Terry Pratchett - The Bromeliad 2 - Diggers

Grimma leaned over the plank.

"Sacco," she said. "You see those other levers?"

The pale round blobs of the humans' faces appeared at the dusty windowsof the shed.

The Cat was twenty feet away, vibrating gently in the early morning mist.

Then the engine roared. The big front shovel came up, catching the sunlight. The Cat sprang forward, bouncing across the quarry floor and taking outone wall of the shed like ripping the lid off a can. The other walls andthe roof folded up gently, as if it were a house of cards with the ace ofspades flipped away.

The digger careened around in a big circle, so that when the two humanscrawled out of the wreckage it was the first thing they saw. Throbbing, with the big metal mouth poised to bite.

They ran.

They ran almost as fast as nomes.

"I've always wanted to do that," said Grimma, in a satisfied voice. "Now, where did the other human go?"

"Back to the truck, I think," said Dorcas weakly.

"Fine," said Grimma. "Now-lots of right, Sacco. Stop. Now forward, slowly."

"Can we sort of stop this and just go now? Please?" pleaded Dorcas.

"The humans' truck is in the way," said Grimma, reasonably enough.

"They've stopped right in the entrance."

"Then we're trapped," said Dorcas.

Grimma laughed. It wasn't a very amusing sound. Dorcas suddenly feltalmost as sorry for the humans as he was feeling for himself.

The humans must have been having similar thoughts, if humans hadthoughts. He could see their pale faces watching the Cat lurch towardthem.

They're wondering why they can't see a human inside, he thought. Theycan't work it out. Here's this machine, moving all by itself. It's apuzzler, for humans.

They reached some sort of conclusion, though. He saw both truck doors flyopen and the humans jump out just as the Cat ...

There was a crunch, and the truck jerked as the Cat hit it. The knobbywheels spun for a moment, and then the truck rolled backward. Clouds ofsteam poured out.

"That's for Nisodemus," said Grimma.

"I thought you didn't like him," said Dorcas.

"Yes, but he was a nome."

Dorcas nodded. They were all, when you got right down to it, nomes. Itwas just as well to remember whose side you were on.

"May I suggest you change gear?" he said quietly.

"Why? What's wrong with the one we've got?"

"You'll be able to push better if you go down a gear. Trust me."

Humans were watching. They were watching, because a machine rolling around by itself is something that you do watch, even if you've just had to climb a tree or hide behind a hedge.

They saw the Cat roll backward, change gear with a roar, and attack the truck again. The windows shattered. Dorcas was really unhappy about this.

"You're killing a truck," he said.

"Don't be silly," said Grimma. "It's a machine. Just bits of metal. Back, hoe!" "Yes, but someone made it," said Dorcas. "They must be very hard to make.

I hate destroying things that are hard to make."

"They ran over Nisodemus," said Grimma. "And when we used to live in a hole, nomes were always being squashed by cars. Forward, hey!" "Yes, but nomes aren't hard to make," said Dorcas, hanging on grimly as they smashed into the truck again. "You just need other nomes."

"Back, hoe! You're weird. Forward, hey!"

The Cat struck again. One of the truck's headlights exploded. Dorcas winced.

Then the truck was pushed clear. Smoke was billowing out from it now, where fuel had spilled over the hot engine. The Cat backed off and rumbled around it. The nomes were really getting the hang of him now.

"Right," said Grimma. "Straight ahead." She nudged Dorcas. "We'll go and find this barn now, shall we?"

"Just go down the road, and I think there's a gateway into the fields," Dorcas mumbled. "It had an actual gate in it," he added. "I suppose it would be too much to ask you to let us open it first?"

Behind them the truck burst into flames. Not spectacularly, but in a workmanlike way, as if it were going to go on burning all day. Dorcas saw a human take off its coat and flap uselessly at the fire. He felt quite sorry for it. The Cat rolled unopposed down the dirt road. Some of the nomes started to sing as they sweated over the ropes.

"Now, then," said Grimma, "where's this gateway? Through the gate and across the fields, you said, and-" "It's just before you get to the car with the flashing lights on top," said Dorcas slowly. "The one that's just coming up the road."

They stared at it.

"Cars with lights on the top are bad news," said Grimma.

"You're right there," said Dorcas. "They're often full of humans who veryseriously want to know what's going on. There were lots of them down atthe railroad."

Grimma looked along the hedge.

"This is the gateway coming up, is it?" she said.

"Yes."

Grimma leaned down.

"Slow down and turn sharp right," she said.

The teams swung into action. Sacco even changed gear without being asked.

Nomes hung like spiders from the steering wheel, hauling it around.

There was a gate in the gateway. But it was old and held to the post withbits of string in proper agricultural fashion. It wouldn't have stoppedanything very determined, and it had no chance with the Cat.

Dorcas winced again.

The field on the other side was brown soil. Corrugated earth, the nomescalled it, after the corrugated cardboard you sometimes got in thepacking department in the Store. There was snow between the furrows. Thebig wheels churned it into mud.

Dorcas was half expecting the car to follow them. It stopped instead, andtwo humans in dark blue suits got out and started to lumber across thefield. There's no stopping humans, he thought glumly. They're like theweather.

The field ran gently uphill, around the quarry. The Cat's engine thudded.

There was a fence ahead, with a grassy field beyond it. The wire partedwith a twang. Dorcas watched it roll back, and wondered whether Grimmawould let him stop and collect a bit of it. You always knew where youwere with wire.

The humans were still following. Out of the corner of his eye, becauseup here there was altogether too much Outside to look at, Dorcas sawflashing lights on the highway, far away.

He pointed them out to Grimma.

"I know," she said. "I've seen them. But what else could we have done?" she added desperately. "Gone off and lived in the flowers like goodlittle pixies?"

"I don't know," said Dorcas wearily. "I'm not sure about anythinganymore."

Another wire fence twanged. There was shorter grass up here, and theground curved.

And then there was nothing but sky, and the Cat speeding up as the wheels bounced over the field at the top of the hill.

Dorcas had never seen so much sky. There was nothing around them, just abit of scrub in the distance. And it was silent. Well, not silent atall, because of the Cat's roar. But it looked like the kind of placethat would be silent if diggers full of desperate nomes weren'tthundering across it.

Some sheep ran out of the way.

"There's the barn up ahead, that stone building on the horiz-" Grimma began. Then she said, "Are you all right, Dorcas?"

"If I keep my eyes shut," he whispered.

"You look dreadful."

"I feel worse."

"But you've been Outside before."

"Grimma, we're the highest thing there is!

There's nothing higher than us for miles, or whatever you call those things! If I open my eyes I'll fall into the sky!"

Grimma leaned down to the perspiring drivers.

"Right just a bit!" she shouted. "That's it! Now, all the fast you can!"

"Hold on to the Cat!" she shouted, as the engine noise grew. "You know he can't fly!" The machine bumped up on a stony track that led in the general direction of the distant barn. Dorcas risked opening one eye.