Free Wings by Terry Pratchett Page A

who had been watching the geese speculatively. "I might be prepared to give it a try."
    "The Floridians have developed a very interesting relationship with the geese," said the Thing. "The geese provide the nomes with wings, and the nomes provide the geese with brains. They fly north to Canada in the summer, and back here for the winter. Geese like nomes. Geese that carry nomes are steered to better feeding grounds, and find that their nests get protected from rats and other creatures. Geese are bright enough to learn that geese with nomes around have a better life. And the nomes get free transport and a warm place to sleep. It's almost a symbiotic relationship, although, of course, they're not familiar with the term."
    "Aren't they? Silly old them," Angalo muttered.
    "I don't understand you, Angalo," said Masklin. "You're mad for riding in machines with whirring bits of metal pushing them along, yet you're worried about sitting on a perfectly natural bird."
    "That's because I don't understand how birds work," said Angalo. "I've never seen an exploded working diagram of a goose."
    "The geese are the reason the Floridians have never had much to do with humans," the Thing continued. "As I said, their language is almost original nomish."
    "Yes, and I still don't understand that," said Masklin. "I mean, nomes ought to speak the same language, yes?"
    "No. You remember that I told you once that nomes used to be able to talk to humans, and taught them languages?" "Yes?" said Masklin.
    "And then the humans changed the language, over hundreds of years. Nomes who lived near humans changed too. But the Floridians never had much to do with humans, so their form of the language is still very much as it used to be."
    Shrub was watching them carefully. There was something about the way she was treating them that still seemed odd to Masklin. It wasn't that she hadn't been afraid of them, or aggressive, or unpleasant.
    "She's not surprised," he said aloud. "She's interested, but she's not surprised. They were upset because we were here, not because we existed. How many other nomes has she met?'" The Thing had to translate.
    It was a word that Masklin had only known for a year.
    Thousands.
    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 around the edge. One.
    But farther along the branch was another world. From here it looked tantalisingly 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 a 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 around and around.
    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 frog's 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!
     
    Gurder was still arguing with Topknot when they got back.
    "How do they manage to keep it up? They don't understand what each other's saying!" said Angalo.
    "Best way," said Masklin.
    "Gurder? We're ready to go. Come on." Gurder looked up. He was very red in the face. The two of them were crouched either side of a mass of scrawled diagrams in the dirt.
    "I need the Thing!" he said. "This idiot refuses to understand anything!"
    "You won't win any arguments with him," said Masklin. "Shrub says he argues with all the other nomes they meet. He likes to."
    "What other nomes?" said Gurder.
    "There's nomes everywhere, Gurder. That's what Shrub says. There's other groups even in Floridia. And - and - and in Canadia, where the Floridians go