'Thing?' The lights stayed off. The little black box con­trived to look extremely dead and silent.

'But I relied on you to help us sort out the driving and everything! You're just going to leave me like this?' If anything, the box got darker. Masklin stared at it.

Then he thought: it's all very well for it. Every­one's relying on me. I've got no one to rely on. I wonder if the old Abbot felt like this? I wonder how he stood it for so long? It's always me who has to do everything, no one ever thinks about me or what I want...

The shabby cardboard door swung aside and Grimma stepped in.

She looked from the darkened Thing to Mask­lin.

'They're asking for you out there,' she said quietly. 'Why is the Thing all dark?' 'It just said goodbye! It said it won't help any more!' Masklin wailed. 'It just said we have to prove we can do things for ourselves and it will speak to us when we're successful! What shall I do?' I know what I could do, he thought. I could do with a cool flannel. I could do with a bit of under­standing. I could do with a bit of sympathy. Good old Grimma. You can rely on her.

What you'll do,' she said sharply, 'is jolly well stop moping and getup and go out there and get things organized!' 'Wha-' 'Sort things out! Make new plans! Give people orders! Get on with it!' 'But-' 'Do it now!' she snapped.

Masklin stood up.

'You shouldn't talk to me like that,' he said plaintively. 'I'm the leader, you know.' She stood arms akimbo, glaring at him.

'Of course you're the leader,' she said. 'Did I say you weren't the leader? Everyone knows you're the leader! Now get out there and lead!' He lurched past. She tapped him on the shoul­der.

'And learn to listen,' she added.

'Eh? What do you mean?' 'The Thing's a sort of thinking machine, isn't it? That's what Dorcas said. Well, machines say exactly what they mean, don't they?' 'Yes, I suppose so, but-' Grimma gave him a bright, triumphant smile.

'Well, it said "When",' she said. 'Think about it. It could have said "If ".' Night came. Masklin thought the humans were never going to leave. One of them, with a torch and a box of tools, spent a long time examining fuse boxes and peering at the wiring in the base­ment. Now at last even it was gone, grumbling and slamming the door behind it.

After a little while, the lights came on in the garage.

There was a rustling in the walls, and then a dark tide flowed out from under benches. Some of the young nomes in the lead carried hooks on the end of thread lines, which they swung up to the lorry's covers. They caught, one after another, and the nomes swarmed up them.

Other nomes brought thicker string, which was tied to the ends of the thread and gradually dragged upwards...

Masklin ran along, under the endless shadow of the lorry, to the oily darkness under the engine where Dorcas's teams were already dragging their equipment into position. Dorcas himself was in the cab, rooting around among the thick wires.

There was a sizzling noise, and then the light in the cab came on.

'There,' said Dorcas. 'Now we can see what we're at. Come on, lads! Let's have a bit of effort!' When he 'turned around and saw Masklin he made as if to hide his hands behind his back, and then thought better of it. Both of them were thrust into what Masklin could now see were the fingers cut out of rubber gloves.

'Ah,' said Dorcas, 'didn't know you were there. Bit of a trade secret, see? Electricity can't abide rubber. It stops the stuff from biting you.' He ducked as a team of nomes swung a long wooden beam across the cab and started to fasten it to the gear lever.

'How long's it going to take?' shouted Masklin, as another team ran past dragging a ball of string. There was quite a din in the cab now, and threads and bits of wood were moving in every direction in what he hoped was an organized way.

'Could be an hour, maybe,' said Dorcas, and added, not unkindly, 'We'd get on quicker without people in the way.' Masklin nodded, and explored the rear of the cab. The lorry was old, and he found another hole for a bundle of wires which, at a squeeze, would take a nome as well. He crawled out into the open air and then found another gap which let him into the rear of the lorry.

The first nomes aboard had dragged up one end of a thin piece of wood, which was acting as a gangplank. The rest were scrambling up it now.

Masklin had put Granny Morkie in charge of this. The old woman had a natural talent for making frightened people do things.

'Steep?' she was shouting at a fat nome, who had got halfway up and was clinging there in fright.

'Call this steep? It ain't steep, it's a stroll! Want me to come down there and help you?' The mere threat budged him from his perch and he nearly ran the rest of the way, ducking gratefully into the shadows of the cargo.

'Everyone had better try to find somewhere soft to lie down,' said Masklin. 'It could be a rough journey. And you must send all the strongest nomes up towards the cab. We're going to need everyone we can get, believe me.' She nodded, and then shouted at a family that was blocking the gangway.

Masklin looked down at the endless stream of people climbing into the lorry, many of them' staggering under the weight of possessions.

Funny, but now he felt he'd done everything he could. Everything was ticking over like a, like a, like something that went tick. Either all the plans would work, or they wouldn't. Either the nomes could act together, or they couldn't.

He recalled the picture of Gulliver. It probably wasn't real, Gurder had said. Books often had things in them that weren't really real. But it would be nice to think that nomes could agree on something long enough to be like the little people in the book...

'Well, it's all going well, then,' he said vaguely.

Well enough.' Granny nodded.

'It would be a good idea if we found out exactly what was in all these boxes and things,' Masklin ventured, 'because we might have to get out quickly when we stop and-' 'I tole Torrit to see to it,' said Granny. 'Don't you worry about it.' 'Oh,' said Masklin weakly 'Good' He hadn't left himself anything to do.

He went back to the cab out of sheer well, not boredom, because his heart was pounding like a drum - but out of restlessness.

Dorcas's nomes had already built a wooden platform above the steering wheel and right in front of the big window. Dorcas himself was back down on the floor of the cab, drilling the driving teams.

'Right!' he shouted. 'Give me... First Gear!' 'Pedal Down ... two, three ...' chorused the team on the clutch pedal.

'Pedal Up... two, three.. .' shouted the accel­erator team.

'Lever Up... two, three...' echoed the nomes by the gear lever.

'Pedal Up ... two, three, four!' the leader of the clutch team threw Dorcas a salute. 'Gear all changed, sir!' he shouted.

'That was terrible. Really terrible,' said Dorcas. What's happened to the accelerator team, eh? Get that pedal down!' 'Sorry, Dorcas.' Masklin tapped Dorcas on the shoulder. 'Keep doing it!' Dorcas commanded. 'I want you dead smooth all the way up to fourth. Yes? What? Oh, it's you.' 'Yes, it's me. Everyone's nearly on,' said Mask­lin. 'When will you be ready?' 'This lot won't be ready ever.' 'Oh.' 'So we might as well start whenever you like and pick it up as we go along. We can't even try steering until it's moving, of course.' 'We're going to send alot more people to help you,' said Masklin.

'Oh, good,' said Dorcas. 'Just what I need, lots more people who don't know their right from their left.' 'How are you going to know which way to steer?' 'Semaphore,' said Dorcas firmly. 'Semaphore?' 'Signalling with flags. You just tell my lad up on the platform what you want done, and I'll watch the signals. If we'd had one more week I reckon I could have rigged up some sort of telephone.' 'Flags,' said Masklin. Will that work?' 'It'd better, hadn't it. We can give it a try later on.' And now it was later on. The last nome scouts had climbed aboard. In the back of the lorry most of the people made themselves as comfortable as possible and lay, wide awake, in the darkness.