Wings, by Terry Pratchett, The Third Book of the Nomes.
%%
AIRPORTS: A place where people hurry up and wait.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
I thought jet planes were just trucks with more wings and less wheels.
-- Masklin in Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Find Grandson Richard Arnold, 39,' he said.
  'This will take a long time,' said the Thing.
  'Oh.'
  A few lights moved on the Thing's surface. Then it said, 'I have located
a Richard Arnold, aged thrity-nine. He has just gone into the first class
first-class departure lounge for flight 205 to Miami, Florida.'
  'That didn't take a very long time,' said Masklin.
  'It was three hundred microseconds,' said the Thing. 'That's long.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'This building is full of computers,' said the Thing.
  'What, like you?'
  The Thing managed to look offended. 'They are very, very primitive,' it said.
'But I can understand them. If I think slowly enough. Their job is to know
where humans are going.'
  'That's more than most humans do,' said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
Nomes live ten times faster than humans. They're harder to see than a high-
speed mouse.
  That's one reason why most humans hardly ever see them.
  The other is that humans are very good at no seeing things they know aren't
there. And, since sensible humans know that there are no such things as people
four inches high, a nome who doesn't want to be seen probably won't be seen.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
And then there were the frogs.
Very, very small frogs.
They had such a tiny life cycle it still had trainer wheels on it.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
And this had been the way things were for as far back as the frogs could
remember.*
--
*About three seconds. Frogs don't have good memories.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  It saw the universe.
  More precisely, it saw the branch stretching away into the mists.
  And several yards away, glistening with droplets of moisture in a solatary
shaft of sunlight, was another flower.
  The frog sat and stared.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'And we're not going to try to drive it, Angalo!'
  Angalo shrugged.
  'All right,' he said. 'But suppose I'm on it, and the driver becomes ill,
then I expect I'll have to take over. I mean, I drove the Truck pretty well - '
  'You kept running into things!' said Gurder.
  'I was learning. Anyway, there's nothing to run into in the sky except
clouds, and they look pretty soft,' said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'You get more air close to the ground,' said Angalo. 'I read that in a
book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up.'
  'Why not?' said Gurder.
  'Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
CONCORDE: It goes twice as fast as a bullet and you get smoked salmon.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Then there was a heavy pause, like the moment a ball must feel between the
time it's thrown up and the time it starts to come down, and something
picked up all three of them and slid them into a struggling heap. The floor
tried to become the wall.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  It had been in a pocket diary, and the names of the faraway places written
on it were like magic - Africa, Australia, China, Equator, Printed in Hong
Kong, Iceland ...
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  They stared at the branch. There wasn't just one flower out there, there
were dozens, although the frogs weren't able to think like this because
frogs can't count beyond one.
  They saw lots of ones.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
They stared at them. Staring is one of the few things frogs are good at.
Thinking isn't.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  It would be nice to say that the tiny frogs thought long and hard about the
new flower, about life in the old flower, about the need to explore, about
the possibility that the world was bigger than a pool with petals around
the edge.
  In fact, what they thought was: ._._.mipmip._._.mipmip._._.mipmip.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  There was a polite beeping from the Thing.
  'You may be interested to know,' it said, 'that we've broken the sound
barrier.'
  Masklin turned to the others.
  'All right, own up,' he said, 'Who broke it?'
  'Don't look at me,' said Angalo. 'I didn't touch anything.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  One of the giving-out-food humans was pulling trays off the shelf when a
movement made it look up. Its head turned very slowly.
  Something small and black was being lowered down right by its ear.
  It stuck tiny thumbs in small ears, wagged its fingers, and put out its
tongue.
  'Thrrrrrrrrp,' said Gurder.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'What does it taste of?' said Masklin, after Gurder had chewed a
mouthful.
