The nomes had always known that humans lived very slowly. Masklin had almost walked into humans once or twice, when he was hunting, and knew that even before one of their huge stupid faces could swivel its eyes he could be off the path and hiding behind a clump of something.

The space below was crowded with them, walk­ing their great slow clumping walk and booming at each other in their vague, deep voices.

The nomes watched, fascinated, for some time.

'What are those things they're holding?' said Grimma. 'They look a bit like the Thing.' 'Dunno,' said Masklin.

'Look, they pick them up, and then give some­thing to the other human, and then it's put in a bag, and they go away. They almost look, well, as if they mean what they're doing.' 'No, it's like ants,' said Torrit authoritatively. 'They seems intelligent, I'll grant you, but when you looks closely there's nothing really clever about them.' 'They build things,' said Masklin, vaguely.

'So do birds, my lad.' 'Yes, but-' 'Humans are a bit like magpies, I've always said. They just want things that glitter.' 'Hmm.' Masklin decided not to argue. You couldn't argue with old Torrit, unless you were Granny Morkie, of course. He only had room for a certain number of ideas in his head, and once one had taken root you couldn't budge it. But Masklin wanted to say: if they're so stupid, why isn't it them hiding from us? An idea struck him. He lifted up the Thing.

'Thing?' he said.

There was a pause. Then the tinny little voice said: 'Operations on main task suspended. What is it that you require?' 'Do you know what humans are?' said Masklin.

'Yes. Resuming main task.' Masklin looked blankly at the others.

'Thing?' he said.

'Operations on main task suspended. What is it that you require?' 'I asked you to tell me about humans,' said Masklin.