In the beginning . . .

. . . was Arnold Bros. (est. 1905), the great de-
partment store.

It was the home of several thousand nomes—as
they called themselves—who'd long ago given up
life in the countryside and settled down under the
floorboards of Mankind.

Not that they had anything to do with humans.
Humans were big and slow and stupid.

Nomes live fast. To them, ten years is like a cen-
tury. Since they'd been living in the Store for
more than eighty years, they'd long ago forgotten
that there were things like Sun and Rain and
Wind. All there was, was the Store—created by
the legendary Arnold Bros. (est. 1905) as a proper
place for nomes to live.

And then, into the Store from an Outside the
nomes didn't believe existed, came Masklin and
his little tribe. They knew what Rain and Wind

•   3   -

were, all right. That's why they'd tried to get
away from them.

With them they brought the Thing. For years
they had thought of the Thing as a sort of talisman
or lucky charm. Only in the Store, near electric-
ity, did it wake up and tell a few selected nomes
things they hardly understood.

They learned that they had originally come
from the stars, in some sort of Ship, and that some-
where up in the sky that Ship had been waiting
for thousands of years to take them home.

And they learned that the Store was going to be
demolished in three weeks.

How Masklin tricked, bullied, and persuaded
the nomes into leaving the Store by stealing one of
its huge trucks is recounted in Truckers.

They made it to an old quarry, and for a little
while things went well enough.

But when you're four inches high in a world
full of giant people, things never go very well for
very long.

They found that humans were going to reopen
the quarry.

At the same time, they also found a scrap of
newspaper that had a picture of Richard Arnold,
grandson of one of the brothers who founded Ar-
nold Bros. The company that had owned the Store
was now a big international concern, and Grand-
son Richard, 39—said the newspaper—was going
to Florida to watch the launch of its first commu-
nications satellite.

.   4   .

The Thing admitted to Masklin that, if it could
get into space, it could call the Ship. He decided to
take a few nomes and go to the airport and find
some way of getting to Florida to get the Thing
into the sky—which, of course, was ridiculous, as
well as impossible. But he didn't know this, so he
tried to do it anyway.

So, thinking that Florida was five miles away
and possibly a kind of orange juice anyway,* and
that there were perhaps several hundred human
beings in the world, and not knowing where ex-
actly to go or what to do when they got there, but
determined to get there and do it anyway, Masklin
and his companions set out.

The nomes that stayed behind fought the hu-
mans in Diggers. They defended their quarry as
long as they could and fled on the Cat, the great
yellow digging machine.

But this is Masklin's story. . . .

* The only time the nomes had seen the word "Florida" be-
fore was on an old carton of orange juice. When nomes get
hold of an idea, they don't let go without a struggle.

5

Airports: A place where people hurry up and wait.
—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Let the eye of your imagination be a camera. . . .

This is the universe, a glittering ball of galaxies
like the ornament on some unimaginable Christ-
mas tree.

Find a galaxy. . . . Focus.

This is a galaxy, swirled like the cream in a cup
of coffee, every pinpoint of light a star.

Find a star. . . . Focus.

This is a solar system, where planets barrel
through the darkness around the central fires of
the sun. Some planets hug close, hot enough to
melt lead. Some drift far out, where the comets are
born.

Find a blue planet . . . Focus.

'   7   '

TERBY PRATCHETT

This is a planet. Most of it is covered in water.
It's called Earth.

Find a country. . . . Focus. . . . Blues and
greens and browns under the sun, and here's a
pale oblong, which is ... focus ... an airport, a
concrete hive for silver bees. There's a ... focus
. . . building full of people and noise, and . . .
focus ... a hall of lights and bustle, and . . . fo-
cus ... a. bin full of rubbish, and . . . focus . . .
a pair of tiny eyes. . . .

Focus. . . . Focus. . . . Focus. . . . Click!

Masklin slid cautiously down an old burger car-
ton.

He'd been watching humans. Hundreds and
hundreds of humans. It was beginning to dawn on
him that getting on a jet plane wasn't like stealing
a truck.

Angalo and Gurder had nestled deep into the
rubbish and were gloomily eating the remains of a
cold, greasy french fry.

This has come as a shock to all of us, Masklin
thought.

I mean, take Gurder. Back in the Store he was
the Abbot. He believed that Arnold Bros. made
the Store for nomes. And he still thinks there's
some sort of Arnold Bros. somewhere, watching
over us, because we were important. And now
we're out here and all we've found is that nomes
aren't important at all. . . .

•   8   •

WINGS

And there's Angalo. He doesn't believe in Ar-
nold Bros., but he likes to think Arnold Bros. ex-
ists just so that he can go on not believing in him.

And there's me.

I never thought it would be this hard.

I thought jet planes were just trucks with more
wings and less wheels.

There's more humans in this place than I've
ever seen before. How can we find Grandson
Richard, 39, in a place like this?

I hope they're going to save me some of that
french fry.

Angalo looked up.

"Seen him?" he said, sarcastically.

Masklin shrugged. "There are lots of humans
with beards," he said. "They all look the same to
me."

"I told you," said Angalo. "Blind faith never
works." He glared at Gurder.

"He could have gone already," said Masklin.
"He could have walked right past me."

"So let's get back," said Angalo. "People will be
missing us. We've made the effort, we've seen the
airport, we've nearly got stepped on dozens of
times. Now let's get back to the real world."

"What do you think, Gurder?" said Masklin.

The Abbot gave him a long, despairing look.

"I don't know," he said. "I really don't know.
I'd hoped . . ."

•   9   '

TERRY PRATCHETT

His voice trailed off. He looked so downcast that
even Angalo patted him on the shoulder.

"Don't take it so hard," he said. "You didn't re-
ally think some sort of Grandson Richard, 39, was
going to swoop down out of the sky and carry us
off to Florida, did you? Look, we've given it a try.
It hasn't worked. Let's go home."

"Of course I didn't think that, " said Gurder irri-
tably. "I just thought that . . . maybe in some
way . . . there'd be a way."

"The world belongs to humans. They built ev-
erything. They run everything. We might as well
accept it," said Angalo.

Masklin looked at the Thing. He knew it was
listening. Even though it was just a small black
cube, it somehow always looked more alert when
it was listening.

The trouble was, it only spoke when it felt like
it. It'd always give you just enough help, and no
more. It seemed to be testing him the whole time.

Somehow, asking the Thing for help was like
admitting that you'd run out of ideas. But . . .

"Thing," he said, "I know you can hear me, be-
cause there must be loads of electricity in this
building. We're at the airport. We can't find
Grandson Richard, 39. We don't know how to start
looking. Please help us."

The Thing stayed silent.

"If you don't help us," said Masklin quietly,
"we'll go back to the quarry and face the humans,

• 10 '

WINGS

but that won't matter to you because we'll leave
you here. We really will. And no nomes will ever
find you again. There will never be another
chance. We'll die out, there will be no more nomes
anywhere, and it will be because of you. And in
years and years to come you'll be all alone and
useless and you'll think 'Perhaps I should have
helped Masklin when he asked me,' and then
you'll think 'If I had my time all over again, I
would have helped him.' Well, Thing, imagine all
that has happened and you've magically got your
wish. Help us."

"It's a machine!" snapped Angalo. "You can't
blackmail a machine—!"

One small red light lit up on the Thing's black
surface.

"I know you can tell what other machines are
thinking," said Masklin. "But can you tell what
nomes are thinking? Read my mind, Thing, if you
don't think I'm serious. You want nomes to act
intelligently. Well, I am acting intelligently. I'm
intelligent enough to know when I need help. I
need help now. And you can help. I know you
can. If you don't help us now, we'll leave right
now and forget you ever existed."

A second light came on, very faintly.

Masklin stood up, and nodded to the other.

"All right," he said. "Let's go."

The Thing made a little electronic noise, which

• 11 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

was the machine's equivalent of a nome clearing
his throat.

"How can I be of assistance?" it said.

Angalo grinned at Gurder.

Masklin sat down again.

"Find Grandson Richard Arnold, 39," he said.

"This will take a long time, " said the Thing.

"Oh."

A few lights moved on the Thing's surface.
Then it said, "/ have located a Richard Arnold, aged
39. He has just gone into the departure lounge for Flight
205 to Miami, Florida."

"That didn't take a very long time," said Mas-
klin.

"It was three hundred microseconds," said the
Thing. "That's long."

"I don't think I understood all of it too," Mas-
klin added.

"Which parts didn 't you understand?"

"Nearly all of them," said Masklin. "All the bits
after 'gone into.'"

"Someone with the right name is here and waiting in a
special room to get on a big silver bird that flies in the
sky to go to a place called Florida," said the Thing.

"What big silver bird?" said Angalo.

"It means jet plane. It's being sarcastic," said
Masklin.

"Yeah? How does it know all this stuff?" said
Angalo, suspiciously. •

"This building is full of computers," said the Thing.

• 12 •

WINGS

"What, like you?"

The Thing managed to look offended. "They are
very, very primitive," it said. "But I can understand
them. If I think slowly enough. Their job is to know
where humans are going."

"That's more than most humans do," said An-
galo.

"Can you find out how we can get to him?" said
Gurder, his face alight.

"Hold on, hold on," said Angalo, quickly. "Let's
not rush into things here."

"We came here to find him, didn't we?" said
Gurder.

"Yes! But what do we actually do?"

"Well, of course, we ... we ... that is,
we'll . . ."

"We don't even know what a departure lounge

is."

"The Thing said it's a room where humans wait
to get on an airplane," said Masklin.

Gurder prodded Angalo with an accusing fin-
ger.

"You're frightened, aren't you?" he said. "You're
frightened that if we see Grandson Richard, 39,
it'll mean there really is an Arnold Bros. and you'll
have been wrong\ You're just like your father. He
could never stand being wrong, either!"

"I'm frightened about you," said Angalo. "Be-
cause you'll see that Grandson Richard, 39, is just
a human. Arnold Bros. was just a human too. Or

• 13 '

TERBY PRATCHETT

two humans. They just built the Store for hu-
mans. They didn't even know about nomes! And
you can leave my father out of this too."

The Thing opened a small hatch on its top. It
did that sometimes. When the hatches were shut
you couldn't see where they were, but whenever
the Thing was really interested in something it
opened up and extended a small silver dish on a
pole, or a complicated arrangement of pipes.

This time it was a piece of wire mesh on a metal
rod. It started to turn, slowly.

Masklin picked it up.

While the other two argued he said, quietly,
"Do you know where this lounge thing is?"

"Yes, " said the Thing.

"Let's go, then."

Angalo looked around.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he said.

Masklin ignored him. He said to the Thing,
"And do you know how much time we have be-
fore he starts going to Florida?"

"About half an hour."

Nomes live ten times faster than humans.
They're harder to see than a high-speed mouse.

That's one reason why most humans hardly
ever see them.

The other is that humans are very good at not
seeing things they know aren't there. And since
sensible humans know that there are no such

. 14 .

WINGS

things as four-inch-high people, a nome who
doesn't want to be seen probably won't be seen.

So no one noticed three tiny blurs darting
across the floor of the airport building. They
dodged the rumbling wheels of luggage carts.
They shot between the legs of slow-moving hu-
mans. They skidded around chairs. They became
nearly invisible as they crossed a huge, echoing
corridor.

And they disappeared behind a potted plant.

It has been said that everything everywhere af-
fects everything else. This may be true.

Or perhaps the world is just full of patterns.

For example, in a tree nine thousand miles away
from Masklin, high on a cloudy mountainside, was
a plant that looked like one large flower. It grew
wedged in a fork of trees, its roots dangling in the
air to trap what nourishment they could from the
mists. Technically, it was an epiphytic bromeliad,
although not knowing this made very little differ-
ence to the plant.

Water condensed into a tiny pool in the center
of the bloom.

And there were frogs living in it.

Very, very small frogs.

They had such a tiny life cycle, it still had train-
ing wheels on it.

They hunted insects among the petals. They
laid their eggs in the central pool. Tadpoles grew

• 15 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

up and became more frogs. And they made more
tadpoles. And each eventually died, and sank
down and joined the compost at the base of the
leaves, which, in fact, helped nourish the plant.

And this had been the way things were for as
far back as the frogs could remember.*

Except that on this day, while it hunted for flies,
one frog lost its way and crawled around the side
of one of the outermost petals, or possibly leaves,
and saw something it had never seen before.

It saw the universe.

More precisely, it saw the branch stretching
away into the mists.

And several yards away, glistening with drop-
lets of moisture in a solitary shaft of sunlight, was
another flower.

The frog sat and stared.

"Hngh! Hngh! Hngh!"

Gurder leaned against the wall and panted like a
hot dog on a sunny day.

Angalo was almost as badly out of breath, but
was going red in the face trying not to show it.

"Why didn't you tell us!" he demanded.

"You were too busy arguing," said Masklin. "So
I knew the only way to get you running was to
start moving."

* About three seconds. Frogs don't have good memories.

• 16 '

WINGS

"Thank . . . you . . . very much," Gurder
heaved.

"Why aren't you puffed out?" said Angalo.

"I'm used to running fast," said Masklin, peer-
ing around the plant. "Okay, Thing. Now what?"

"Along this corridor," said the Thing.

"It's full of humans!" squeaked Gurder.

"Everywhere's full of humans. That's why
we're doing this," said Masklin. He paused, and
then added, "Look, Thing, isn't there any other
way we can go? Gurder nearly got squashed just
now."

Colored lights moved in complicated patterns
across the Thing. Then it said, "What is it you want
to achieve?"

"We must find Grandson Richard, 39," panted
Gurder.

"No. Going to the Florida place is the impor-
tant thing," said Masklin.

"It isn't!" said Gurder. "I don't want to go to
any Florida!"

Masklin hesitated. Then he said, "This probably
isn't the right time to say this, but I haven't been
totally honest with you."

He told them about the Thing, and space, and
the Ship in the sky. Around them there was the
endless thundering noise of a building full of busy
humans.

Eventually Gurder said, "You're not trying to
find Grandson Richard, 39, at all?"

• 17 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"I think he's probably very important," said
Masklin hurriedly. "But you're right. At Florida
there's a place where they have a sort of jet plane
that goes straight up, to put kind of bleeping radio
things in the sky."

"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 go up high enough, there is
no down. I think. Anyway, all we have to do is go
to Florida and put the Thing on one of these go-
ing-up jets and it can 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!"

• 18 •

WINGS

"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 air-
port.

Absolutely no one heard the faint tinkle as a
little ventilation grille dropped off an outside wall.

Three blurred shapes lowered themselves down

• 19 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

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.

• 20 '

WINGS

"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 An-
galo. "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 con-
crete so that he could see down the far side of the
aircraft. Some way away a couple of humans were
using some sort of machines to load boxes into a
hole in the side of the plane. He walked back,

• 21 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

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 An-
galo.

"It's better than standing out here getting wet,
anyway," said Gurder. "I'm soaked through al-
ready."

"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 any-
way—"

"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. What-
ever that is. And you've got to promise not to steal
it."

• 22 •

Two

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 build-
ing 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.

• 23 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

WINGS

Gurder stood up awkwardly. "Sorry," he mum-
bled, brushing himself off. "Don't know what pos-
sessed 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 beauti-
ful 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 man-
aged 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.

"All right, Angalo," he said. "Lead the way. I
know you want to."

It was two minutes later.

The three of them were sitting under a seat.

Masklin had never really thought about the in-

• 24 -

sides of aircraft. He'd spent days up on the cliff
behind the quarry, watching them take off. Of
course, he'd assumed there were humans inside.
Humans got everywhere. But he'd never really
thought about the insides. If ever there was any-
thing that looked made up of outsides, it was a
plane.

But it had been too much for Gurder. He was in
tears.

"Electric light," he moaned. "And more carpets!
And big soft seats! They've even got antimacassars
on them! And there isn't any mud anywhere\ There
are even signs'."

"There, there," said Angalo helplessly, patting
him on the shoulder. "It was a good Store, I know."
He looked up at Masklin.

"You've got to admit it's unsettling," he said. "I
was expecting . . . well, wires and pipes and ex-
citing levers and things. Not something like the
Arnold Bros. Furnishings Department!"

"We shouldn't stay here," said Masklin.
"There'll be humans all over the place pretty
soon. Remember what the Thing said."

They helped Gurder up and trotted under the
rows of seats with him between them. But it
wasn't like the Store in one important way, Mas-
klin realized. There weren't many places to hide.
In the Store there was always something to get
behind or under or wriggle through.

He could already hear distant sounds. In the

• 25 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

end they found a gap behind a curtain, in a part of
the aircraft where there were no seats. Masklin
crawled inside, pushing the Thing in front of him.

They weren't distant sounds now. They were
very close. He turned his head, and saw a human
foot a few inches away.

At the back of the gap there was a hole in the
metal wall where some thick wires passed
through. It was just big enough for Angalo and
Masklin, and big enough for a terrified Gurder
with the two of them pulling on his arms. There
wasn't too much room, but at least they couldn't
be seen.

They couldn't see, either. They lay packed to-
gether in the gloom, trying to make themselves
comfortable on the wires.

After a while Gurder said, "I feel a bit better
now."

Masklin nodded.

There were noises all around them. From some-
where far below came a series of metallic clanks.
There was the mournful sound of human voices,
and then a jolt.

"Thing?" he whispered.

"Yes?"

"What's happening?"

"The plane is getting ready to become airborne."

"Oh."

"Do you know what that means?"

"No. Not really."

• 26 '

WINGS

"It is going to fly in the air. 'Borne' means to be
carried, and 'air' means air. To be borne in the air.
Airborne."

Masklin could hear Angalo's breathing.

He settled himself as best he could between the
metal wall and a thick bundle of wires, and stared
into the darkness.

The nomes didn't speak. After a while there was
a faint jerk and a sensation of movement.

Nothing else happened. It went on not happen-
ing.

Eventually Gurder, his voice trembling with
terror, said, "Is it too late to get off, if we—?"

A sudden distant thundering noise finished the
sentence for him. A dull rumbling shook every-
thing around them very gently but very firmly.

Then there was a heavy pause, like the moment
a ball must feel between the time it's thrown up
and the time it starts to come down, and some-
thing picked up all three of them and slid them
into a struggling heap. The floor tried to become
the wall.

The nomes hung on to one another, stared into
one another's faces, and screamed.

After a while, they stopped. There didn't seem
much point in continuing. Besides, they were out
of breath.

The floor very gradually became a proper floor
again, and didn't show any further ambitions to
become a wall.

• 27 -

TERBY PRATCHETT

Masklin pushed Angalo's foot off his neck.

"I think we're flying," he said.

"Is that what it was?" said Angalo weakly. "It
looks kind of more graceful when you see it from
the ground."

"Is anyone hurt?"

Gurder pulled himself upright.

"I'm all bruises," he said. He brushed himself
down. And then, because there is no changing
nomish nature, he added, "Is there any food
around?"

They hadn't thought about food.

Masklin stared behind him into the tunnel of
wires.

"Maybe we won't need any," he said, uncer-
tainly. "How long will it take to get to Florida,
Thing?"

"The captain has just said it will be many hours,"
said the Thing.*

"We'll starve to death!" said Gurder.

"Maybe there's something to hunt?" said An-
galo hopefully.

"I shouldn't think so," .Masklin said. "This
doesn't look a mouse kind of place."

"The humans'll have food," said Gurder. "Hu-
mans always have food."

"I knew you were going to say that," said An-
galo.

• An hour lasts nearly as long as half a day, to a nome.
•  28  '

WINGS

"It's just common sense."

"I wonder if we can see out a window?" said
Angalo. "I'd like to see how fast we're going. All
the trees and things whizzing past, and so on?"

"Look," said Masklin, before things got out of
hand. "Let's just wait for a while, eh? Everyone
calm down. Have a bit of a rest. Then maybe we
can look for some food."

They settled down again. At least it was warm
and dry. Back in the days when he'd lived in a hole
in a bank Masklin had spent far too much time
cold and wet to turn up his nose at a chance to
sleep warm and dry.

He dozed.

Airborne.

Air . . . born . . .

Perhaps there were hundreds of nomes who
lived in the airplanes in the same way that nomes
had lived in the Store. Perhaps they got on with
their lives under the carpeted floor somewhere,
while they were whisked to all the places Masklin
had seen on the only map the nomes had ever
found. It had been in a pocket diary, and the
names of the faraway places written on it were
like magic—Africa, Australia, China, Equator,
Printed in Hong Kong, Iceland. . . .

Perhaps they'd never looked out the windows.
Perhaps they'd never known that they were mov-
ing at all.

• 29 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

He wondered if this was what Grimma had
meant by all the stuff about the frogs in the flower.
She'd read it in a book. You could live your whole
life in some tiny place and think it was the whole
world. The trouble was, he'd been angry. He
hadn't wanted to listen.

Well, he was out of the flower now and no mis-
take.

The frog had brought some other young frogs to
its spot among the leaves at the edge of the world
of the flower.

They stared at the branch. There wasn't just
one flower out there, there were dozens, although
the frogs weren't able to think like this because
frogs can't count beyond one.

They saw lots of ones.

They stared at them. Staring is one of the few
things frogs are good at.

Thinking isn't. It would be nice to say that the
tiny frogs thought long and hard about the new
flower, about life in the old flower, about the need
to explore, about the possibility that the world
was bigger than a pool with petals around the
edge.

In fact, what they thought was . . . mipmip
. . . mipmip . . . mipmip.

But what they felt was too big for one flower to
contain.                   *

• 30 '

WINGS

Carefully, slowly, not at all certain why, they
plopped down onto the branch.

There was a polite beeping from the Thing.

"You may be interested to know, " it said, "that we've
broken the sound barrier."

Masklin turned wearily to the others.

"All right, own up," he said. "Who broke it?"

"Don't look at me," said Angalo. "I didn't touch
anything."

Masklin crawled to the edge of the hole and
peered out.

There were human feet out there. Female hu-
man feet, by the look of it. They usually were the
ones with the less practical shoes.

You could learn a lot about humans by looking
at their shoes. It was about all a nome had to look
at, most of the time. The rest of the human was
normally little more than the wrong end of a pair
of nostrils, a long way up.

Masklin sniffed.

"There's food somewhere," he said.

