'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. Well?' said the old woman, menacingly. 'Ahem,' 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.' 'What?' shouted Granny. 'That's what he told me to do. It worked, didn't it?' Masklin ignored them. The coloured 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 further along the bank until he could look down on the place where the lorries 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.

'Fifteen thousand years have passed,' it said. Masklin looked up at the others.

'You talk to it,' Granny ordered Torrit. The old man backed away.

'Not me! Not me! I dunno what to say!' he said. 'Well, I ain't!' snapped Granny. 'That's the leader's job, is that!' 'Fifteen thousand years have passed,' the Thing repeated.

Masklin shrugged. It seemed to be up to him.

'Passed what?' he said.