"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.