"Of course it's still there, idiot," muttered Angalo as he headed theShip toward the hills, which were patchy with melting snow.

"Some of it," said Masklin.

A pall of black smoke hung over the quarry. As they got closer, they sawit was rising from a burning truck. There were more trucks around it, andalso several humans, who started to run when they saw the shadow of theShip.

"Lonely, eh?" snarled Angalo. "If they've hurt a single nome, they'llwish they'd never been born!"

"If they've hurt a single nome, they'll wish Fd never been born," saidMasklin. "But I don't think anyone's down there. They wouldn't hangaround if the humans came. And who set fire to the truck?"

"Yay!" said Angalo, waving a fist in the air.

Masklin scanned the landscape below them. Somehow he couldn't imaginepeople like Grimma and Dorcas sitting in holes, waiting for humans totake over. Trucks didn't just set fire to themselves. A couple ofbuildings looked damaged too. Humans wouldn't have done that, would they?

He stared at the field by the quarry. The gate had been smashed, and apair of wide tracks led through the slush and mud.

"I think they got away in another truck," he said.

"What do you mean, yayy said Gurder, lagging a bit behind theconversation.

"Across the fields?" said Angalo. "It'd get stuck, wouldn't it?"

Masklin shook his head. Perhaps even a nome could have instincts. "Followthe tracks," he said urgently. "And quickly!"

"Quickly? Quickly? Do you know how difficult it is to make this thing goslow?" Angalo nudged a lever. The Ship lurched up the hillside, strainingat the indignity of restraint.

They'd been up here before, on foot, months ago. It was hard to believe.

The hills were quite flat on the top, forming a kind of plateauoverlooking the airport. There was the field where there had been potatoes. There was the thicket where they'd hunted, and the wood wherethey'd killed a fox for eating nomes.

And there ... there was something small and yellow, rolling across the fields.

Angalo craned forward.

"Looks like some kind of a machine," he admitted, fumbling for levers without taking his eyes off the screen. "Weird kind of one, though."

There were other things moving on the roads down there. They had flashing lights on top.

"Those cars are chasing it, do you think?" said Angalo.

"Maybe they want to talk to it about a burning truck," said Masklin. "Can you get to it before they do?"

Angalo narrowed his eyes. "Listen, I think we can get to it before they do even if we go via Floridia." He found another lever and gave it a nudge.

There was the briefest flicker in the landscape, and the truck was now right in front of them.

"See?" he said.

"Move in more," said Masklin.

Angalo pressed a button.

"See, the screen can show you below-" he began.

"There's nomes!" said Gurder.

"Yeah, and those cars are running away!" shouted Angalo. "That's it, run away! Otherwise it's teeth and tentacles time!"

"So long as the nomes don't think that too," said Gurder. "Masklin, do you think-"

Once again, Masklin wasn't there.

I should have thought about this before, he thought.

The piece of branch was thirty times longer than a nome. They'd been keeping it under lights, and it seemed to be growing quite happily withone end in a pot of special plant water. The nomes who had once flown inthe Ship had grown lots of plants that way.

Pion helped him drag the pot toward the hatch. The frogs watched Masklin with interest.

When it was positioned as well as the two of them could manage, Masklinlet the hatch open. It wasn't one that slid aside. The ancient nomes hadused it as some kind of elevator, but it didn't have wires-it went up anddown by some force as mysterious as auntie's gravy or whatever that was.

It dropped away. Masklin looked down and saw the yellow truck roll to ahalt.

When he straightened up, Pion was giving him a puzzled look.

"Flower is a message?" said the boy.

"Yes. Kind of."

"Not using words?"

"No," said Masklin.

"Why not?"

Masklin shrugged.

"Don't know how to say them."

It nearly ends there... . But it shouldn't end there.

Nomes swarmed all over the Ship. If there were any monsters withtentacles and teeth, they'd have been overwhelmed by sheer force of nome.

Young nomes filled the control room, where they were industriously tryingto press buttons. Dorcas and his trainee engineers had disappeared insearch of the Ship's engines. Voices and laughter echoed along the graycorridors.

Masklin and Grimma sat by themselves, watching the frogs in theirflower.

"I had to see if it was true," said Masklin.

"The most wonderful thing in the world," said Grimma. "You know, abromeliad looks quite different from what I expected."

"No. I think there are probably much more wonderful things in the world," said Masklin. "But it's pretty good, all the same."

Grimma told him about events in the quarry, the fight with the humans, and the stealing of the Cat to escape. Her eyes gleamed when she talkedabout fighting humans. Masklin looked at her with his mouth open inadmiration. She was muddy, her dress was torn, her hair looked like ithad been combed with a hedge, but she crackled with so much internalenergy that she nearly was throwing off sparks. It's a good thing wegot here in time, he thought. Humans ought to thank me.

"What are we going to do now?" she said.

"I don't know," said Masklin. "Try to find home, I suppose. Or a home.

According to the Thing, there's lots of worlds out there with nomes onthem. Just nomes, I mean. Or we can find one all to ourselves. A newhome. That might be even better."

"You know," said Grimma, "I think the Store nomes would be happier juststaying on the Ship. That's why they like it so much. It's like being inthe Store. All the Outside is outside."

"Then I'd better go along to make sure they remember that there is anOutside. It's sort of my job, I suppose," said Masklin. "And, when we'vefound somewhere, I want to bring the Ship back."

"Why? What'll be here?" said Grimma.

"Other nomes."

"Oh, yes," said Grimma.

"And humans," said Masklin. "We should talk to them."

"What?"

"They really want to believe in ... I mean, they spend all their time making up stories about things that don't exist. They think it's justthemselves in the world. We never thought like that. We always knewthere were humans. They're terribly lonely and don't know it." He wavedhis hands vaguely. "It's just that I think we might get along with them," he finished.

"They'd turn us into pixies!"

"Not if we come back in the Ship. If there's one thing even humans can tell, it's that the Ship isn't very pixieish."

Grimma reached out and took his hand.

"Well ... if that's what you really want to do."

"It is."

"I'll come back with you."

There was a sound behind them. It was Gurder. The Abbot had a bag slung around his neck and had the drawn, determined look of someone who is going to See It Through no matter what.

"Er. I've come to say good-bye," he said.

"What do you mean?" said Masklin.

"I heard you say you're coming back in the Ship?"

"Yes, but-"

"Please don't argue." Gurder looked around. "I've been thinking aboutthis ever since we got on the Ship. There are other nomes out there.

Someone ought to tell them about the Ship coming back. We can't take themnow, but someone ought to find all the other nomes in the world and makesure that they know about the Ship. Someone ought to be telling themabout what's really true. It should be me, don't you think? I've got tobe useful for something."

"All by yourself'?" said Masklin.

Gurder rummaged in the bag.

"No, I'm taking the Thing," he said, producing the black cube.