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to know the Thing better, Masklin always thought that particular pattern was its way of sighing deeply.
    â€œMy purpose is to serve you and guide you,” said the Thing.
    â€œSee?” said Torrit, who was feeling a bit out of things. “We was right about that!”
    Masklin prodded the box. “You’ve been keeping a bit quiet about it lately, then,” he said.
    The Thing hummed. “This was to maintain internal power. However, I can now use ambient electricity.”
    â€œThat’s nice,” said Grimma.
    â€œYou mean you sort of drink up the lights?” said Masklin.
    â€œThat will suffice as an explanation for now.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you talk before, then?” said Masklin.
    â€œI was listening.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œAnd now I await instructions.”
    â€œIn where?” said Grimma.
    â€œI think it wants us to tell it what to do,” said Masklin. He sat back on his heels and watched the lights.
    â€œWhat can you do?” he said.
    â€œI can translate, calculate, triangulate, assimilate, correlate, and extrapolate.”
    â€œI don’t think we want anything like that,” said Masklin. “Do we want anything like that?” he asked the others.
    Granny Morkie appeared to think about it. “No,” she said eventually, “I don’t think we wants any of that stuff. Another banana’d be nice, mind.”
    â€œI think all we really want is to go home and be safe,” said Masklin.
    â€œGo home.”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œAnd be safe.”
    â€œYes.”
    Later on, those five words became one of the most famous quotations in nome history. They got taught in schools. They got carved in stone. And it’s sad, therefore, that at the time no one thought they were particularly important.
    All that happened was that the Thing said, “Computing.”
    Then all its lights died, except a small green one, which began to flash.
    â€œThank goodness for that,” said Grimma. “What a horrible voice. What shall we do now?”
    â€œAccording to that Angalo boy,” said Granny, “we have to live very sad lives.”

3
    I. For they did not know it, but they had brought with them the Thing, which awoke in the presence of Electricity, and it alone knew their History;
    II. For nomes have memories of Flesh and Blood, while the Thing had a memory of Silicon, which is Stone and perisheth not, whereas the memory of nomes blows away like dust;
    III. And they gave it Instructions, but knew it not .
    IV. It is, they said, a Box with a Funny Voice .
    V. But the Thing began to Compute the task of keeping all nomes safe .
    VI. And the Thing also began to Compute the task of taking all nomes home .
    VII. All the way Home .
    From The Book of Nome, Mezzanine v. I–VII
    I T WAS EASY to get lost under the floor. It took no effort at all. It was a maze of walls and cables, with drifts of dust away from the paths. In fact, as Torrit said, they weren’t exactly lost, more mislaid; there were paths all over the place, between the joists and walls, but no indication of where they led to. Sometimes a nome would hurry past on an errand of its own and pay them no attention.
    They dozed in an alcove formed by two huge wooden walls and woke up to light as dim as ever. There didn’t seem to be any night or day in the Store. It did seem noisier, though. There was a distant, all-pervading hubbub.
    A few more lights were flashing on the Thing, and it had grown a little, cup-shaped, smaller thing that went round and round very slowly.
    â€œShould we look for the Food Hall again?” asked Torrit hopefully.
    â€œI think you have to be a member of a department,” said Masklin. “But it can’t be the only place with food, can it?”
    â€œIt wasn’t as noisy as this when we came here,” said Granny. “What a din!”
    Masklin looked around. There was a space between the