The land around the cloud towers was NASA's special country. There weremore animals there, and fewer humans. It was a pretty good place fornomes. Some of them believed that NASA had arranged it all forprecisely that reason.
Shrub sat back.
"And does she believe that?" said Masklin. He looked across the clearingto where Gurder and Topknot were arguing. They couldn't understand whatone another was saying, but they were still arguing.
The Thing translated.
Shrub laughed.
"She says, Days come, days go, who needs to believe anything? She seesthings happen with her own eyes, and these are things she knows happen.
Belief is a wonderful thing for those who need it, she says. But sheknows this place belongs to NASA, because its name is on signs."
Angalo grinned. He was nearly in tears.
"They live right by the place the going-up jets go from and they thinkit's some sort of magic place!" he said.
"Isn't it?" said Masklin, almost to himself. "Anyway, it's no morestrange than thinking the Store was the whole world. Thing, how do theywatch the going-up jets? They're a long way away."
"Not far at all. Eighteen miles is not far at all, she says-She saysthey can be there in little more than an hour."
Shrub nodded at their astonishment, and then, without another word, stoodup and walked away through the bushes. She signaled the nomes to followher. Half a dozen Floridians trailed after their leader, making the shapeof a V with her at the point.
After a few yards the greenery opened out again beside a small lake.
The nomes were used to large bodies of water. There were reservoirs nearthe airport. They were even used to ducks.
But the things paddling enthusiastically toward them were a lot biggerthan ducks. Besides, ducks were like a lot of other animals andrecognized in nomes the shape, if not the size, of humans and kept a safedistance away from them. They didn't come baring toward them as if themere sight of them was the best thing that had happened all day.
Some of them were almost flying in their desire to get to the nomes.
Masklin looked around automatically for a weapon. Shrub grabbed his arm, shook her head, and said a couple of words.
"They're friendly," the Thing translated.
"They don't look it!"
"They 're geese," said the Thing. "Quite harmless, except to grass andminor organisms. They fly here for the winter."
The geese arrived with a bow wave that surged over the nomes' feet, andarched their necks down toward Shrub. She patted a couple of fearsome- looking beaks.
Masklin tried hard not to look like a minor organism.
"They migrate here from colder climates," the Thing went on. "They relyon the Floridians to pick the right course for them."
"Oh, good. That's-" Masklin stopped while his brain caught up with hismouth. "You're going to tell me they fly on them, right?"
"Certainly. They travel with the geese. Incidentally, you have two hoursand forty-one minutes to launch."
"I want to make it absolutely clear," said Angalo slowly, as a greatfeathery head explored the waterweeds a few inches away, "that if you'resuggesting that we ride on a geese-"
"A goose. One geese is a goose."
"You can think again. Or compute, or whatever it is you do."
"You have a better suggestion, of course," said the Thing. If it had aface, it would have been sneering.
"Suggesting we don't ride on them strikes me as a whole lot better, yes," said Angalo.
"I dunno," said Masklin, who had been watching the geese speculatively.
"I might be prepared to give it a try."
"The Floridians have developed a very interesting relationship with thegeese, " said the Thing. "The geese provide the nomes with wings, and thenomes provide the geese with brains. They fly north to Canada in the summer, and back here for the winter. Geese like nomes. Geese that carrynomes are steered to better feeding grounds, and find that their nestsget protected from rats and other creatures. Geese are bright enough tolearn that geese with nomes around have a better life. And the names getfree transport and a warm place to sleep. It's almost a symbioticrelationship, although, of course, they're not familiar with the term."
"Aren't they? Silly old them," Angalo muttered.
"I don't understand you, Angalo," said Masklin. "You're mad for riding inmachines with whirring bits of metal pushing them along, yet you're worried about sitting on a perfectly natural bird."
"That's because I don't understand how birds work," said Angalo. "I'venever seen an exploded working diagram of a goose."
"The geese are the reason the Floridians have never bad much to do withhumans," the Thing continued. "As I said, their language is almostoriginal nomisb."
"Yes, and I still don't understand that," said Masklin. "I mean, nomesought to speak the same language, yes?"
"No. You remember that I told you once that nomes used to be able to talkto humans, and taught them languages?"
"Yes?" said Masklin.
"And then the humans changed the language, over hundreds of years. Nameswho lived near humans changed too. But the Floridians never had much todo with humans, so their form of the language is still very much as itused to be."
Shrub was watching them carefully. There was something about the way shewas treating them that still seemed odd to Masklin. It wasn't that shehadn't been afraid of them, or aggressive, or unpleasant.
"She's not surprised," he said aloud. "She's interested, but she's notsurprised. They were upset because we were here, not because we existed.
How many other nomes has she met?'"
The Thing had to translate.
It was a word that Masklin had only known for a year.
Thousands.
The leading tree frog was trying to wrestle with a new idea. It was very dimly aware that it needed a new type of thought.
There had been the world, with the pool in the middle and the petals around the edge. One.
But farther along the branch was another world. From here it looked tantalizingly like the flower they had left. One.
The leading frog sat in a clump of moss and swiveled each eye so that it could see both worlds at the same time. One there. And one there.
One. And one.
The frog's forehead bulged as it tried to get its mind around a new idea.
One and one were one. But if you had one here and one there ...
The other frogs watched in bewilderment as their leader's eyes whizzed around and around.
One here and one there couldn't be one. They were too far apart. You needed a word that meant both ones. You needed to say ... you needed to say ...
The frog's mouth widened. It grinned so broadly that both ends almost met behind its head.
It had worked it out.
... mipmip ... ! it said.
It meant: One. And One More One!
Gurder was still arguing with Topknot when they got back.
"How do they manage to keep it up? They don't understand what each other's saying!" said Angalo.
"Best way," said Masklin. "Gurder? We're ready to go. Come on."
Gurder looked up. He was very red in the face. The two of them were crouched either side of a mass of scrawled diagrams in the dirt.
"I need the Thing!" he said. "This idiot refuses to understand anything!"
"You won't win any arguments with him," said Masklin. "Shrub says he argues with all the other nomes they meet. He likes to."
"What other nomes?" said Gurder.
"There's nomes everywhere, Gurder. That's what Shrub says. There's other groups even in Floridia. And-and-and in Canadia, where the Floridians go in the summer. There were probably even other nomes back home! We just never found them!"
He pulled the Abbot to his feet.
"And we haven't got a lot of time left," he added.
"I'm not going up on one of those things!"
The geese gave Gurder a puzzled look, as if he were an unexpected frog in their waterweed.
"I'm not very happy about it either," said Masklin, "but Shrub's people do it all the time. You just snuggle down in the feathers and hang on."