"Now, then," said Grimma, "where's this gateway? Through the gate and across the fields, you said, and-" "It's just before you get to the car with the flashing lights on top," said Dorcas slowly. "The one that's just coming up the road."
They stared at it.
"Cars with lights on the top are bad news," said Grimma.
"You're right there," said Dorcas. "They're often full of humans who veryseriously want to know what's going on. There were lots of them down atthe railroad."
Grimma looked along the hedge.
"This is the gateway coming up, is it?" she said.
"Yes."
Grimma leaned down.
"Slow down and turn sharp right," she said.
The teams swung into action. Sacco even changed gear without being asked.
Nomes hung like spiders from the steering wheel, hauling it around.
There was a gate in the gateway. But it was old and held to the post withbits of string in proper agricultural fashion. It wouldn't have stoppedanything very determined, and it had no chance with the Cat.
Dorcas winced again.
The field on the other side was brown soil. Corrugated earth, the nomescalled it, after the corrugated cardboard you sometimes got in thepacking department in the Store. There was snow between the furrows. Thebig wheels churned it into mud.
Dorcas was half expecting the car to follow them. It stopped instead, andtwo humans in dark blue suits got out and started to lumber across thefield. There's no stopping humans, he thought glumly. They're like theweather.
The field ran gently uphill, around the quarry. The Cat's engine thudded.
There was a fence ahead, with a grassy field beyond it. The wire partedwith a twang. Dorcas watched it roll back, and wondered whether Grimmawould let him stop and collect a bit of it. You always knew where youwere with wire.
The humans were still following. Out of the corner of his eye, becauseup here there was altogether too much Outside to look at, Dorcas sawflashing lights on the highway, far away.
He pointed them out to Grimma.
"I know," she said. "I've seen them. But what else could we have done?" she added desperately. "Gone off and lived in the flowers like goodlittle pixies?"
"I don't know," said Dorcas wearily. "I'm not sure about anythinganymore."
Another wire fence twanged. There was shorter grass up here, and theground curved.
And then there was nothing but sky, and the Cat speeding up as the wheels bounced over the field at the top of the hill.
Dorcas had never seen so much sky. There was nothing around them, just abit of scrub in the distance. And it was silent. Well, not silent atall, because of the Cat's roar. But it looked like the kind of placethat would be silent if diggers full of desperate nomes weren'tthundering across it.
Some sheep ran out of the way.
"There's the barn up ahead, that stone building on the horiz-" Grimma began. Then she said, "Are you all right, Dorcas?"
"If I keep my eyes shut," he whispered.
"You look dreadful."
"I feel worse."
"But you've been Outside before."
"Grimma, we're the highest thing there is!
There's nothing higher than us for miles, or whatever you call those things! If I open my eyes I'll fall into the sky!"
Grimma leaned down to the perspiring drivers.
"Right just a bit!" she shouted. "That's it! Now, all the fast you can!"
"Hold on to the Cat!" she shouted, as the engine noise grew. "You know he can't fly!" The machine bumped up on a stony track that led in the general direction of the distant barn. Dorcas risked opening one eye.
He'd never been to the barn. Was anyone certain there was food there, or was it just a guess? Perhaps at least it'd be warm.
But there was a flashing light near it, coming toward them.
"Why won't they leave us alone?" shouted Grimma. "Stop!"
The Cat rolled to a halt. The engine ticked over in the chilly air.
"This must lead down to another highway," said Dorcas.
"We can't go back," said Grimma.
"No."
"Or forward."
"No."
Grimma drummed her fingers on the Cat's metal.
"Have you got any other ideas?"
"We could try going across the fields," said Dorcas.
"Where would that take us?" said Grimma.
"Away from here, for a start."
"But we wouldn't know where we were going!" said Grimma.
Dorcas shrugged. "It's either that or paint flowers."
Grimma tried to smile.
"And those little wings wouldn't suit me," she said.
"What's going on up there?" Sacco yelled up.
"We ought to tell people," Grimma whispered. "Everyone thinks we're going to the barn."
She looked around. The car was closer, bumping heavily over the rough track. The two humans were still coming the other way. "Don't humans ever give up?" she said to herself.
She leaned over the edge of the plank.
"Some left, Sacco," she said. "And then just go steadily."
The Cat bounced off the track and rolled over the cold grass. There was another wire fence in the far distance, and a few more sheep. We don't know where we're going, she thought. The only important thing is to go. Masklin knew it. This isn't our world.
"Perhaps we should have talked to humans," she said aloud.
"No, you were right," said Dorcas. "In this world everything belongs to humans and we would belong to them too. There wouldn't be any room for us to be us."
The fence came closer. There was a road on the other side. Not a dirt road, but a proper road with black gravel on it. "Right or left?" said Grimma. "What do you think?" "It doesn't matter," said Dorcas as the digger twanged through the fence. "We'll try going left, then," she said. "Slow down, Sacco! Left a bit. More. More. Steady at that. Oh, no!"
There was another car in the distance. It had flashing lights on the top.
Dorcas risked a look behind them.
There was another flashing light there.
"No," he said.
"What?" said Grimma.
"Just a little while ago you asked if humans ever gave up," he said. "They don't."
"Stop," said Grimma. The teams trotted obediently across the Cat's floor. The digger rolled gently to a halt again, engine ticking over.
"This is it," said Dorcas.
"Are we at the barn yet?" a nome called up.
"No," said Grimma. "Not yet. Nearly."
Dorcas made a face.
"We might as well accept it now," he said. "You'll end up waving a stick with a star on it. I just hope they don't force me to mend their shoes." Grimma looked thoughtful. "If we drove as hard as we could at that car coming toward us-" she began.
"No," said Dorcas, firmly. "It really wouldn't solve anything."
"It'd make me feel a lot better," said Grimma.
She looked around at the fields.
"Why's it gone all dark?" she said. "We can't have been running all day. It was early morning when we started out."
"Doesn't time fly when you're enjoying yourself?" said Dorcas gloomily. "And I don't like milk much. I don't mind doing their housework if I don'? have to drink milk, but-"
"Just look, will you?"
Darkness was spreading across the fields.
"It might be an ellipse," said Dorcas. "I read about them. It all goes dark when the Sun covers the Moon. And possibly vice versa," he added doubtfully.
The car ahead of them squealed to a halt, crashed backward across the road into a stone wall, and came to an abrupt stop. In the field by the road the sheep were running away. It wasn't theordinary panic of sheep ordinarily disturbed. They had their heads downand were pounding across the ground with one aim in mind. They were sheepwho had decided that this was no time to waste energy panicking when itcould be used for galloping away as fast as possible.