"And nails," said a middle-aged nome.
The human growled behind its gag and strained at the wires.
"We could pull all its hair out," said Granny Morkie. "And then wecould-"
"Do it, then," said Grimma, coming up behind them.
They turned.
"What?"
"Do it, if you want to," said Grimma. "There it is, right in front ofyou. Do what you like."
"What, we?" Granny Morkie nome drew back. "I didn't ... not me. Ididn't mean me. I meant well, us. Nomekind."
"There you are, then," said Grimma. "And nomekind is only nomes. Besides, it's wrong to hurt prisoners. I read it in a book. It's called the GenevaConvention. When you've got people at your mercy, you shouldn't hurtthem."
"Seems like the ideal time to me," said a nome. "Hit them when they can't hit back, that's what I sav. Anyway, it's not as if humans are the sameas real people." But he shuffled backward anyway.
"Funny, though, when you see their faces close up," said Granny Morkie, putting her head to one side. "They look a lot like us. Only bigger."
One of the nomes peered into the human's frightened eyes.
"Hasn't it got a hairy nose?" he said. "And ears too."
"Like a cow," said Granny.
"You could almost feel sorry for them, with great big noses like that."
Grimma peered into the human's eyes. I wonder, she thought. They'rebigger than us, so there must be room for brains. And they've got greatbig eyes. Surely they must have seen us once? Masklin said we've beenhere for thousands of years. In all that time, humans must have seen us.
They must have known we were real people. But in their minds they turnedus into pixies. Perhaps they didn't want to have to share the world.
The human was definitely looking at her.
Could we share? she thought. They live in a big, long, slow world and welive in a small, short, fast one, and we can't understand each other.
They can't even see us unless we stand still as I'm standing now. Wemove too quickly for them. They don't think we exist.
She stared up into the big frightened eyes.
We've never tried to-what was the word-communicate with them before.
Not properly. Not as though they were real people, thinking realthoughts. How can we tell them we're really real and really here?
But perhaps when you're lying down on the floor and tied up by littlepeople you can hardly see and don't believe in, that's not the best timeto start communicating. Perhaps we should try it another time. Not signs, not shouting, just trying to get them to understand us.
Wouldn't it be amazing if we could? They could do the big slow jobs forus, and we could do-oh, little fast things. Fiddly things that thosegreat fingers can't do ... but not paint flowers or mend their shoes.
"Grimma? You ought to see this, Grimma," said a voice behind her.
The nomes were clustered around a white heap on the floor.
Oh, yes. The human had been looking at one of those big sheets of paper.
The nomes had spread it out flat on the floor. It looked a lot like thefirst one they'd seen, except this one was called READ IT FIRST IN YOURSOARAWAY
BLACKBURY EVENING POST AND GAZETTE. It had more of the great blocky writing, some of the letters nearly as big as anome's head.
Grimma shook her own head as she tried to make sense of it. She could understand the books quite well, she considered, but the papers seemed to use a different language. It was full of probes and shocks and fuzzypictures of smiling humans shaking hands with other humans (ELKS RAISE.455 FOR HOSPITAL APPEAL). It wasn't difficult to work out what eachword meant, but when they were put together they either didn't meananything at all or something quite unbelievable (civic CENTER TAXBATTLE).
"No, this is the bit," said one of the nomes. "This page here. Look, someof the words, they're the same as last time, look! It's about GrandsonRichard, 39!"
Grimma ran the length of a story about somebody slamming somebody'splan for something.
There was indeed a fuzzy picture of Grandson Richard, 39, under thewords: TV-IN-THE-SKY HITCH.
She knelt down and stared at the smaller words below it.
"Read it aloud!" they said.
"'Richard Arnold, the Blackbury-based chairman of the ArncoInternational Group, said in Florida today,' " she read, " 'thatscientists are still trying to r-r-regain control of Arnsat 1, the multi- roillion-pound corn ... communications sat ... tellite ...' "
The nomes looked at one another.
"Multimillion pound," they said, "That's really heavy."
'Hopes were high after yesterday's s-s-successful l-lunch in Florida,'
" Grimma read uncertainly " 'that Arnsat 1 would begin testtr-tr-transmissions today. Instead, it is s-sending a stream of strangesig ... signals. "It's like some sort of c-code," said Arnold, 39 ..." ' "
There was an appreciative murmur from the listeners.
" 'It's as if it had a mind of its own,' " Grimma read.
There was more stuff about "teething troubles," whatever that meant, butGrimma didn't bother to read it.
She remembered the way Masklin had talked about the stars, and why theystayed up. And there was the Thing. He'd taken it with him. The Thingcould talk to electricity, couldn't it? It could listen to theelectricity in wires, and the stuff in the air that Dorcas called"radio." If anything could send strange signals, the Thing could. / maygo even further than the Long Drive, he'd said.
"They're alive," she said, to no one in particular. "Masklin and Gurderand Angalo. They got to the Florida place and they're alive."
She remembered him trying to tell her, sometimes, about the sky and theThing and where nomes first came from, and she'd never really understood, any more than he'd understood about the little frogs.
"They're alive," she repeated. "I know they are. I don't know exactly howor where, but they've got some sort of plan and they're alive."
The nomes exchanged meaningful glances, and the kind of meaning they werefull of was, She's fooling herself, but it'd take a braver nome than meto tell her.
Granny Morkie patted her gently on the shoulder.
"Yes, yes," she said soothingly. "And thank goodness they had asuccessful lunch. I bet they needed to get some food inside of them. Andif I was you, my girl, I'd get some sleep."
Grimma dreamed.
It was a confused dream. Dreams nearly always are. They don't come neatlypackaged. She dreamed of loud noises and flashing lights. And eyes.
Little yellow eyes. And Masklin, standing on a branch, climbing throughleaves, peering down at little yellow eyes.
Fm seeing what he's doing now, she thought. He's alive. I always knew hewas, of course. But outer space has got more leaves than I thought. Orperhaps none of it is real and Pm just dreaming ...
Then someone woke her up.
It's never wise to speculate about the meaning of dreams, so she didn't.
It snowed again in the night, on an icy wind. Some of the nomes scoutedaround the sheds and came back with a few vegetables that had been"missed, but it was a pitifully small amount. The tied-up human went tosleep after a while, and snored like someone sawing a thick log with athin saw.
"The others will come looking for it in the morning," Grimma warned.
"We mustn't be here then. Perhaps we should-"
She stopped. They all listened.
Something was moving around under the floorboards.
"Is anyone still down there?" Grimma whispered.
The nomes near her shook their heads. No one wanted to be in the chillyspace under the floor when there was the warmth and light of the officefor the having.
"And it can't be rats," she said.
Then someone called out in that half-loud, half-soft way of someone whowants to make himself heard while at the same time remaining as quiet aspossible.
It turned out to be Sacco.
They dragged aside the floorboards the humans had loosened and helped himup. He was covered in mud and swaying with exhaustion.