"That's true," the Abbot said. "I wouldn't have believed it. I'm not sureI believe it now, and I'm in it."

"Maybe, when we've found somewhere to live, we can send the Ship back andcollect any other nomes we can find," Masklin hazarded. "I'm sure Angalowould enjoy that."

Gurder's shoulders began to shake. For a moment Masklin thought thenome was laughing, and then he saw the tears rolling down the Abbot'sface.

"Um," he said, not knowing what else to say.

Gurder turned away. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "It's just that there's somuch ... changing. Why can't things stay the same for five minutes?

Every time I get the hang of an idea it suddenly turns into somethingdifferent and I turn into a fool! All I want is something real to believein! Where's the harm in that?"

"I think you just have to have a flexible mind," said Masklin, knowingeven as he said the words that this probably wasn't going to be a lot ofhelp.

"Flexible? Flexible? My mind's got so flexible I could pull it out of myears and tie it under my chin!" snapped Gurder. "And it hasn't done me awhole lot of good, let me tell you! I'd have done better just believingeverything I was taught when I was young! At least I'd be wrong onlyonce! 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 asGurder did so he could complain to it about his life. He even wished hewere back, yes, back in the hole. It hadn't been too bad, apart frompeople being cold and wet and getting eaten all the time. But at leasthe'd been with Grimma. They would have been cold and wet and hungrytogether. He wouldn't have been so lonely... .

There was a movement by him. It turned out to be Pion, holding a tray ofwhat had to be ... fruit, Masklin decided. He put aside being lonely fora moment, and realized that hunger had been waiting for an opportunity tomake 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 offood. If you touched a picture, there was a brief humming noise and thenthe real food dropped onto a tray in a slot. Masklin tried pictures atrandom, and got several different sorts of fruit, a squeaky greenvegetable thing, and a piece of meat that tasted rather like smokedsalmon.

"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."

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 nothing 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 America.

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 Angalo.

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 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 everybody 's sake," saidthe Thing.

Masklin thought about this for a while. It was true, he had to admit. Allkinds of things might be happening back home. He had to get the Ship backquickly, for everybody's sake.

And then he thought: I've spent a long time doing things foreverybody'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 knowwhere to look for frogs.

"Thing," he said, "take us to South America-and don't argue."

Chapter 12

Frogs: Some people think that knowing about frogsis important. They are small and green, or yellow, and have four legs. They croak. Young frogs aretadpoles. In my opinion, this is all there is toknow about frogs. - From A Scientific Encyclopediaor the Enquiring Young Nome by Angalo deHaberdasheri.

Find a blue planet ... Focus.

This is a planet. Most of it is covered with water, but it's stillcalled Earth.

Find a country... . Focus... . Blues and greens and browns under thesun, 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 aflower with a little pool in it, is an epiphytic bromeliad.

Its leaves, although they might be petals, hardly quiver at all as threevery small and very golden frogs pull themselves up and gaze inastonishment 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 between day and night, they're a bit hazy on the whole idea of time. They know that some thingshappen after other things. Really intelligent frogs might wonder if thereis something that prevents everything happening all at once, but that'sabout as close as they can get to it.

So how long it was before a strange night came in the middle of the dayis hard to tell, from a frog point of view.

A wide black shadow drifted over the treetops, and came to a halt. Aftera while there were voices. The frogs could hear them, although theydidn't know what they meant or even what they were. They didn't soundlike 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 needsthis many mountains? I call it inefficient. One would have done.

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 everywhere. The Thing had said the Ship had been usedfor 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 toloop the wire around a pillar inside the Ship, and with Pion helpinginside, to pull themselves up and down by sheer nomish effort.