Read an Excerpt
The Bromeliad Trilogy: Wings
Chapter One
A place where people hurry up and wait.
From A Scientific Encyclopedia
for the Inquiring Young Nome
by Angalo de Haberdasheri
Let the eye of your imagination be a camera. . . .
This is the universe, a glittering ball of galaxies like the ornament on some unimaginable Christmas tree.
Find a galaxy. . . .
Focus
This is a galaxy, swirled like the cream in a cup of coffee, every pinpoint of light a star.
Find a star. . . .
Focus
This is a solar system, where planets barrel through the darkness around the central fires of the sun. Some planets hug close, hot enough to melt lead. Some drift far out, where the comets are born.
Find a blue planet. . . .
Focus
This is a planet. Most of it is covered in water. It's called Earth. Find a country. . . .
Focus
. . . blues and greens and browns under the sun, and here's a pale oblong which is . . .
Focus
. . . an airport, a concrete hive for silver bees, and there's a . . .
Focus
. . . building full of people and noise and . . .
Focus
. . . a hall of lights and bustle and . . .
Focus
. . . a bin full of rubbish and . . .
Focus
. . . a pair of tiny eyes . . .
Focus
Focus
Focus
Click!
Masklin slid cautiously down an old burger carton.
He'd been watching humans. Hundreds and hundreds of humans. It was beginning to dawn on him that getting on a jet plane wasn't like stealing a truck.
Angalo and Gurder had nestled deep into the rubbish and were gloomily eating the remains of a cold, greasy french fry.
This has come as a shock to all of us, Masklin thought.
I mean, take Gurder. Back in the Store he was the Abbot. He believed that Arnold Bros made the Store for nomes. And he still thinks there's some sort of Arnold Bros somewhere, watching over us, because we are important. And now we're out here, and all we've found is that nomes aren't important at all. . . .
And there's Angalo. He doesn't believe in Arnold Bros, but he likes to think Arnold Bros exists just so that he can go on not believing in him.
And there's me.
I never thought it would be this hard.
I thought jet planes were just trucks with more wings and less wheels.
There's more humans in this place than I've ever seen before. How can we find Grandson Richard, 39, in a place like this?
I hope they're going to save me some of that potato. . . .
Angalo looked up.
"Seen him?" he said, sarcastically.
Masklin shrugged. "There's lots of humans with beards," he said. "They all look the same to me."
"I told you," said Angalo. "Blind faith never works." He glared at Gurder.
"He could have gone already," said Masklin. "He could have walked right past me."
"So let's get back," said Angalo. "People will be missing us. We've made the effort, we've seen the airport, we've nearly got trodden on dozens of times. Now let's get back to the real world."
"What do you think, Gurder?" said Masklin.
The Abbot gave him a long, despairing look.
"I don't know," he said. "I really don't know. I'd hoped . . ."
His voice trailed off. He looked so downcast that even Angalo patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't take it so hard," he said. "You didn't really think some sort of Grandson Richard, 39, was going to swoop down out of the sky and carry us off to Florida, did you? Look, we've given it a try. It hasn't worked. Let's go home."
"Of course I didn't think that," said Gurder irritably. "I just thought that . . . maybe in some way . . . there'd be a way."
"The world belongs to humans. They built everything. They run everything. We might as well accept it," said Angalo.
Masklin looked at the Thing. He knew it was listening. Even though it was just a small black cube, it somehow always looked more alert when it was listening. The trouble was, it spoke only when it felt like it. It'd always give you just enough help, and no more. It seemed to be testing him the whole time.
Somehow, asking the Thing for help was like admitting that you'd run out of ideas. But . . .
"Thing," he said, "I know you can hear me, because there must be loads of electricity in this building. We're at the airport. We can't find Grandson Richard, 39. We don't know how to start looking. Please help us."
The Thing stayed silent.
"If you don't help us," said Masklin quietly, "we'll go back to the quarry and face the humans, but that won't matter to you because we'll leave you here. We really will. And no nomes will ever find you again. There will never be another chance. We'll die out, there will be no more nomes anywhere, and it will be because of you. And in years and years to come you'll be all alone and useless and you'll think, Perhaps I should have helped Masklin when he asked me, and then you'll think, If I had my time all over again, I would have helped him. Well, Thing, imagine all that has happened and you've magically got your wish. Help us."
"It's a machine!" snapped Angalo. "You can't blackmail a machine—!"
One small red light lit up on the Thing's black surface.
"I know you can tell what other machines are thinking," said Masklin. "But can you tell what nomes are thinking? Read my mind, Thing, if you don't think I'm serious. You want nomes to act intelligently. Well, I am acting intelligently. I'm intelligent enough to know when I need help. I need help now. And you can help. I know you can. If you don't help us, we'll leave right now and forget you ever existed."
A second light came on, very faintly.
The Bromeliad Trilogy: Wings. Copyright © by Terry Pratchett. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
