What had been a dot was now a small dark circle.
"It's not moving, though," said Gurder.
"It's not moving sideways, anyway," said Angalo, still speaking very slowly. "It's moving more sort of down."
What had been a small dark circle was a larger dark circle, with just a suspicion of smoke or steam around its edges.
"It might be some sort of weather," said Angalo. "You know-special Floridian weather?"
"Oh, yeah? One great big hailstone, right? It's the Ship! Coming for us!"
It was a lot bigger now, and yet, and yet ... still a very long way off.
"If it could come for us just a little way away I wouldn't mind," Gurder quavered. "I wouldn't mind walking a little way."
"Yeah," said Angalo, beginning to look desperate. "It's not so much coming as, as ..."
"Dropping," said Gurder.
He looked at Angalo.
"Shall we run?" he said.
"It's got to be worth a try," said Angalo.
"Where shall we run to?"
"Let's just follow Pion, shall we? He started running a while ago."
Masklin would be the first to admit that he wasn't too familiar with forms of transport, but what they all seemed to have in common was a front, which was in front, and a back, which wasn't. The whole point was that the front was where they went forward from.
The thing dropping out of the sky was a disc-just a top connected to abottom, with edges around the sides. It didn't make any noise, but itseemed to be impressing the humans no end.
"That's it?" he said.
"Yes."
"Oh."
And then things seemed to come into focus.
The Ship wasn't big. It was so big, it needed a new word. It wasn't dropping through the thin wisps of cloud up there, it was simply pushingthem aside. Just when you thought you'd got some idea of the size, acloud would stream past and the perspective would come back. There had tobe a special word for something as big as that. "Is it going to crash?" he whispered. "I shall land it on the scrub," said the Thing. "I don'twant to frighten the humans."
"Run!"
"What do you think I'm doing?"
"It's still right above us!"
"I'm running! I'm running! I can't run any faster!"
A shadow fell across the three running nomes.
"All the way to Floridia to be squashed under our own Ship," moaned Angalo. "You never really believed in it, did you? Well, now you're going to believe in it really hard!"
The shadow deepened. They could see it racing across the ground ahead of them-gray around the edges, spreading into the darkness of night. Their own private night.
"The others are still out there somewhere," said Masklin.
"Ah," said the Thing. "I forgot." "You're not suppose to forget things like that!"
"I've been very busy lately. I can't think of everything. Just nearly everything."
"Just don't squash anyone!"
"I shall stop it before it lands. Don't worry."
The humans were all talking at once. Some of them had started to run toward the falling Ship. Some were running away from it.
Masklin risked a glance at Grandson Richard's face. It was watching the Ship with a strange, rapt expression.
As Masklin stared, the big eyes swiveled slowly sideways. The head turned around. Grandson Richard, 39, stared down at the nome on his shoulder.
For the second time, the human saw him. And this time, there was nowhere to run.
Masklin rapped the Thing on its lid.
"Can you slow my voice down?" he said quickly. An amazed expression was forming on the human's face.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean you just repeat what I say, but slowed down. And louder. So it-so he can understand it?"
"You want to communicate? With a human?" "Yes! Can you do it?"
"I strongly advise against it! It could be very dangerous!"
Masklin clenched his fists. "Compared to what, Thing? Compared to what?
How much more dangerous than not communicating, Thing? Do it! Rightnow! Tell him ... tell him we're not trying to hurt any humans! Rightnow! I can see his hand moving already! Do it!" He held the box right upto Grandson Richard's ear.
The Thing started to speak in the low, slow tones of human speech.
It seemed to go on for a long time.
The human's expression froze.
"What did you say? What did you say?" said Masklin.
"I said. If he harms you in any way I shall explode and blow his head off," said the Thing.
"You didn't!"
"I did"
"You call that communicating?"
"Yes. I call it very effective communicating."
"But it's a dreadful thing to say! Anyway ... you never told me youcould explode!"
"I can't. But he doesn 't know that. He's only human," said the Thing.
The Ship slowed its fall and drifted down across the scrubland until itmet its own shadow. Beside it, the tower where the shuttle had beenlaunched looked like a pin alongside a very large black plate.
"You landed it on the ground! I told you not to!" said Masklin.
"It's not on the ground. It is floating just above the ground."
"It looks as though it's on the ground to me!"
"It is floating just above it," repeated the Thing patiently.
Grandson Richard was looking down the length of his nose at Masklin. He looked puzzled.
"What makes it float?" Masklin demanded.
The Thing told him.
"Auntie who? Who's she? There are relatives on board?"
"Not auntie. Anti. Antigravity."
"But there's no flames or smoke!"
"Flames and smoke are not essential."
Vehicles were screaming toward the bulk of the Ship.
"Um. Exactly how far off the ground did you stop it?" Masklin inquired.
"Four inches seemed adequate."
Angalo lay with his face pressed into the sandy soil.
To his amazement, he was still alive. Or at least, if he was dead, then he was still able to think. Perhaps he was dead, and this was wherever you went afterward.
It seemed pretty much like where he'd been before.
Let's see, now. He'd looked up at the great thing dropping out of the sky right toward his head, and had flung himself down expecting at any second to become just a little greasy mark in a great big hole.
No, he probably hadn't died. He'd have remembered something important like that.
"Gurder?" he ventured.
"Is that you?" said Gurder's voice.
"I hope so. Pion?"
"Pion!" said Pion, somewhere in the darkness.
Angalo pushed himself up onto his hands and knees.
"Any idea where we are?" he said.
"In the Ship?" suggested Gurder.
"Don't think so," said Angalo. "There's soil here, and grass and stuff."
"Then where did the Ship go? Why's it all dark?"
Angalo brushed the dirt off his coat. "Dunno. Maybe ... maybe it missed us. Maybe we were knocked out, and now it's nighttime?"
"I can see a bit of light around the horizon," said Gurder. "That's not right, is it? That's not how nights are supposed to be."
Angalo looked around. There was a line of light in the distance. And there was also a strange sound, so quiet that you could miss it but that, once you had noticed it, also seemed to fill up the world.
He stood up to get a better view.
There was a faint thump.
"Ouch!"
Angalo reached up to rub his head. His hand touched metal. Crouching a little, he risked turning his head to see what it was he'd hit. He got very thoughtful for a while. Then he said, "Gurder, you're going to find this amazingly hard to believe."
"This time," said Masklin to the Thing, "I want you to translate exactly, do you understand? Don't try to frighten him!"
Humans had surrounded the Ship. At least, they were trying to surround it, but you'd need an awful lot of humans to surround something the size of the Ship. So they were just surrounding it in places.