Truckers (6 page)

Sometimes, on fine days back in the times when he didn't have to hunt every day, he'd climb farther along the bank until he could look down on the place where the trucks parked. There was a big blue board there, with little shapes and pictures on it. And in the litter bins the boxes and papers had more shapes and pictures on them; he remembered the long argument they'd had about the chicken boxes with the pictures of the old man with the big whiskers on them. Several nomes had insisted that this was a picture of a chicken, but Masklin had rather felt that humans didn't go around eating old men. There had to be more to it than that. Perhaps old men
made
chicken.

The Thing hummed again.

“Fifteen thousand years have passed,”
it said.

Masklin looked up at the others.

“You talk to it,” Granny ordered Torrit. The old man backed away.

“Not me! Not me! I dunno what to say!” he said.

“Well, I ain't!” snapped Granny. “That's the leader's job, is that!”

“Fifteen thousand years have passed,”
the Thing repeated.

Masklin shrugged. It seemed to be up to him.

“Passed what?” he said.

The Thing gave the impression that it was thinking busily. At last it said:
“Do you still know the meaning of the words Flight Navigation and Recording Computer?”

“No,” said Masklin earnestly. “None of them.”

The light pattern moved.

“Do you know anything about interstellar travel?”

“No.”

The box gave Masklin the distinct impression that it was very disappointed in him.

“Do you know you came here from a place far away?”
it said.

“Oh, yes. We know that.”

“A place farther than the moon.”

“Er.” Masklin hesitated. The journey had taken a long time. It was always possible that they had gone past the moon. He had often seen it on the horizon, and he was certain that the truck had gone farther than that.

“Yes,” he said. “Probably.”

“Language changes over the years,”
said the Thing thoughtfully.

“Does it?” said Masklin politely.

“What do you call this planet?”

“I don't know what planet means, either,” said Masklin.

“An astronomical body.”

Masklin looked blank.

“What is your name for this place?”

“It's called . . . the Store.”

“Thestore.”
The lights moved, as if the Thing were thinking again.

“Young man, I don't want to stand here all day exchanging nonsense with the Thing,” said Granny Morkie. “What we need to do now is sort out where we're going and what we're going to do.”

“That's right,” said Torrit defiantly.

“Do you even remember that you are shipwrecked?”

“I'm Masklin,” said Masklin. “I don't know who Shipwrecked is.”

The lights changed again. Later, when he got to know the Thing better, Masklin always thought that particular pattern was its way of sighing deeply.

“My purpose is to serve you and guide you,”
said the Thing.

“See?” said Torrit, who was feeling a bit out of things. “We was right about that!”

Masklin prodded the box. “You've been keeping a bit quiet about it lately, then,” he said.

The Thing hummed.
“This was to maintain internal power. However, I can now use ambient electricity.”

“That's nice,” said Grimma.

“You mean you sort of drink up the lights?” said Masklin.

“That will suffice as an explanation for now.”

“Why didn't you talk before, then?” said Masklin.

“I was listening.”

“Oh.”

“And now I await instructions.”

“In where?” said Grimma.

“I think it wants us to tell it what to do,” said Masklin. He sat back on his heels and watched the lights.

“What
can
you do?” he said.

“I can translate, calculate, triangulate, assimilate, correlate, and extrapolate.”

“I don't think we want anything like that,” said Masklin. “Do we want anything like that?” he asked the others.

Granny Morkie appeared to think about it. “No,” she said eventually, “I don't think we wants any of that stuff. Another banana'd be nice, mind.”

“I think all we really want is to go home and be safe,” said Masklin.

“Go home.”

“That's right.”

“And be safe.”

“Yes.”

Later on, those five words became one of the most famous quotations in nome history. They got taught in schools. They got carved in stone. And it's sad, therefore, that at the time no one thought they were particularly important.

All that happened was that the Thing said,
“Computing.”

Then all its lights died, except a small green one, which began to flash.

“Thank goodness for that,” said Grimma. “What a horrible voice. What shall we do now?”

“According to that Angalo boy,” said Granny, “we have to live very sad lives.”

I. For they did not know it, but they had brought with them the Thing, which awoke in the presence of Electricity, and it alone knew their History;

II. For nomes have memories of Flesh and Blood, while the Thing had a memory of Silicon, which is Stone and perisheth not, whereas the memory of nomes blows away like dust;

III. And they gave it Instructions, but knew it not
.

IV. It is, they said, a Box with a Funny Voice
.

V. But the Thing began to Compute the task of keeping all nomes safe
.

VI. And the Thing also began to Compute the task of taking all nomes home
.

VII. All the way Home
.

From
The Book of Nome, Mezzanine v. I–VII

I
T WAS EASY
to get lost under the floor. It took no effort at all. It was a maze of walls and cables, with drifts of dust away from the paths. In fact, as Torrit said, they weren't exactly lost, more mislaid; there were paths all over the place, between the joists and walls, but no indication of where they led to. Sometimes a nome would hurry past on an errand of its own and pay them no attention.