  'Tastes of pink,' said Gurder.*
--
* Little dishes of strange wobbly stuff tasting of pink turn up in nearly
every meal on all aeroplanes. No one knows why. There's probably some sort
of special religious reason.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
TRAVELLING HUMANS: Large, nome-like creatures. Many humans spend a lot of
time travelling from place to place, which is odd because there are usually
too many humans at the place they're going to anyway. Also see under
ANIMALS, INTELLIGENCE, EVOLUTION and CUSTARD.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'The message told the giving-out-food people that a strange little creature
was on the flight deck,' said the Thing. 'That is where we are. There are many
computers here.'
  'They're talking to you, are they?'
  'A little. They are like children. Mostly they listen,' said the Thing
smugly. 'They are not very intelligent.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I thought you always said kids spent far too much time running around and
getting into mischief these days?'
  'Ah. Yes. Well, that's juvenile delinquency,' said Gurder sternly. 'It's
quite different from our youthful high spirits.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  "And the giving-out-food human said, 'It was no mouse I saw. It blew a
raspberry at me.'"
  'What's a raspberry?'
  'The small red fruit of the plant Rubus ideaus.'
  Masklin turned to Gurder.
  'Did you?'
  'Me? What fruit? Listen, if they're had been any fruit around I'd have
eaten it. I just went "thrrrrp".'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I'm right out of ideas,' he said. 'Can you think of anything, Thing?'
  'There is practically no limit to what I can think of.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I mean, is there anything you can do to help us rescue Gurder?'
  'Yes.'
  'You'd better do it, then.'
  'Yes.'
  A moment later they heard a low clanging of alarms. Lights began to flash.
The drivers shouted and leaded forward and started doing things to switches.
  'What's going on?' said Masklin.
  'It is possible that the humans are startled that they are no longer flying 
this machine,' said the Thing.
  'They're not? Who is, then?"
  The lights rippled smoothly across the Thing.
  'I am.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'We are flying at a height of 55,000 feet at 1,352 miles per hour,' said the
Thing.
  When they didn't comment, it added, 'That's very high and very fast.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I wonder if I can put it another way,' said the Thing, and it managed to
sound slightly annoyed. 'It could get from the Store to the quarry in under
fifteen seconds.'
  'Good job we didn't meet it coming the other way, then,' said Masklin.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'They're good socks, though,' said Angalo.
  Masklin stared at them. 'How can you tell?' he said.
  'They're Histyle Odourprufe,' said Anagalo. 'Guaranteed eighty-five per
cent Polyputheketlon.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'It's not a mouse, it's Angalo!'
  'But afterwards they'll think it was a mouse. I don't think humans want to
know things that disturb them.'
  'Sounds just like nomes to me,' said Gurder.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
 'And those shoes,' said Angalo, pointing to the great white shapes like
beached boats a little way away. 'See them? Crucial Street Drifters with
Real Rubber Soul. Very expensive.'
  'Never approved of them, myself,' said Gurder. 'Too flashy. I preferred
Men's, Brown, Laced. A nome could get a good nights sleep in one of those.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Gurder had gone red. He prodded Masklin with a finger. 'Do you expect me
to believe,' he said, 'that Richard Arnold, the grandson of Arnold Bros
(est. 1905) has holes in his socks?'
  'That'd make them holy socks,' said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
HOTELS: A place where TRAVELLING HUMANS are parked at night. Other humans
bring them food, including the famous BACON, LETTUCE AND TOMATO SANDWICH.
There are beds and towels and special things that rain on people to get
them clean.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
'Gurder?'
'Yes?'
'What are you doing? Are you cutting something?'
'He's cutting a hole in his sock.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I am searching available data. Conclusion: no reliable sighting of
nomes. All recorded immigrants have been in excess of four inches high.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Thing, do you know what happens next?'
  'We will pass through Immigration and Customs. Are you now, or have you
ever been, a member of a subversive organization?'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Very clever idea, though.
  'What is?'
  'Asking the questions when people arrive. If anyone was coming here to
do some subversive overthrowing, everyone'd be down on him like a pound of
bricks as soon as he answered "Yes".'
  'It's a sneaky trick, isn't it,' said Angalo, in an admiring tone of
voice.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'No, we don't want to do any overthrowing,' said Masklin to the Thing.