"What kind?" said Angalo.

"Never mind what kind," said Gurder, pushing
him out of the way. "Whatever it is, I'm going to
eat it."

"Get back!" Masklin snapped, pushing the
Thing into Angalo's arms. "I'll go! Angalo, don't
let him go!"

He darted out, ran for the curtain, and slid be-

• 31 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

hind it. After a few seconds, he moved just enough
to let one eye and a frowning eyebrow show.

The room was some sort of food place. Human
females were taking trays of food out of the wall.
Nomish sense of smell is sharper than a fox's; it
was all Masklin could do not to dribble. He had to
admit it—it was all very well hunting and grow-
ing things, but what you got wasn't a patch on the
food you found around humans.

One of the females put the last tray on a trolley
and wheeled it past Masklin. The wheels were al-
most as tall as he was.

As it squeaked past, he jumped out of his hiding
place and leapt onto it, squeezing himself among
the bottles. It was a stupid thing to do, he knew. It
was just better than being stuck in a hole with a
couple of idiots.

Rows and rows of shoes. Some black, some
brown. Some with laces, some without. Quite a
few of them without feet in them, because the hu-
mans had taken them off.

Masklin looked up as the trolley inched for-
ward.

Rows and rows of legs. Some in skirts, but most
in trousers.

Masklin looked up farther. Nomes rarely saw
humans sitting down.

Rows and rows of bodies, topped with rows and
rows of heads with faces at the front. Rows and
rows of—

• 32 •

WINGS

Masklin crouched back among the bottles.
Grandson Richard, 39, was watching him.
It was the face in the newspaper. It had to be.
There was the little beard, and the smiling mouth
with lots of teeth in it. And the hair that looked as
though it had been dramatically carved out of
something shiny rather than grown in the normal
way.
Grandson Richard. 39.

The face stared at him for a moment, and then
looked away.

He can't have seen me, Masklin told himself.
I'm hidden away here.

What will Gurder say when I tell him?

He'll go mad, that's what.

I think I'll keep it to myself for a while. That
might be an amazingly good idea. We've got
enough to worry about as it is.

Thirty-nine. Either there've been thirty-eight
other Grandson Richards, and I don't think that's
what it means, or it's a newspaper human way of
saying he's thirty-nine years old. Nearly half as
old as the Store. And the Store nomes say the
Store is as old as the world. I know that can't be
true, but . . .

I wonder what it feels like to live nearly forever?

He burrowed farther into the things on the
shelf. Mostly they were bottles, but there were a
few bags containing knobbly things a bit smaller

• 33 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

than Masklin's fist. He stabbed at the paper with
his knife until he'd cut a hole big enough, and
pulled one of them out.

It was a salted peanut. Well, it was a start.

He grabbed the packet just as a hand reached
past.

It was close enough to touch.

It was close enough to touch him.

He could see the red of its fingernails as they
slid by him, closed slowly over another packet of
nuts, and withdrew.

It dawned on Masklin later that the giving-out-
food female wouldn't have been able to see him.
She just reached down into the tray for what she
knew would be there, and this almost certainly
didn't include Masklin.

That's what he decided later. At the time, with a
human hand almost brushing his head, it all
looked a lot different. He took a running dive off
the trolley, rolled when he hit the carpet, and
scurried under the nearest seat.

He didn't even wait to catch his breath. Experi-
ence had taught him that it was when you stopped
to catch your breath that things caught you. He
charged from seat to seat, dodging giant feet, dis-
carded shoes, dropped newspapers and bags. By
the time he crossed the bit of aisle to the food-
place, he was a blur even by nome standards. He
didn't stop even when he reached the hole. He just

• 34 '

WINGS

leapt, and went through it without touching the
sides.

"A peanut?" said Angalo. "Between three?
That's not a mouthful each!"

"What do you suggest?" said Masklin, bitterly.
"Do you want to go to the giving-out-food female
and say, there's three small hungry people down
here?"

Angalo stared at him. Masklin had got his
breath back now, but was still very red in the face.

"You know, that could be worth a try," he said.

"What?"

"Well, if you were a human, would you expect
to see nomes on a plane?" said Angalo.

"Of course I wouldn't."

"I bet you'd be amazed if you did see one, eh?"

"Are you suggesting we deliberately show our-
selves to a human?" Gurder said suspiciously.
"We've never done that, you know."

"I nearly did just now," said Masklin. "I won't
do that again in a hurry!"

"We've always preferred to starve to death on
one peanut, you mean?"

Gurder looked longingly at the piece of nut in
his hand. They'd eaten peanuts in the Store, of
course. Around Christmas Fayre, when the Food
Hall was crammed with food you didn't normally
see in the other seasons; they made a nice end to a

• 35 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

meal. Probably they made a nice start to a meal
too. What they didn't make was a meal.
"What's the plan?" he said, wearily.

One of the giving-out-food humans was pulling
trays off a shelf when a movement made it look up.
Its head turned very slowly.

Something small and black was being lowered
down right by its ear.

It stuck tiny thumbs in small ears, wagged its
fingers, and stuck out its tongue.

"Thrrrrrrrrp," said Gurder.

The tray in the human's hands crashed onto the
floor in front of it. It made a long, drawn-out noise
that sounded like a high-pitched foghorn, and
backed away, raising its hands to its mouth. Fi-
nally it turned, very slowly, like a tree about to
fall, and fled between the curtains.

When it came back, with another human being,
the little figure had gone.

So had most of the food.

"I don't know when I last had smoked salmon,"
said Gurder happily.

"Mmmph," said Angalo.

"You're not supposed to eat it like that," said
Gurder severely. "You're not supposed to shove it
all in your mouth and then cut off whatever won't
fit. Whatever will people think?"

• 36 '

WINGS

" 'Sno people here," said Angalo indistinctly.
" 'Sjust you an' Masklin."

Masklin cut the lid off a container of milk. It
was practically nome-sized.

"This is more like it, eh?" said Gurder. "Proper
food the natural way, out of tins and things. None
of this having to clean the dirt off it, like in the
quarry. And it's nice and warm in here too. It's
the only way to travel. Anyone want some of this"

—he prodded a dish vaguely, not sure of what was
in it—"stuff?"

The others shook their heads. The dish con-
tained something shiny and wobbly and pink with
a cherry on it, and in some strange way it man-
aged to look like something you wouldn't eat even
if it was pushed onto your plate after a week's
starvation diet.

"What does it taste like?" said Masklin, after
Gurder had chewed a mouthful.

"Tastes like pink," said Gurder.*

"Anyone fancy the peanut to finish with?" said
Angalo. He grinned. "No? I'll chuck it away, shall
I?"

"No!" said Masklin. They looked at him.
"Sorry," he said. "I mean, you shouldn't. It's
wrong to waste good food."

* Little dishes of strange wobbly stuff tasting like pink turn
up in nearly every meal on all airplanes. No one knows why.
There's probably some sort of special religious reason.

• 37 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

"It's wicked," said Gurder primly.

"Mmm. Don't know about wicked," said Mas-
klin. "Never been very clear on wicked. But it's
stupid. Put it in your pack. You never know when
you might need it."

Angalo stretched his arms and yawned.

"A wash would be nice," he said.

"Didn't see any water," Masklin said. "There's
probably a sink or a bathroom somewhere, but I
wouldn't know where to start looking."

"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 in a 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'm sure humans saw us some-
times. I don't think they really believe their eyes.
They wouldn't make those weird garden orna-
ments if they'd ever seen a real nome."

Gurder reached into his robe and pulled out the
picture of Grandson Richard, 39. Even in the dim
light in the pipe, Masklin recognized it as the hu-
man in the seat. He hadn't got creases on his face
from being folded up, and he wasn't made up of
hundreds of tiny dots, but apart from that. . . .

• 38 •

WINGS

"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. Maybe
Grandson Richard, 39, is just another human be-
ing, you know. Probably humans did build the
Store just for humans. Your ancestors just moved
in because, well, it was warm and dry. And—"

"I'm not listening, you know," said Gurder.
"I'm not going to be told that 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," he said. "That doesn't mat-
ter."

"Angalo thinks it matters if it's true."

"Don't see why. There's more than one kind of
truth." Gurder shrugged. "I might say, you're just
a lot of dust and juices and bones and hair, and
that's true. And I might say, you're something in-
side your head that goes away when you die.
That's true too. Ask the Thing."

Colored lights flickered across the Thing's sur-
face.

Masklin looked shocked.

"I've never asked it that sort of question," he
said.

• 39 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Why not? It's the first question Pd ask."

"It'll probably say something like 'Does not
compute' or 'Inoperative parameters.' That's what
it says when it doesn't know and doesn't want to
admit 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. "It just sits there listening to
invisible messages in the air. Pay attention, 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?"

"J repeat: A nome has been seen in the pilots cabin."

Masklin looked around wildly.

"Angalo?"

"That is an extreme probability," said the Thing.

40

Traveling Humans: Large, nomelike creatures.
Many humans spend a lot of time traveling from
place to place, which is odd because there are usu-
ally too many humans at the place they're going to
anyway. Also see under Animals, Intelligence, Evolu-
tion, and Custard.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

The sound of Masklin's and Gurder's voices ech-
oed 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!"

"J 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

. 41 .

TERRY PRATCUKTT

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 time ha^e 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 com-
puters 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 intelli-
gent."

"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.

• 42 '

WINGS

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 some-
where. We ought to find somewhere where we can
see what's happening." He looked helplessly at the
wires and intricate 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 mis-
chief these days?"

• 43 •

TEBKY PRATCHETT

"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 them-
selves 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!"

. 44 .

WINGS

"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).' "

"What's a raspberry?"

"The small red fruit of the plant Rubus idaeus."

Masklin turned to Gurder.

"Did you?"

"Me? What fruit? Listen, if there'd been any
fruit around I'd have eaten it. I just went 'thrrrrrr-
rrp.'"

"One of the humans has just said, 'I looked around
and there it was, staring out the window.'"

"That's Angalo all right," said Gurder.

"Now the other kneeling-down human has said, Well,
whatever it is, it's behind this panel and it can't go any-
where.'"

"It's taking off a bit of the wall!" said Masklin.
"Oh, no! It's reaching inside!"

The human mooed.

"The human said, 'It bit me! The little devil bit me!' "
said the Thing, conversationally.

"Yep. That's Angalo," said Gurder. "His father
was like that too. A fighter in a tight corner."

"But they don't know what they've got!" said

• 45 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

Masklin urgently. "They've seen him, but he ran
away! They're arguing about it! They don't really
believe in nomes! If we can get him out before he's
caught, they're bound to think it was a mouse or
something!"

"I suppose we could get around there inside the
walls," said Gurder. "But it'd take too long."

Masklin looked desperately around the cabin.
Besides the three people trying to catch Angalo
there were two humans up at the front. They
must be the drivers, he thought.

"I'm right out of ideas," he said. "Can you think
of anything, Thing?"

"There is practically no limit to what I can think of."

"I mean, is there anything you can do to help us
rescue Angalo?"

"Yes."

"You'd better do it, then."

"Yes."

A moment later they heard the low clanging of
alarms. Lights began to flash. The drivers shouted
and leaned forward and started doing things to
switches.

"What's going on?" said Masklin.

"It is possible that the humans are startled that they
are no longer/lying this machine," said the Thing.

"They're not? Who is, then?"

The lights rippled smoothly across the Thing.

"lam."

46

WINGS

One of the frogs fell off the branch, and disap-
peared quietly into the leafy canopy far below.
Since very small light animals can fall a long way
without being hurt, it's quite likely that it sur-
vived in the forest world under the tree and had
the second most interesting experience any tree
frog has ever had.

The rest of them crawled onward. They were
going to have the most interesting experience any
frog ever had anywhere, one which would go
down in frog history and be remembered for ...
maybe even for minutes.

Masklin helped Gurder along another metal
channel full of wires. Overhead, they could hear
human feet and the growling of humans in trou-
ble.

"I don't think they're very happy about it," said
Gurder.

"But they haven't got time to look for some-
thing that was probably a mouse," said Masklin.

"It's not a mouse, it's Angalo!"
•     "But afterward they'll think it was a mouse. I
don't think humans want to know things that dis-
turb them."

"Sound just like nomes to me," said Gurder.

Masklin looked at the Thing under his arm.

"Are you really driving the Concorde?" he said.

"Yes."

"I thought to drive things you had to turn

. 47 .

TERRY PRATCHETT

wheels and change gears and things?" said Mas-
klin.

"That is all done by machines. The humans press but-
tons and turn wheels just to tell machines what to do."

"So what are you doing, then?"

"7," said the Thing, "am being in charge."

Masklin listened to the muted thunder of the
engines.

"Is that hard?" he said.

"Not in itself. However, the humans keep trying to
interfere."

"I think we'd better find Angalo quickly, then,"
said Gurder. "Come on."

They inched their way along another cable tun-
nel.

"They ought to thank us for letting our Thing
do their job for them," said Gurder solemnly.

"I don't think they see it like that, exactly," said
Masklin.

"We are flying at a height of 55,000 feet at 1,352
miles per hour, " said the Thing.

When they didn't comment, it added, "That's
very high and very fast."

"That's good," said Masklin, who realized that
some sort of remark was expected.

"Very, very fast."

The two nomes squeezed through the gap be-
tween a couple of metal plates.

"Faster than a bullet, in fact."

"Amazing," said Masklin.

• 48 -

WINGS

"Twice the speed of sound in this atmosphere," the
Thing went on.

"Wow."

"/ wonder if I can put it another way," said the
Thing, and it managed to sound slightly annoyed.
"It could get from the Store to the quarry in under fif-
teen seconds."

"Good job we didn't meet it coming the other
way, then," said Masklin.

"Oh, stop teasing it," said Gurder. "It wants
you to tell it it's a good boy—Thing," he corrected
himself.

"/ do not," said the Thing, rather more quickly
than usual. "I was merely pointing out that this is a
very specialized machine and requires skillful control."

"Perhaps you shouldn't talk so much, then,"
said Masklin.

The Thing rippled its lights at him.

"That was nasty," said Gurder.

"Well, I've spent a year doing what the Thing's
told me and I've never had so much as a 'thank
you,'" said Masklin. "How high are 55,000 feet,
anyway?"

"Ten miles. Twice as far as the distance from the Store
to the quarry."

Gurder stopped.

"Up?" he said. "We're that far «/>?"

He looked down at the floor.

"Oh," he said.

"Now, don't you start," said Masklin quickly.

• 49 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"We've got enough problems with Angalo. Stop
holding on to the wall like that!"

Gurder had gone white.

"We must be as high as all those fluffy white
cloud things," he breathed.

'Wo," said the Thing.

"That's some comfort, then," said Gurder.

"They 're all a long way below us."

"Oh."

Masklin grabbed the Abbot's arm.

"Angalo, remember?" he said.

Gurder nodded slowly and inched his way for-
ward, holding on to things with his eyes closed.

"We mustn't lose our heads," said Masklin.
"Even if we are up so high." He looked down. The
metal below him was quite solid. You needed to
use imagination to see through it to the ground
below.

The trouble was that he had a very good imagi-
nation.

"Ugh," he said. "Come on, Gurder. Give me
your hand."

"It's right in front of you."

"Sorry. Didn't see it with my eyes shut."

They spent what seemed like ages cautiously
moving up and down among the wiring, until
eventually Gurder said, "It's no good. There isn't
a hole big enough to get through. He'd have found
it if there was."

• 50 '

WINGS

"Then we've got to find a way into the cab and
get him out that way," said Masklin.

"With all those humans in there?"

"They'll be too busy to notice us. Right,
Thing?"

"Right."

There is a place so far up there is no down.
A little lower, a white dart seared across the top
of the sky, outrunning the night, overtaking the
sun, crossing in a few hours an ocean that was
once the edge of the world.

Masklin lowered himself carefully to the floor
and crept forward. The humans weren't even
looking in his direction.

I hope the Thing really knows how to drive this
plane, he thought.

He sidled along toward the panels where, with
any luck, Angalo was hiding.

This wasn't right. He hated being exposed like
this. Of course, it had probably been worse in the
days when he used to have to hunt alone. If any-
thing had caught him then, he would never have
known it. He'd have been a mouthful. Whereas no
one knew what humans would do to a nome if
they caught one.

He darted into the blessed shadows.

"Angalo!" he whispered.

• 51 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

After a while a voice from behind the wiring
said, "Who is it?"

Masklin straightened up.

"How many guesses do you want?" he said in
his normal voice.

Angalo dropped down.

"They chased me!" he said. "And one of them
stuck its arm—"

"I know. Come on, while they're busy."

"What's happening?" said Angalo as they hur-
ried out into the light.

"The Thing is flying us."

"How? It's got no arms. It can't change gears or
anything—"

"Apparently it's being bossy to the computers
that do all that. Come on."

"I looked out the window," bubbled Angalo.
"There's sky all over the place!"

"Don't remind me," said Masklin.

"Let me just have one more look—" Angalo be-
gan.

"Listen, Gurder's waiting for us and we don't
want any more trouble—"

"But this is better than any truck—"

There was a strangled kind of noise.

The nomes looked up.

One of the humans was watching them. Its
mouth was open and it had an expression on its
face of someone who is going to have a lot of diffi-

• 52 •

WINGS

culty explaining what they have just seen, espe-
cially to themselves.

The human was already getting to its feet.
Angalo and Masklin looked at one another.
"Run!" they shouted.

Gurder was lurking suspiciously in a patch of
shadow by the door when they came past, arms
and legs going like pistons. He caught up the
skirts of his robe and scurried after them.

"What's happening! What's happening?"

"There's a human after us!"

"Don't leave me behind! Don't leave me be-
hind!"

Masklin was just ahead of the other two as they
raced up the aisle between the rows of humans,
who paid no attention at all to three tiny blurs
running between the seats.

"We shouldn't have . . . stood around . . .
looking!" Masklin gasped.

"We might . . . never . . . have a chance . . .
like that again!" panted Angalo.

"You're rightV

The floor tilted slightly.

"Thing! What are you doing!"

"Creating a distraction."

"Don't! Everyone this way!"

Masklin darted between two seats, around a pair
of giant shoes, and threw himself flat on the car-

• 53 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

pet. The others hurled themselves down behind
him.

Two huge human feet were a few inches away
from them.

Masklin pulled the Thing up close to his face.

"Let them have their airplane back!" he said.

"/ was hoping to be allowed to land it," said the
Thing. Even though its voice was always flat and
expressionless, Masklin still thought that it
sounded wistful.

"Do you know how to land one of these
things?" said Masklin.

"I should like the opportunity to learn—"

"Let them have it back right now\"

There was a faint lurch and a change in the pat-
tern of the lights on the Thing's surface. Masklin
breathed out.

"Now, will everyone act sensibly for five min-
utes?" he said.

"Sorry, Masklin," said Angalo. He tried to look
apologetic, but it didn't work. Masklin recognized
the wide-eyed, slightly mad smile of someone very
nearly in their own personal heaven. "It was just
that ... do you know it's even blue below us?
It's like there's no ground down there at all!
And—"

"If the Thing tries any more flying lessons we
might all find out if that's true," said Masklin
gloomily. "So let's just sit down and be quiet, shall

we?"

54

WINGS

They sat in silence for a long time, under the
seat.

Then Gurder said, "That human there has got a
hole in its sock."

"What about it?" said Angalo.

"Dunno, really. It's just that you never think of
humans as having holes in their socks."

"Where you get socks, holes aren't far behind,"
said Masklin.

"They're good socks, though," said Angalo.

Masklin stared at them. They just looked like
basic socks to him. Nomes in the store used them
as sleeping bags.

"How can you tell?" he said.

"They're Hi-style Odorprufe," said Angalo.
"Guaranteed 85% Polysomething. We used to sell
them in the Store. They cost a lot more than other
socks. Look, you can see the label."

Gurder sighed.

"It was a good Store," he muttered.

"And those shoes," said Angalo, pointing to the
great white shapes like beached boats a little way
away. "See them? Crucial Street Drifters with
Real Rubber Soul. Very expensive."

"Never approved of them, myself," said
Gurder. "Too flashy. I preferred Mens, Brown,
Laced. A nome can get a good night's sleep in one
of those."

"Those Drifter things are Store shoes, too, are
they?" said Masklin, carefully.

• 55 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Oh, yes. Special range."

"Hmm."

Masklin got up and walked over to a large
leather bag half wedged under the seat. The others
watched him scramble up it and then pull himself
up until he could, very quickly, glance over the
armrest. He slid back down.

"Well, well," he said, in a mad, cheerful voice.

"That's a Store bag, isn't it?" he said.

Gurder and Angalo gave it a critical look.

"Never spent much time in Travel Accesso-
ries," said Angalo, "but now that you mention it,
it could be the Special Calfskin Carry-on Bag."

"For the Discerning Executive?" Gurder added.
"Yes. Could be."

"Have you wondered how we're going to get
off?" said Masklin.

"Same way as we got on?" said Angalo, who
hadn't.

"I think that could be difficult. I think the hu-
mans might have other ideas," said Masklin. "I
think, in fact, they might start looking for us.
Even if they think we're mice. I wouldn't put up
with mice on something like this if I were them.
You know what mice are like for widdling on
wires. Could be dangerous when you're ten miles
high, a mouse going to the bathroom inside your
computer. So I think the humans will take it very
seriously. So we ought to get off when the humans
do."

• 56 '

WINGS

"We'd get stamped on!" said Angalo.

"I was thinking maybe we could sort of ...
get in this bag, sort of thing," said Masklin.

"Ridiculous!" said Gurder.

Masklin took a deep breath.

"It belongs to Grandson Richard, 39, you see,"
he said.

"I checked," he added, watching the expressions
on their faces. "I saw him before, and he's in the
seat up there. Grandson Richard," he went on,
"39. He's up there right now. Reading a paper. Up
there. Him."

Gurder had gone red. He prodded Masklin with
a finger. "Do you expect me to believe," he said,
"that Richard Arnold, the grandson of Arnold
Bros. (est. 1905), has boles in his socks?"

"That'd make them holy socks," said Angalo.
"Sorry. Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood a
bit. You don't have to glare at me like that."

"Climb up and see for yourself," said Masklin.
"I'll help you. Only be careful."

