Terry Pratchett

The Bromeliad 3 - Wings

In the beginning ...

... was Arnold Bros. (est. 1905), the great department 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 century. 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 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 electricity, 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 somewhere 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 Arnold Bros. The company that had owned the Store was now a big international concern, and Grandson Richard, 39, said the newspaper was going to Florida to watch the launch of its first communications satellite.

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 oforange juice anyway,* and that there were perhaps several hundred humanbeings in the world, and not knowing where exactly to go or what to dowhen they got there, but determined to get there and do it anyway, Masklin and his companions set out.

[* The only time the nomes had seen the word "Florida" before was on anold carton of orange juice. When nomes get hold of an idea, they don'tlet go without a struggle.]

The nomes that stayed behind fought the humans in Diggers. Theydefended their quarry as long as they could and fled on the Cat, thegreat yellow digging machine.

But this is Masklin's story... .

Chapter 1

Airports: A place where people hurry up and wait.

-From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the EnquiringYoung 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 onsome unimaginable Christmas tree.

Find a galaxy... . Focus.

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

Find a star... . Focus.

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

Find a blue planet ... Focus.

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 thesun, and here's a pale oblong, which is ... focus ... an airport, aconcrete hive for silver bees. There's a ... focus ... building full ofpeople and noise, and ... focus ... a hall of lights and bustle, and ... focus ... a. bin full of rubbish, and ... focus ... a pair oftiny eyes... .

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

Masklin slid cautiously down an old burger carton.

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

Angalo and Gurder had nestled deep into the rubbish and were gloomilyeating 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 thatArnold Bros. made the Store for nomes. And he still thinks there's some sort of Arnold Bros. somewhere, watching over us, because we wereimportant. And now we're out here and all we've found is that nomesaren't important at all... .

And there's Angalo. He doesn't believe in Arnold Bros., but he likes tothink Arnold Bros. exists just so that he can go on not believing inhim.

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 ..."

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 really 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 irritably. "I just thought that ... maybe in some way ... there'd be a way."

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

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

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

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

"Thing," he said, "I know you can hear me, because there must be loadsof electricity in this building. We're at the airport. We can't findGrandson Richard, 39. We don't know how to start looking. Please helpus."

The Thing stayed silent.

"If you don't help us," said Masklin quietly, "we'll go back to thequarry and face the humans, but that won't matter to you because we'llleave 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 morenomes anywhere, and it will be because of you. And in years and years tocome you'll be all alone and useless and you'll think 'Perhaps I shouldhave helped Masklin when he asked me,' and then you'll think 'If I had mytime all over again, I would have helped him.' Well, Thing, imagine allthat has happened and you've magically got your wish. Help us."