"Have ... you ... any-any ... idea ... how-how ... close-"

Angalo panted.

The sound behind them started like a hiss, like the whole world taking adeep breath. Then it turned into ... not noise, but something more likean invisible hammer that smacked into both ears at once.

Chapter 8

Space: There are two types: a) something containing nothing and b)

nothing containing everything. It is what you have left when you haven'tgot anything else. There is no air or gravity, which is what holdspeople onto things. If there weren't space, everything would be in oneplace. It is designed to be a place for satellites, shuttles, planets, and the Ship.

-From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo deHaberdasheri.

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.

"What? I can't hear you! Can you hear me?"

Masklin saw Gurder's lips move. He pointed to his own ears and shook his head.

"We've gone deaf!"

"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 noisedropped 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 terrible 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?"

"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 everything there was to knowabout living in a hole, and now it's a year later and I'm at a place sofar away I don't even know how far away it is, watching something Idon't understand go to a place so far up there is no down. And I can't goback. I've got to go right on to the end of whatever all this is, becauseI 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 suddenly felt cold, despite the heat around him.

"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 wonder 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 behind 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't die! It's existed for thousands of years!"

Gurder shook his head. "Sounds like a good reason for dying," he said.

"But it's a-a Thing."

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 thousands 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 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 toldwhere 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 watching 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 descending Ship. "And the wind isn't the air conditioning, 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 people."

"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.