They hoisted Gurder up.

He came down quietly.

"Well?" said Angalo.

"It's got R. A. in gold letters on the bag too,"
said Masklin. He made frantic signs to Angalo.
Gurder was looking as though he had seen a ghost.

"Yes, you can get that," said Angalo, hurriedly.
" 'Gold Monogram at Only Five Ninety-nine Ex-
tra,' it used to say on the sign."

• 57 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Speak to us, Gurder," said Masklin. "Don't just
sit there looking like that."

"This is a very solemn moment for me," said
Gurder.

"I thought I could cut through some of the
stitching and we could get in at the bottom," said
Masklin.

"I am not worthy," said Gurder.

"Probably not," said Angalo cheerfully. "But
we won't tell anyone."

"And Grandson Richard, 39, will be helping us,
you see," said Masklin, hoping that Gurder was in
a state to take all this in. "He won't know it, but
he'll be helping us. So it'll all be right. Probably
it's meant."

Not meant by anyone, he told himself conscien-
tiously. Just meant in general.

Gurder considered this.

"Well, all right," he said. "But no cutting the
bag. We can get in through the zipper, all right?"

They did. It stuck a bit halfway, since zippers
always do, but it didn't take long to get an opening
big enough for the nomes to climb down inside.

"What shall we do if he looks in?" said Angalo.

"Nothing," said Masklin. "Just smile, I sup-
pose."

The tree frogs were far out on the branch now.
What had looked like a smooth expanse of gray-
green wood was, close up, a maze of rough bark,

• 58 -

WINGS

roots, and clumps of moss. It was unbearably
frightening for frogs who had spent their lives in a
world with petals around it.

But they crawled onward. They didn't know
the meaning of the word "retreat." If it came to
that, they didn't know the meaning of the word
"bromeliad." Or "frog." Or any other word.

59

Hotels: A place where traveling humans are parked
at night. Other humans bring them food, includ-
ing the famous bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich.
There are beds and towels and special things that
rain on humans to get them clean.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia/or the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Blackness.

"It's very dark in here, Masklin."
"Yes, and I can't get comfortable."
"Well, you'll have to make the best of it."
"A hairbrush! I've just sat down on a hair-
brush!"

"We will be landing shortly."

"Good."

"And there's a tube of something—"

"I'm hungry. Isn't there anything to eat?"

"I've still got that peanut."

• 60 -

WINGS

"Where? Where?"

"Now you've made me drop it."

"Gurder?"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing? Are you cutting some-
thing?"

"He's cutting a hole in his sock."

Silence.

"Well? What of it? I can if I want to. It's my
sock."

More silence.

"I shall just feel better for doing it."

Still more silence.

"It's just a human, Gurder. There's nothing spe-
cial about it."

"We're in its bag, aren't we?"

"Yes, but you said yourself that Arnold Bros. is
something in our heads. Didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, then?"

"This just makes me feel better, that's all. Sub-
ject closed."

"We're about to land."

"How will we know when—"

"/ am sure I could have done it better. Eventually."

"Is this the Florida place? Angalo, get your foot
out of my face."

"Yes. This country traditionally welcomes immi-
grants. "

"Is that what we are?"

• 61 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Technically you are en route to another destination."

"Which?"

"The stars."

"Oh. Thing?"

"Yes?"

"Is there any record of nomes being here be-
fore?"

"What do you mean? We're the nomes!"

"Yes, but there may have been others."

"We're all that there is! Aren't we?"

Tiny colored lights flickered in the darkness of
the bag.

"Thing?" Masklin repeated.

"/ am searching available data. Conclusion: no reli-
able sighting of nomes. All recorded immigrants have
been in excess of four inches high."

"Oh. I just wondered. I wondered if we were all
that there was."

"You heard the Thing. No reliable sightings, it
said."

"No one saw us until today."

"Thing, do you know what happens next?"

"We will pass through Immigration and Customs. Are
you now, or have you ever been, a member of a subver-
sive organization?"

Silence.

"What, us? Why are you asking us that?"

"It is the sort of question that gets asked. I am moni-
toring communications."

"Oh. Well. I don't think we have. Have we?"

• 62 '

WINGS

"No."

"No."

"No. I didn't think we were. What does 'subver-
sive' mean?"

"The question seeks to establish whether you 've come
here to overthrow the Government of the United States."

"I don't think we want to do that. Do we?"

"No."

"No."

"No, we don't. They don't have to worry about
us."

"Very clever idea, though."

"What is?"

"Asking the questions when people arrive. If
anyone was coming here to do some subversive
overthrowing, everyone'd be down on him like a
pound of bricks as soon as he answered 'Yes.' "

"It's a sneaky trick, isn't it?" said Angalo, in an
admiring tone of voice.

"No, we don't want to do any overthrowing,"
said Masklin to the Thing. "We just want to steal
one of their going-straight-up jets. What are they
called again?"

"Space shuttles."

"Right. And then we'll be off. We don't want to
cause any trouble."

The bag bumped around and was put down.
There was a tiny sawing noise, totally unheard

• 63 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

amid the noise of the airport. A very small hole
appeared in the leather. An eye appeared.

"What's he doing?" said Gurder.

"Stop pushing," said Masklin. "I can't concen-
trate. Now it looks like we're in a line of humans."

"We've been waiting for ages," said Angalo.

"I expect everyone's being asked if they're going
to do any overthrowing," said Gurder wisely.

"I hardly like to bring this up," said Angalo,
"but how are we going to find this shuttle?"

"We'll sort that out when the time comes," said
Masklin uncertainly.

"The time's come," said Angalo. "Hasn't it?"

Masklin shrugged helplessly.

"You didn't think we'd arrive in this Florida
place and there'd be signs up saying 'This way to
Space,' did you?" said Angalo sarcastically.

Masklin hoped his thoughts didn't show up on
his face. "Of course not," he said.

"Well, what do we do next?" Angalo insisted.

"We ... we ... we ask the Thing," said
Masklin. He looked relieved. "That's what we'll
do. Thing?"

"Yes?"

Masklin shrugged. "What do we do next?"

"Now that," said Angalo, "is what I call plan-
ning."

The bag shifted. Grandson Richard, 39, was
moving up the line.

"Thing? I said, what do we do—"

• 64 •

WINGS

"Nothing."

"How can we do nothing?"

"By performing an absence of activity."

"What good is that?"

"The paper said Richard Arnold was going to Florida
for the launch of the communications satellite. Therefore,
he is going to the place where the satellite is now. Ergo,
we will go with him."

"Who's Ergo?" said Gurder, looking around.

The Thing flickered its lights at him.

"It means 'therefore,' " it said.

Masklin looked doubtful. "Do you think he'll
take this bag with him?"

"Uncertain."

There wasn't a lot in the bag, Masklin had to
admit. It contained mainly socks, papers, a few
odds and ends like hairbrushes, and a book called
The Spy with No Trousers. This last item had caused
them some concern when the bag had been un-
zipped just after the plane landed, but Grandson
Richard, 39, had thrust it in among the papers
without glancing inside. Now that there was a lit-
tle light to see by, Angalo was trying to read it.
Occasionally he'd mutter under his breath.

"It seems to me," Masklin said eventually, "that
Grandson Richard, 39, isn't going to go straight
off to watch the satellite fly away. I'm sure he'll go
somewhere and sleep first. Do you know when
this shuttle jet flies, Thing?"

"Uncertain. I can talk to other computers only when

' 65 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

they are within my range. The computers here know only
about airport matters."

"He's going to have to go to sleep soon, any-
way," said Masklin. "Humans sleep through most
of the night. I think that's when we'd better leave
the bag."

"And then we can talk to him," said Gurder.

The others stared at him.

"Well, that's why we came, isn't it?" said the
Abbot. "Originally? To ask him to save the
quarry?"

"He's a human\" snapped Angalo. "Even you
must realize that by now! He's not going to help
us! Why should he help us? He's just a human
whose ancestors built a store! Why do you go on
believing he's some sort of great big nome in the
sky?"

"Because I haven't got anything else to believe
in!" shouted Gurder. "And if you don't believe in
Grandson Richard, 39, why are you in his bag?"

"That's just a coincidence—"

"You always say that! You always say it's just a
coincidence!"

The bag moved, so they lost their balance again
and fell over.

"We're moving," said Masklin, still peering out
the hole and almost glad of anything that would
stop the argument. "We're walking across the
floor. There's a lot of humans out there. A lot of
humans."

• 66 '

WINGS

"There always are," sighed Gurder.

"Some of them are holding up signs with names
on them."

"That's just like humans," Gurder added.

The nomes were used to humans with signs.
Some of the humans in the Store used to wear
their names all the time. Humans had strange long
names, like Mrs. J. E. Williams Supervisor and
Hello My Name Is Tracey. No one knew why hu-
mans had to wear their names. Perhaps they'd for-
get them otherwise.

"Hang on," said Masklin. "This can't be right.
One of them is holding up a sign saying RICHARD
ARNOLD. We're walking toward it! We're talking to
it!"

The deep muffled rumble of the human voice
rolled above the nomes like thunder.

Hoom-voom-boom ?

Foom-hoom-zoom-boom.

Hoom-zoom-boom-foom?

Boom!

"Can you understand it, Thing?" said Masklin.

"Yes. The one with the sign is here to take our human
to a hotel. It's a place where humans sleep and are fed.
All the rest of it is just the things humans say to each
other to make sure that they 're still alive."

"What do you mean?" said Masklin.

"They say things like 'How are you' and 'Have a nice
day' and 'What do you think of this weather, then?'
What these sounds mean is: I am alive and so are you."

' 67 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Yes, but nomes say the same sorts of things,
Thing. It's called getting along with people. You
might find it worth a try."

The bag swung sideways and hit something.
The nomes clung desperately to the insides. An-
galo clung with one hand. He was trying to keep
his place in the book.

"I'm getting hungry again," said Gurder. "Isn't
there anything to eat in this bag?"

"There's some toothpaste."

"I'll give the toothpaste a miss, thanks."

Now there was a rumbling noise. Angalo looked
up. "I know that sound," he said. "Infernal com-
bustion engine. We're in a vehicle."

"Again?" said Gurder.

"We'll get out as soon as we can," said Masklin.

"What kind of truck is it, Thing?" said Gurder.

"It is a helicopter."

"It's certainly noisy," said Gurder, who had
never come across the word.

"It is a plane without wings," said Angalo, who
had.

Gurder gave this a few moments' careful and
terrified thought.

"Thing?" he said, slowly.

"Yes?"

"What keeps it up in the—" Gurder began.

"Science."

"Oh. Well. Science? Good. That's all right,
then."

• 68 '

WINGS

«   *

The noise went on for a long time. After a while
it became part of the nomes' world, so that when
it stopped the silence came as a shock.

They lay in the bottom of the bag, too discour-
aged even to talk. They felt the bag being carried,
put down, picked up, carried again, put down,
picked up one more time, and then thrown onto
something soft.

And then there was blessed stillness.

Eventually Gurder's voice said: "All right.
What flavor toothpaste?"

Masklin found the Thing among the heap of pa-
per clips, dust, and screwed up bits of paper at the
bottom of the bag.

"Any idea where we are, Thing?" he said.

"Room 103, Cocoa Beach New Horizons Hotel," said
the Thing. "I am monitoring communications."

Gurder pushed past Masklin. "I've got to get
out," he said. "I can't stand it in here anymore.
Give me a leg up, Angalo. I reckon I can just reach
the top of the bag."

There was the long, drawn-out rumble of the
zipper. Light flooded in as the bag was opened.
The nomes dived for whatever cover was avail-
able.

Masklin watched a hand taller than he was
reached down, close around the smaller bag with
the toothpaste and flannel in it, and pull it out.

The nomes didn't move.

• 69 '

TERBY PRATCHETT

After a while there came the distant sound of
rushing water.

The nomes still didn't move.

Boom-boom foom zoom-boom-boom, choom zoom
hoooom . . .

The human noise rose above the gushing. It ech-
oed even more than normal.

"It . . . sounds like it's . . . singing?" whis-
pered Angalo.

Hoom . . . hoom-boom-boom boom . . . zoom-hoom-
boom HOOOooooOOOmmm. Boom.

"What's happening, Thing?" Masklin hissed.

"He has gone into a room to have water showering on
himself," said the Thing.

"What does it want to do that for?"

"/ assume he wants to keep clean."

"So is it safe to get out of the bag now?"

" 'Safe' is a relative word."

"What? What? Like 'uncle,' you mean?"

"/ mean that nothing is totally safe. But I suggest that
the human will be wetting himself for some time."

"Yeah. There's a lot of human to clean," said
Angalo. "Come on. Let's do it."

The bag was lying on a bed. It was easy enough
to climb down the covers onto the floor.

Hoom-hoom booOOOOM boom . . .

"What do we do now?" said Angalo.

"After we've eaten, that is," said Gurder firmly.

Masklin trotted across the thick carpet. There
was a tall glass door in the nearest wall. It was

• 70 •

WINGS

slightly open, letting in a warm breeze and the
sounds of the night.

A human would have heard the click and buzz
of crickets and other small mysterious creatures
whose role in life is to sit in bushes all night and
make noises that are a lot bigger than they are. But
nomes hear sounds slowed down and stretched out
and deeper, like a record player on the wrong
speed. The dark was full of the thud and growl of
the wilderness.

Gurder joined Masklin and squinted anxiously
into the blackness.

"Could you go out there and see if there is some-
thing to eat?" he said.

"I've a horrible feeling," said Masklin, "that if I
go out there now there will be something to eat,
and it'll be me."

Behind them the human voice sang on.

Boom-hoom-hoom—BOOOooooMMM womp . . .

"What's the human singing about, Thing?" said
Masklin.

"It is a little difficult to follow. However, it appears
that the singer wishes it to be known that be did some-
thing bis way."

"Did what?"

"Insufficient data at this point. But whatever it was,
be did it at a) each step on life's highway and b) not in a
shy way."

There was a knock at the door. The singing

• 71 '

stopped. So did the gushing of the water. The
nomes ran for the shadows.

"Sounds a bit dangerous," Angalo whispered.
"Walking along highways, I mean. Each step along
life's sidewalk would be safer."

Grandson Richard, 39, came out of the shower
room with a towel around his waist. He opened
the door. Another human, with all his clothes on,
came in with a tray. There was a brief exchange of
hoots, and the clothed human put down the tray
and went out again. Grandson Richard, 39, disap-
peared into the shower room again.

Bub-buh hub-hub boom hoOOOOmm . . .

"Food!" Gurder whispered. "I can smell it!
There's food on that tray!"

"A bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich with cole-
slaw, " said the Thing. "And coffee. And orange juice."

"How did you know?" said all three nomes in
unison.

"He ordered it when be checked in."

"Coleslaw!" moaned Gurder ecstatically. "Ba-
con! Coffee!"

"And orange juice," said Angalo. "Hah!"

Masklin stared upward. The tray had been left
on the edge of a table.

There was a lamp near it. Masklin had lived in
the Store long enough to know that where there
was a lamp, there was a wire.

He'd never found a wire he couldn't climb.

Regular meals, that was the problem. He'd

• 72 '

WINGS

never been used to them. When he'd lived Out-
side, he'd got accustomed to going for days with-
out food and then, when food did turn up, eating
until he was greasy to the eyebrows. But the Store
nomes expected something to eat several times an
hour. The Store nomes ate all the time. They only
had to miss half a dozen meals and they started to
complain.

"I think I could get up there," he said.

"Yes. Yes," said Gurder.

"But is it all right to eat Grandson Richard's
sandwich?" Masklin added.

Gurder opened his eyes. He blinked.

"That's an important theological point," he
muttered. "But I'm too hungry to think about it,
so let's eat it first, and then if it turns out to be
wrong to eat it, I promise to be very sorry."

Boom-boom whop whop, foom boom . . .

"The human says that the end. is now near and he is
facing a curtain," the Thing translated. "This may be
a shower curtain."

Masklin pulled himself up the wire and onto the
table, feeling very exposed.

It was obvious that the Floridians had a differ-
ent idea about sandwiches. Sandwiches had been
sold back in the Store's Food Hall. The word
meant something thin between two slices of damp
bread. Floridian sandwiches, on the other hand,
filled up an entire tray and if there was any bread
it was lurking deep in a jungle of cress and lettuce.

• 73 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

He looked down.

"Hurry up!" said Angalo. "The water's stopped
again!"

Boom-boom hoom whop boom whop . . .

Masklin pushed aside a drift of green stuff,
grabbed the sandwich, hauled it to the edge of the
tray and pushed it down onto the floor.

Foom boom boom HOOOOooooOOOOmmmmm-
WHOP.

The shower room door opened.

"Come on! Come o«!" Angalo yelled.

Grandson Richard, 39, came out. He took a few
steps, and stopped.

He looked at Masklin.

Masklin looked at him.

There are times when Time itself pauses.

Masklin realized that he was standing at one of
those points where History takes a deep breath
and decides what to do next.

I can stay here, he thought. I can use the Thing
to translate, and I can try to explain everything to
him. I can tell him how important it is for us to
have a home of our own. I can ask him if he can do
something to help the nomes in the quarry. I can
tell him how the Store nomes thought that his
grandfather created the World. He'll probably en-
joy knowing that. He looks friendly, for a human.

He might help us.

Or he'll trap us somehow, and call other hu-
mans, and they'll all start milling around and moo-

. 74 .

WINGS

ing, and we'll be put in a cage or something, and
prodded. It'll be just like the Concorde drivers.
They probably didn't want to hurt us, they just
didn't understand what we were. And we haven't
got time to let them find out.

It's their world, not ours.

It's too risky. No. I never realized it before, but
we've got to do it our way.

Grandson Richard, 39, slowly reached out a
hand and said, Whoomp?

Masklin took a running jump.

Nomes can fall quite a long way without being
hurt, and in any case a bacon, lettuce, and tomato
sandwich broke his fall.

There was a blur of activity and the sandwich
rose on three pairs of legs. It raced across the floor,
leaking mayonnaise.

Grandson Richard, 39, threw a towel at it. He
missed.

The sandwich leapt over the doorway and van-
ished into the chirping, velvety, dangerous night.

There were other dangers besides falling off the
branch. One of the frogs was eaten by a lizard.
Several others turned back as soon as they were
out of the shade of their bromeliad because, as
they pointed out . . . mipmip . . . mipmip. . . .

The frog in the lead looked back at his dwin-
dling group. There was one . . . and one . . .
and one . . . and one . . . and one, which added

• 75 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

up to—it wrinkled its forehead in the effort of cal-
culation—yes, one.

Some of the one were getting frightened. The
leading frog realized that if they were ever going
to get to the new flower and survive there, there'd
need to be a lot more than one frog. They need at
least one, or possibly even one. He gave them a
croak of encouragement.

Mipmip, he said.

76

Florida (or Floridia): A place where alligators, long-
necked turtles, and space shuttles may be found. A
place that is warm and wet, and there are geese.
Only foolish people think it is really an orange
drink. Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches may be
found here also. A lot more interesting than many
other places. The shape when seen from the air is
like a bit stuck on a bigger bit.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Let the eye of your imagination be a camera. . . .

This is the globe of the world, a glittering blue
and white ball like the ornament on some unimag-
inable Christmas tree.

Find a continent . . . Focus.

This is a continent, a jigsaw of yellows, greens,
and browns.

Find a place. . . . Focus.

' 77 '

This is a bit of the continent, sticking out into
the warmer sea to the southeast. Most of its inhab-
itants call it Florida.

Actually, they don't. Most of its inhabitants
don't call it anything. They don't even know it
exists. Most of them have six legs, and buzz. A lot
of them have eight legs, and spend a lot of time in
webs waiting for six-legged inhabitants to arrive
for lunch. Many of the rest have four legs, and
bark or moo or even lie in swamps pretending to
be logs. In fact, only a tiny proportion of the in-
habitants of Florida have two legs, and even most
of them don't call it Florida. They just go tweet,
and fly around a lot.

Mathematically, an almost insignificant number
of living things in Florida call it Florida. But
they're the ones who matter. At least, in their
opinion. And their opinion is the one that matters.
In their opinion.

Find a highway. . . . Focus. . . . Traffic swish-
ing quietly through the soft warm rain . . . focus
. . . high weeds on the bank . . . focus . . . grass
moving in a way that isn't quite like grass mov-
ing in the wind . . . Focus ... a pair of tiny
eyes. . . .

Focus. . . . Focus. . . . Focus. ... Click!

Masklin crept back through the grass to the
nomes' camp, if that's what you could call a tiny
dry space under a scrap of thrown-away plastic.

• 78 '

It had been hours since they'd run away from
Grandson Richard, 39, as Gurder kept on putting
it. The sun was rising behind the rain clouds.

They'd crossed a highway while there was no
traffic, they'd blundered around in damp under-
growth, scurrying away from every chirp and
mysterious croak, and finally they'd found the
plastic. And they'd slept. Masklin stayed on guard
for a while, but he wasn't certain what he was
guarding against.

There was a positive side. The Thing had been
listening to radio and television and had found the
place the going-straight-up shuttles went from. It
was only eighteen miles away. And they'd defi-
nitely made progress. They'd gone—oh, call it half
a mile. And at least it was warm. Even the rain
was warm. And the bacon, lettuce, and tomato
sandwich was holding up.

But there were still almost eighteen miles to go.

"When did you say the launch is?" said Masklin.

"Four hours time," said the Thing.

"That means we'll have to travel at more than
four miles an hour," said Angalo gloomily.

Masklin nodded. A nome, trying hard, could
probably cover a mile and a half in an hour over
open ground.

He hadn't given much thought to how they
could get the Thing into space. If he'd thought
about it at all, he'd imagined that they could find
the shuttle plane and wedge the Thing on it some-

• 79 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

where. If possible maybe they could go, too, al-
though he wasn't too sure about that. The Thing
said it was cold in space, and there was no air.

"You could have asked Grandson Richard, 39, to
help us!" said Gurder. "Why did you run away?"

"I don't know," said Masklin. "I suppose I
thought we ought to be able to help ourselves."

"But you used the Truck. Nomes lived in the Store.
You used the Concorde. You 're eating human food."