'We just want to steal one of their going-straight-up jets. What are they
called again?'
  'Space Shuttles.'
  'Right. And then we'll be off. We don't want to cause any trouble.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
'Thing? I said, what do we do - '
'Nothing.'
'How can we do nothing?'
'By performing an absense of activity.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The nomes were used to humans with signs. Some of the humans in the Store
used to wear their names all the time. Humans had strange long names, like
Mrs J. E. Williams Supervisor and Hello My Name is Tracey. No one knew why
humans had to wear their names. Perhaps they'd forget them otherwise.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Now there was a rumbling noise. Anagalo looked up. 'I know that sound,'
he said, 'Infernal combustion engine. We're in a vehicle.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
'What's happening, Thing?' Masklin hissed.
'It has gone into a room to have water showering on it,' said the Thing.
'What does it want to do that for?'
'I assume it wants to keep clean.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
'So is it safe to get out of the bag now?'
' "Safe" is a relative word.'
'What? What? Like "uncle", you mean?'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'What's the human singing about, Thing?' said Masklin.
  'It is a little difficult to follow. However, it appears that the singer
wishes it to be known that he did something his way.'
  'Did what?'
  'Insufficient data at this point. But whatever it was, he did it at
a) each step along life's highway and b) not in a shy way...'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'But is it all right to eat Grandson Richard's sandwich?' Masklin asked.
  Gurder opened his eyes. He blinked.
  'That's an important theological point,' he muttered. 'But I'm too hungry
to think about it, so let's eat it first, and then if it turns out to be
wrong to eat it, I promise to be very sorry.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  ... Boom-hoom whop whop, foom hoom ...
  'The human says that the end is now near and he is facing a curtain,' the
Thing translated. 'This may be a shower curtain.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Masklin took a running jump.
  Nomes can fall quite a long way without being hurt, and in any case a
bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich broke his fall.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  There were other dangers besides falling off a branch. One of the frogs
was eaten by a lizard. Several others turned back as soon as they were out
of the shade of their flower because, as they pointed out,
'._._.mipmip._._.mipmip._._.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The frog in the lead looked back at his dwindling group. There was one
... and one ... and one ... and one ... and one, which added up to - it
wrinkled its forehead in the effort of calculation - yes, one.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Some of them were getting frightened. The leading frog realized that if
they were ever going to get to the new flower and survive there, there'd
need to be a lot more that one frog. They'd need at least one, or possible
even one. He gave them a croak of encouragement.
  'Mipmip.' he said.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
FLORIDA (or FLORIDIA): A place where may be found ALLIGATORS, LONG-NECKED
TURTLES and SPACE SHUTTLES. An interesting place which is warm and wet and
there are geese. BACON, LETTUCE AND TOMATO SANDWICHES may be found here
also. A lot more interesting than many other places. The shape when seen
from the air is like a bit stuck on a bigger bit.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I expect your Grimma's got everyone organized,' said Angalo, trying to
grin.
  'She's not my Grimma,' snapped Masklin.
  'Isn't she? Whose is she, then?'
  'She's - ' Masklin hesitated. 'Hers, I suppose,' he said lamely.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Oh. I thought the two of you were set to - ' Anagalo began.
  'We're not. I told her we were going to get married, and all she could
talk about was frogs,' said Masklin.
  'That's females for you,' said Gurder. 'Didn't I say that letting them
learn to read was a bad idea? It overheats their brains.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'She said the most important thing in the world was little frogs living in
a flower,' Masklin went on, trying to listen to the voice of his own memory.
He hadn't been listening very hard at the time. He'd been too angry.
  'Sounds like you could boil a _kettle_ on her head,' said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'It was something she'd read in a book, she said.'
  'My point exactly,' said Gurder. 'You know I never really agreed with letting
everyone learn to read. It unsettles people.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Masklin looked gloomily at the rain.
