Terry Pratchett - The Bromeliad 2 - Diggers

They considered this. The dawn was a long way away. To a nome, a nightwas as long as three whole days.

"There's plenty of snow," said a nome. "That means we've got water."

"We might be able to manage without food, but the children won't," saidGrimma.

"And the old people too," said a nome. "It's going to freeze againtonight. We haven't got the electric and we can't light a fireoutside."

They sat staring glumly at the dirt.

What Grimma was thinking was: They're not bickering. They're notgrumbling. Things are so serious they're actually not arguing and blamingeach other.

"All right," she said. "And what do you all think we should do?"

I. We will come out of the woodwork.

II. We will come out of the floor.

III. They will wish they had never seen us.

-From the Book of Nome, Humans I, v. I-III The human lowered its newspaper and listened.

There was a rustling in the walls. There was a scratching under thefloor.

Its eyes swivelled to the table beside it.

A group of small creatures were dragging its packet of sandwiches acrossthe tabletop. It blinked.

Then it roared and tried to stand up, and it wasn't until it was nearlyupright that it found that its feet were tied very firmly to the legs ofits chair.

It crashed forward. A crowd of tiny creatures, moving so fast that itcould hardly see them, charged out from under the table and wrapped alength of old electrical wire around its outflung arms. Within seconds itwas trussed awkwardly> but very firmly, between the furniture.

They saw its great eyes roll. It opened its mouth and mooed at them.

Teeth like yellow plates clashed at them.

The wire held.

The sandwiches turned out to be cheese and pickle and the Thermos, oncethey got the top off, was full of coffee. "Store food," said one nome toanother. "Good Store food, like we used to know."

They poured into the room from every crack and mousehole. There was anelectric fire by the table and they sat in solemn rows in front of itsglowing red bar or wandered around the crowded office.

"We done it," they said, "Just like that Gullible Travels. The biggerthey come, the harder they fall!"

There was a school of thought that said they should kill the human, whosemad eyes followed them around the floor. This was when they found thebox.

It was on one of the shelves. It was yellow. It had a picture of a veryunhappy-looking rat on the front. It had the word Scramoff in big redlettering too. On the back ...

Grimma's forehead wrinkled as she tried to read the smaller words on the back.

"It says, They Take a Bite, but They Don't Come Back for More!' " shesaid. "And apparently it contains polydichloromethylinlon-4, whatever Aatis. 'Clears Outhouses of Troublesome ...'" She paused.

"Troublesome what?" said the listening nomes. "Troublesome what?"

Grimma lowered her voice.

"It says, 'Clears Outhouses of Troublesome Vermin in a Trice!' " shesaid. "It's poison. It's the stuff they put under the floor."

The silence that followed this was black with rage. The nomes had raisedquite a lot of children in the quarry. They had very firm views aboutpoison.

"We should make the human eat it," said one of them. "Fill up its mouthwith Polypuththeketlon or whatever it is. Troublesome vermin."

"I think they think we're rats," said Grimma.

"And that would be all right, would it?" said a nome with witheringsarcasm. "Rats are okay. We've never had any trouble with rats. No callto go around giving them poisoned food."

In fact, the nomes got on rather well with the local rats, probablybecause their leader was Bobo, who had been a pet of Angalo's when theylived in the Store. The two species treated each other with the distantfriendliness of creatures who could, at a pinch, eat one another but haddecided not to.

"Yeah, the rats'd thank us for getting rid of a human," he went on.

"No," said Grimma. "No. I don't think we should do that. Dorcas alwayssaid that they'reg nearly as intelligent as we are. You can't go aroundpoisoning intelligent creatures."

"They tried!"

"They're not nomes. They don't know how to behave," said Grimma. "Anyway, be sensible. More humans will come along in the morning. If they find adead human, there'll be a lot of trouble."

That was a point. But they had shown themselves to a human. No nomecould remember its ever being done before. They'd had to do it, or starveand freeze, but there was no knowing where it would end. How it would endwas a bit more certain. It would probably end badly.

"Go and put it somewhere where the rats can't get it," said Grimma.

"I reckon we should just give it a taste-" said the nome.

"No! Just take the stuff away. We'll stay here the rest of the night andthen move out before it's light."

"Well, all right. If you say so. I just hope we're not sorry about itlater, that's all." The nomes carried the dreadful box away.

Grimma wandered over to where the human lay. It was well trussed up bynow, and couldn't move a finger. It looked just like the picture ofGullible or whoever he was, except the nomes had got hold of what thenomes in those days had never heard of, which was lots of electricalwire. It was a lot tougher than rope. And they were a lot angrier.

Gullible hadn't been driving a great big truck round the place andputting down rat poison.

They'd gone through its pockets and piled up the contents in a heap.

There'd been a big square of white cloth among them, which a group ofnomes had managed to tie around the human's mouth after its mooing goton everyone's nerves.

Now they stood around eating pieces of bread and cheese and pickle andwatching the human's eyes.

Humans can't understand nomes. Their voices are too fast and too high, like a bat squeak. It was probably just as well.

"I say we should find something sharp and stick it into it," said a nome.

"In all the soft parts."

"There's things we could do with matches," said Granny Morkie, toGrimma's surprise.

"And nails," said a middle-aged nome.

The human growled behind its gag and strained at the wires.

"We could pull all its hair out," said Granny Morkie. "And then wecould-"

"Do it, then," said Grimma, coming up behind them.

They turned.

"What?"

"Do it, if you want to," said Grimma. "There it is, right in front ofyou. Do what you like."

"What, we?" Granny Morkie nome drew back. "I didn't ... not me. Ididn't mean me. I meant well, us. Nomekind."

"There you are, then," said Grimma. "And nomekind is only nomes. Besides, it's wrong to hurt prisoners. I read it in a book. It's called the GenevaConvention. When you've got people at your mercy, you shouldn't hurtthem."

"Seems like the ideal time to me," said a nome. "Hit them when they can't hit back, that's what I sav. Anyway, it's not as if humans are the sameas real people." But he shuffled backward anyway.

"Funny, though, when you see their faces close up," said Granny Morkie, putting her head to one side. "They look a lot like us. Only bigger."

One of the nomes peered into the human's frightened eyes.

"Hasn't it got a hairy nose?" he said. "And ears too."

"Like a cow," said Granny.

"You could almost feel sorry for them, with great big noses like that."

Grimma peered into the human's eyes. I wonder, she thought. They'rebigger than us, so there must be room for brains. And they've got greatbig eyes. Surely they must have seen us once? Masklin said we've beenhere for thousands of years. In all that time, humans must have seen us.

They must have known we were real people. But in their minds they turnedus into pixies. Perhaps they didn't want to have to share the world.

The human was definitely looking at her.