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said it used to, but he said that hundreds and hundreds of years ago it just stopped.”
    â€œWhat?” said Granny Morkie. “All these years, my good man, you’ve been telling us that the Thing says this and the Thing says that and the Thing says goodness knows what.”
    Now Torrit looked like a very frightened, trapped animal.
    â€œWell?” said the old woman, menacingly.
    â€œAhem,” said Torrit. “Er. What old Voozel said was, think about what the Thing ought to say, and then say it. Keep people on the right path, sort of thing. Help them get to the Heavens. Very important, getting to the Heavens. The Thing can help you get there, he said. Most important thing about it.”
    â€œWhat?” shouted Granny.
    â€œThat’s what he told me to do. It worked, didn’t it?”
    Masklin ignored them. The colored lines moved over the Thing in hypnotic patterns. He felt that he ought to know what they meant. He was certain they meant something .
    Sometimes, on fine days back in the times when he didn’t have to hunt every day, he’d climb farther along the bank until he could look down on the place where the trucks parked. There was a big blue board there, with little shapes and pictures on it. And in the litter bins the boxes and papers had more shapes and pictures on them; he remembered the long argument they’d had about the chicken boxes with the pictures of the old man with the big whiskers on them. Several nomes had insisted that this was a picture of a chicken, but Masklin had rather felt that humans didn’t go around eating old men. There had to be more to it than that. Perhaps old men made chicken.
    The Thing hummed again.
    â€œFifteen thousand years have passed,” it said.
    Masklin looked up at the others.
    â€œYou talk to it,” Granny ordered Torrit. The old man backed away.
    â€œNot me! Not me! I dunno what to say!” he said.
    â€œWell, I ain’t!” snapped Granny. “That’s the leader’s job, is that!”
    â€œFifteen thousand years have passed,” the Thing repeated.
    Masklin shrugged. It seemed to be up to him.
    â€œPassed what?” he said.
    The Thing gave the impression that it was thinking busily. At last it said: “Do you still know the meaning of the words Flight Navigation and Recording Computer?”
    â€œNo,” said Masklin earnestly. “None of them.”
    The light pattern moved.
    â€œDo you know anything about interstellar travel?”
    â€œNo.”
    The box gave Masklin the distinct impression that it was very disappointed in him.
    â€œDo you know you came here from a place far away?” it said.
    â€œOh, yes. We know that.”
    â€œA place farther than the moon.”
    â€œEr.” Masklin hesitated. The journey had taken a long time. It was always possible that they had gone past the moon. He had often seen it on the horizon, and he was certain that the truck had gone farther than that.
    â€œYes,” he said. “Probably.”
    â€œLanguage changes over the years,” said the Thing thoughtfully.
    â€œDoes it?” said Masklin politely.
    â€œWhat do you call this planet?”
    â€œI don’t know what planet means, either,” said Masklin.
    â€œAn astronomical body.”
    Masklin looked blank.
    â€œWhat is your name for this place?”
    â€œIt’s called . . . the Store.”
    â€œThestore.” The lights moved, as if the Thing were thinking again.
    â€œYoung man, I don’t want to stand here all day exchanging nonsense with the Thing,” said Granny Morkie. “What we need to do now is sort out where we’re going and what we’re going to do.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Torrit defiantly.
    â€œDo you even remember that you are shipwrecked?”
    â€œI’m Masklin,” said Masklin. “I don’t know who Shipwrecked is.”
    The lights changed again. Later, when he got