Masklin was surprised. The Thing didn't often
argue like that.

"That's different," he said.

"How?"

"They didn't know about us. We took what we
wanted. We weren't given it. They think it's their
world, Thing! They think everything in it belongs
to them! They name everything and own every-
thing! I looked up at him, and I thought, here's a
human in a human's room, doing human things.
How can he ever understand about nomes? How
can he ever think tiny people are real people with
real thoughts? I can't just let a human take over.
Not just like that!"

The Thing blinked a few lights at him.

"We've come too far not to finish it ourselves,"
Masklin mumbled. He looked up at Gurder.

"Anyway, when it came to it, I didn't exactly
see you rushing up, ready to shake him by the
finger," he said.

• 80 '

WINGS

"I was embarrassed. It's always embarrassing,
meeting deities," said Gurder.

They hadn't been able to light a fire. Everything
was too wet. Not that they needed a fire, it was
just that a fire was more civilized. Someone had
managed to light a fire there at some time, though,
because there were still a few damp ashes.

"I wonder how things are back home?" said An-
galo, after a while.

"All right, I expect," said Masklin.

"Do you really?"

"Well, more hope than expect, to tell the truth."

"I expect your Grimma's got everyone orga-
nized," said Angalo, trying to grin.

"She's not my Grimma," snapped Masklin.

"Isn't she? Whose is she, then?"

"She's . . ." Masklin hesitated. "Hers, I sup-
pose," he said lamely.

"Oh. I thought the two of you were set to—"
Angalo began.

"We're not. I told her we were going to get mar-
ried, and all she could talk about was frogs," said
Masklin.

"That's females for you," said Gurder. "Didn't I
say that letting them learn to read was a bad idea?
It overheats their brains."

"She said the most important thing in the world
was little frogs living in a flower," Masklin went
on, trying to listen to the voice of his own mem-

• 81 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

ory. He hadn't been listening very hard at the
time. He'd been too angry.

"Sounds like you could boil a kettle on her
head," said Angalo.

"It was something she'd read in a book, she
said."

"My point exactly," said Gurder. "You know I
never really agreed with letting everyone learn to
read. It unsettles people."

Masklin looked gloomily at the rain.

"Come to think of it," he said, "It wasn't frogs
exactly. It was the idea of frogs. She said there are
these hills where it's hot and rains all the time,
and in the rain forests there are these very tall
trees and right in the top branches of the trees
there are these like great big flowers called . . .
bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flow-
ers and makes little pools and there's a type of frog
that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and
grow into new frogs and these little frogs live
their whole lives in the flowers right at the top of
the trees and don't even know about the ground,
and once you know the world is full of things like
that, your life is never the same."

He took a deep breath.

"Something like that, anyway," he said.

Gurder looked at Angalo.

"Didn't understand any of it," he said.

"It's a metaphor," said the Thing. No one paid it
any attention.

• 82 '

WINGS

Masklin scratched his ear. "It seemed to mean a
lot to her," he said.

"It's a metaphor," said the Thing.

"Women always want something," said Angalo.
"My wife is always on about dresses."

"I'm sure he would have helped," said Gurder.
"If we'd talked to him. He'd probably have given
us a proper meal and, and—"

"Given us a home in a shoebox," said Masklin.

"And given us a home in a shoebox," said
Gurder automatically. "No! I mean, maybe. I
mean, why not? A decent hour's sleep for a
change. And then we—"

"We'd be carried around in his pocket," said
Masklin.

"Not necessarily. Not necessarily."

"We would. Because he's big and we're small."

"Launch in three hours and fifty-seven minutes," said
the Thing.

Their temporary camp overlooked a ditch.
There didn't seem to be any winter in Florida, and
the banks were thick with greenery.

Something like a flat plate with a spoon on the
front sculled slowly past. The spoon stuck out of
the water for a moment, looked at the nomes
vaguely, and then dropped down again.

"What was that thing, Thing?" said Masklin.

The Thing extended one of its sensors.

"A long-necked turtle."

"Oh."

• 83 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

The turtle swam peacefully away.

"Lucky, really," said Gurder.

"What?" said Angalo.

"Its having a long neck like that and being called
a Long-Necked Turtle. It'd be really awkward
having a name like that if it had a short neck."

"Launch in three hours and fifty-six minutes.'"

Masklin stood up.

"You know," said Angalo, "I really wish I could
have read more of The Spy with No Trousers. It was
getting exciting."

"Come on," he said. "Let's see if we can find a
way."

Angalo, who had been sitting with his chin in
his hands, gave him an odd look.

"What now?"

"We've come too far just to stop, haven't we?"

They pushed their way through the weeds. Af-
ter a while a fallen log helped them across the
ditch.

"Much greener here than at home, isn't it?" said
Angalo.

Masklin pushed through a thick stand of leaves.

"Warmer too," said Gurder. "They've got the
heating fixed here." *

* For generations the Store nomes had known that tempera-
ture was caused by air conditioning and the heating system;

like many of them, Gurder never quite gave up certain habits
of thinking.

• 84 '

WINGS

"No one fixes heating Outside, it just happens,"
said Angalo.

"If I get old, this is the kind of place I'd like to
live, if I had to live Outside," Gurder went on,
ignoring him.

"It's a wildlife preserve," said the Thing.

Gurder looked shocked. "What? Like jam? Made
of animals'?"

"No. It is a place where animals can live unmolested."

"You're not allowed to hunt them, you mean?"

"Yes."

"You're not allowed to hunt anything, Mas-
klin," said Gurder.

Masklin grunted.

There was something nagging at him. He
couldn't quite put his finger on it. Probably it was
to do with the animals after all.

"Apart from turtles with long necks," he said,
"what other animals are there here, Thing?"

The Thing didn't answer for a moment. Then it
said, "I find mention of sea cows and alligators."

Masklin tried to imagine what a sea cow looked
like. But they didn't sound too bad. He'd met cows
before. They were big and slow and didn't eat
nomes, except by accident.

"What's an alligator?" he said.

The Thing told him.

"What?" said Masklin.

"What?" said Angalo.

• 85 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

"What?" said Gurder. He pulled his robe tightly
around his legs.

"You idiot!" shouted Angalo.

"Me?" said Masklin hotly. "How should I
know? How should I know? Is it my fault? Did I
miss a sign at the airport saying 'Welcome to
Floridia, home of large meat-eating reptiles up to
twelve feet long'?"

They watched the grasses. A damp warm world
inhabited by insects and turtles was suddenly a
disguise for horrible terrors with huge teeth.

Something's watching us, Masklin thought. I
can feel it.

The three nomes stood back-to-back. Masklin
crouched down, slowly, and picked up a stone.

The grass moved.

"The Thing did say they don't all grow to
twelve feet," said Angalo, in the silence.

"We were blundering around in the darkness!"
said Gurder. "With things like that around!"

The grass moved again. It wasn't the wind that
was moving it.

"Pull yourself together," muttered Angalo.

"If it is alligators," said Gurder, trying to look
noble, "I shall show them how a nome can die
with dignity."

"Please yourself," said Angalo, his eyes scan-
ning the undergrowth. "I'm planning to show
them how a nome can run away with speed."

The grasses parted.

• 86 •

WINGS

A nome stepped out.

There was a crackle behind Masklin. His head
spun around. Another nome stepped out.
And another.
And another.
Fifteen of them.

The three travelers swiveled like an animal with
six legs and three heads.

It was the fire that I saw, Masklin told himself.
We sat right down by the ashes of a fire, and I
looked at them, and I didn't wonder who could
have made them.

The strangers wore gray. They seemed to be all
sizes. And every single one of them had a spear.

I wish I had mine, Masklin thought, trying to
keep as many of the strangers as possible in his
line of sight.

They weren't pointing their spears at him. The
trouble was, they weren't exactly not pointing
them, either.

Masklin told himself that it was very rare for a
nome to kill another nome. In the Store it was
considered bad manners, while Outside . . . well,
there were so many other things that killed nomes
in any case. Besides, it was wrong. There didn't
have to be any other reasons.

He just had to hope that these nomes felt the
same way.

"Do you know these people?" said Angalo.

• 87 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Me?" said Masklin. "Of course not. How could
I?"

"They're Outsiders. I dunno, I suppose I
thought all Outsiders would know each other."

"Never seen them before in my life," said Mas-
klin.

"I think," said Angalo, slowly and deliberately,
"that the leader is that old guy with the big nose
and the topknot with a feather in it. What do you
think?"

Masklin looked at the tall, thin old nome who
was scowling at the three of them.

"He doesn't look as if he likes us very much."

"I don't like the look of him at all," said Angalo.

"Have you got any suggestions, Thing?" said
Masklin.

"They are probably as frightened of you as you are of
them."

"I doubt it," said Angalo.

"Tell them you will not harm them."

"I'd much rather they told me they're not going
to harm us."

Masklin stepped forward, and raised his hands.

"We are peaceful," he said. "We don't want any-
one to be hurt."

"Including us," said Angalo. "We really mean

it."

Several of the strangers backed away and raised
their spears.

• 88 -

WINGS

"I've got my hands raised," said Masklin over
his shoulder, "Why should they be so upset?"

"Because you're holding a large rock," said An-
galo flatly. "I don't know about them, but if you
walked toward me holding something like that Pd
be pretty scared."

"I'm not sure I want to let go of it," said Mas-
klin.

"Perhaps they don't understand us."

Gurder moved.

He hadn't said a word since the arrival of the
new nomes. He'd just gone very pale.

Now some sort of internal timer had gone off.
He gave a snort, leapt forward, and he bore down
on Topknot like an enraged balloon.

"How dare you accost us, you—you Outsider!"
he screamed.

Angalo put his hands over his eyes. Masklin got
a firm hold on his rock.

"Er, Gurder . . ." he began.

Topknot backed away. The other nomes seemed
puzzled by the small explosive figure that was sud-
denly among them. Gurder was in the grip of the
kind of anger that is almost as good as armor.

Topknot screeched something back at Gurder.

"Don't you harangue me, you grubby heathen,"
said Gurder. "Do you think all these spears really
frighten us?"

"Yes," whispered Angalo. He sidled closer to
Masklin. "What's got into him?" he said.

• 89 -

TERBY PBATCHETT

Topknot shouted something at his nomes. A
couple of them raised their spears, uncertainly.
Several of the others appeared to argue.

"This is getting worse," said Angalo.

"Yes," said Masklin. "I think we should—"

A voice behind them snapped out a command.
All the Floridians turned. So did Masklin.

Two nomes had come out of the grass. One was
a boy. The other was a small, dumpy woman, the
sort you'd cheerfully accept an apple pie from.
Her hair was tied in a bun, and like Topknot's, it
had a long gray feather stuck through it.

The Floridians looked sheepish. Topknot spoke
at length. The woman said a couple of words.
Topknot spread his arms above him and muttered
something at the sky.

The woman walked around Masklin and Angalo
as if they were items on display. When she looked
Masklin up and down he caught her eye and
thought: She looks like a little old lady, but she's
in charge. If she doesn't like us, we're in a lot of
trouble.

She reached up and took the stone out of his
hand. He didn't resist.

Then she touched the Thing.

It spoke. What it said sounded very much like
the words the woman had just used. She pulled
her hand away sharply, and looked at the Thing
with her head on one side. Then she stood back.

At another command the Floridians formed, not

• 90 -

WINGS

a line, but a sort of V shape with the woman at the
tip of it and the travelers inside it.

"Are we prisoners?" said Gurder, who had
cooled off a bit.

"I don't think so," said Masklin. "Not exactly
prisoners, yet."

The meal was some sort of a lizard. Masklin
quite enjoyed it; it reminded him of his days as an
Outsider. The other two ate it only because not
eating it would be impolite, and it probably wasn't
a good idea to be impolite to people who had
spears when you didn't.

The Floridians watched them solemnly.

There were at least thirty of them, all wearing
identical gray clothes. They looked quite like the
Store nomes, except for being slightly darker and
much skinnier. Many of them had large, impres-
sive noses, which the Thing said was perfectly
okay and all because of genetics.

The Thing was talking to them. Occasionally it
would extend one of its sensors and use it to draw
shapes in the dirt.

"Thing's probably telling them we-come-from-

place-bilong-far-on-big-bird-that-doesn't-go-flap,"
said Angalo.

A lot of the time the Thing was simply repeat-
ing the woman's own words back at her.
Eventually Masklin couldn't stand it anymore.

• 91 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"What's happening. Thing?" he said. "Why's the
woman doing all the talking?"

"She is the leader of this group," said the Thing.

"A woman? Are you serious?"

"I am always serious. It's built in."

"Oh."

Angalo nudged Masklin. "If Grimma ever finds
out, we're in real trouble," he said.

"Her name is Very-small-tree, or Shrub," the Thing
went on.

"And you can understand her?" said Masklin.

"Gradually. Their language is very close to original
nomish."

"What do you mean, original nomish?"

"The language your ancestors spoke."

Masklin shrugged. There was no point in trying
to understand that now.

"Have you told her about us?" he said.

"Yes. She says—"

Topknot, who had been muttering to himself,
stood up suddenly and spoke very sharply at great
length, with a lot of pointing to the ground and to
the sky.

The Thing flashed a few lights.

"He says you are trespassing on the land belonging to
the Maker of Clouds. He says that is very bad. He said
the Maker of Clouds will be very angry."

There was a general murmur of agreement from
many of the nomes.

• 92 -

WINGS

Shrub spoke to them sharply. Masklin stuck out
a hand to stop Gurder from getting up.

"What does, er, Shrub think?" he said.

"/ 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, Mas-
klin 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?"

"/ 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."

• 93 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

The Thing extended a sensor. It wasn't in-
tended 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 the name of the Maker of Clouds. It is
often written by the Maker of Clouds itself. 'How fa-
mous 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 to himself.

Masklin relaxed a bit, and looked down at the
figures in the sand.

"N ... A ... 8 ... A?" he said.

"It's an S," said the Thing, "Not an 8."

"But you've only been talking to them for a lit-
tle while!" said Angalo. "How can you know
something like this?"

"Because I know bow nomes think," said the Thing.
"You always believe what you read, and you 'w all got
very literal minds. Very literal minds indeed."

• 94 '

Geese: A type of bird which is slower than the Con-
corde, and you don't get anything to eat. According
to nomes who know them well, a goose is the 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 to be de-
sired. If it weren't for the nomes telling them
what to do, geese would just fly around lost and
honking the whole time, if you want my scientific
opinion.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

In the beginning, said Shrub, there was nothing
but ground. NASA saw the emptiness above the
ground, and decided to fill it with sky. It built a
place in the middle of the world and sent up tow-
ers full of clouds. Sometimes they also carried
stars because, at night, after one of the cloud tow-

• 95 '

ers had gone up, the nomes could sometimes see
new stars moving across the sky.

The land around the cloud towers was NASA's
special country. There were more animals there,
and fewer humans. It was a pretty good place for
nomes. Some of them believed that NASA had ar-
ranged it all for precisely that reason.

Shrub sat back.

"And does she believe that?" said Masklin. He
looked across the clearing to where Gurder and
Topknot were arguing. They couldn't understand
what one 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 sees things 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 she knows 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 think it's some sort of magic
place!" he said.

"Isn't it?" said Masklin, almost to himself.
"Anyway, it's no more strange than thinking the
Store was the whole world. Thing, how do they
watch the going-up jets? They're a long way
away."

• 96 '

WINGS

"Not far at all. Eighteen miles is not far at all, she
says- She says they can be there in little more than an
hour."

Shrub nodded at their astonishment, and then,
without another word, stood up and walked away
through the bushes. She signaled the nomes to fol-
low her. Half a dozen Floridians trailed after their
leader, making the shape of 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 near the airport. They were
even used to ducks.

But the things paddling enthusiastically toward
them were a lot bigger than ducks. Besides, ducks
were like a lot of other animals and recognized in
nomes the shape, if not the size, of humans and
kept a safe distance away from them. They didn't
come baring toward them as if the mere 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,

• 97 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

except to grass and minor organisms. They fly here for
the winter."

The geese arrived with a bow wave that surged
over the nomes' feet, and arched their necks down
toward Shrub. She patted a couple of fearsome-
looking beaks.

Masklin tried hard not to look like a minor or-
ganism.

"They migrate here from colder climates," the Thing
went on. "They rely on the Floridians to pick the right
course for them."

"Oh, good. That's—" Masklin stopped while his
brain caught up with his mouth. "You're going to
tell me they fly on them, right?"

"Certainly. They travel with the geese. Incidentally,
you have two hours and forty-one minutes to launch."

"I want to make it absolutely clear," said An-
galo slowly, as a great feathery head explored the
waterweeds a few inches away, "that if you're sug-
gesting 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 a face, it would have been sneer-
ing.

"Suggesting we don't ride on them strikes me as
a whole lot better, yes," said Angalo.

"I dunno," said Masklin, who had been watch-

• 98 •

WINGS

ing the geese speculatively. "I might be prepared
to give it a try."

"The Floridians have developed a very interesting re-
lationship with the geese, " said the Thing. "The geese
provide the nomes with wings, and the nomes provide the
geese with brains. They fly north to Canada in the sum-
mer, and back here for the winter. Geese like nomes.
Geese that carry nomes are steered to better feeding
grounds, and find that their nests get protected from rats
and other creatures. Geese are bright enough to learn that
geese with nomes around have a better life. And the
names get free transport and a warm place to sleep. It's
almost a symbiotic relationship, 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 in machines with whirring
bits of metal pushing them along, yet you're wor-
ried about sitting on a perfectly natural bird."

"That's because I don't understand how birds
work," said Angalo. "I've never seen an exploded
working diagram of a goose."

"The geese are the reason the Floridians have never
bad much to do with humans," the Thing continued.
"As I said, their language is almost original nomisb."

"Yes, and I still don't understand that," said
Masklin. "I mean, nomes ought to speak the same
language, yes?"

"No. You remember that I told you once that nomes

' 99 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

used to be able to talk to humans, and taught them lan-
guages?"

"Yes?" said Masklin.

"And then the humans changed the language, over
hundreds of years. Names who lived near humans
changed too. But the Floridians never had much to do
with humans, so their form of the language is still very
much as it used to be."

Shrub was watching them carefully. There was
something about the way she was treating them
that still seemed odd to Masklin. It wasn't that she
hadn't been afraid of them, or aggressive, or un-
pleasant.

"She's not surprised," he said aloud. "She's in-
terested, but she's not surprised. They were upset
because we were here, not because we existed. How
many other nomes has she met?'"

The Thing had to translate.

It was a word that Masklin had only known for
a year.

Thousands.

The leading tree frog was trying to wrestle with
a new idea. It was very dimly aware that it needed
a new type of thought.

There had been the world, with the pool in the
middle and the petals around the edge. One.

But farther along the branch was another
world. From here it looked tantalizingly like the
flower they had left. One.

• 100 '

WINGS

The leading frog sat in a clump of moss and
swiveled each eye so that it could see both worlds
at the same time. One there. And one there.

One. And one.

The frog's forehead bulged as it tried to get its
mind around a new idea. One and one were one.
But if you had one here and one there . . .

The other frogs watched in bewilderment as
their leader's eyes whizzed around and around.

One here and one there couldn't be one. They
were too far apart. You needed a word that meant
both ones. You needed to say . . . you needed to
say . . .

The frog's mouth widened. It grinned so
broadly that both ends almost met behind its head.

It had worked it out.

. . . mipmip . . . ! it said.

It meant: One. And One More One!

Gurder was still arguing with Topknot when
they got back.

"How do they manage to keep it up? They don't
understand what each other's saying!" said An-
galo.

"Best way," said Masklin. "Gurder? We're ready
to go. Come on."

Gurder looked up. He was very red in the face.
The two of them were crouched either side of a
mass of scrawled diagrams in the dirt.

• 101 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"I need the Thing!" he said. "This idiot refuses
to understand anything!"

"You won't win any arguments with him," said
Masklin. "Shrub says he argues with all the other
nomes they meet. He likes to."

"What other nomes?" said Gurder.

"There's nomes everywhere, Gurder. That's
what Shrub says. There's other groups even in
Floridia. And—and—and in Canadia, where the
Floridians go in the summer. There were proba-
bly even other nomes back home! We just never
found them!"

He pulled the Abbot to his feet.

"And we haven't got a lot of time left," he
added.

"I'm not going up on one of those things!"

The geese gave Gurder a puzzled look, as if he
were an unexpected frog in their waterweed.

"I'm not very happy about it either," said Mas-
klin, "but Shrub's people do it all the time. You
just snuggle down in the feathers and hang on."

"Snuggle?" shouted Gurder. "I've never snug-
gled in my life!"

"You rode on the Concorde," Angalo pointed
out. "And that was built and driven by humans."

Gurder glared like someone who wasn't going
to give in easily.

"Well, who built the geese?" he demanded.

• 102 '

WINGS

Angalo grinned at Masklin, who said: "What?
Dunno. Other geese, I expect."

"Geese? Geese? And what do they know about de-
signing for air safety?"

"Listen," said Masklin, "They can take us all the
way across this place. The Floridians fly thou-
sands of miles on them. Thousands of miles, with-
out even any smoked salmon or pink wobbly stuff.
It's worth trying it for eighteen miles, isn't it?"

Gurder hesitated. Topknot muttered something.

Gurder cleared his throat.

"Very well," he said haughtily. "I'm sure if this
misguided individual is in the habit of flying on
these things, I should have no difficulty whatso-
ever." He stared up at the gray shapes bobbing out
in the lagoon. "Do the Floridians talk to the crea-
tures?"

The Thing tried this on Shrub. She shook her
head. No, she said, geese were quite stupid.
Friendly but stupid. Why talk to something that
couldn't talk back?

"Have you told her what we're doing?" said
Masklin.

"No. She hasn't asked."

"How do we get on?"

Shrub stuck her fingers in her mouth and whis-
tled.

Half a dozen geese waddled up the bank. Close
up, they didn't look any smaller.
"I remember reading something about geese

• 103 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

once," said Gurder, in a sort of dreamy terror. "It
said they could break a human's arm with a blow
of their nose."

"Wing," said Angalo, looking up at the feathery
gray bodies looming over him. "It was their
wing."

