 'That's logical.' And then the lorry returned.
Angalo didn't.
Masklin ran along the girder without thinking of the drop on either side. The little knot of figures told him everything he didn't want to know. A young nome who had just been lowered over the edge was sitting down and getting his breath back.
'I tried all the windows,' he said. 'They're all shut. Couldn't see anyone in there. It's very dark.' 'Are you sure it's the right lorry?' said Masklin to the head watcher.
'They've all got numbers on the front of them,' he was told. 'I was particularly sure to remember the one he went out on, so when it comes back this afternoon I-' 'We've got to get inside to have a look,' said Masklin firmly. 'Someone go and get... no, it'll take too long. Lower me down.' 'What?' 'Lower me down,' Masklin repeated. 'All the way to the floor.' 'It's a long way down,' said one of them doubtfully.
'I know! Far too long to go all the way around by the stairs.' Masklin handed the end of the thread to a couple of nomes. 'He could be in there hurt, or anything.' '"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 lorry slide past him. Somehow, they'd looked smaller outside.
The floor was greasy with all. He ran under the lorry 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 lorry 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 lorry.
Here and there a sweet 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 lorry to hold on to, Masklin thought.
'Angalo?' he called out, softly.
There was no answer. He poked around aimlessly for awhile, 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.