  'Come to think of it,' he said. 'it wasn't frogs exactly. It was the _idea_
of frogs. She said there's these hills where it's hot and rains all the time,
and in the rain forests there are these very tall trees and right in the top
branchs of the trees there are these like great big flowers called ...
bromeliads, I think, and water gets into the flowers and makes little pools
and there's a type of frog that lays eggs in the pools and tadpoles hatch and
grow into new frogs and these little frogs live their whole lives in the
flowers right at the top of the trees and don't even know about the ground and
once you know the world is full of things like that your life is never the
same.'
  He took a deep breath.
  'Something like that, anyway,' he said.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'What was that thing, Thing?' said Masklin.
  The Thing extended one of its sensors.
  'A long-necked turtle.'
  'Oh.'
  'Lucky, really,' said Gurder.
  'What?' said Angalo.
  'It having a long neck like that _and_ being called a long-necked turtle. It'd
be really awkward having a name like that if it had a short neck.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'If I get old, this is the kind of place I'd like to live, if I had to live
Outside,' Gurder went on, ignoring him.
  'It's a wild-life perserve', said the Thing.
  Gurder looked shocked. 'What? Like jam? Made of _animals_?'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'What's an alligator?' he said.
  The Thing told him.
  'What?' said Masklin.
  'What?' said Angalo.
  'What?' said Gurder. He pulled his robe tightly around his legs.
  'You idiot!' shouted Angalo.
  'Me?' said Masklin hotly. 'How should I know? Is it my fault? Did I miss a
sign at the airport saying "Welcome to Floridia, home of large meat-eating
amphibians up to twelve feet long"?'
  They watched the grasses. A damp warm world inhabited by insects and turtles
was suddenly a disguise for horrible terrors with huge teeth.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Several of the strangers backed away and raised their spears.
  'I've got my hands raised,' said Masklin over his shoulder. 'Why should
that be so upset?'
  'Because you're holding a large rock,' said Anagalo flatly.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The Thing was talking to them. Occasionally it would extend one of its
sensors and use it to draw shapes in the dust.
  'Thing's probably telling 'em we-come-from-place-bilong-far-on-big-bird-
that-doesn't-go-flap,' said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'What's happening, Thing?' he said. 'Why's the woman doing all the talking?'
  'She is the leader of this group,' said the Thing.
  'A woman? Are you serious?'
  'I am always serious. It's built-in.'
  'Oh.'
  Angalo nudged Masklin. 'If Grimma ever finds out, we're in _real_ trouble.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
GEESE: A type of bird which is slower than, e.g. CONCORDE, and you don't
get anything to eat. According to nomes who know them well, a goose is the
most stupid bird there is, except for a duck. Geese spend a lot of time
flying to other places. As a form of transport, the goose leaves a lot to
be desired.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
In the beginning, said Shrub, there was nothing but ground. NASA saw the
emptiness above the ground and decided to fill it with sky. It built a
place in the middle of the world and sent up towers full of clouds.
Sometimes they also carried stars because, at night, after one of the cloud
towers had gone up, the nomes could sometimes see new stars moving across
the sky.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
The leading tree frog was trying to wrestle with a new idea. It was very
dimly aware that it needed a new type of thought.
  There had been the world, with the pool in the middle and the petals
round the edge. One.
  But further along the branch was another world. From here it looked
tantalizingly like the flower they had left. One.
  The leading frog sat in a clump of moss and swivelled each eye so that it
could see both worlds at the same time. One there. And one there.
  One. And One.
  The frog's forehead bulged as it tried to get its mind around the new
idea. One and one were one. But if you had one here and one there...
  The other frogs watched in bewilderment as their leader's eyes whizzed
round and round.
  One here and one there couldn't be one. They were too far apart. You
needed a word that meant both ones. You needed to say ... you needed to say ...
  The frogs mouth widened. It grinned so broadly that both ends almost
met behind its head.
  It had worked it out.
  '._._.mipmip._._.!' it said.
  It meant: one. And one _more_ one.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Geese are the ones you mustn't say boo to.'
