"Talking of bathrooms ..." said Angalo.
"Right down the other end of the pipe, please," said Gurder.
"And keep away from any wiring," volunteered the Thing. Angalo nodded ina puzzled fashion, and crawled away into the darkness.
Gurder yawned and stretched his arms.
"Won't the giving-out-food humans look for us?" he said.
"I don't think so," said Masklin. "Back when we used to live Outside I'msure humans saw us sometimes. I don't think they really believe theireyes. They wouldn't make those weird garden ornaments if they'd everseen a real nome."
Gurder reached into his robe and pulled out the picture of GrandsonRichard, 39. Even in the dim light in the pipe, Masklin recognized it asthe human in the seat. He hadn't got creases on his face from beingfolded up, and he wasn't made up of hundreds of tiny dots, but apart fromthat... .
"Do you think he's here somewhere?" said Gurder wistfully.
"Could be. Could be," said Masklin, feeling wretched. "But, look, Gurder... maybe Angalo goes a bit too far, but he could be right. MaybeGrandson Richard, 39, is just another human being, you know. Probablyhumans did build the Store just for humans. Your ancestors just moved inbecause, well, it was warm and dry. And-"
"I'm not listening, you know," said Gurder. "I'm not going to be toldthat we're just things like rats and mice. We're special."
"The Thing is quite definite about us coming from somewhere else, Gurder," said Masklin meekly.
The Abbot folded up the picture. "Maybe we did. Maybe we didn't," hesaid. "That doesn't matter."
"Angalo thinks it matters if it's true."
"Don't see why. There's more than one kind of truth." Gurder shrugged. "Imight say, you're just a lot of dust and juices and bones and hair, andthat's true. And I might say, you're something inside your head thatgoes away when you die. That's true too. Ask the Thing."
Colored lights flickered across the Thing's surface.
Masklin looked shocked.
"I've never asked it that sort of question," he said.
"Why not? It's the first question I'd ask."
"It'll probably say something like 'Does not compute' or 'Inoperativeparameters.' That's what it says when it doesn't know and doesn't want toadmit it. Thing?"
The Thing didn't reply. Its lights changed their pattern.
"Thing?" Masklin repeated.
"I am monitoring communications."
"It often does that when it's feeling bored," said Masklin to Gurder. "Itjust sits there listening to invisible messages in the air. Payattention, Thing. This is important. We want-"
The lights moved. A lot of them went red.
"Thing! We-"
The Thing made the little clicking noise that was the equivalent of clearing its throat.
"A nome has been seen in the pilot's cabin."
"Listen, Thing, we-What?"
"I repeat: A nome has been seen in the pilots cabin."
Masklin looked around wildly.
"Angalo?"
"That is an extreme probability," said the Thing.
Chapter 3
Traveling Humans: Large, nomelike creatures. Many humans spend a lot of time traveling from place to place, which is odd because there are usually too many humans at the place they're going to anyway. Also see under Animals, Intelligence, Evolution, and Custard. - From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.
The sound of Masklin's and Gurder's voices echoed up and down the pipe as they scrambled over the wires.
"I thought he was taking too long!"
"You shouldn't have let him go off by himself! You know what he's like about driving things!"
"I shouldn't have let him?"
"He's just got no sense of-which way now? We're been searching for ages."
Angalo had said he thought the inside of a plane would be a mass of wires and pipes. He was nearly right. The nomes squeezed their way through a narrow, cable-hung wodd under the floor.
"I'm too old for this! There comes a time in a nome's life when he shouldn't crawl around the inside of terrible flying machines!"
"How many times have you done it?"
"Once too often!"
"We are getting closer," said the Thing.
"This is what comes of showing ourselves! It's a Judgment," declared Gurder.
"Whose?" said Masklin grimly, helping him up.
"What do you mean?'
"There has to be someone to make a judgment!"
"I meant just a judgment in general!"
Masklin stopped.
"Where to now, Thing?"
"The message told the gwing-out-food humans that a strange little creature was on the flight deck," said the Thing. "That is where ^ are.
There are many computers here."
"They're talking to you, are they?"
"A little. They are like children. Mostly they listen," said the Thing smugly. "They are not very intelligent."
"What are we going to do?" said Gurder.
"We're going to . . ," Masklin hesitated. The word "rescue" was looking up somewhere in the sentence ahead.
It was a good, dramatic word.
He longed to say it. The trouble was that there was another, simpler, nastier word a little farther beyond.
It was "how"?
"I don't think they'd try to hurt him," he said, hoping it was true.
"Maybe they'll put him somewhere. We ought to find somewhere where wecan see what's happening." He looked helplessly at the wires andintricate bits of metal in front of them.
"You'd better let me lead, then," said Gurder, in a matter-of-fact voice.
"Why?"
"You might be very good at wide-open spaces," said the Abbot, pushing past him. "But in the Store we know all about getting around inside things."
He rubbed his hands together.
"Right," he said, and then grabbed a cable and slid through a gap Masklin hadn't even noticed was there.
"Used to do this sort of thing when I was a boy," he said. "We used to get up to all sorts of tricks."
"Yes?" said Masklin.
"Down this way, I think. Mind the wires. Oh, yes. Up and down the elevator shafts, in and out of the telephone switchboard-"
"I thought you always said kids spent far too much time running around and getting into mischief these days?"
"Ah. Yes. Well, that's juvenile delinquency," said Gurder sternly. "It's quite different from our youthful high spirits. Let's try up here."
They crawled between two warm metal walls. There was daylight ahead.
Masklin and Gurder lay down and pulled themselves forward.
There was an odd-shaped room, not a lot bigger than the cab of the Truck itself. Like the cab, it was really just a space where the human drivers fitted into the machinery. There was a lot of that.
It covered the walls and ceiling. Lights and switches, dials and levers.
Masklin thought, if Dorcas were here, we'd never get him to leave.
Angalo's here somewhere, and we want him to leave.
There were two humans kneeling on the floor. One of the giving-out-food females was standing by them. There was a lot of mooing and growling going on.
"Human talking," muttered Masklin. "I wish we could understand it."
"Very well, " said the Thing. "Stand by."
"You can understand human noises?"
"Certainly. They 're only nome noises slowed down."
"What? What? You never told us that! You never told us that before!"
"There are many billions of things I have not told you. Where would you like me to start?"
"You can start by telling me what they're saying now," said Masklin.
"Please?"
"One of the humans has just said, 'It must have been a mouse or something,' and the other one said, 'You show me a mouse wearing clothes, and I'll admit it was a mouse.'And the giving-out-food female said, 'It was no mouse I saw. It blew a raspberry at me (exclamation).' "