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.

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 possibly understand.

It was quite a long branch, and quite thick. But there were tools andthings in the Ship. They could let down extra wires to hold the branchand winch it up when it was cut free. It would take some time, but thatdidn't matter. It was important.

The Thing had said there were ways of growing plants under lights thesame color as the sun, in pots full of a sort of weak soup that helpedplants grow. It should be the easiest thing to keep a branch alive. Theeasiest 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 belike the soap, shooting backward and forward and never being where anyoneexpected it to be. You could spot where it had just been by airplanes andhelicopters taking off in a hurry.

Or maybe it was like the ball in a roulette wheel, bouncing around andlooking for the right number.

Or maybe it was just lost.

They searched all night. If there was a night. It was hard to tell. TheThing tried to explain that the Ship went faster than the sun, althoughthe sun actually stood still. Some parts of the world had night whileother parts had day. This, Gurder said, was bad organization.

"In the Store," he said, "it was always dark when it should be. Even ifit was just somewhere built by humans." It was the first time they'dheard 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 onplaces! It's ridiculous! How's anyone supposed to know where anywhereis?"

"All right," said Masklin. "But you're not to fly down low again to tryto read the signposts. Every time you do that, humans rush out into thestreets and we get lots of shouting on the radio."

"That's right," said the Thing. "People are bound to get excited whenthey see a ten-million-ton starship trying to fly down the street."

"I was very careful last time," said Angalo stoutly. "I even stopped whenthe traffic lights went red. I don't see why there was such a fuss. Allthe trucks and cars started crashing into one another too. And you callme a bad driver."

Gurder turned to Pion, who was learning the language fast. The geesenomes did. They were used to meeting nomes who spoke other languages.

"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?"

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 learning 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 window 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?"

"Yes."

Angalo ran his hands over the Ship's controls. "Right," he said. "Here we go. I expect the Concorde 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 before?" 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 himself. "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 shoulder.

Then they all stared at the passages that radiated 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 Concorde drivers?" said Gurder.

"Something like 'Don't worry, we haven't got any teeth and tentacles, guaranteed'?"

"They probably wouldn't believe us," said Angalo. "If I had teeth andtentacles 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 thetransatlantic record. The Ship drifted along behind it.

"I reckon," said Angalo, looking down, "that humans are just aboutintelligent enough to be crazy."

"I think," said Masklin, "that maybe they're intelligent enough to belonely."

The plane touched down with its tires screaming. Fire engines racedacross the airport, and there were other vehicles behind them.

The great black ship shot over them, turned across the sky like aFrisbee, and slowed.

"There's the reservoir!" said Gurder. "Right under us! And that's therailway line! And that's the quarry! It's still there!"