"And it was swans that do that," said Masklin,
weakly. "Geese are the ones you mustn't say boo
to."

Gurder watched a long neck weave back and
forth above him.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he said.

A long time after, when Masklin came to write
the story of his life, he described the flight of the
geese as the fastest, highest, and most terrifying of
all.

People said, Hold on, that's not right. You said
the plane went so fast that it left its sound behind,
and so high up there was blue all around it.

And he said, That's the point. It went so fast
you didn't know how fast it was going, it went so
high you couldn't see how high it was. It was just
something that happened. And the Concorde
looked as though it was meant to fly. When it was
on the ground it looked kind of lost.

The geese, on the other hand, looked as aerody-
namic as a pillow. They didn't roll into the sky
and sneer at the clouds like the plane did. No, they
ran across the top of the water and hammered des-

• 104 -

WINGS

perately at the air with their wings and then, just
when it was obvious they weren't going to achieve
anything, they suddenly did; the water dropped
away, and there was just the slow creak of wings
pulling the goose up into the sky.

Masklin would be the first to admit that he
didn't understand about jets and engines and ma-
chines, so maybe that was why he didn't worry
about traveling in them. But he thought he knew a
thing or two about muscles, and the knowledge
that it was only a couple of big muscles that were
keeping him alive was not comforting.

Each traveler shared a goose with one of the
Floridians. They didn't do any steering, as far as
Masklin could see. That was all done by Shrub,
who sat far out on the neck of the leading goose.
He never found out how she steered. Maybe by
orders in some language the geese and the geese
nomes shared. Maybe by little movements. Maybe
(according to Angalo) by some sort of Science. It
was a mystery. But then—he told himself—Shrub
probably wouldn't know how to drive a truck.
She'd probably be very impressed, he told himself.
That made him feel a bit better.

The ones behind Shrub's bird followed their
leader in a perfect V shape.

Masklin buried himself in the feathers. It was
comfortable, if a bit cold. Floridians, he learned
later, had no difficulty sleeping on a flying goose.
The mere thought made Masklin's hands sweat.

• 105 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

He peered out just long enough to see distant
trees sweeping by much too fast, and stuck his
head down again.

"How long have we got, Thing?" he said.

"7 estimate arrival in the vicinity of the launch pad
one hour from launch."

"I suppose there's absolutely no possibility that
launches have anything to do with lunches?" said
Masklin wistfully.

'Wo."

"Pity. Well—have you any suggestions about
how we get on the machine?"

"That is almost impossible."

"I thought you'd say that."

"But you could put me on, " the Thing added.

"Yes, but how? Tie you to the outside?"

'Wo. Get me close enough and I will do the rest."

"What rest?"

"Call the Ship."

"Yes, where is the Ship? I'm amazed satellites
and things haven't bumped into it."

"It is waiting."

"You're a great help, sometimes."

"Thank you."

"That was meant to be sarcastic."

"I know;'

There was a rustling beside Masklin and his
Floridian co-rider pushed aside a feather. It was
the boy he had seen with Shrub. He'd said noth-

• 106 •

•I
.3

WINGS

ing, but just stared at Masklin and the Thing.
Now he grinned, and said a few words.

"He wants to know if you feel sick."

"I feel fine," Masklin lied. "What's his name?"

"His name is Pion. He is Shrub's oldest son."

Pion gave Masklin another encouraging grin.

"He wants to know what it is like in a jet," said the
Thing. "He says it sounds exciting. They see them some-
times, but they keep away from them."

The goose canted sideways. Masklin tried to
hang on with his toes as well as his fingers.

"It must be much more exciting than geese, he says,"
said the Thing.

"Oh, I don't know," said Masklin weakly.

Landing was much worse than flying. It would
have been better on water, Masklin was told later,
but Shrub had brought them down on land. The
geese didn't like that much. It meant that they had
almost to stand on the air, flapping furiously, and
then drop the last few inches.

Pion helped Masklin down onto the ground,
which seemed to him to be moving from side to
side. The other travelers tottered toward him
through the throng of birds.

"The ground!" panted Angalo. "It was so close!
No one seemed to mind!"

He sagged to his knees.

"And they made honking noises!" he said. "And
kept swinging from side to side! And they're all
knobbly under the feathers!"

• 107 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

Masklin flexed his arms to let the tension out.

The land around them didn't seem a lot differ-
ent from the place they'd left, except that the vege-
tation was lower and Masklin couldn't see any wa-
ter.

"Shrub says that this is as close as the geese can go,"
the Thing said. "It is too dangerous to go any farther."

Shrub nodded, and pointed to the horizon.

There was a white shape on it.

"That?" said Masklin.

"That's it?" said Angalo.

"Yes."

"Doesn't look very big," said Gurder quietly.

"It's still quite a long way off," said Masklin.

"I can see helicopters," said Angalo. "No won-
der Shrub didn't want to take the geese any
closer."

"And we must be going," said Masklin. "We've
got an hour, and I reckon that's barely enough. Er.
We'd better say good-bye to Shrub. Can you ex-
plain, Thing? Tell her that—that we'll try to find
her again. Afterward. If everything's all right. I
suppose."

"If there is any afterward," Gurder added. He
looked like a badly washed dishcloth.

Shrub nodded when the Thing had finished
translating, and then pushed Pion forward.

The Thing told Masklin what she wanted.

"What? We can't take him with us!" said Mas-
klin.

• 108 '

WINGS

"Young names in Shrub's people are encouraged to
travel," said the Thing. "Pion is only fourteen months
old and already he has been to Alaska."

"Try to explain that we're not going to a
Laska," said Masklin. "Try to make her under-
stand that all sorts of things could happen to him!"

The Thing translated.

"She says that is good. A growing boy should always
seek out new experiences."

"What? Are you translating me properly?" said
Masklin suspiciously.

"Yes."

"Well, have you told her it's dangerous?"

"Yes. She says that danger is what being alive is all
about."

"But he could be killed!" Masklin shrieked.

"Then he will go up into the sky and become a star."

"Is that what they believe?"

"Yes. They believe that the operating system of a nome
starts off as a goose. If it is a good goose, it becomes a
nome. When a good nome dies, NASA takes it up into the
sky and it becomes a star."

"What's an operating system?" said Masklin.
This was religion. He always felt out of his depth
with religion.

"The thing inside you that tells you what you are,"
said the Thing.

"It means a soul," said Gurder wearily.

"Never heard such a lot of nonsense," said An-
galo cheerfully. "At least, not since we were in the

• 109 -

TEBKY PRATCHETT

Store and believed we came back as garden orna-
ments, eh?" He nudged Gurder in the ribs.

Instead of getting angry about this, Gurder just
looked even more despondent.

"Let the lad come if he likes," Angalo went on.
"He shows the right spirit. He reminds me of me
when I was like him."

"His mother says that if he gets homesick be can al-
ways find a goose to bring him back, " said the Thing.

Masklin opened his mouth to speak.

But there were times when you couldn't say
anything because there was nothing to say. If you
had to explain anything to someone else, then
there had to be something you were both sure of,
someplace to start, and Masklin wasn't sure that
there was anyplace like that around Shrub. He
wondered how big the world was to her. Probably
bigger than he could imagine. But it stopped at the
sky.

"Oh, all right," he said. "But we have to go right
away. No time for long tearful—"

Pion nodded to his mother and came and stood
by Masklin, who couldn't think of anything to say.
Even later on, when he understood the geese
nomes better, he never quite got used to the way
they cheerfully parted from one another. Dis-
tances didn't seem to mean much to them.

"Come on, then," he managed.

Gurder glowered at Topknot, who had insisted

• 110 '

WINGS

on coming this far. "I really wish I could talk to
that nome," he said.

"Shrub told me he's quite a decent nome, re-
ally," said Masklin. "He's just a bit set in his
ways."

"Just like you," said Angalo.

"Me? I'm not—" Gurder began.

"Of course you're not," said Masklin, sooth-
ingly. "Now, let's go."

They jogged through scrub two or three times
as high as they were.

"We'll never have time," Gurder panted.

"Save your breath for running," said Angalo.

"Do they have smoked salmon on shuttles?" said
Gurder.

"Dunno," said Masklin, pushing his way
through a particularly tough clump of grass.

"No, they don't," said Angalo authoritatively.
"I remember reading about it in a book. They eat
out of tubes."

The nomes ran in silence while they thought
about this.

"What, toothpaste?" said Gurder, after a while.

"No, not toothpaste. Of course not toothpaste.
I'm sure not toothpaste."

"Well, what else do you know that comes in
tubes?"

Angalo thought about this.

"Glue?" he said, uncertainly.

• 111 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Doesn't sound like a good meal to me. Tooth-
paste and glue?"

"The people who drive the space jets must like
it. They were all smiling in the picture I saw,"
said Angalo.

"That wasn't smiling, that was probably just
them trying to get their teeth apart," said Gurder.

"No, you've got it all wrong," Angalo decided,
thinking fast. "They have to have their food in
tubes because of gravity."

"What about gravity?"

"There isn't any."

"Any what?"

"Gravity. So everything floats around."

"What, in water?" said Gurder.

"No, in air. Because there's nothing to hold it
on the plate, you see."

"Oh." Gurder nodded. "Is that where the glue
comes in?"

Masklin knew that they could go on like this for
hours. What these sounds mean, he thought, is: I
am alive and so are you. And we're all very wor-
ried that we might not be alive for much longer, so
we'll just keep talking, because that's better than
thinking.

It all looked better when it was days or weeks
away, but now when it was—

"How long. Thing?"

"Forty minutes."

- 112 '

WINGS

"We've got to have another rest! Gurder isn't
running, he's just falling upright."

They collapsed in the shade of a bush. The shut-
tle didn't look much closer, but they could see
plenty of other activity. There were more helicop-
ters. According to Pion, who climbed up the bush,
there were humans, much farther off.

"I need to sleep," said Angalo.

"Didn't you sleep on the goose?" said Masklin.

"Did you?"

Angalo stretched out in the shade.

"How are we going to get on the shuttle thing?"
he said.

Masklin shrugged. "Well, the Thing says we
don't have to get on it, we just have to put the
Thing on it."

Angalo pushed himself up on his elbows. "You
mean we don't get to ride on it? I was looking
forward to that!"

"I don't think it's like the Truck, Angalo. I don't
think they leave a window open for anyone to
sneak in," said Masklin. "I think it'd take more
than a lot of nomes and some string to fly it, any-
way."

"You know, that was the best time of my life,
when I drove the Truck," said Angalo dreamily.
"When I think of all those months I lived in the
Store, not even knowing about the Outside . . ."

Masklin waited politely. His head felt heavy.

"Well?" he said.

• 113 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Well, what?"

"What happens when you think of all those
months in the Store not knowing about the Out-
side?"

"It just seems like a waste."

Pion curled up and started to snore. Angalo
yawned.

They hadn't slept for hours. Nomes slept
mainly at night, but needed catnaps to get through
the long day. Even Masklin was nodding.

"Thing?" he remembered to say, "wake me up
in ten minutes, will you?"

114 '

Satellites: They are in space and stay there by going
so fast that they never stay in one place long
enough to fall down. Televisions are bounced off
them.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia/or the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

It wasn't the Thing that woke Masklin up. It was
Gurder.

Masklin lay with his eyes half closed, listening.
Gurder was talking to the Thing in a low voice.

"I believed in the Store," he said, "and then I
found out it was just a—a sort of thing built by
humans. And I thought Grandson Richard, 39,
was some special person and he turned out to be a
human who sings when he wets himself—"

"Takes a shower!"

"And now there's thousands of nomes in the
world! Thousands! Believing all sorts of things!

• 115 •

TERBY PBATCHETT

That stupid Topknot person believes that the go-
ing-up shuttles make the sky. Do you know what I
thought when I heard that? I thought, if he'd been
the one arriving in my world instead of the other
way around, he'd have thought I was just as stu-
pid! I am just as stupid! . . . Thing?"

"I was maintaining a tactful silence."

"Angalo believes in silly machinery and Mas-
klin believes in, oh, I don't know. Space. Or not
believing in things. And it all works for them. I
try to believe in important things, and they don't
last for five minutes. Where's the fairness in that?"

"Only another tactful and understanding silence suf-
fices at this point."

"I just wanted to make some sense out of life."

"This is a commendable aim."

"I mean, what is the truth of everything?"

There was a pause. Then the Thing said: "/ re-
call your conversation with Masklin about the origin of
names. You wanted to ask me. I can answer now. I was
made, I know this is true. I know that I am a thing made
of metal and plastic, but also that I am something which
lives inside that metal and plastic. It is impossible/or me
not to be absolutely certain of it. This is a great comfort.
As to names, I have data that says nomes originated on
another world and came here thousands of years ago.
This may be true. It may not be true. I am not in a
position to judge."

"I knew where I was, back in the Store," said
Gurder, half to himself. "And even in the quarry

• 116 '

WINGS

it wasn't too bad. I had a proper job. I was impor-
tant to people. How can I go back now, knowing
that everything I believed about the Store and Ar-
nold Bros. (est. 1905) and Grandson Richard, 39, is
just ... is just an opinion^

'7 cannot advise. I am sorry."

Masklin decided it was a diplomatic time to
wake up. He made a grunting noise just to be sure
that Gurder heard him.

The Abbot was very red in the face.

"I couldn't sleep," he said shortly.

Masklin stood up.

"How long, Thing?"

"Twenty-seven minutes."

"Why didn't you wake me up!"

"/ wished you to be refreshed."

"But it's still a long way off. We'll never get you
onto it in time. Wake up, you." Masklin prodded
Angalo with his foot. "Come on, we'll have to run.
Where's Pion? Oh, there you are. Come on,
Gurder."

They jogged on through the scrub. In the dis-
tance, there was the low mournful howl of sirens.

"You're cutting it really fine, Masklin," said An-
galo.

"Faster! Run faster!"

Now that they were closer, Masklin could see
the shuttle. It was quite high up. There didn't
seem to be anything useful at ground level.

"I hope you've got a good plan, Thing," he

• 117 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

panted, as the four of them dodged between the
bushes, "because I'll never be able to get you all

the way up there."

"Do not worry. We are nearly close enough."
"What do you mean? It's still a long way off!"
"/( is close enough for me to get on."
"What is it going to do? Take a flying leap?" said

Angalo.

"Put me down."

Masklin obediently put the black box on the
ground. It extended a few of its probes, which
swung around slowly for a while and then pointed
toward the going-up jet.

"What are you playing at?" said Masklin. "This
is wasting timeV

Gurder laughed, although not in a very happy

way.

"I know what it's doing," he said. "It's sending

itself onto the shuttle. Right, Thing?"

"J am transmitting an instruction subset to the com-
puter on the communications satellite," said the Thing.

The nomes said nothing,

"Or to put it another way . . . yes, I am turning the
satellite computer into a part of me. Although not a very
intelligent one."

"Can you really do that?" said Angalo.

"Certainly."

"Wow. And you won't miss the bit you're send-
ing?"

"No. Because it will not leave me."

• 118 •

WINGS

"You're sending it and keeping it at the same
time?"

"Yes."

Angalo looked at Masklin.

"Did you understand any of that?" he de-
manded.

"I did," said Gurder. "The Thing's saying it's
not just a machine, it's a sort of—a sort of collec-
tion of electric thoughts that lives in a machine. I
think."

Lights flickered around on top of the Thing.

"Does it take a long time to do?" said Masklin.

"Yes. Please do not take up vital communication
power at this point."

"I think he means he doesn't want us to talk to
him," said Gurder. "He's concentrating."

"It," said Angalo. "It's an it. And it made us run
all the way here just so we can hurry up and
wait."

"It probably has to be close up to do ... what-
ever it is it's doing," said Masklin.

"How long's it going to take?" said Angalo. "It
seems ages since it was twenty-seven minutes
ago."

"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 rat-
tled off a long sentence in Floridian, or if the
Thing was right, nearly original nomish.

• 119 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

"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 prob-
ably 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 a long
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 o«," said Angalo. "The Thing
wouldn't have let us come right here 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 complicated patterns on the top
of the Thing.

• 120 '

Somewhere another siren sounded. There was a
sensation of power, as though the biggest spring
in the world was being wound up.

When Masklin spoke, the other two seemed to
hear him speak their own thoughts.

"Exactly how good," he said, very slowly, "do
you think the Thing is at judging how close nomes
can stand to a going-up jet when it goes up? I
mean, 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 be walking faster and
faster.

Faster and faster.

Then, as one nome, they gave up and ran for it,
fighting their way through the scrub and grass,
skidding on stones, elbows going up and down
like pistons. Gurder, who was normally out of
breath at anything above walking 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 a deep breath. Then it
turned into . . . not noise, but something more
like an invisible hammer that smacked into both
ears at once.

• 121 •

Space: There are two types: a) something contain-
ing nothing and b) nothing containing everything.
It is what you have left when you haven't got any-
thing else. There is no air or gravity, which is
what holds people onto things. If there weren't
space, everything would be in one place. It is de-
signed to be a place for satellites, shuttles, planets,
and the Ship.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

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.

• 122 •

WINGS

(i          3"

"What? I can't hear you! Can you hear me?"

a             ;'»

Masklin saw Gurder's lips move. He pointed to
his own ears and shook his head.
"We've gone deaf!"

i<           5"
ti           y

"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 noise
dropped 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 terri-
ble 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?"

• 123 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

"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 every-
thing there was to know about living in a hole,
and now it's a year later and I'm at a place so far
away I don't even know how far away it is, watch-
ing something I don't understand go to a place so
far up there is no down. And I can't go back. I've
got to go right on to the end of whatever all this is,
because I 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 sud-
denly felt cold, despite the heat around him.

. 124 '

WINGS

"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 won-
der 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 be-
hind 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'( die! It's existed for thousands of years!"

Gurder shook his head. "Sounds like a good rea-
son for dying," he said.

"But it's a—a Thing."

' 125 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

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 thou-
sands 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?"

"I don't know!"

"Who's driving it?"

"I don't—" Masklin stopped in horror. "No

• 126 '

WINGS

one! I mean, who could be driving it? There hasn't
been anyone on it for thousands of years!"

"Who was going to bring it here, then?"

"I don't know! The Thing, maybe?"

"You mean it's on its way and no one's driving
it?"

"Yes! No! I don't know!"

Angalo squinted up at the blue sky.

"Oh, wow," he said glumly.

"We need to find some electricity for the
Thing," said Masklin. "Even if it's managed to
summon the Ship, the Ship will still need to be
told where we are."

"If it summoned the Ship," said Gurder. "It
might have run out of pow before it had time."

"We can't be sure," said Masklin. "Anyway, we
must help the Thing. I hate to see it like that."

Pion, who had disappeared into the scrub, came
back dragging a lizard.

"Ah," said Gurder, without any enthusiasm.
"Here comes lunch."

"If the Thing were talking, we could tell Pion
you can get awfully tired of lizard, in time," said
Angalo.

"In about two seconds," said Gurder.

"Come on," said Masklin, wearily. "Let's go and
find some shade and think up another plan."

"Oh, a plan," Gurder said, as if that was worse
than lizard. "I like plans."

They ate—not very well—and lay back watch-

• 127 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

ing the sky. The brief sleep on the way hadn't
been enough. It was easy to doze.

"I must say these Floridians have got it all
worked out," said Gurder lazily. "It's cold back
home and here they've got the heating turned up
just right."

"I keep telling you, it's not the heating," said
Angalo, straining his eyes for any sign of a de-
scending Ship. "And the wind isn't the air condi-
tioning, either. It's the sun that makes you warm."

"I thought that was just for lighting," said
Gurder.

"And it's where all the heat comes from," said
Angalo. "I read it in a book. It's a great ball of fire
bigger than the world."

Gurder eyed the sun suspiciously.

"Oh, yes?" he said. "What keeps it up?"

"Nothing. It's just kind of there."

Gurder squinted at the sun again.

"Is this generally known?" he said.

"I suppose so. It was in the book."

"For anyone to read? I call that irresponsible.
That's the sort of thing that can really upset peo-
ple."

"There are thousands of suns up there, Masklin
says."

Gurder sniffed. "Yes, he's told me. It's called the
glaxie, or something. Personally, I'm against it."

Angalo chuckled.

• 128 •

WINGS

"I don't see what's so funny," said Gurder
coldly.

"Tell him, Masklin," said Angalo.

"It's all very well for you," Gurder muttered.
"You just want to drive things fast. / want to make
sense of them. Maybe there are thousands of suns,
but why?"

"Can't see that it matters," said Angalo lazily.

"It's the only thing that does matter. Tell him,
Masklin."

They both looked at Masklin.

At least, where Masklin had been sitting.

He'd gone.

Beyond the top of the sky was the place the
Thing had called the universe. It contained, ac-
cording to the Thing, everything and nothing.
And there was very little everything and more
nothing than anyone could imagine.

For example, it was often said that the sky was
full of stars. It was untrue. The sky was full of sky.
There were unlimited amounts of sky and, really,
by comparison, very few stars.

It was amazing, therefore, that they made such
an impression.

Thousands of them looked down now as some-
thing round and shiny drifted around the Earth.

It had Arnsat-1 painted on its side, which was a
bit of a waste of paint since stars can't read.

It unfolded a silver dish.

• 129 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

It should then have turned to face the planet
below it, ready to beam down old movies and new
news.

It didn't. It had new orders.

Little puffs of gas jetted out as it turned around
and searched the sky for a new target.

By the time it had found it, a lot of people in the
old movies and new news business were shouting
very angrily at one another on telephones, and
some of them were feverishly trying to give it new
instructions.

But that didn't matter, because it wasn't listen-
ing anymore.

Masklin galloped through the scrub.

They'd argue and bicker, he thought. I've got to
do this quickly. I don't think we've got a lot of
time.

It was the first time he'd been really alone since
the days back when he'd lived in a hole and had to
go out hunting by himself because there was no
one else.

Had it been better then? At least it had been
simpler. You just had to try to eat without being
eaten. Just getting through the day was a triumph.
Everything had been bad, but at least it had been a
kind of understandable, nome-sized badness.

In those days the world ended at the highway
on one side and the woods beyond the field at the
other side. Now it had no kind of boundaries at

• 130 •

WINGS

all, and more problems than he knew what to do
with.

