"They've been waiting there for ages," said Gurder.
"What do they want?" said Angalo. "Search me," said Gurder. "Who knowswhat humans want?"
Masklin stared at the throng below the ship. "They've been trying allsorts of stuff," said Angalo. "Flashing lights and music and stuff likethat. And radio, too, the Thing says."
"Haven't you tried talking back to them?" said Masklin.
"No. Haven't got anything to say." said Angalo. He rapped on the Thingwith his knuckles. "Right, Mr. Clever? If I'm not going to do thedriving, who is?"
"Me."
"How?"
"There is a slot by the seat."
"I see it. It's the same size as you."
"Put me in it."
Angalo shrugged, and picked up the Thing. It slid smoothly into the floor until only the top of it was showing.
"Look, er," said Angalo, "can't I do something? Operate the windshieldwipers or something? I'd feel like a twerp sitting here doing nothing."
The Thing didn't seem to hear him. Its light flickered on and off for amoment, as if it were making itself comfortable in a mechanical kind ofway. Then it said, in a much deeper voice than it had ever used before:
"RIGHT."
Lights came on all over the Ship. They spread out from the Thing like atide; panels lit up like little skies full of stars, big lights in theceiling flickered on, there was a distant banging and fizzing aselectricity was woken up, and the air began to smell of thunderstorms.
"It's like the Store at Christmas Fayre," said Gurder.
"Science!" breathed Angalo.
"ALL SYSTEMS IN WORKING ORDER," boomed the Thing. "NAME OUR DESTINATION."
"What?" said Masklin. "And don't shout."
"Where are we going?" said the Thing. "You have to name our destination."
"It's got a name already. It's called the quarry, isn't it?" said Masklin.
"Where is it?" said the Thing.
"It's ..." Masklin waved an arm vaguely. "Well, it's over that way somewhere."
"Which way?"
"How should I know? How many ways are there?"
"Thing, are you telling us you don't know the way back to the quarry?" said Gurder.
"That is correct."
"We're lost?"
'Wo. I know exactly what planet ise^re on," said the Thing.
"We can't be lost," said Gurder. "We're here. We know where we are. We just don't know where we aren't."
"Can't you find the quarry if you go up high enough?" said Angalo. "You ought to be able to see it, if you go up high enough."
"Very well."
"Can I do it?" said Angalo. "Please?"
"Press down with your left foot and pull back on the green lever, then," said the Thing.
There wasn't so much a noise as a change in the type of silence. Masklin thought he felt heavy for a moment, but then the sensation passed.
The picture in the screen got smaller.
"Now, this is what I call proper flying," said Angalo, happily. "With real Science. No noise and none of that stupid flapping."
"Yes, where's Pion?" said Masklin.
"He wandered off," said Gurder. "I think he was going to get something to eat."
"On a machine that no nome has been on for fifteen thousand years?" said Masklin.
Gurder shrugged. "Well, maybe there's something at the back of a cupboard somewhere," he said. "I want a word with you, Masklin."
"Yes?"
Gurder moved closely and glanced over his shoulder at Angalo, who was lying back in the control seat with a look of dreamy contentment on his face.
He lowered his voice.
"We shouldn't be doing this," he said. "I know it's a dreadful thing to say, after all we've been through. But this isn't just our Ship. It belongs to all nomes, everywhere."
He looked relieved when Masklin nodded.
"A year ago you didn't even believe there were any other nomes anywhere,"
Masklin said.
Gurder looked sheepish. "Yes. Well. That was then. This is now. I don't know what I believe in anymore, except that there must be thousands of nomes out there we don't know about. There might even be other nomes living in Stores! We're just the lucky ones who had the Thing. So if we take the Ship away, there won't be any hope for them."
"I know, I know," said Masklin wretchedly. "But what can we do? We need the Ship right now. Anyway, how could we find these other nomes?"
"We've got the Ship!" said Gurder.
Masklin waved a hand at the screen, where the landscape was spreading outand becoming misty.
"It'd take forever to find nomes down there. You couldn't do it even with the Ship. You'd have to be on the ground. Nomes keep hidden! You nomes inthe Store didn't know about my people, and we lived a few miles away.
We'd never have found Pion's people except by accident. Besides"-hecouldn't resist prodding Gurder gently-"there's a bigger problem too. Youknow what we nomes are like. Those other nomes probably wouldn't evenbelieve in the Ship."
He was immediately sorry he'd said that. Gurder looked more unhappy thanhe'd ever seen him.
"That's true," the Abbot said. "I wouldn't have believed it. I'm not sureI believe it now, and I'm in it."
"Maybe, when we've found somewhere to live, we can send the Ship back andcollect any other nomes we can find," Masklin hazarded. "I'm sure Angalowould enjoy that."
Gurder's shoulders began to shake. For a moment Masklin thought thenome was laughing, and then he saw the tears rolling down the Abbot'sface.
"Um," he said, not knowing what else to say.
Gurder turned away. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "It's just that there's somuch ... changing. Why can't things stay the same for five minutes?
Every time I get the hang of an idea it suddenly turns into somethingdifferent and I turn into a fool! All I want is something real to believein! Where's the harm in that?"
"I think you just have to have a flexible mind," said Masklin, knowingeven as he said the words that this probably wasn't going to be a lot ofhelp.
"Flexible? Flexible? My mind's got so flexible I could pull it out of myears and tie it under my chin!" snapped Gurder. "And it hasn't done me awhole lot of good, let me tell you! I'd have done better just believingeverything I was taught when I was young! At least I'd be wrong onlyonce! This way I'm wrong all the time!"
He stamped away down one of the corridors.
Masklin watched him go.
Not for the first time, he wished he believed in something as much asGurder did so he could complain to it about his life. He even wished hewere back, yes, back in the hole. It hadn't been too bad, apart frompeople being cold and wet and getting eaten all the time. But at leasthe'd been with Grimma. They would have been cold and wet and hungrytogether. He wouldn't have been so lonely... .
There was a movement by him. It turned out to be Pion, holding a tray ofwhat had to be ... fruit, Masklin decided. He put aside being lonely fora moment, and realized that hunger had been waiting for an opportunity tomake itself felt. He'd never seen fruit that shape and color.
He took a slice from the proffered tray. It tasted like a nutty lemon.
"It's kept well, considering," he said, weakly. "Where did you get it?"
It turned out to come from a machine in a nearby corridor. It looked fairly simple. There were hundreds of pictures of different sorts offood. If you touched a picture, there was a brief humming noise and thenthe real food dropped onto a tray in a slot. Masklin tried pictures atrandom, and got several different sorts of fruit, a squeaky greenvegetable thing, and a piece of meat that tasted rather like smokedsalmon.
"I wonder how it does it?" he said aloud.
A voice from the wall beside him said: "Would you understand if I told you about molecular breakdown and reassembly from a wide range of raw materials?"
"No," said Masklin, truthfully.
"Then it's all done by Science."
"Oh. Well, that's all right, then. That is you, Thing, isn't it?"
"Yes."
Chewing on the fish-meat, Masklin wandered back to the control room and offered some of the food to Angalo. The big screen was showing nothing but clouds.
"Won't see any quarry in all this," he said.