Being a Driver wasn't necessarily much fun.

Last year, before they'd found the Store, Masklin had to hunt all day.

Now he only hunted when he felt like it; the younger Store nomes likedhunting, and apparently it wasn't right for a Driver to do it. And theymined potatoes and there'd been a big harvest of corn from a nearbyfield, even after the machines had been around. Masklin would havepreferred the nomes to grow their own food, but they didn't seem to havethe knack of making seeds grow in the rock-hard ground of the quarry. Butthey were getting fed, that was the main thing.

Around him he could feel thousands of nomes living their lives. Raisingfamilies. Settling down.

He wandered back to his own burrow, down under one of the derelictquarry sheds. After a while he reached a decision and pulled the Thingout of its own hole in the wall.

None of its lights was on. They wouldn't do that until the Thing wasclose to electrical wires; then it would light up and be able to talk.

There were some wires in the quarry, and Dorcas had got them working.

Masklin hadn't taken the Thing to them, though. The solid black box had away of talking that always made him feel unsettled.

He was pretty certain it could hear, though.

"Old Torrit died last week," he said after a while. "We were a bit sad, but after all, he was very old and he just died. I mean, nothing ate himfirst or ran him over or anything."

Masklin's little tribe had lived in a highway embankment beside rollingcountryside which was full of things that were hungry for fresh nome. Theidea that you could die simply of not being alive anymore was a new oneto them.

"So we buried him up on the edge of the potato field, too deep for theplow. The Store nomes haven't got the hang of burial yet, I think. Theythink he's going to sprout, or something. I think they're mixing it upwith what you do with seeds. Of course, they don't know about growingthings. Because of living in the Store, you see. It's all new to them.