  Gurder watched a long neck weave back and forth above him.
  'I wouldn't dream of it.' he said.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'What rest?'
  'Call the ship.'
  'Yes, where is the ship? I'm amazed satellites and things haven't bumped
into it.'
  'It is waiting.'
  'You're a great help, sometimes.'
  'Thank you.'
  'That was meant to be sarcastic.'
  'I know.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'But he could be killed!' Masklin shrieked.
  'Then he will go up into the sky and become a star.'
  'Is that what they believe?'
  'Yes. They believe the operating system of a nome starts off as a goose.
If it is a good goose, it becomes a nome. When a good nome dies, NASA takes
it up into the sky and it becomes a star.'
  'What's an operating system?' said Masklin. This was religion. He always
felt out of his depth with religion.
  'The thing inside you that tells you what you are,' said the Thing.
  'It means a soul.' said Gurder wearily.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The geese, on the other hand, looked about as aerodynamic as a pillow. They
didn't roll into the sky and sneer at the clouds like the plane did. No, they
ran across the top of the water and hammered desperately at the air with their
wings and then, just when it was obvious they weren't going to achieve
anything, they suddenly did; the water dropped away and there was just the
slow creak of wings pulling the goose up into the sky.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'No, they don't,' said Angalo authoritatively. 'I remember reading about it
in a book. They eat out of tubes.'
  The nomes ran in silence while they thought about this.
  'What, toothpaste?' said Gurder, after a while.
  'No, not toothpaste. Of course not toothpaste. I'm _sure_ not toothpaste.'
  'Well, what else do you know that comes in tubes?'
  Angalo though about this.
  'Glue?' he said, uncertainly.
  'Doesn't sound a good meal to me. Toothpaste and glue?'
  'The people who drive the space jets must like it. They were all smiling in
the picture I saw,' said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'We've got to have a rest! Gurder isn't running, he's just falling
upright.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
SATELLITES: They are in SPACE and stay there by going to fast that they are
never in one place enough to fall down. TELEVISIONS are bounced off them.
They are part of SCIENCE.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
'I can't understand you without the Thing,' said Masklin. 'Sorry.'
'No speaka da goose-oh", said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The sound behind them started like a hiss, like the whole world taking a
deep breath. Then it turned into ...
  ... not noise, but something more like an invisible hammer which smacked
into both ears at once.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
SPACE: There are two types of space: a) something containing nothing and
b) nothing containing everything. It is what you have left when you haven't
got anything else. There is no air or gravity, which is what holds people
onto things. If there wasn't space, everything would be in one place. It is
designed to be a place for SATELLITES, SHUTTLES, PLANETS and THE SHIP.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
After some time, when the ground had stopped shaking, the nomes picked
themselves up and stared blearily at one another.
  '      !' said Gruder.
  'What?' said Masklin. His own voice sounded a long way away, and muffled.
  '       ?' said Gurder.
  '                         ?' said Angalo.
  '              ?'
  'What? I can't hear you! Can you hear me?'
  '    ?'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Is it dead?' said Gurder.
  'It can't die! It's existed for thousands of years!'
  Gurder shook his head. 'Sounds like a good reason for dying,' he said.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
Beyond the top of the sky was the place the Thing had called the Universe. It
contained - according to the Thing - everything and nothing. And there was
very little everything and more nothing than anyone could imagine.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  For example, it was often said that the sky was full of stars. It was untrue.
The sky was full of sky. There were unlimited amounts of sky and really, by
comparison, very few stars.
  It was amazing, therefore, that they made such an impression...
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  It had Arnsat-1 painted on its side, which was a bit of a waste of paint
since stars can't read.
  It unfolded a silver dish.
  It should have turned to face the planet below it, ready to beam down old
movies and new news.
  It didn't. It had new orders.
  Little puffs of gas jetted out as it turned around and searched the sky
for a new target.
  By the time it had found it, a lot of people in the old movies and new
news business were shouting very angrily at one another down telephones,
some of them were feverishly trying to give it new instructions.