But at least he knew where to find electricity.

You found it near buildings with humans in
them.

The scrub ahead of Masklin opened out onto a
track.

He turned onto it, and ran faster. Go along any
track, and you'd find humans on it somewhere.

There were footsteps behind him. He turned
around, and saw Pion. The young Floridian gave
him a worried smile.

"Go away!" Masklin said. "Go on! Go! Go back!
Why are you following me? Go away!"

Pion looked hurt. He pointed up the track and
said something.

"I don't understand!" shouted Masklin.

Pion stuck a hand high above his head, palm
downward.

"Humans?" Masklin guessed. "Yes. I know. I
know what I'm doing. Go back!"

Pion said something else.

Masklin lifted up the Thing. "Talking box no
go," he said helplessly. "Good grief, why should I
have to speak like this? You must be at least as
intelligent as me. Go on, go away. Go back to the
others."

He turned and ran. He looked back briefly, and
saw Pion watching him.

How much time have I got? he wondered. Thing

• 131 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

once told me the Ship flies very fast. Maybe it
could be here any minute. Maybe it's not coming
at all.

He saw figures looming over the scrub. Yes, fol-
low any track, and sooner or later you find hu-
mans. They get everywhere.

Yes, maybe the Ship isn't coming at all.

If it isn't, he thought, then what I'm going to do
now is probably the most stupid thing any nome
has ever done anywhere in the total history of
nomekind.

He stepped out into a circle of gravel. A small
truck was parked in it, with the name of the Flo-
ridian god NASA painted on the side. Close by, a
couple of humans were bent over a piece of ma-
chinery on a tripod.

They didn't notice Masklin. He walked closer,
his heart thumping.

He put down the Thing.

We used to talk, he said. Well, maybe it's time to
try again.

He cupped his hands around his mouth.

He tried to shout as clearly and as slowly as pos-
sible.

"Hey, there! You! Hu—mans!"

"He did what?" shouted Angalo.
Pion ran through his pantomime of gestures
again.

• 132 •

WINGS

"Talked to bumansy' said Angalo. "Went in a

thing with wheels'?"

"I thought I heard a truck engine," said Gurder.
Angalo pounded a fist into his palm.
"He was worried about the Thing," he said.

"He wanted to find it some electricity!"
"But we must be miles from any buildings!"

said Gurder.

"Not the way Masklin's going!" Angalo snarled.
"I knew it would come to this!" Gurder moaned.

"Showing ourselves to humans! We never used to

do that sort of thing in the Store! What are we

going to doy

Masklin thought, Up to now, it's not too bad.
The humans hadn't really known what to do
about him. They'd even backed away! And then
one of them had rushed to the truck and talked
into a machine on a string. Probably some sort of
telephone, Masklin thought knowledgeably.

When he hadn't moved, one of the humans had
fetched a box out of the back of the truck and
crept toward him as if expecting Masklin to ex-
plode. In fact, when he waved, the human jumped
back clumsily.

The other human said something, and the box
was cautiously put down on the gravel a few feet
from Masklin.

Then both humans watched him expectantly.
He kept smiling, to put them at their ease, and

• 133 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

climbed into the box. Then he gave them another
wave.

One of the humans reached down gingerly and
picked up the box, lifting it up in the air as though
Masklin was something very rare and delicate. He
was carried to the truck. The human got in, and
still holding the box with exaggerated care, placed
it on its knees. A radio crackled with deep human
voices.

Well, no going back now. Knowing that, Mas-
klin very nearly relaxed. Perhaps it was best to
look at it as just another step along life's sidewalk.

They kept staring at him as if they didn't be-
lieve what they were seeing.

The truck lurched off. After a while it turned
onto a concrete road, where another truck was
waiting. A human got out, spoke to the driver of
Masklin's truck, laughed in a slow human way,
looked down at Masklin, and stopped laughing
very suddenly.

It almost ran back to its own truck and started
speaking into another telephone.

I knew this would happen, Masklin thought.
They don't know what to do with a real nome.
Amazing.

But just so long as they take me somewhere
where there's the right kind of electricity.

Dorcas, the engineer, had once tried to explain
electricity to Masklin, but without much success
because Dorcas wasn't too certain about it, either.

• 134 •

WINGS

There seemed to be two kinds, straight and wig-
gly. The straight kind was very boring and stayed
in batteries. The wiggly kind was found in wires
in the walls and things, and somehow the Thing
could steal some of it if it was close enough. Dor-
cas used to talk about wiggly electricity in the
same tone of voice Gurder used for talking about
Arnold Bros. (est. 1905). He'd tried to study it back
in the Store. If it was put into freezers it made
things cold, but if the same electricity went into
an oven it made things hot, so how did it know'?

Dorcas used to talk, Masklin thought. I said
"used to." I hope he still does.

He felt light-headed and oddly optimistic. Part
of him was saying: That's because if you for one
second think seriously about the position you've
put yourself in, you'll panic.

Keep smiling.

The truck purred along the road, with the other
truck following it. Masklin saw a third truck rattle
down a side road and pull in behind them. There
were a lot of humans on it, and most of them were
watching the skies.

They didn't stop at the nearest building, but
drove on to a bigger one with many more vehicles
outside. More humans were waiting for them.

One of them opened the truck door, doing it
very slowly even for a human.

The human carrying Masklin got out of the
truck.

• 135 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

Masklin looked up at dozens of staring faces. He
could see every eyeball, every nostril. Every one of
them looked worried. At least, every eyeball did.
The nostrils just looked like nostrils.

They were worried about him.

Keep smiling.

He stared back up at them, and still almost gig-
gling with repressed panic, said, "Can I help you,
gentlemen?"

136

Science: A way of finding things out and then mak-
ing them work. There is a lot more Science than
you think.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Gurder, Angalo, and Pion sat under a bush. It
gave them a bit of shade. The cloud of gloom over
them was almost as big.

"We'll never even get home without the Thing,"
said Gurder.

"Then we'll get him out," said Angalo.

"That'll take forever!"

"Yeah? Well, that's nearly as long as we've got
here, if we can't get home." Angalo had found a
pebble that was almost the right shape to attach to
a twig with strips torn off his coat; he'd never seen
a stone ax in his life, but he had a definite feeling

• 137 •

TERRY PBATCHETT

that there were useful things that could be done
with a stone tied to the end of a stick.

"I wish you'd stop fiddling with that thing,"
Gurder said. "What's the big plan, then? Us
against the whole of Floridia?"

"Not necessarily. You needn't come."

"Calm down, Mr. To-the-rescue. One idiot's
enough."

"I don't hear you coming up with any better
ideas." Angalo swished the ax through the air once
or twice.

"I haven't got any."

A small red light started to flash on the Thing.

After a while, a small square hole opened up
and there was a tiny whirring sound as the Thing
extended a little lens on a stick. This turned
around slowly.

Then the Thing spoke.

"Where," it asked, "is this place?"

It tilted the lens up and there was a pause while
it surveyed the face of the human looking down at
it.

"And why?" it added.

"I'm not sure," said Masklin. "We're in a room
in a big building. The humans haven't hurt me. I
think one of them has been trying to talk to me."

"We appear to be in some sort of glass box," said the
Thing.

"They even gave me a little bed," said Masklin.

• 138 -

WINGS

"And I think the thing over there is some kind of
lavatory, but look, what about the Ship?"
"/ expect it is on its way," said the Thing calmly.
"Expect? Expect? You mean you don't know?"
"Many things can go wrong. If they have gone right,
the Ship will be here soon."

"If they don't, I'm stuck here for life!" said Mas-
klin bitterly. "I came here because of you, you
know."

"Yes. I know. Thank you."

Masklin relaxed a bit.

"They're being quite kind," he said. He thought
about this. "At least, I think so," he added. "It's
hard to tell."

He looked through the transparent wall. A lot
of humans had been in to look at him in the last
few minutes. He wasn't quite certain whether he
was an honored visitor or a prisoner, or maybe
something in between.

"It seemed the only hope at the time," he said
lamely.

"/ am monitoring communications."
"You're always doing that."

"A lot of them are about you. All kinds of experts are
rushing here to have a look at you."

"What kind of experts? Experts in nomes?"
"Experts in talking to creatures/row other worlds.
Humans haven't met anyone from another world, but
they 've still got experts in talking to them."

• 139 •

TEBBY PBATCHETT

"All this had better work," said Masklin so-
berly. "Humans really know about nomes now."

"But not what nomes are. They think you have just
arrived."

"Well, that's true."

"Not arrived here. Arrived on the planet. Arrived
from the stars."

"But we've been here for thousands of years! We
live here!"

"Humans find it a lot easier, really, to believe in little
people from the sky than little people from the Earth.
They would prefer to think of little green men than lepre-
chauns. "

Masklin's brow wrinkled. "I didn't understand
any of that," he said.

"Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter." The
Thing let its lens swivel around to see more of the
room.

"Very nice. Very scientific," it said.

Then it focused on a wide plastic tray next to
Masklin.

"What is that?"

"Oh, fruit and nuts and meat and stuff," said
Masklin. "I think they've been watching me to see
what I eat. I think these are quite bright humans,
Thing. I pointed to my mouth and they under-
stood I was hungry."

"Ah," said the Thing. "Take me to your larder."

"Pardon?"

• 140 '

WINGS

"/ will explain. I have told you that I monifof com-
munications?"

"All the time."

"There is a joke, that is, a humorous anecdote or story,
known to humans. It concerns a ship from another world
landing on this planet, and strange creatures get out and
say to a gas pump, garbage can, slot-machine, of similar
mechanical device, 'Take me to your leader.' I surmise
this is because they are unaware of the shape of humans. I
have substituted the similar word 'larder,' referfwg to a
place where food is stored. This is a humorous P^i or
play on words, for hilarious effect."

It paused.

"Oh," said Masklin. He thought about it.
"These would be the little green men you men-
tioned?"

"Very—wait a moment. Wait a moment."

"What? What?" said Masklin urgently.

"/ can bear the Ship."

Masklin listened as hard as he could.

"I can't hear a thing," he said.

"Not sound. Radio."

"Where is it? Where is it, Thing? You've always
said the Ship's up there, but where?"

The remaining tree frogs crouched among the

moss to escape the heat of the afternoon sun.
Low in the eastern sky was a sliver of v^hite.
It would be nice to think that the tree frogs had

legends about it. It would be nice to think that

• 141 '

TEBBY PRATCHETT              ?

they thought the sun and moon were distant flow-
ers—a yellow one by day, a white one by night. It
would be nice to think they had legends about
them, and said that when a good frog died its soul
would go to the big flowers in the sky.

The trouble is that it's frogs we're talking about
here. Their name for the sun was . . . mip-
mip. . . . Their name for the moon was . . .
mipmip. . . . Their name was everything was
. . . mipmip . . . and when you're stuck with a
vocabulary of one word it's pretty hard to have
legends about anything at all.

The leading frog, however, was dimly aware
that there was something wrong with the moon.

It was growing brighter.

"We left the Ship on the moon?" said Masklin.
"Why?"

"That's what your ancestors decided to do," said the
Thing. "So they could keep an eye on it, I assume."

Masklin's face lit up slowly, like clouds at sun-
rise.

"You know," he said, excitedly, "Right back be-
fore all this, right back when we used to live in the
old hole, I used to sit out at nights and watch the
moon. Perhaps in my blood I really knew that, up
there—"

'Wo, what you were experiencing was probably primi-
tive superstition," said the Thing.

Masklin deflated. "Oh. Sorry."

• 142 '

WINGS

"And now, please be quiet. The Ship is feeling lost and
wants to be told what to do. It has just woken up after
fifteen thousand years."

"I'm not very good at mornings myself," Mas-
klin said.

There is no sound on the moon, but this doesn't
matter, because there is no one to hear anything.
Sound would just be a waste.

But there is light.

Fine moondust billowed high across the ancient
plains of the moon's dark crescent, expanding in
boiling clouds that went high enough to catch the
rays of the sun. They glittered.

Down below, something was digging itself out.

"We left it in a holey said Masklin.

Lights rippled back and forth across all surfaces
of the Thing.

"Don't say that's why you always lived in holes," it
said. "Other nomes don't live in holes."

"No, that's true," said Masklin. "I ought to stop
thinking only about the—"

He suddenly went quiet. He stared out of the
glass tank, where a human was trying to interest
him in marks on a blackboard.

"You've got to stop it," he said. "Right now.
Stop the Ship. We've got it all wrong. Thing, we
can't go! It doesn't belong to just us! We can't take
the Ship!"

• 143 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

The three nomes lurking near the shuttle
launching place watched the sky. As the sun
neared the horizon the moon sparkled like a
Christmas decoration.

"It must be caused by the Ship!" said Angalo.
"It must be!" He beamed at the others. "That's it,
then. It's on its way!"

"I never thought it would work." Gurder said.

Angalo slapped Pion on the back, and pointed.

"See that, my lad?" he said. "That's the Ship,
that is! Ours!"

Gurder rubbed his chin, and nodded thought-
fully at Pion.

"Yes," he said, "That's right. Ours."

"Masklin says there's all kinds of stuff up
there," said Angalo dreamily. "And masses of
space. That's what space is well known for, lots of
space. Masklin said the Ship goes faster than light
goes, which is probably wrong, otherwise how'd
you see anything? You'd turn the lights on and all
the light would drop backward out of the room.
But it's pretty fast."

Gurder looked back at the sky again. Something
at the back of his mind was pushing its way to the
front, and giving him a curious gray feeling.

"Our Ship," he said. "The one that brought
nomes here."

"Yeah, that's right," said Angalo, hardly hearing
him.

. 144 .

WINGS

"And it'll take us all back," Gurder went on.

"That's what Masklin said, and—"

"All nomes," said Gurder. His voice was as flat
and heavy as a sheet of lead.

"Sure. Why not? I expect I'll soon work out how
to drive it back to the quarry, and we can pick
them all up. And Pion here, of course."

"What about Pion's people?" said Gurder.

"Oh, they can come too," said Angalo expan-
sively. "There's probably even room for their
geese!"

"And the others?"

Angalo looked surprised. "What others?"

"Shrub said there were lots of other groups of
nomes. Everywhere."

Angalo looked blank. "Oh, them. Well, I don't
know about them. But we need the Ship. You know
what it's been like ever since we left the Store."

"But if we take the Ship away, what will they
have if they need it?"

Masklin had just asked the same question.

The Thing said, "0100110101010111010101001-
0110101110010."

"What did you say?"

The Thing sounded tetchy. "If I lose concentra-
tion, there might not be a Ship for anyone, " it said. "/
am sending fifteen thousand instructions per second."

Masklin said nothing.

"That's a lot of instructions, " the Thing added.

• 145 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

"By rights the Ship must belong to all the
nomes in the world," said Masklin.

"010011001010010010—"

"Oh, shut up and tell me when the Ship is going
to get here."

"0101011001 . . . Which do you want me to do?
. . . 01001100 ..."

"What?"

"I can shut up or / can tell you when the Ship is going
to arrive. I can't do both."

"Please tell me when the Ship is going to ar-
rive," said Masklin patiently, "and then shut up."

"Four minutes."

"Four minutes!"

"I could be three seconds off," said the Thing. "But I
calculate it as four minutes. Only now it's three minutes
thirty-eight seconds. It'll be three minutes and thirty-
seven seconds any second now—"

"I can't hang around in here if it's coming that
soon!" said Masklin, all thoughts of his duty to the
nomes of the world temporarily forgotten. "How
can I get out? This thing's got a lid on."

"Do you want me to shut up first, or get you out and
then shut up?" said the Thing.

"Please!"

"Have the humans seen you move?" said the Thing.

"What do you mean?"

"Do they know bow fast you can run?"

"I don't know," said Masklin. "I suppose not."

• 146 '

WINGS

"Get ready to run, then. But first, put your hands over
your ears."

Masklin thought it would be best to obey. The
Thing could be deliberately infuriating at times,
but it didn't pay to ignore its advice.

Lights on the Thing made a brief star-shaped
pattern.

It started to wail. The sound went up and then
went beyond Masklin's hearing. He could feel it
even with his hands over his ears; it seemed to be
making unpleasant bubbles in his head.

He opened his mouth to shout at the Thing, and
the walls exploded. One moment there was glass,
and the next there were bits of glass, drifting out
like a jigsaw puzzle where every piece had sud-
denly decided it wanted some personal space. The
lid slid down, almost hitting him.

"Now, pick me up and run," ordered the Thing,
before the shards had spilled across the table.

Humans around the room were turning to look
in that slow, clumsy way humans had.

Masklin grabbed the Thing and took off across
the polished surface.

"Down," he said. "We're high up, how do we
get down?" He looked around desperately. There
was some sort of machine at the other end of the
table, covered with little dials and lights. He'd
watched one of the humans using it.

"Wires," he said, "There's always wires!"

He skidded around, dodged easily around a gi-

• 147 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

ant hand as it tried to grab him, and hared along

the table.

"I'll have to throw you over," he panted. "I
can't carry you down!"

'Til be all right"

Masklin slid to a stop by the table edge and
threw the Thing down. There were wires running
down toward the floor. He leapt for one, swung
around madly, and then half fell and half slid

down it.

Humans were lurching toward him from every-
where. He picked up the Thing again, hugging it
to his chest, and darted forward. There was a foot
—brown shoe, dark blue sock. He zigged. There
were two more feet—black shoes, black socks. And
they were about to trip over the first foot.

He zagged.

There were more feet, and hands reaching
vainly down. Masklin was a blur, dodging and
weaving between feet that could flatten him.
And then there was nothing but open floor.
Somewhere an alarm sounded, its shrill note
sounding deep and awesome to Masklin.
"Head for the door," suggested the Thing.
"But more humans'll be coming in," hissed

Masklin.

"That's good, because we're going out."
Masklin reached the door just as it opened. A
gap of a few inches appeared, with more feet be-
hind it.

• 148 -

WINGS

There wasn't any time to think. Masklin ran
over the shoe, jumped down on the other side, and
ran on.

"Where now? Where now?"

"Outside."

"Which way is that?"

"Every way."

"Thank you very much!"

Doors were opening all along the corridor. Hu-
mans were coming out. The problem was not
evading capture—it would take a very alert hu-
man even to see a nome running at full speed, let
alone catch one—but simply avoiding being trod-
den on by accident.

"Why don't they have mouse holes? Every
building should have mouse holes!" Masklin
moaned.

A boot stamped down an inch away. He
jumped.

The corridor was filling with humans. Another
alarm started to sound.

"Why's all this happening? I can't be causing all
this! There can't be all this trouble over just one
nome!"

"It's the Ship. They have seen the Ship."
A shoe almost awarded Masklin the prize for

the most perfectly flattened nome in Florida. As it

was, he almost ran into it.
Unlike most shoes, it had a name on it. It was a

Crucial Street Drifter with Real Rubber Soul,

• 149 '

TEBBY PRATCHETT

Pat'd. The sock above it looked as though it could
be a Hi-style Odorprufe, made of Guaranteed 85%
Polyputheketlon, the most expensive sock in the
world.

Masklin looked farther up. Beyond the great
sweep of blue trouser and the distant clouds of
sweater was a beard.

It was Grandson Richard, 39.

Just when you thought there was no one watch-
ing over nomes, the universe went and tried to
prove you wrong.

Masklin took a standing jump and landed on the
trouser leg, just as the foot moved. It was the safest
place. Humans didn't often tread on other hu-
mans.

The foot took a step and came down again. Mas-
klin swung backward and forward, trying to pull
himself up the rough cloth. There was a seam an
inch away. He managed to grab it; the stitches
gave a better handhold.

Grandson Richard, 39, was in a crush of people
all heading the same way. Several other humans
banged into him, almost jarring Masklin loose. He
kicked his boots off and tried to grip with his toes.

There was a slow thumping as Grandson Rich-
ard's feet hit the ground.

Masklin reached a pocket, got a decent foothold,
and climbed on. A bulky label helped him up to
the belt. Masklin was used to labels in the Store,
but this was pretty big even by big label stan-

• 150 •

WINGS

dards. It was covered in lettering and had been
riveted to the trousers, as if Grandson Richard, 39,
were some sort of machine.

" 'Grossbergers Hagglers, the First Name in
Jeans,'" he read. "And there's lots of stuff about
how good they are, and pictures of cows and
things. Why d'you think he wants labels all over
himself?"

"Perhaps if he hasn't got labels, be doesn 't know what
his clothes are, " said the Thing.

"Good point. He'd probably put his shoes on his
head."

Masklin glanced back at the label as he grabbed
the sweater.

"It says here that these jeans won a Gold Medal
in the Chicago Exhibition in 1910," he said.
"They've certainly lasted well."

Humans were streaming out of the building.

The sweater was much easier to climb. Masklin
hauled himself up quickly. Grandson Richard, 39,
had quite long hair, which also helped when it was
time to climb up onto the shoulder.

A doorframe passed briefly overhead, and then
the deep blue of the sky.

"How long, Thing?" Masklin asked. Grandson
Richard's ear was only a few inches away.

"Forty-three seconds."

The humans spilled out of the wide concrete
space in front of the building. Some more hurried
out of the building, carrying machinery. They

• 151 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

kept running into one another because they were
all staring at the sky.

Another group was clustered around one hu-
man who was looking very worried.

"What's going on, Thing?" Masklin whispered.

"The human in the middle of the group is the most
important one here. It came to watch the shuttle launch.
Now all the others are telling it that it's got to be the one
to welcome the Ship."

"That's a bit of cheek. It's not their Ship."

"Yes, but they think it's coming to talk to them."

"Why should they think that?"

"Because they think they 're the most important crea-
tures on the planet."

"Hah!"

"Amazing, isn't it?" said the Thing.

"Everyone knows nomes are more important,"
said Masklin. "At least . . . every nome does."
He thought about this for a moment, and shook
his head. "So that's the head human, is it? Is it
some sort of extra wise one, or something?"

"/ don't think so. The other humans around it are
trying to explain to it what a planet is."

"Doesn't it know?"

"Many humans don't. Mistervicepresident is one of
them. 001010011000."

"You're talking to the Ship again?"

"Yes. Six seconds."

"It's really coming?"

"Yes."

