"What does, er, Shrub think?" he said.
"I don't think she is very sympathetic to the topknot person. His name is Person-wbo-knows-what-the-Maker-of-Clouds-is-thinking."
"And what is the Maker of Clouds?"
"It's bad luck to say its true name. It made the ground and it is still making the sky. It-"
Topknot spoke again. He sounded angry.
We need to be friends with these people, Masklin thought. There has to be a way.
"The Maker of Clouds is"-Masklin thought hard-"a sort of Arnold Bros.
(est. 1905)?"
"Yes," said the Thing.
"A real thing?"
"I think so. Are you prepared to take a risk?"
"What?"
"I think I know the identity of the Maker of Clouds. I think I know when it will make some more sky."
"What? When?" said Masklin.
"In three hours and ten minutes."
Masklin hesitated.
"Hold on a moment," he said, slowly, "that sounds like the same sort of time that-"
"Yes. All three of you, please get ready to run. I will now write the name of the Maker of Clouds."
"Why will we have to run?"
"They might get very angry. But we haven't time to waste."
The Thing extended a sensor. It wasn't intended as a writing implement, and the shapes it drew were angular and hard to read.
It scrawled four shapes in the dust.
The effect was instantaneous.
Topknot started to shout again. Some of the Floridians leapt to their feet. Masklin grabbed the other two travelers.
"I'm really going to thump that old nome in a minute," said Gurder. "How can anyone be so narrow-minded?"
Shrub sat silent while the row went on around her. Then she spoke, very loud but very calmly.
"She is telling them," said the Thing, "that it is not wrong to write thename of the Maker of Clouds. It is often written by the Maker of Cloudsitself. 'How famous the Maker of Clouds must be, that even these strangers know its name,' she says."
That seemed to satisfy most of the nomes. Topknot started to grumble tohimself.
Masklin relaxed a bit, and looked down at the figures in the sand.
"N ... A ... S ... A?" he said.
"It's an S," said the Thing, "Not an 8."
"But you've only been talking to them for a little while!" said Angalo.
"How can you know something like this?"
"Because I know how nomes think," said the Thing. "You always believewhat you read, and you've all got very literal minds. Very literal mindsindeed."
Chapter 6
Geese: A type of bird which is slower than theConcorde, and you don't get anything to eat.
According to nomes who know them well, a goose isthe most stupid bird there is, except for a duck.
Geese spend a lot of time flying to other places.
As a form of transport, the goose leaves a lot tobe desired. If it weren't for the nomes tellingthem what to do, geese would just fly around lostand honking the whole time, if you want myscientific opinion. - From A ScientificEncyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome byAngalo de Haberdasheri.
In the beginning, said Shrub, there was nothing but ground. NASA saw theemptiness above the ground, and decided to fill it with sky. It built aplace in the middle of the world and sent up towers full of clouds.
Sometimes they also carried stars because, at night, after one of thecloud towers had gone up, the nomes could sometimes see new starsmoving across the sky.
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."