  But that didn't matter, because it wasn't listening any more.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Dorcas, the engineer, had once tried to explain electricity to Masklin,
but without much success because Drocas wasn't too certain about it either.
There seemed to be two kinds, straight and wiggly. The straight kind was
very boring and stayed in batteries. The wiggly kind was found in wires in
the walls and things, and somehow the Thing could steal some of it if it
was close enough. Dorcas used to talk about wiggly electricity in the same
tone of voice Gurder used for talking about Arnold Bros (est. 1905). He'd
tried to study it back in the Store. If it was put into freezers it made
things cold, but if the same electricity went into an oven it made things
hot, so how did it know?
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Masklin looked up at dozens of staring faces. He could see every eyeball,
every nostril. Every one of them looked worried. At least, every eyeball
did. The nostrils just looked like nostrils.
  They were worried about _him_.
  Keep smiling.
  He stared back at them and, still almost giggling with repressed panic,
  said, 'Can I help you, gentlemen?'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
SCIENCE: A way of finding things out and then making them work. Science
explains what is happening around us the whole time. So does RELIGION, but
science is better because it comes up with more understandable excuses when
it is wrong. There is a lot more Science than you think.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I am monitoring communications,' said the Thing.
  'You're always doing that.'
  'A lot of them are about you. All kinds of experts are rushing here to look
at you.'
  'What kind of experts? Experts in nomes?'
  'Experts in talking to creatures from other worlds. Humans haven't met anyone
from another world, but they've still got experts in talking to them.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'But we've been here for thousands of years! We _live_ here!' said Masklin.
  'Humans find it a lot easier to really believe in little people from the sky
than little people from the Earth. They would prefer to think of little green
men than leprechauns.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I pointed to my mouth and they understood I was hungry.'
  'Ah,' said the Thing. 'Take me to your larder.'
  'Pardon?'
  'I will explain. I have told you that I monitor communications?'
  'All the time.'
  'There is a joke. That is, a humorous anecdote or story, known to humans.
It concerns a Ship from another world landing on this planet, and strange
creatures get out and say to a petrol pump, dustbin, slot-machine or
similar mechanical device, "Take me to your leader." I surmise this is
beacuse they are unaware of the shape of humans. I have substituted a
similar word larder, referring to a place where food is stored. This is a
humorous pun, or play on words for hilarious effect.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The trouble is that it's frogs we're talking about here. Their name for
the sun was '._._.mipmip._._.' Their name for the moon was
'._._.mipmip._._.' Their name for everything was '._._.mipmip._._.', and
when you're stuck with a vocabulary of one word, it's pretty hard to have
legends about anything at all.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'And now, please be quiet. The Ship is feeling lost and wants to be told
what to do. It has just woken up after fifteen thousand years.'
  'I'm not very good at mornings myself,' said Masklin.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Masklin says there's all kinds of stuff up there,' said Angalo dreamily.
'And masses of space. That's what space is well-known for, lots of space.
Masklin said the Ship goes faster than light goes, which is probably wrong,
otherwise how'd you see anything. You'd turn the lights on and all the
light would drop backwards out of the room. But it's pretty fast - '
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  '010011001010010010 ...'
  'Oh, shut up and tell me when the Ship is going to get here.'
  '0101011001 ... Which do you want me to do? ... 01001100 ...'
  'What?'
  'I can shut up OR I can tell you when the Ship is going to arrive. I
can't do both.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Please tell me when the Ship is going to arrive,' said Masklin
patiently, 'and then shut up.'
  'Four minutes.'
  'Four minutes!'
  'I could be three seconds out,' said the Thing. 'But I calculate it as
four minutes. Only now it's three minutes thirty-eight seconds. It'll be
three minutes and thirty-seven seconds any second now ...'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Masklin glanced back at the label as he grabbed the sweater.
  'It says here that these jeans won a gold medal in the Chicago Exhibition
in 1910,' he said. 'They've certainly lasted well.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'So that's the head human, is it? Is it some sort of extra-wise one, or
something.'