- 152 '

Tea

Gravity: This is not properly understood, but it is
what makes small things, like nomes, stick to big
things, like planets. Because of Science, this hap-
pens whether you know about gravity or not.
Which goes to show that Science is happening all
the time.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Angalo looked around.

"Gurder, come on."

Gurder leaned against a tuft of grass and fought
to get his breath back.

"It's no good," he wheezed. "What are you
thinking of? We can't fight humans alone!"

"We've got Pion. And this is a pretty good ax."

"Oh, that's really going to scare them. A stone
ax. If you had two axes I expect they'd give in
right away."

• 153 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

Angalo swung it backward and forward. It had
a comforting feel.

"You've got to try," he said simply. "Come on,
Pion. What are you watching? Geese?"

Pion was staring at the sky.

"There's a dot up there," said Gurder, squint-
ing.

"It's probably a bird," said Angalo.

"Doesn't look like a bird."

"Then it's a plane."

"Doesn't look like a plane."

Now all three of them were staring upward,
their upturned faces forming a triangle.

There was a black dot up there.

"You don't think he actually managed it, do
you?" said Angalo, uncertainly.

What had been a dot was now a small dark cir-
cle.

"It's not moving, though," said Gurder.

"It's not moving sideways, anyway," said An-
galo, 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!"

• 154 '

WINGS

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 desper-
ate. "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 a bottom, with edges
around the sides. It didn't make any noise, but it
seemed 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

• 155 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

new word. It wasn't dropping through the thin
wisps of cloud up there, it was simply pushing
them aside. Just when you thought you'd got some
idea of the size, a cloud would stream past and the
perspective would come back. There had to be 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't want 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!"

• 156 '

WINGS

"I've been very busy lately. I can't think of every-
thing. Just nearly everything."

"Just don't squash anyone!"

"/ 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 shoul-
der.

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?"

"/ strongly advise against it! It could be very danger-
ous!"

Masklin clenched his fists. "Compared to what,
Thing? Compared to what? How much more dan-

• 157 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

gerous than not communicating, Thing? Do it!
Right now! Tell him . . . tell him we're not try-
ing to hurt any humans! Right now! I can see his
hand moving already! Do it!" He held the box
right up to 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.

"/ 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 you could explode!"

"/ 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 it met its own shadow. Beside
it, the tower where the shuttle had been launched
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!"

• 158 '

WINGS

"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. Per-
haps he was dead, and this was wherever you went
afterward.

It seemed pretty much like where he'd been be-
fore.

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.

• 159 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

No, he probably hadn't died. He'd have remem-
bered 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

• 160 '

WINGS

touched metal. Crouching a little, he risked turn-
ing 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 aw-
ful lot of humans to surround something the size
of the Ship. So they were just surrounding it in
places.

More trucks were arriving, many of them with
sirens blaring. Grandson Richard, 39, had been
left standing by himself, watching his own shoul-
der nervously.

"Besides, we owe him something," said Masklin.
"We used his satellite. And we stole things."

"You said you wanted to do it your way. No help from
humans, you said," said the Thing.

"It's different now. There is the Ship," said
Masklin. "We've made it. We're not begging any-
more."

"May I point out that you're sitting on his shoulder,
not him on yours," said the Thing.

"Never mind that," said Masklin. "Tell it—1
mean, ask him to walk toward the Ship. And say

• 161 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

'please.' And say that we don't want anyone to get
hurt. Including me," he added.

Grandson Richard's reply seemed to take a long
time. But he did start to walk toward the crowds
around the Ship.

"What did he say?" said Masklin, hanging on
tightly to the sweater.

"/ don \ believe it, " said the Thing.

"He doesn't believe me?"

"He said his grandfather always talked about the lit-
tle people, but he never believed it until now. He said,
Are you like the ones in the old Store?"

Masklin's mouth dropped open. Grandson Rich-
ard, 39, was watching him intently.

"Tell him yes," Masklin croaked.

"Very well. But I do not think it'll be a good idea."

The Thing boomed. Grandson Richard rum-
bled a reply.

"He says his grandfather made jokes about little people
in the Store," said the Thing. "He used to say they
brought him luck."

Masklin felt the horrible sensation in his stom-
ach that meant the world was changing again, just
when he thought he understood it.

"Did his grandfather ever see a nome?" he said.

"He says no. But he says that when his grandfather
and his grandfather's brother were starting the Store,
and stayed late every night to do the office work, they
used to hear sounds in the walls and they used to tell each
other there were little Store people. It was a sort of joke.

• 162 '

WINGS

He says that when he was small, bis grandfather used to
tell him about little people who came out at night to play
with the toys."

"But the Store nomes never did things like
that!" said Masklin.

"/ didn 't say the stories were true."

The Ship was a lot closer now. There didn't
seem to be any doors or windows anywhere. It
was as featureless as an egg.

Masklin's mind was in turmoil. He'd always be-
lieved that humans were quite intelligent. After
all, nomes were very intelligent. Rats were quite
intelligent. And foxes were intelligent, more or
less. There ought to be enough intelligence slosh-
ing around in the world for humans to have some
too. But this was something more than intelli-
gence.

He remembered a book called Gulliver's Travels.
It had been a big surprise to the nomes. There had
never been an island of small people. He was cer-
tain of that. It was a—a—a made-up thing. There
had been lots of books in the Store that were like
that. They'd caused no end of problems for the
nomes. For some reason, humans needed things
that weren't true.

They never really thought nomes existed, he
thought, but they wanted to believe that we did.

"Tell him," he said, "tell him I must get into the
Ship."

• 163 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

Grandson Richard, 39, whispered. It was like
listening to a gale.

"He says there are too many people."

"Why are all the humans around it?" said Mas-
klin, bewildered. "Why aren't they frightened?"

Grandson Richard's reply was another gale.

"He says they think some creatures from another
world will come out and talk to them."

"Why?"

"/ don't know," said the Thing. "Perhaps they don Y
want to be alone."

"But there's no one in it! It's our Ship—" Mas-
klin began.

There was a wail. The crowd put their hands
over their ears.

Lights appeared on the darkness of the Ship.
They twinkled all over the hull in patterns that
raced backward and forward and disappeared.
There was another wail.

"There isn't anyone in it, is there?" said Mas-
klin. "No nomes were left on it in hibernation or
anything?"

High up on the Ship a square hole opened.
There was a whiffling noise and a beam of red
light shot out and set fire to a patch of scrub sev-
eral hundred yards away.

People started to run.

The Ship rose a few feet, wobbling alarmingly.
It drifted sideways a little. Then it went straight
up so fast that it was just a blur and jerked to a

• 164 •

WINGS

halt high over the crowd. And then it turned over.
And then it went on its edge for a while.

It floated back down again and landed, more or
less. That is, one side touched the ground and the
other rested on the air, on nothing.

The Ship spoke, loudly.

To the humans it must have sounded like a high-
pitched chattering.

What it actually said was: "Sorry! Sorry! Is this
a microphone? Can't find the button that opens
the door. . . . Let's try this one. . . ."

Another square hole opened. Brilliant blue light
flooded out.

The voice boomed out across the country again.

"Got it!" There was the distorted thud-thud of
someone not certain if their microphone was
working, and tapping it experimentally. "Masklin,
are you out there?"

"That's Angalo!" said Masklin. "No one else
drives like that! Thing, tell Grandson Richard, 39,
I must get on the Ship! Please!"

The human nodded.

Humans were milling around the base of the
Ship. The doorway was too high up for them to
reach.

With Masklin hanging on grimly, Grandson
Richard, 39, pushed his way through the throng.

The ship wailed again.

"Er," came Angalo's hugely amplified voice, ap-
parently talking to someone else, "I'm not sure

• 165 -

TERRY PRATCHETT               I

about this switch, but maybe it's. . . . Certainly
I'm going to press it, why shouldn't I press it? It's
next to the door one, it must be safe. Look, shut
up. . . ."

A silver ramp wound out of the doorway. It
looked big enough for humans.

"See? See?" said Angalo's voice.

"Thing, can you speak to Angalo?" said Mas-
klin. "Can you tell him I'm out here, trying to get
to the Ship?"

'Wo. He appears to be randomly pressing buttons. It is
to be hoped that he does not press the wrong ones."

"I thought you could tell the Ship what to do!"
said Masklin.

The Thing managed to sound shocked. "Not
when a nome is in it," it said. "7 can't tell it not to do
•what a nome tells it to do. That's what being a machine
is all about."

Grandson Richard, 39, was shoving his way
through the pushing, shouting mass of humans,
but it was hard going.

Masklin sighed.

"Ask Grandson Richard, 39, to put me down,"
he said. Then he added, "And say thank you. Say
it ... it would have been nice to talk more."

The Thing did the translation.

Grandson Richard, 39, looked surprised. The
Thing spoke again. Then he reached up a hand
toward Masklin.

If he had to make a list of terrifying moments,

• 166 -

WINGS

Masklin would have put this one at the top. He'd
faced foxes, he'd helped to drive the Truck, he'd
flown on a goose—but none of them were half so
bad as letting a human being actually touch him.
The huge whorled fingers uncurled and passed on
either side of his waist. He shut his eyes.

Angalo's booming voice said, "Masklin? Mas-
klin? If anything bad's happened to you, there's
going to be trouble."

Grandson Richard's finger gripped Masklin
lightly, as though the human was holding some-
thing very fragile. Masklin felt himself being
slowly lowered toward the ground.

He opened his eyes. There was a forest of hu-
man legs around him.

He looked up into Grandson Richard's huge
face, and trying to make his voice as deep and slow
as possible, said the last word any nome said to
any human:

"Good-bye."

Then he ran through the maze of feet.

Several humans with official-looking trousers
and big boots were standing at the bottom of the
ramp. Masklin scurried between them and ran on
upward.

Ahead of him blue light shone out of the open
hatchway. As he ran he saw two dots appear on
the lip of the entrance.

The ramp was long. Masklin hadn't slept for
hours. He wished he'd got some sleep on the bed

• 167 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

when the humans were studying; it had looked
quite comfortable.

Suddenly, all his legs wanted to do was go some-
where close and lie down.

He staggered to the top of the ramp and the dots
became the heads of Gurder and Pion. They
reached out and pulled him into the Ship.

He turned around and looked down into a sea of
human faces, below him. He'd never looked down
on a human before.

They probably couldn't even see him. They're
waiting for the little green men, he thought.

"Are you all right?" said Gurder urgently. "Did
they do anything to you?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," murmured Masklin. "No
one hurt me."

"You look dreadful."

"We should have talked to them, Gurder," said
Masklin. "They need us."

"Are you sure you're all right?" said Gurder,
peering anxiously at him.

Masklin's head felt full of cotton wool. "You
know how you believed in Arnold Bros. (est.
1905)?" he managed to say.

"Yes," said Gurder.

Masklin gave him a mad, triumphant grin.

"Well, he believed in you too! How about that?

And Masklin folded up, very gently.

168

The Ship: The machine used by nomes to leave
Earth. We don't yet know everything about it, but
since it was built by nomes using Science, we will.
—From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

The ramp wound in. The doorway shut. The Ship
rose in the air until it was high above the build-
ings.

And it stayed there, while the sun set.
The humans below tried shining colored lights
at it, and playing tunes at it, and eventually just
speaking to it in every language known to hu-
mans.
It didn't seem to take any notice.

Masklin woke up.

He was on a very uncomfortable bed. It was all
soft. He hated lying on anything softer than the

• 169 '

TERRY PBATCHETT

ground. The Store nomes liked sleeping on fancy
bits of carpet, but Masklin's bed had been a bit of
wood. He'd used a piece of rag for a cover and
thought that was luxury.

He sat up and looked around the room. It was
fairly empty. There was just the bed, a table, and a
chair.

A table and a chair.

In the Store, the nomes had made their furni-
ture out of matchboxes and cotton reels; the
nomes living Outside didn't even know what fur-
niture was.

This looked rather like human furniture, but it
was nome-sized.

Masklin got up and padded across the metal
floor to the door. Nome-sized, again. A doorway
made by nomes for nomes to walk through.

It led into a corridor, lined with doors. There
was an old feel about it. It wasn't dirty or dusty. It
just felt like somewhere that had been absolutely
clean for a very, very long time.

Something purred toward him. It was a small
black box, rather like the Thing, mounted on little
treads. A little revolving brush on the front was
sweeping dust into a slot. At least, if there had
been any dust it would have been sweeping it.
Masklin wondered how many times it had indus-
triously cleaned this corridor, while it waited for
nomes to come back.

It bumped into his foot, beeped at him, and then

• 170 -

WINGS

bustled off in the opposite direction. Masklin fol-
lowed it.

After a while he passed another one. It was
moving along the ceiling with a faint clicking
noise, cleaning it.

He turned the corner, and almost walked into
Gurder.

"You're up!"

"Yes," said Masklin. "Er. We're on the Ship,

right?

"It's amazing . . . !" Gurder began. He looked
wild-eyed, and his hair was sticking up at all an-
gles.

"I'm sure it is," said Masklin reassuringly.

"But there's all these . . . and there's great big
. . . and there are these huge . . . and you'd
never believe how wide . . . and there's so
much . . ." Gurder's voice trailed off. He looked
like a nome who would have to learn new words
before he could describe things.

"It's too big!" he blurted out. He grabbed Mas-
klin's arm.

"Come on," he said, and half ran along the cor-
ridor.

"How did you get on?" said Masklin, trying to
keep up.

"It was amazing! Angalo touched this panel
thing and it just moved aside and then we were
inside and there was an elevator thing and then
we were in this great big room with a seat and

• 171 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

Angalo sat down and all these lights came on and
he started pressing buttons and moving things!"

"Didn't you try to stop him?"

Gurder rolled his eyes. "You know Angalo and
machines," he said. "But the Thing is trying to get
him to be sensible. Otherwise we'd be crashing
into stars by now," he added gloomily.

He led the way through another arch into—
well, it had to be a room. It was inside the Ship. It
was just as well he knew that, Masklin thought,
because otherwise he'd think it was Outside. It
stretched away, as big as one of the departments in
the Store.

Vast screens and complicated-looking panels
covered the walls. Most of them were dark. Shad-
owy gloom stretched away in every direction, ex-
cept for a little puddle of light in the very center
of the room.

It illuminated Angalo in a big padded chair. He
had the Thing in front of him, on a sloping metal
board studded with switches. He had obviously
been arguing with it. When Masklin walked up,
he glared at him and said, "It won't do what I tell
it!"

The Thing looked as small and black and square
as it could.

"He wants to drive the Ship," it said.

"You're a machine! You have to do what you're
told!" snapped Angalo.

"I'm an intelligent machine, and I don't want to end

• 172 •

WINGS

up very flat at the bottom of a deep hole," said the
Thing. "You can't pilot the Ship yet."

"How do you know? You won't let me try! I
drove the Truck, didn't I? It wasn't my fault all
those trees and streetlights and things got in the
way," he added, after catching Masklin's eye.

"I expect the Ship is more difficult," said Mas-
klin diplomatically.

"But I'm learning about it all the time," said
Angalo. "It's easy. All the buttons have got little
pictures on them. Look . . ."
He pressed a button.

One of the big screens lit up, showing the
crowds outside the Ship.

"They've been waiting there for ages," said
Gurder.

"What do they want?" said Angalo.
"Search me," said Gurder. "Who knows what
humans want?"

Masklin stared at the throng below the ship.
"They've been trying all sorts of stuff," said An-
galo. "Flashing lights and music and stuff like
that. And radio, too, the Thing says."

"Haven't you tried talking back to them?" said
Masklin.

"No. Haven't got anything to say." said Angalo.
He rapped on the Thing with his knuckles.
"Right, Mr. Clever? If I'm not going to do the
driving, who is?"

"Me."

173

TERRY PRATCHETT

"How?"

"There is a slot by the seat."

"I see it. It's the same size as you."

"Put me in it."

Angalo shrugged, and picked up the Thing. It
slid smoothly into the floor until only the top of it
was showing.

"Look, er," said Angalo, "can't I do something?
Operate the windshield wipers or something? I'd
feel like a twerp sitting here doing nothing."

The Thing didn't seem to hear him. Its light
flickered on and off for a moment, as if it were
making itself comfortable in a mechanical kind of
way. Then it said, in a much deeper voice than it
had ever used before:

"RIGHT."

Lights came on all over the Ship. They spread
out from the Thing like a tide; panels lit up like
little skies full of stars, big lights in the ceiling
flickered on, there was a distant banging and fiz-
zing as electricity was woken up, and the air be-
gan to smell of thunderstorms.

"It's like the Store at Christmas Fayre," said
Gurder.

"Science!" breathed Angalo.

"ALL SYSTEMS IN WORKING ORDER,"
boomed the Thing. "NAME OUR DESTINATION."

"What?" said Masklin. "And don't shout."

"Where are we going?" said the Thing. "You have to
name our destination."

• 174 '

WINGS

"It's got a name already. It's called the quarry,
isn't it?" said Masklin.

"Where is it?" said the Thing.

"It's . . ." Masklin waved an arm vaguely.
"Well, it's over that way somewhere."

"Which way?"

"How should I know? How many ways are
there?"

"Thing, are you telling us you don't know the
way back to the quarry?" said Gurder.

"That is correct."

"We're lost?"

'Wo. I know exactly what planet ise^re on," said the
Thing.

"We can't be lost," said Gurder. "We're here. We
know where we are. We just don't know where we
aren't."

"Can't you find the quarry if you go up high
enough?" said Angalo. "You ought to be able to see
it, if you go up high enough."

"Very well."

"Can I do it?" said Angalo. "Please?"

"Press down with your left foot and pull back on the
green lever, then," said the Thing.

There wasn't so much a noise as a change in the
type of silence. Masklin thought he felt heavy for a
moment, but then the sensation passed.

The picture in the screen got smaller.

"Now, this is what I call proper flying," said

• 175 '

TERBY PRATCHETT

Angalo, happily. "With real Science. No noise and
none of that stupid flapping."

"Yes, where's Pion?" said Masklin.

"He wandered off," said Gurder. "I think he
was going to get something to eat."

"On a machine that no nome has been on for
fifteen thousand years?" said Masklin.

Gurder shrugged. "Well, maybe there's some-
thing at the back of a cupboard somewhere," he
said. "I want a word with you, Masklin."

"Yes?"

Gurder moved closely and glanced over his
shoulder at Angalo, who was lying back in the
control seat with a look of dreamy contentment on
his face.

He lowered his voice.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he said. "I know
it's a dreadful thing to say, after all we've been
through. But this isn't just our Ship. It belongs to
all nomes, everywhere."

He looked relieved when Masklin nodded.

"A year ago you didn't even believe there were
any other nomes anywhere," Masklin said.

Gurder looked sheepish. "Yes. Well. That was
then. This is now. I don't know what I believe in
anymore, except that there must be thousands of
nomes out there we don't know about. There
might even be other nomes living in Stores! We're
just the lucky ones who had the Thing. So if we

• 176 •

WINGS

take the Ship away, there won't be any hope for
them."

"I know, I know," said Masklin wretchedly.
"But what can we do? We need the Ship right now.
Anyway, how could we find these other nomes?"

"We've got the Ship!" said Gurder.

Masklin waved a hand at the screen, where the
landscape was spreading out and becoming misty.

"It'd take forever to find nomes down there. You
couldn't do it even with the Ship. You'd have to be
on the ground. Nomes keep hidden! You nomes in
the Store didn't know about my people, and we
lived a few miles away. We'd never have found
Pion's people except by accident. Besides"—he
couldn't resist prodding Gurder gently—"there's
a bigger problem too. You know what we nomes
are like. Those other nomes probably wouldn't
even believe in the Ship."

He was immediately sorry he'd said that.
Gurder looked more unhappy than he'd ever seen
him.

"That's true," the Abbot said. "I wouldn't have
believed it. I'm not sure I believe it now, and I'm
in it."

"Maybe, when we've found somewhere to live,
we can send the Ship back and collect any other
nomes we can find," Masklin hazarded. "I'm sure
Angalo would enjoy that."

Gurder's shoulders began to shake. For a mo-
ment Masklin thought the nome was laughing,

• 177 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

and then he saw the tears rolling down the Ab-
bot's face.

"Um," he said, not knowing what else to say.

Gurder turned away. "I'm sorry," he muttered.
"It's just that there's so much . . . changing.
Why can't things stay the same for five minutes?
Every time I get the hang of an idea it suddenly
turns into something different and / turn into a
fool! All I want is something real to believe in!
Where's the harm in that?"

"I think you just have to have a flexible mind,"
said Masklin, knowing even as he said the words
that this probably wasn't going to be a lot of help.

"Flexible? Flexible? My mind's got so flexible I
could pull it out of my ears and tie it under my
chin!" snapped Gurder. "And it hasn't done me a
whole lot of good, let me tell you! I'd have done
better just believing everything I was taught when
I was young! At least I'd be wrong only once! This
way I'm wrong all the time!"

He stamped away down one of the corridors.

Masklin watched him go.

Not for the first time, he wished he believed in
something as much as Gurder did so he could
complain to it about his life. He even wished he
were back, yes, back in the hole. It hadn't been too
bad, apart from people being cold and wet and
getting eaten all the time. But at least he'd been
with Grimma. They would have been cold and

• 178 '

WINGS

wet and hungry together. He wouldn't have been
so lonely. . . .

There was a movement by him. It turned out to
be Pion, holding a tray of what had to be ...
fruit, Masklin decided. He put aside being lonely
for a moment, and realized that hunger had been
waiting for an opportunity to make itself felt.
He'd never seen fruit that shape and color.

He took a slice from the proffered tray. It tasted
like a nutty lemon.

"It's kept well, considering," he said, weakly.
"Where did you get it?"

It turned out to come from a machine in a
nearby corridor. It looked fairly simple. There
were hundreds of pictures of different sorts of
food. If you touched a picture, there was a brief
humming noise and then the real food dropped
onto a tray in a slot. Masklin tried pictures at ran-
dom, and got several different sorts of fruit, a
squeaky green vegetable thing, and a piece of meat
that tasted rather like smoked salmon.

"I wonder how it does it?" he said aloud.

A voice from the wall beside him said: "Would
you understand if I told you about molecular breakdown
and reassembly from a wide range of raw materials?"

