"Twenty-seven minutes at least," said Gurder.
"Yeah. Maybe more."
Pion pulled at Masklin's arm, pointed to the looming white shape with his other hand, and rattled off a long sentence in Floridian, or if the Thing was right, nearly original nomish.
"I can't understand you without the Thing," said Masklin. "Sorry."
"No speaka da goose-oh," said Angalo.
A look of panic spread across the boy's face. He shouted this time, and tugged harder.
"I think he doesn't want to be near the going-up jets when they start up," said Angalo. "He's probably afraid of the noise. Don't ... like
... the ... noise, right?" he said.
Pion nodded furiously.
"They didn't sound too bad at the airport," said Angalo. "More of a rumble. I expect they might frighten unsophisticated people."
"I don't think Shrub's people are particularly unsophisticated," said Masklin thoughtfully. He looked up at the white tower. It had seemed along way away, but in some ways it might be quite close.
Really very close.
"How safe do you think it is here?" he said. "When it goes up, I mean."
"Oh, come on," said Angalo. "The Thing wouldn't have let us come righthere if it wasn't safe for nomes."
"Sure, sure," said Masklin. "Right. You're right. Silly to dwell on it, really."
Pion turned and ran.
The other three looked back at the shuttle. Lights moved in complicatedpatterns on the top of the Thing.
Somewhere another siren sounded. There was a sensation of power, asthough the biggest spring in the world was being wound up.
When Masklin spoke, the other two seemed to hear him speak their ownthoughts.
"Exactly how good," he said, very slowly, "do you think the Thing is atjudging how close nomes can stand to a going-up jet when it goes up? Imean, how much experience has it got, do you think?"
They looked at one another.
"Maybe we should back off a little bit?" Gurder suggested.
They turned and walked away.
Then each one of them couldn't help noticing that the others seemed to bewalking faster and faster.
Faster and faster.
Then, as one nome, they gave up and ran for it, fighting their waythrough the scrub and grass, skidding on stones, elbows going up and downlike pistons. Gurder, who was normally out of breath at anything abovewalking pace, bounded along like a balloon.
"Have ... you ... any-any ... idea ... how-how ... close-"
Angalo panted.
The sound behind them started like a hiss, like the whole world taking adeep breath. Then it turned into ... not noise, but something more likean invisible hammer that smacked into both ears at once.
Chapter 8
Space: There are two types: a) something containing nothing and b)
nothing containing everything. It is what you have left when you haven'tgot anything else. There is no air or gravity, which is what holdspeople onto things. If there weren't space, everything would be in oneplace. It is designed to be a place for satellites, shuttles, planets, and the Ship.
-From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo deHaberdasheri.
After some time, when the ground had stopped shaking, the nomes picked themselves up and stared blearily at one another.
!" said Gurder.
"What?" said Masklin. His own voice sounded a long way away, and muffled.
"?" said Gurder.
"?" said Angalo.
"What? I can't hear you! Can you hear me?"
Masklin saw Gurder's lips move. He pointed to his own ears and shook his head.
"We've gone deaf!"
"Deaf, I said." Masklin looked up.
Smoke billowed overhead and out of it, rising fast even to a nome's high-speed senses, was a long, growing cloud tipped with fire. The noisedropped to something merely very loud and then, very quickly, disappeared.
Masklin stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around.
The absence of sound was replaced by the terrible hiss of silence.
"Anyone listening?" he ventured. "Anyone hearing me?"
"That," said Angalo, his voice sounding blurred and unnaturally calm,
"was pretty loud. I don't reckon many things come much louder."
Masklin nodded. He felt as though he'd been pounded hard by something.
"You know about these things," he said weakly. "Humans ride on them, do they?"
"Oh, yes. Right at the top."
"No one makes them do it?"
"Er. I don't think so," said Angalo. "I think the book said a lot of them want to do it."
"They want to do it?"
Angalo shrugged. "That's what it said."
There was only a distant dot now, at the end of a widening white cloud of smoke.
Masklin watched it.
We must be mad, he thought. We're tiny and it's a big world and we never stop to learn enough about where we are before we go somewhere else. At least back when I lived in a hole I knew everything there was to knowabout living in a hole, and now it's a year later and I'm at a place sofar away I don't even know how far away it is, watching something Idon't understand go to a place so far up there is no down. And I can't goback. I've got to go right on to the end of whatever all this is, becauseI can't go back. I can't even stop.
So that's what Grimma meant about the frogs. Once you know things, you're a different person. You can't help it.
He looked back down. Something was missing.
The Thing.
He ran back the way they'd come.
The little black box was where he'd left it. The rods had withdrawn into it, and there weren't any lights.
"Thing?" he said uncertainly.
One red light came on faintly. Masklin suddenly felt cold, despite the heat around him.
"Are you all right?" he said.
The light flickered.
'Too quick. Used too much povo ..." it said.
"Pow?" said Masklin. He tried hard not to wonder why the word hadn't been much more than a growl.
The light dimmed.
"Thing? Thing?" He tapped gently on the box. "Did it work? Is the Ship coming? What do we do now? Wake up! Thing?"
The light went out.
Masklin picked the Thing up and turned it over and over in his hands.
"Thing?"
Masklin and Gurder hurried up, with Pion behind them.
"Did it work?" said Angalo. "Can't see any Ship yet."
Masklin turned his face toward them.
"The Thing's stopped," he said.
"Stopped?"
"All the lights have gone out!"
"Well, what does that mean?" Angalo started to look panicky.
"I don't know!"
"Is it dead?" said Gurder.
"It can't die! It's existed for thousands of years!"
Gurder shook his head. "Sounds like a good reason for dying," he said.
"But it's a-a Thing."
Angalo sat down with his arms around his knees.
"Did it say if it got everything sorted out? When's the Ship coming?"
"Listen, don't you care? It's run out of pow!"
"Pow?"
"It must mean electricity. It kind of sucks it out of wires and stuff. I think it can store it for a while too. And now it must have run out."
They looked at the black box. It had spent thousands of years being handed down from nome to nome without ever saying a word or lighting a light. It had only woken up again when it had been brought into the Store, near electricity.
"It looks creepy, sitting there doing nothing," said Angalo.
"Can't we find it some electricity?" said Gurder.
"Around here? There isn't any!" Angalo snapped. "We're in the middle of nowhere!"
Masklin stood up and gazed around. It was just possible to see some buildings in the distance. There was a movement of vehicles around them.
"What about the Ship?" said Angalo. "Is it on its way?"
"I don't know!"
"How will it find us?"