  'I don't think so. The other humans around it are trying to explain to it
what a planet is.'
  'Doesn't it know?'
  'Many humans don't. Mistervicepresident is one of them. 001010011000.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
GRAVITY: This is not properly understood, but it is what makes small
things, like nomes, stick to big things, like planets. Because of SCIENCE,
this happens whether you know about gravity or now. Which goes to show that
Science is happening all the time.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
Masklin would be the first to admit that he wasn't too familiar with forms
of transport, but what they all seemed to have in common was a front, which
was in front, and a back, which wasn't. The whole point was that the front
was where they went forward from.
  The thing dropping out of the sky was a disk - just a top connected to a
bottom, with edges round the sides. It didn't make any noise, but it seemed
to be impressing the humans no end.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'What makes it float?' Masklin demanded.
  The Thing told him.
  'Auntie who? Who's she? There's relatives on board?'
  'Not Auntie. Anti. Anti-Gravity.'
  'But there's no flames or smoke!'
  'Flames and smoke are not essential.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The Thing started to speak in the low, slow tones of human speech.
  It seemed to go on for a long time.
  The human's expression froze.
  'What did you say? What did you say?' said Masklin.
  "I said, if he harms you in any way I shall explode and blow his head off,'
said the Thing."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  "You call that communicating?"
  "Yes. I call it very effective communicating."
  "But that's a dreadful thing to say! Anyway, you never told me that you could
explode!"
  "I can't. But it doesn't know that. It's only human," said the Thing.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Um. Exactly how far off the ground did you stop it?' Masklin enquired.
  'Four inches seemed adequate - '
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Masklin's mind was in turmoil. He'd always believed that humans were
intelligent. After all, nomes were very intelligent. Rats were quite 
intelligent. And foxes were intelligent, more or less. There ought to be enough
intelligence sloshing around in the world for humans to have some too. But
this was something more than intelligence.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The ship rose a few feet, wobbling alarmingly. It drifted sideways a
little. Then it went straight up so fast that it was just a blur and jerked
to a halt high over the crowd. And then it turned over. And then it went on
its edge for a while.
  It floated back down again, and landed, more or less. That is, one side
touched the ground and the other rested on the air, on nothing.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The ship spoke loudly.
  To the humans it must have sounded like a high-pitched chattering.
  What it actually said was: 'Sorry! Sorry! Is this a microphone? Can't
find the button that opens the door ... let's try this one ...'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The ship wailed again.
  'Er,' came Angalo's hugely amplified voice, apparently talking to someone
else. 'I'm not sure about this switch, but maybe it's ... Certainly I'm
going to press it, why shouldn't I press it? It's next to the door one, it
must be safe. Look, shut up ...'
  A silver ramp wound out of the doorway. It looked big enough for humans.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Are you sure you're all right?' said Gurder, peering anxiously at him.
  Masklin's head felt full of cotton wool. 'You know you believed in Arnold
Bros (est. 1905)?' he managed to say.
  'Yes,' said Gurder.
  Masklin gave him a mad triumphant grin.
  'Well, he believed in you, too! How about that?'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
THE SHIP: The machine used by nomes to leave Earth. We don't yet know
everything about it but, since it was built by nomes using SCIENCE, we
will.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
The ramp wound in. The doorway shut. The Ship rose in the air until it was
high above the buildings.
  And it stayed there, while the sun set.
  The humans below tried shining coloured lights at it, and playing tunes
at it, and eventually just speaking to it in every language known to
humans.
  It didn't seem to take any notice.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I'm an intelligent machine, and I don't want to end up very flat at the
bottom of a deep hole,' said the Thing. 'You can't pilot the Ship yet.'
  'How do you know? You won't let me try! I drove the Truck, didn't I? It
wasn't my fault all those trees and street lights and things got in the
way,' he added, after catching Masklin's eye.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'Now, this is what I call proper flying,' said Anagalo, happily. 'No
noise and none of that stupid flapping.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  One of the big screens lit up, showing the crowds outside the ship.
