"Someone with the right name is here and waiting in a special room to get on a big silver bird that flies in the sky to go to a place called Florida," said the Thing.

"What big silver bird?" said Angalo.

"It means jet plane. It's being sarcastic," said Masklin.

"Yeah? How does it know all this stuff?" said Angalo, suspiciously.

"This building is full of computers," said the Thing.

"What, like you?"

The Thing managed to look offended. "They are very, very primitive," it said. "But I can understand them. If I think slowly enough. Their job is to know where humans are going."

"That's more than most humans do," said Angalo.

"Can you find out how we can get to him?" said Gurder, his face alight.

"Hold on, hold on," said Angalo, quickly. "Let's not rush into things here."

"We came here to find him, didn't we?" said Gurder.

"Yes! But what do we actually do?"

"Well, of course, we ... we ... that is, we'll ..."

"We don't even know what a departure lounge is."

"The Thing said it's a room where humans wait to get on an airplane," said Masklin.

Gurder prodded Angalo with an accusing finger.

"You're frightened, aren't you?" he said. "You're frightened that if we see Grandson Richard, 39, it'll mean there really is an Arnold Bros. andyou'll have been wrong! You're just like your father. He could neverstand being wrong, either!"

"I'm frightened about you," said Angalo. "Because you'll see thatGrandson Richard, 39, is just a human. Arnold Bros. was just a human too.

Or two humans. They just built the Store for humans. They didn't even know about nomes! And you can leave my father out of this too."

The Thing opened a small hatch on its top. It did that sometimes. Whenthe hatches were shut you couldn't see where they were, but whenever theThing was really interested in something it opened up and extended asmall silver dish on a pole, or a complicated arrangement of pipes.