This time it was a piece of wire mesh on a metal rod. It started to turn, slowly.

Masklin picked it up.

While the other two argued he said, quietly, "Do you know where thislounge thing is?"

"Yes, " said the Thing.

"Let's go, then."

Angalo looked around.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he said.

Masklin ignored him. He said to the Thing, "And do you know how much timewe have before he starts going to Florida?"

"About half an hour."

Nomes live ten times faster than humans. They're harder to see than ahigh-speed mouse.

That's one reason why most humans hardly ever see them.

The other is that humans are very good at not seeing things they knowaren't there. And since sensible humans know that there are no such things as four-inch-high people, a nome who doesn't want to be seenprobably won't be seen.

So no one noticed three tiny blurs darting across the floor of theairport building. They dodged the rumbling wheels of luggage carts. Theyshot between the legs of slow-moving humans. They skidded aroundchairs. They became nearly invisible as they crossed a huge, echoingcorridor.

And they disappeared behind a potted plant.

It has been said that everything everywhere affects everything else.

This may be true.

Or perhaps the world is just full of patterns.

For example, in a tree nine thousand miles away from Masklin, high on acloudy mountainside, was a plant that looked like one large flower. Itgrew wedged in a fork of trees, its roots dangling in the air to trapwhat nourishment they could from the mists. Technically, it was anepiphytic bromeliad, although not knowing this made very little difference to the plant.

Water condensed into a tiny pool in the center of the bloom.

And there were frogs living in it.

Very, very small frogs.

They had such a tiny life cycle, it still had training wheels on it.

They hunted insects among the petals. They laid their eggs in the central pool. Tadpoles grew up and became more frogs. And they made more tadpoles. And each eventually died, and sank down and joined the compost at the base of the leaves, which, in fact, helped nourish the plant.