"No," said Masklin, truthfully.

"Then it's all done by Science."

"Oh. Well, that's all right, then. That is you,
Thing, isn't it?"

"Yes."

' 179 '

TEBBY PRATCHETT

Chewing on the fish-meat, Masklin wandered
back to the control room and offered some of the
food to Angalo. The big screen was showing noth-
ing but clouds.

"Won't see any quarry in all this," he said.

Angalo pulled one of the levers back a bit.
There was that brief feeling of extra weight again.

They stared at the screen.

"Wow," said Angalo.

"That looks familiar," said Masklin. He patted
his clothes until he found the folded, crumpled
map they'd brought all the way from the Store.

He spread it out, and glanced from it to the
screen.

The screen showed a disc, made up mainly of
different shades of blue and wispy bits of cloud.

"Any idea what it is?" said Angalo.

"No, but I know what some of the bits are
called," said Masklin. "That one that's thick at the
top and thin at the bottom is called South Amer-
ica. Look, it's just like it is on the map. Only it
should have the words 'South America' written on
it."

"Still can't see the quarry, though," said An-
galo.

Masklin looked at the image in front of them.
South America. Grimma had talked about South
America, hadn't she? That's where the frogs lived
in flowers. She'd said that once you knew about

• 180 •

WINGS

things like frogs living in flowers, you weren't the
same person.

He was beginning to see what she meant.

"Never mind about the quarry for now," he
said. "The quarry can wait."

"We should get there as soon as possible, for every-
body 's sake," said the Thing.

Masklin thought about this for a while. It was
true, he had to admit. All kinds of things might be
happening back home. He had to get the Ship
back quickly, for everybody's sake.

And then he thought: I've spent a long time do-
ing things for everybody's sake.

Just for once, I'm going to do something for me.

I don't think we can find other nomes with this
Ship, but at least I know where to look for frogs.

"Thing," he said, "take us to South America—
and don't argue."

181

Frogs: Some people think that knowing about frogs
is important. They are small and green, or yellow,
and have four legs. They croak. Young frogs are
tadpoles. In my opinion, this is all there is to know
about frogs.

—From A Scientific Encyclopedia/or the Enquiring
Young Nome by Angalo de Haberdasheri.

Find a blue planet . . . Focus.

This is a planet. Most of it is covered with wa-
ter, but it's still called Earth.

Find a country. . . . Focus. . . . Blues and
greens and browns under the sun, and long wisps
of rain cloud being torn by the mountains. . . .
Focus ... on a mountain, green and dripping,
and there's a ... focus . . . tree, hung with moss
and covered with flowers, and . . . focus ... on
a flower with a little pool in it, is an epiphytic
bromeliad.

• 182 '

WINGS

Its leaves, although they might be petals, hardly
quiver at all as three very small and very golden
frogs pull themselves up and gaze in astonishment
at the fresh, clear water. Two of them look at their
leader, waiting for it to say something suitable for
this historic occasion.

It's going to say . . . mipmip. . . .

And then they slide down the leaf and into the
water.

Although the frogs can spot the difference be-
tween day and night, they're a bit hazy on the
whole idea of time. They know that some things
happen after other things. Really intelligent frogs
might wonder if there is something that prevents
everything happening all at once, but that's about
as close as they can get to it.

So how long it was before a strange night came
in the middle of the day is hard to tell, from a frog
point of view.

A wide black shadow drifted over the treetops,
and came to a halt. After a while there were
voices. The frogs could hear them, although they
didn't know what they meant or even what they
were. They didn't sound like the kind of voices
frogs were used to.

What they heard went like this:

"How many mountains are there, anyway? I
mean, it's ridiculous! Who needs this many moun-
tains? I call it inefficient. One would have done.

• 183 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

I'll go mad if I see another mountain. How many
more have we got to search?"

"I like them."

"And some of the trees are the wrong height."

"I like them, too, Gurder."

"And I don't trust Angalo doing the driving."

"I think he's getting better, Gurder."

"Well, I just hope no more airplanes come flying
around, that's all."

Gurder and Masklin swung in a crude basket
made out of bits of metal and wire. It hung from a
square hatchway under the Ship.

There were still huge rooms in the Ship that
they hadn't explored yet. Odd machines were ev-
erywhere. The Thing had said the Ship had been
used for exploring.

Masklin hadn't quite trusted any of it. There
probably were machines that could have lowered
and pulled up the basket easily, but he'd preferred
to loop the wire around a pillar inside the Ship,
and with Pion helping inside, to pull themselves
up and down by sheer nomish effort.

The basket bumped gently on the tree branch.

The trouble was that humans wouldn't leave
them alone. No sooner had they found a likely
looking mountain than airplanes or helicopters
would buzz around, like insects around an eagle. It
was distracting.

Masklin looked along the branch. Gurder was
right. This would have to be the last mountain.

• 184 -

WINGS

But there certainly were flowers here.

He crawled along the branch until he reached
the nearest flower. It was three times as high as he
was. He found a foothold and pulled himself up.

There was a pool in there. Six little yellow eyes
peered up at him.

Masklin stared back.

So it was true, after all.

He wondered if there was anything he should
say to them, if there was anything they could pos-
sibly understand.

It was quite a long branch, and quite thick. But
there were tools and things in the Ship. They
could let down extra wires to hold the branch and
winch it up when it was cut free. It would take
some time, but that didn't matter. It was impor-
tant.

The Thing had said there were ways of growing
plants under lights the same color as the sun, in
pots full of a sort of weak soup that helped plants
grow. It should be the easiest thing to keep a
branch alive. The easiest thing in the world.

If they did everything carefully and gently, the
frogs would never know.

If the world was a bathtub, the progress of the
Ship through it would be like the soap, shooting
backward and forward and never being where
anyone expected it to be. You could spot where it

• 185 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

had just been by airplanes and helicopters taking
off in a hurry.

Or maybe it was like the ball in a roulette
wheel, bouncing around and looking for the right
number.

Or maybe it was just lost.

They searched all night. If there was a night. It
was hard to tell. The Thing tried to explain that
the Ship went faster than the sun, although the
sun actually stood still. Some parts of the world
had night while other parts had day. This, Gurder
said, was bad organization.

"In the Store," he said, "it was always dark
when it should be. Even if it was just somewhere
built by humans." It was the first time they'd
heard him admit the Store was built by humans.

There didn't seem to be anywhere that looked
familiar.

Masklin scratched his chin.

"The Store was in a place called Blackbury," he
said. "I know that much. So the quarry couldn't
have been far away."

Angalo waved his hand irritably at the screens.

"Yes, but it's not like the map," he said. "They
don't stick names on places! It's ridiculous! How's
anyone supposed to know where anywhere is?"

"All right," said Masklin. "But you're not to fly
down low again to try to read the signposts. Every

• 186 -

WINGS

time you do that, humans rush out into the streets
and we get lots of shouting on the radio."

"That's right," said the Thing. "People are bound to
get excited when they see a ten-million-ton starship try-
ing to fly down the street."

"I was very careful last time," said Angalo
stoutly. "I even stopped when the traffic lights
went red. I don't see why there was such a fuss.
All the trucks and cars started crashing into one
another too. And you call me a bad driver."

Gurder turned to Pion, who was learning the
language fast. The geese nomes did. They were
used to meeting nomes who spoke other lan-
guages.

"Your geese never got lost," he said. "How did
they manage it?"

"They just did not get lost," said Pion. "They
knew always where they going."

"It can be like that with animals," said Masklin.
"They've got instincts. It's like knowing things
without knowing you know them."

"I don't know," said Gurder. "Why doesn't the
Thing know? It could find Floridia, so somewhere
important like Blackbury ought to be no trouble."

"I can find no radio messages about Blackbury. There
are plenty about Florida," said the Thing.

"At least land somewhere," said Gurder. Angalo
pressed a couple of buttons.

"There's just sea under us right now," he said.
"And—what's that?"

• 187 '

TERRY PRATCHETT

Below the Ship and a long way off, something
tiny and white skimmed over the clouds.

"Could be goose," said Pion.

"I ... don't . . . think . . . so," said Angalo
carefully. He twiddled a knob. "I'm really learn-
ing about this stuff," he said.

The picture of the screen flickered a bit, and
then expanded.

There was a white dart sliding across the sky.

"Is it the Concorde?" said Gurder.

"Yes," said Angalo.

"It's going a bit slow, isn't it?"

"Only compared to us," said Angalo.

"Follow it," said Masklin.

"We don't know where it's going," said Angalo,
in a reasonable tone of voice.

"I do," said Masklin. "You looked out the win-
dow when we were on the Concorde. We were
going toward the sun."

"Yes. It was setting," said Angalo. "Well?"

"It's morning now. It's going toward the sun
again," Masklin pointed out.

"Well? What about it?"

"It means it's going home."

Angalo bit his lip while he worked this out.

"I don't see why the sun has to rise and set in
different places," said Gurder, who refused even
to try to understand basic astronomy.

"Going home," said Angalo, ignoring him.
"Right. I see it. So we go with it, yes?"

• 188 •

WINGS

"Yes."

Angalo ran his hands over the Ship's controls.
"Right," he said. "Here we go. I expect the Con-
corde drivers will probably be quite pleased to

have some company up here."

The Ship drew level with the plane.

"It's moving around a lot," said Angalo. "And
it's starting to go faster too."

"I think they may be worried about the Ship,"
said Masklin.

"Can't see why," said Angalo. "Can't see why at
all. We're not doing anything except following
them."

"I wish we had some proper windows," said
Gurder, wistfully. "We could wave."

"Have humans ever seen a Ship like this be-
fore?" Angalo asked the Thing.

"No. But they 've made up stories about ships coming
from other worlds."

"Yes, they'd do that," said Masklin, half to him-
self. "That's just the sort of thing they'd do."

"Sometimes they say the ships will contain friendly
people—"

"That's us," said Angalo.

"And sometimes they say they will contain monsters
with wavy tentacles and big teeth."

The nomes looked at one another.

Gurder cast an apprehensive eye over his shoul-
der.

• 189 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

Then they all stared at the passages that radi-
ated off the control room.

"Like alligators?" said Masklin.

"Worse."

"Er," Gurder said, "We did look in all the
rooms, didn't we?"

"It's something they made up, Gurder. It's not
real," said Masklin.

"Whoever would want to make up something
like that?"

"Humans would," said Masklin.

"Huh," said Angalo, nonchalantly trying to
swivel around in the chair in case any tentacled
things with teeth were trying to creep up on him.
"I can't see why."

"I think I can. I've been thinking about humans
a lot."

"Can't the Thing send a message to the Con-
corde drivers?" said Gurder. "Something like
'Don't worry, we haven't got any teeth and tenta-
cles, guaranteed'?"

"They probably wouldn't believe us," said An-
galo. "If/had teeth and tentacles all over the place
that's just the sort of message I'd send. Cunning."

The Concorde screamed across the top of the
sky, breaking the transatlantic record. The Ship
drifted along behind it.

"I reckon," said Angalo, looking down, "that
humans are just about intelligent enough to be
crazy."

• 190 •

WINGS

"I think," said Masklin, "that maybe they're in-
telligent enough to be lonely."

The plane touched down with its tires scream-
ing. Fire engines raced across the airport, and
there were other vehicles behind them.

The great black ship shot over them, turned
across the sky like a Frisbee, and slowed.

"There's the reservoir!" said Gurder. "Right un-
der us! And that's the railway line! And that's the
quarry! It's still there!"

"Of course it's still there, idiot," muttered An-
galo as he headed the Ship toward the hills, which
were patchy with melting snow.

"Some of it," said Masklin.

A pall of black smoke hung over the quarry. As
they got closer, they saw it was rising from a
burning truck. There were more trucks around it,
and also several humans, who started to run when
they saw the shadow of the Ship.

"Lonely, eh?" snarled Angalo. "If they've hurt a
single nome, they'll wish they'd never been born!"

"If they've hurt a single nome, they'll wish Fd
never been born," said Masklin. "But I don't think
anyone's down there. They wouldn't hang around
if the humans came. And who set fire to the
truck?"

"Yay!" said Angalo, waving a fist in the air.

Masklin scanned the landscape below them.
Somehow he couldn't imagine people like

• 191 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

Grimma and Dorcas sitting in holes, waiting for
humans to take over. Trucks didn't just set fire to
themselves. A couple of buildings looked damaged
too. Humans wouldn't have done that, would
they?

He stared at the field by the quarry. The gate
had been smashed, and a pair of wide tracks led
through the slush and mud.

"I think they got away in another truck," he
said.

"What do you mean, yayy said Gurder, lagging
a bit behind the conversation.

"Across the fields?" said Angalo. "It'd get stuck,
wouldn't it?"

Masklin shook his head. Perhaps even a nome
could have instincts. "Follow the tracks," he said
urgently. "And quickly!"

"Quickly? Quickly? Do you know how difficult it
is to make this thing go slow?" Angalo nudged a
lever. The Ship lurched up the hillside, straining
at the indignity of restraint.

They'd been up here before, on foot, months
ago. It was hard to believe.

The hills were quite flat on the top, forming a
kind of plateau overlooking the airport. There was
the field where there had been potatoes. There
was the thicket where they'd hunted, and the
wood where they'd killed a fox for eating nomes.

And there . . . there was something small and
yellow, rolling across the fields.

• 192 -

WINGS

Angalo craned forward.

"Looks like some kind of a machine," he admit-
ted, fumbling for levers without taking his eyes off
the screen. "Weird kind of one, though."

There were other things moving on the roads
down there. They had flashing lights on top.

"Those cars are chasing it, do you think?" said
Angalo.

"Maybe they want to talk to it about a burning
truck," said Masklin. "Can you get to it before
they do?"

Angalo narrowed his eyes. "Listen, I think we
can get to it before they do even if we go via
Floridia." He found another lever and gave it a
nudge.

There was the briefest flicker in the landscape,
and the truck was now right in front of them.

"See?" he said.

"Move in more," said Masklin.

Angalo pressed a button.

"See, the screen can show you below—" he be-
gan.

"There's nomes!" said Gurder.

"Yeah, and those cars are running away!"
shouted Angalo. "That's it, run away! Otherwise
it's teeth and tentacles time!"

"So long as the nomes don't think that too," said
Gurder. "Masklin, do you think—"

Once again, Masklin wasn't there.

193

TERRY PRATCHETT

I should have thought about this before, he
thought.

The piece of branch was thirty times longer
than a nome. They'd been keeping it under lights,
and it seemed to be growing quite happily with
one end in a pot of special plant water. The nomes
who had once flown in the Ship had grown lots of
plants that way.

Pion helped him drag the pot toward the hatch.
The frogs watched Masklin with interest.

When it was positioned as well as the two of
them could manage, Masklin let the hatch open. It
wasn't one that slid aside. The ancient nomes had
used it as some kind of elevator, but it didn't have
wires—it went up and down by some force as
mysterious as auntie's gravy or whatever that was.

It dropped away. Masklin looked down and saw
the yellow truck roll to a halt.

When he straightened up, Pion was giving him
a puzzled look.

"Flower is a message?" said the boy.

"Yes. Kind of."

"Not using words?"

"No," said Masklin.

"Why not?"

Masklin shrugged.

"Don't know how to say them."

It nearly ends there. . . .
But it shouldn't end there.

• 194 '

WINGS

Nomes swarmed all over the Ship. If there were
any monsters with tentacles and teeth, they'd have
been overwhelmed by sheer force of nome.

Young nomes filled the control room, where
they were industriously trying to press buttons.
Dorcas and his trainee engineers had disappeared
in search of the Ship's engines. Voices and laugh-
ter echoed along the gray corridors.

Masklin and Grimma sat by themselves, watch-
ing the frogs in their flower.

"I had to see if it was true," said Masklin.

"The most wonderful thing in the world," said
Grimma. "You know, a bromeliad looks quite dif-
ferent from what I expected."

"No. I think there are probably much more
wonderful things in the world," said Masklin.
"But it's pretty good, all the same."

Grimma told him about events in the quarry,
the fight with the humans, and the stealing of the
Cat to escape. Her eyes gleamed when she talked
about fighting humans. Masklin looked at her with
his mouth open in admiration. She was muddy,
her dress was torn, her hair looked like it had been
combed with a hedge, but she crackled with so
much internal energy that she nearly was throw-
ing off sparks. It's a good thing we got here in
time, he thought. Humans ought to thank me.

"What are we going to do now?" she said.

"I don't know," said Masklin. "Try to find

• 195 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

home, I suppose. Or a home. According to the
Thing, there's lots of worlds out there with nomes
on them. Just nomes, I mean. Or we can find one
all to ourselves. A new home. That might be even
better."

"You know," said Grimma, "I think the Store
nomes would be happier just staying on the Ship.
That's why they like it so much. It's like being in
the Store. All the Outside is outside."

"Then I'd better go along to make sure they re-
member that there is an Outside. It's sort of my
job, I suppose," said Masklin. "And, when we've
found somewhere, I want to bring the Ship back."

"Why? What'll be here?" said Grimma.

"Other nomes."

"Oh, yes," said Grimma.

"And humans," said Masklin. "We should talk
to them."

"What?"

"They really want to believe in ... I mean,
they spend all their time making up stories about
things that don't exist. They think it's just them-
selves in the world. We never thought like that. We
always knew there were humans. They're terribly
lonely and don't know it." He waved his hands
vaguely. "It's just that I think we might get along
with them," he finished.

"They'd turn us into pixies!"

"Not if we come back in the Ship. If there's one

• 196 '

WINGS

thing even humans can tell, it's that the Ship isn't
very pixieish."

Grimma reached out and took his hand.

"Well ... if that's what you really want to
do."

"It is."

"I'll come back with you."

There was a sound behind them. It was Gurder.
The Abbot had a bag slung around his neck and
had the drawn, determined look of someone who
is going to See It Through no matter what.

"Er. I've come to say good-bye," he said.

"What do you mean?" said Masklin.

"I heard you say you're coming back in the
Ship?"

"Yes, but—"

"Please don't argue." Gurder looked around.
"I've been thinking about this ever since we got
on the Ship. There are other nomes out there.
Someone ought to tell them about the Ship coming
back. We can't take them now, but someone ought
to find all the other nomes in the world and make
sure that they know about the Ship. Someone
ought to be telling them about what's really true.
It should be me, don't you think? I've got to be
useful for something."

"All by yourself'?" said Masklin.

Gurder rummaged in the bag.

"No, I'm taking the Thing," he said, producing
the black cube.

• 197 -

TERRY PRATCHETT

"Er—" Masklin began.

"Don't worry," said the Thing. "/ have copied my-
self into the Ship's own computers. I can be here and there
at the same time."

"It's something I really want to do," said
Gurder helplessly.

Masklin thought about arguing and then
thought, Why? Gurder will probably be happier
like this. Anyway, it's true. This Ship belongs to
all nomes. We're just borrowing it for a while. So
Gurder's right. Someone's got to find the rest of
them, wherever they are in the world, and tell
them the truth about nomes. I can't think of any-
one better for the job than Gurder. It's a big
world. You need someone really ready to believe
really hard.

"Do you want anyone to go with you?" he said.

"No. I expect I'll find some nomes out there to
help me. I've been talking to Pion." He leaned
closer. "To tell the truth," he said, "I'm looking
forward to it."

"Er. Yes. There's a lot of world, though," said
Masklin. "You can't be sure you'll find any help."

"I'll have to hope, then."

"Well ... if you're sure ..." said Masklin
doubtfully.

"Yes. More sure than anything I can remem-
ber," said Gurder. "And I've been pretty sure of a
lot of things in my time, as you know."

• 198 '

WINGS

"We'd better find somewhere suitable to set you
down," said Masklin.

"That's right," said Gurder. He tried to look
brave. "Somewhere with a lot of geese," he said.

They left him at sunset, by a lake.

It was a brief parting. If the Ship stayed any-
where for more than a few minutes now, humans
would flock toward it.

"You were wrong to let him go," said Grimma
as they closed the hatch. "He doesn't even know
how to steer a goose!"

"I told him that, and he said that Pion gave him
a few hints and if he couldn't find any goose
nomes, then he'd learn himself," said Masklin.
"He said that if the Floridians could do it, then he
could too. He was very definite about it."

"He'd learn? Gurder? Just like that?" said
Grimma.

"Well, you learned how to drive the Cat," said
Masklin.

"Huh! That was different. I had to."

"Maybe there are things he has to do too. He's
got a chance. Why should we try to stop him?"

"But we're his friends!"

"That's what I mean," said Masklin.

The last they saw of Gurder was a small, wav-
ing figure on the shore. And then there was just a
lake turning into a green dot on a dwindling land-

• 199 •

TERRY PRATCHETT

scape. A world unfolded, with one invisible nome
in the middle of it.
And then there was nothing.

The control room was full of nomes watching
the landscape unroll as the Ship rose.

Grimma stared at it.

"I never realized it looked like that," said
Grimma. "There's so much of it!"

"It's pretty big," said Masklin.

"You'd think one world would be big enough
for all of us," said Grimma.

"Oh, I don't know," said Masklin. "Maybe one
world isn't big enough for anyone. Where are we
heading, Angalo?"

Angalo rubbed his hands and pulled every lever
right back.

"So far up," he said, with satisfaction, "that
there is no down."

The Ship curved away, toward the stars.

Below, the world stopped unrolling because it
had reached its edges, and became a black disc
against the sun.

Nomes and frogs looked down on it.

And the sunlight caught it and made it glow
around the rim, sending rays up into the darkness,
so that it looked exactly like a flower.

200

About the Author

TERRY PRATCHETT is the author of the im-
mensely satisfying group of Discworld novels,
which includes Mort, Wyrd Sisters, and Equal Rites.
Although these books were intended for adults,
they have a devoted following among younger
readers as well. He is also coauthor of the highly
acclaimed fantasy novel Good Omens.

Wings is the last volume in the Bromeliad Tril-
ogy for young adults, following Truckers and Dig-
gers. It concludes the career of the nomes on earth
and gives them the whole universe—which maybe
should be warned about nomes. . . .

Terry Pratchett's body lives in England. It says
that the whereabouts of his mind is probably not
locatable in any normal atlas.