They dozed in an alcove formed by two huge wooden walls and woke up to light as dim as ever. There didn't seem to be any night or day in the Store. It did seem noisier, though. There was a distant, all-pervading hubbub.

A few more lights were flashing on the Thing, and it had grown a little, cup-shaped, smaller thing that went round and round very slowly.

“Should we look for the Food Hall again?” asked Torrit hopefully.

“I think you have to be a member of a department,” said Masklin. “But it can't be the only place with food, can it?”

“It wasn't as noisy as this when we came here,” said Granny. “What a din!”

Masklin looked around. There was a space between the woodwork, and a distant gleam of very bright light. He edged toward it and stuck his eye to the crack.

“Oh,” he said weakly.

“What is it?” Grimma called out.

“It's humans. More humans than you've ever seen before.”

The crack was where the ceiling joined the wall of a room nearly as big as the truck nest and it was, indeed, full of humans. The Store had opened.

The nomes had always known that humans lived very slowly. Masklin had almost walked into humans once or twice, when he was hunting, and knew that even before one of their huge stupid faces could swivel its eyes, he could be off the path and hiding behind a clump of something.

The space below was crowded with them, walking their great slow clumping walk and booming at each other in their vague, deep voices.

The nomes watched, fascinated, for some time.

“What are those things they're holding?” said Grimma. “They look a bit like the Thing.”

“Dunno,” said Masklin.

“Look, they pick them up and then give something to the other human, and then it's put in a bag, and they go away. They almost look, well, as if they mean what they're doing.”

“No, it's like ants,” said Torrit authoritatively. “They
seems
intelligent, I'll grant you, but when you looks closely, there's nothing really clever about them.”

“They build things,” said Masklin vaguely.

“So do birds, my lad.”

“Yes, but—”

“Humans are a bit like magpies, I've always said. They just want things that glitter.”

“Hmm.” Masklin decided not to argue. You couldn't argue with old Torrit, unless you were Granny Morkie, of course. He had room only for a certain number of ideas in his head, and once one had taken root, you couldn't budge it. But Masklin wanted to say: If they're so stupid, why isn't it
them
hiding from
us
?

An idea struck him. He lifted up the Thing.

“Thing?” he said.

There was a pause. Then the tinny little voice said:
“Operations on main task suspended. What is it that you require?”

“Do you know what humans are?” said Masklin.

“Yes. Resuming main task.”

Masklin looked blankly at the others.

“Thing?” he said.

“Operations on main task suspended. What is it that you require?”

“I asked you to tell me about humans,” said Masklin.

“This is not the case. You said: Do you know what humans are? My answer was correct in every respect.”

“Well, tell
me
what humans are!”

“Humans are the indigenous inhabitants of the world you now call Thestore. Resuming main task.”

“There!” said Torrit, nodding wisely. “Told you, didn't I? They're indigenous. Clever, yes, but basically just indigenous. Just a lot of indigenouses.” He hesitated. “Indigenice,” he corrected himself.

“Are
we
indigenous?” said Masklin.

“Main task interrupted. No. Main task resumed.”

“Course not,” said Torrit witheringly. “We've got a bit of pride.”

Masklin opened his mouth to ask what indigenous meant. He knew he didn't know, and he was
certain
that Torrit didn't. And after that, he wanted to ask a lot more questions, and before he asked them, he'd have to think about the words he used.

I don't know enough words, he thought. Some things you can't think unless you know the right words.

But he didn't get around to it, because a voice behind him said, “Powerful strange things, ain't they? And very busy just lately. I wonder what's got into them?”

It was an elderly, rather stocky nome. And drably dressed, which was unusual in the Store. Most of his clothing was a huge apron, its pockets bulging mysteriously.

“Have you been spying on us?” said Granny Morkie.

The stranger gave a shrug.

“I usually come here to watch humans,” he said. “It's a good spot. There isn't usually anyone else here. What department are you?”

“We haven't got one,” said Masklin.

“We're just people,” said Granny.

“Not indigenous, either,” Torrit added quickly.

The stranger grinned and slid off the wooden beam he'd been sitting on.

“Fancy that,” he said. “You must be these new things I've heard about.
Outsiders?”

He held out his hand. Masklin looked at it cautiously.