"Oh, come on," said Angalo. "You can't just put things in the sky! They'd fall down."
"I don't really understand it myself," Masklin admitted. "But if you goup high enough, there is no down. I think. Anyway, all we have to do isgo to Florida and put the Thing on one of these going-up jets and itcan do the rest, it says."
"All?" said Angalo.
"It can't be harder than stealing a truck," said Masklin.
"You're not suggesting we steal a plane?" said Gurder, by this time totally horrified.
"Wow!" said Angalo, his eyes lighting up as if by some internal power source. He loved vehicles of all sorts-especially when they were traveling fast.
"You would, too, wouldn't you?" said Gurder accusingly.
"Wow!" said Angalo again. He seemed to be looking at a picture only he could see.
"You're mad," said Gurder.
"No one said anything about stealing a plane," said Masklin quickly. "We aren't going to steal a plane. We're just going for a ride on one, I hope."
"Wow!"
"And we're not going to try to drive it, Angalo!"
Angalo shrugged.
"All right," he said. "But suppose I'm on it, and the driver becomes ill, then I expect I'll have to take over. I mean, I drove the Truck pretty well-"
"You kept running into things!" said Gurder.
"I was learning. Anyway, there's nothing to run into in the sky except clouds, and they look pretty soft," said Angalo.
"There's the ground^
"Oh, the ground wouldn't be a problem. It'd be too far away."
Masklin tapped the Thing. "Do you know where the jet plane is that's going to Florida?"
"Yes."
"Lead us there, then. Avoiding as many humans as you can."
"And where does the orange juice come into all this?" said Gurder.
"I'm not too sure about the orange juice bit," said Masklin.
It was raining softly, and because it was early evening, lights were coming on around the airport.
Absolutely no one heard the faint tinkle as a little ventilation grille dropped off an outside wall.
Three blurred shapes lowered themselves down onto the concrete and sped away, toward the planes.
Angalo looked up. And up some more. And there was still more up to come.
He ended up with his head craned right back.
He was nearly in tears.
"Oh, wow!" he kept saying.
"It's too big," muttered Gurder, trying not to look. Like most of the nomes who had been born in the Store, he hated looking up and not seeing a ceiling. Angalo was the same, but more than being Outside he hated not going fast.
"I've seen them go up in the sky," said Masklin. "They really do fly.
Honestly."
"Wow!"
It loomed over them, so big that you had to keep on stepping back and back to see how big it was. Rain glistened on it. The airport lights made smears of green and white bloom on its flanks. It wasn't a thing, it was a bit of shaped sky.
"Of course, they look smaller when they're a long way off," Masklin muttered.
He stared up at the plane. He'd never felt smaller in his life.
"I want one," moaned Angalo, clenching his fists. "Look at it. It looks as though it's going too fast even when it's standing still!"
"How do we get on it, then?" said Gurder.
"Can't you just see their faces back home if we turned up with this?" said Angalo.
"Yes. I can. Horribly clearly," said Gurder. "But how do we get on it?"
"We could ..." Angalo began. He hesitated. "Why did you have to ruin everything?" he snapped.
"There's the holes where the wheels stick through," said Masklin. "I think we could climb up there."
'Wo," said the Thing, which was tucked under Masklin's arm. "You would not be able to breathe. You must be properly inside. Where the planes go, the air is thin."
"I should hope so," said Gurder, stoutly. "That's why it's air."
"You would not be able to breathe," said the Thing patiently.
"Yes, I would," said Gurder. "I've always been able to breathe."
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You gets lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
Masklin waded through the puddles on the concrete so that he could see down the far side of the aircraft. Some way away a couple of humans wereusing some sort of machines to load boxes into a hole in the side of theplane. He walked back, around the huge tires, and squinted up at a long, high tube that stretched from the building.
He pointed.
"I think that's how humans are loaded onto it," he said.
"What, through a pipe? Like water?" said Angalo.
"It's better than standing out here getting wet, anyway," said Gurder.
"I'm soaked through already."
"There are stairs and wires and things," said Masklin. "It shouldn't be too difficult to climb up there. There's bound to be a gap we can slip in by." He sniffed. "There always is," he added, "when humans build things."
"Let's do it!" said Angalo. "Oh, wow!"
"But you're not to try to steal it," said Masklin, as they helped the slightly plump Gurder lumber into a run. "It's going where we want to go anyway-"
"Not where I want to go," moaned Gurder. "I want to go home!"
"And you're not to try to drive it. There's not enough of us. Anyway, I expect it's a lot more complicated than a truck. It's a-do you know what it's called. Thing?"
"A Concorde."
"There," said Masklin. "It's a Concorde. Whatever that is. And you've got to promise not to steal it."
Chapter 2
Concorde: It goes faster than a bullet and you get smoked salmon. - From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.
Squeezing through a gap in the humans-walking-onto-planes pipe wasn't as hard as coming to terms with what was on the other side.
The floor of the sheds in the quarry had been bare boards or stamped earth. In the airport building it was squares of a sort of shiny stone.
But here ... Gurder flung himself face down and buried his nose in it.
"Carpet!" he said, almost in tears. "Carpet! I never thought I'd see you again!"
"Oh, get up," said Angalo, embarrassed at the Abbot acting like that in front of someone who, however much of a friend he was, hadn't been born a Store nome.
Gurder stood up awkwardly. "Sorry," he mumbled, brushing himself off.
"Don't know what possessed me there. It just took me back, that's all.
Real carpet. Haven't seen real carpet for months."
He blew his nose noisily. "We had some beautiful carpets in the Store, you know. Beautiful. Some of them had patterns on them."
Masklin looked up the pipe. It was like one of the Store's corridors, and was quite brightly lit.
"Let's move on," he said. "It's too exposed here. Where are all the humans, Thing?"
"They will be arriving shortly."
"How does it knoisV Gurder complained.
"It listens to other machines," said Masklin.
"There are also many computers on this plane," said the Thing.
"Well, that's nice," said Masklin vaguely. "You'll have someone to talk to, then."
"They are quite stupid," said the Thing, and managed to express disdain without actually having anything to express it with.
A few feet away the corritlor opened into a new space. Masklin could see a curtain, and what looked like the edge of a chair.