"We appear to be in some sort of glass box," said the Thing.
"They even gave me a little bed," said Masklin.
"And I think the thing over there is some kind of lavatory, but look, what about the Ship?"
"I expect it is on its way," said the Thing calmly.
"Expect? Expect? You mean you don't know?"
"Many things can go wrong. If they have gone right, the Ship will be here soon."
"If they don't, I'm stuck here for life!" said Masklin bitterly. "I came here because of you, you know."
"Yes. I know. Thank you."
Masklin relaxed a bit.
"They're being quite kind," he said. He thought about this. "At least, I think so," he added. "It's hard to tell."
He looked through the transparent wall. A lot of humans had been in to look at him in the last few minutes. He wasn't quite certain whether he was an honored visitor or a prisoner, or maybe something in between.
"It seemed the only hope at the time," he said lamely.
"I am monitoring communications."
"You're always doing that."
"A lot of them are about you. All kinds of experts are rushing here to have a look at you."
"What kind of experts? Experts in nomes?"
"Experts in talking to creatures from other worlds. Humans haven't met anyone from another world, but they 've still got experts in talking to them."
"All this had better work," said Masklin soberly. "Humans really know about nomes now."
"But not what nomes are. They think you have just arrived."
"Well, that's true."
"Not arrived here. Arrived on the planet. Arrived from the stars."
"But we've been here for thousands of years! We live here!"
"Humans find it a lot easier, really, to believe in little people from the sky than little people from the Earth. They would prefer to think of little green men than leprechauns. "
Masklin's brow wrinkled. "I didn't understand any of that," he said.
"Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter." The Thing let its lens swivel around to see more of the room.
"Very nice. Very scientific," it said.
Then it focused on a wide plastic tray next to Masklin.
"What is that?"
"Oh, fruit and nuts and meat and stuff," said Masklin. "I think they've been watching me to see what I eat. I think these are quite bright humans, Thing. I pointed to my mouth and they understood I was hungry."
"Ah," said the Thing. "Take me to your larder."
"Pardon?"
"I will explain. I have told you that I monitor communications?"
"All the time."
"There is a joke, that is, a humorous anecdote or story, known to humans.
It concerns a ship from another world landing on this planet, and strangecreatures get out and say to a gas pump, garbage can, slot-machine, ofsimilar mechanical device, 'Take me to your leader.' I surmise this isbecause they are unaware of the shape of humans. I have substituted thesimilar word 'larder,' refering to a place where food is stored. This isa humorous pun or play on words, for hilarious effect."
It paused.
"Oh," said Masklin. He thought about it. "These would be the little green men you mentioned?"
"Very-wait a moment. Wait a moment."
"What? What?" said Masklin urgently.
"I can hear the Ship."
Masklin listened as hard as he could.
"I can't hear a thing," he said.
"Not sound. Radio."
"Where is it? Where is it, Thing? You've always said the Ship's up there, but where?"
The remaining tree frogs crouched among the moss to escape the heat of the afternoon sun. Low in the eastern sky was a sliver of white. It would be nice to think that the tree frogs had legends about it. It would be nice to think that they thought the sun and moon were distant flowers-a yellow one by day, a white one by night. It would be nice to think they had legends about them, and said that when a good frog died its soul would go to the big flowers in the sky.
The trouble is that it's frogs we're talking about here. Their name for the sun was ... mipmip... . Their name for the moon was ...
mipmip... . Their name was everything was ... mipmip ... and when you're stuck with a vocabulary of one word it's pretty hard to have legends about anything at all.
The leading frog, however, was dimly aware that there was something wrong with the moon.
It was growing brighter.
"We left the Ship on the moon?" said Masklin. "Why?"
"That's what your ancestors decided to do," said the Thing. "So they could keep an eye on it, I assume."
Masklin's face lit up slowly, like clouds at sunrise.
"You know," he said, excitedly, "Right back before all this, right back when we used to live in the old hole, I used to sit out at nights and watch the moon. Perhaps in my blood I really knew that, up there-"
'Wo, what you were experiencing was probably primitive superstition," said the Thing.
Masklin deflated. "Oh. Sorry."
"And now, please be quiet. The Ship is feeling lost and wants to be told what to do. It has just woken up after fifteen thousand years."
"I'm not very good at mornings myself," Masklin said.
There is no sound on the moon, but this doesn't matter, because there is no one to hear anything. Sound would just be a waste.
But there is light.
Fine moondust billowed high across the ancient plains of the moon's dark crescent, expanding in boiling clouds that went high enough to catch the rays of the sun. They glittered.
Down below, something was digging itself out.
"We left it in a holey said Masklin.
Lights rippled back and forth across all surfaces of the Thing.
"Don't say that's why you always lived in holes," it said. "Other nomes don't live in holes."
"No, that's true," said Masklin. "I ought to stop thinking only about the-"
He suddenly went quiet. He stared out of the glass tank, where a human was trying to interest him in marks on a blackboard.
"You've got to stop it," he said. "Right now. Stop the Ship. We've got it all wrong. Thing, we can't go! It doesn't belong to just us! We can't take the Ship!"
The three nomes lurking near the shuttle launching place watched the sky.
As the sun neared the horizon the moon sparkled like a Christmas decoration.
"It must be caused by the Ship!" said Angalo. "It must be!" He beamed at the others. "That's it, then. It's on its way!"
"I never thought it would work." Gurder said.
Angalo slapped Pion on the back, and pointed.
"See that, my lad?" he said. "That's the Ship, that is! Ours!"
Gurder rubbed his chin, and nodded thoughtfully at Pion.
"Yes," he said, "That's right. Ours."
"Masklin says there's all kinds of stuff up there," said Angalo dreamily.
"And masses of space. That's what space is well known for, lots of space.
Masklin said the Ship goes faster than light goes, which is probablywrong, otherwise how'd you see anything? You'd turn the lights on and allthe light would drop backward out of the room. But it's pretty fast."
Gurder looked back at the sky again. Something at the back of his mind was pushing its way to the front, and giving him a curious gray feeling.
"Our Ship," he said. "The one that brought nomes here."
"Yeah, that's right," said Angalo, hardly hearing him.
"And it'll take us all back," Gurder went on.
"That's what Masklin said, and-"
"All nomes," said Gurder. His voice was as flat and heavy as a sheet of lead.
"Sure. Why not? I expect I'll soon work out how to drive it back to the quarry, and we can pick them all up. And Pion here, of course."
"What about Pion's people?" said Gurder.
"Oh, they can come too," said Angalo expansively. "There's probably even room for their geese!"
"And the others?"
Angalo looked surprised. "What others?"
"Shrub said there were lots of other groups of nomes. Everywhere."
Angalo looked blank. "Oh, them. Well, I don't know about them. But we need the Ship. You know what it's been like ever since we left the Store."