  "They've been waiting there for ages," said Gurder.
  "What do they want?" said Angalo.
  "Search me," said Gurder. "Who knows what humans want?"
  Masklin stared at the throng below the Ship.
  "They've been trying all sorts of stuff,' said Angalo. "Flashing lights and
music and stuff like that. And radio too, the Thing says."
  "Haven't you tried talking back to them?" said Masklin.
  "No. Haven't got anything to say," said Angalo.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  "I wonder how it does it?" Masklin said aloud.
  A voice from the wall beside him said: "Would you understand if I told you
about molecular breakdown and reassembly from a wide range of raw materials?"
  "No," said Masklin, truthfully.
  "Then it's all done by Science."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
FROGS: Some people think that knowing about frogs is important. They are
small and green, or yellow, and have four legs. They croak. Young frogs are
tadpoles. In my opinion, this is all there is to know about frogs.
    From A Scientific Encyclopedia for the Enquiring Young Nome
    by Angalo de Haberdasheri
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
Find a blue planet ...
  Focus
  This is a planet. Most of it is covered in water but it's still called
Earth.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'All right,' said Masklin. 'But you're not to fly down low again and try
to read the signposts. Every time you do that, humans rush into the streets
and we get lots of shouting on the radio.'
  'That's right.' said the Thing. 'People are bound to get excited when
they see a ten-million-ton starship trying to fly down the street.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Angalo ran his hands over the Ship's controls.
  "Right," he said. "Here we go. I expect the Concorde drivers will probably
be quite pleased to have some company up here."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
The Ship drew level with the plane.
  "It's moving around a lot," said Angalo. "And it's starting to go faster,
too."
  "I think they may be worried about the Ship," said Masklin.
  "Can't see why," said Angalo. "Can't see why at all. We're not doing anything
except following 'em."
  "I wish we had some proper windows," said Gurder, wistfully. "We could wave."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  "Have humans ever seen a Ship like this before?" Angalo asked the Thing.
  "No. But they've made up stories about Ships coming from other worlds."
  "Yes, they'd do that," said Masklin, half to himself. "That's _just_ the
sort of thing they'd do."
  "Sometimes they say the Ships will contain friendly people -"
  "That's us," said Angalo.
  " - and sometimes they say they will contain monsters with wavy tentacles
and big teeth."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  "Can't the Thing send a message to the Concorde drivers?" said Gurder.
"Something like 'Don't worry, we haven't got any teeth and tentacles,
guaranteed'?"
  "They probably wouldn't believe us," said Angalo. "If _I_ had teeth and
tentacles all over the place that's just the sort of message I'd send. 
Cunning."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The Concorde screamed across the top of the sky, breaking the transatlantic
record. The Ship drifted along behind it.
  "I reckon," said Angalo, looking down, "that humans are just about
intelligent enough to be crazy."
  "I think," said Masklin, "that maybe they're intelligent enough to be 
lonely."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  Masklin looked down and saw the yellow truck roll to a halt. 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.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  'I never realised it looked like that,' she said. 'There's so much of it!'
  'It's pretty big,' said Masklin.
  'You'd think one world would be big enough for all of us,' said Grimma.
  'Oh, I don't know,' said Masklin. 'Maybe one world isn't enough for
anyone.'
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  "Please don't argue." Gurder looked around. "I've been thinking about this
ever since we got the Ship. There _are_ other nomes out there. _Someone_
ought to tell them about the Ship coming back. We can't take them now, but
someone ought to find all the other nomes in the world and make sure that they
know about the Ship. Some ought to be telling them about what's really true.
It should be me, don't you think? I've got to be usefule for _something_."
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%
  The Ship curved up, towards the stars. Below, the world stopped unrolling
because it had reached its edges, and became a black disc against the sun.
  Nomes and frogs looked down on it.
  And the sunlight caught it and made it glow around the rim, sending rays
up into the darkness, so that it looked exactly like a flower.
-- Wings, Terry Pratchett
%%