In a strange way it was even bigger than outside. Outside was so huge you didn't really see it. It had no edges and no top, so you didn't think of it as having a size at all. It was just there. Whereas the Store did have edges and a top, and they were so far away they were, well, big.
As they followed Angalo, Masklin made up his mind and decided to tell Grimma first.
'I'm going back,' he said. She stared at him. 'But we've only just arrived! Why on earth-?' 'I don't know. It's all wrong here. It just feels wrong. I keep thinking that if I stay here any longer I'll stop believing there's anything outside, and I was born there. When I've got you all settled down I'm going out again. You can come if you like,' he added, 'but you don't have to.' 'But it's warm and there's all this food!' 'I said I couldn't explain. I just feel we're being, well, watched.' Instinctively she stared upwards at the ceiling a few inches above them. Back home anything watching them usually meant something was thinking about lunch. Then she remembered herself, and gave a nervous laugh.
'Don't be silly,' she said.
'I just don't feel safe,' he said wretchedly.
'You mean you don't feel wanted,' said Grimma quietly.
'What?' 'Well, isn't that true? You spend all your time scrimping and scraping for everyone, and then you don't need to any more. It's a funny feeling, isn't it.' She swept away.
Masklin stood and fiddled with the binding on his spear. Odd, he thought. I never thought anyone else would think like that. He had a few dim recollections of Grimma in the hole, always doing laundry or organizing the old women or trying to cook whatever it was he managed to drag home. Odd. Fancy missing something like that.
He became aware that the rest of them had stopped. The underfloor stretched away ahead of them, lit dimly by small lights fixed to the wood here and there. Ironmongri charged highly for the lights, Angalo said, and wouldn't let anyone else into the secret of controlling the electric. It was one of the things that made the Ironmongri so powerful.
'This is the edge of Haberdasheri territory at the moment,' he said. 'Over there is Millineri country. We're a bit cool with them at the moment. Er. You're bound to find some department to take you in... 'He looked at Grimma.
'Er,' he said.
'We're going to stay together,' said Granny Morkie. She looked hard at Masklin, and then turned back imperiously and waved her hand at Angalo.
'Go away, young man,' she said. 'Masklin, stand up straight. Now... forward.' Who're you, saying forward?' said Torrit. 'I'm the leader, I am. It's my job, givin' orders.' 'All right,' said Granny Morkie. 'Give 'em, then.' Torrit's mouth worked soundlessly. 'Right,' he managed. 'Forward.' Masklin's jaw dropped.
'Where to?' he said, as the old woman shooed them along the dim space.
'We will find somewhere. I lived through the Great Winter of 1986,1 did,' said Granny Morkie haughtily. 'The cheek of that silly old Duke man! I nearly spoke up. He wouldn't of lasted long in the Great Winter, I can tell you.' 'No 'arm can befall us if we obey the Thing,' said Torrit, patting it carefully.
Masklin stopped. He had, he decided, had enough.
'What does the Thing say, then?' he said sharply. 'Exactly? What does it actually tell us to do now? Come on, tell me what it says we should do now!' Torrit looked a bit desperate. 'Er,' he began, 'It, er, is clear that if we pulls together and maintains a proper-' 'You're just making it up as you go along!' 'How date you speak to him like that-' Grimma began Masklin flung down his spear 'Well, I'm fed up with it!' he muttered. The Thing says this, the Thing says that, the Thing says every blessed thing except anything that might be useful!' The Thing has been handed down from nome to nome for hundreds of years,' said Grimma. 'It's very important.' 'Why?' Grimma looked at Torrit. He licked his lips.
'It shows us-' he began, white-faced.
'Move me closer to the electricity.' 'The Thing seems to be more important than what are you all looking like that for?' said Masklin.
'Closer to the electricity.' Torrit, his hands shaking, looked down at the Thing.
Where there had been smooth black surfaces there were now little dancing lights. Hundreds of them. In fact, Masklin thought, feeling slightly proud of knowing what the word meant, there were probably thousands of them.
'Who said that?' said Masklin.
The Thing dropped out of Torrit's grasp and landed on the floor, where its lights glittered like a thousand motorways at night. The nomes watched it in horror.
'The Thing does tell you things... 'said Masklin. 'Gosh!' Torrit waved his hands frantically. 'Not like that! Not like that! It ain't supposed to talk out loud! It's ain't done that before!' 'Closer to the electricity!' 'It wants the electricity,' said Masklin.
'Well, I'm not going to touch it!' Masklin shrugged and then, using his spear gingerly, pushed the Thing across the floor until it was under the wires. 'How does it speak? It hasn't got a mouth,' said Grimma.
The Thing whirred. Coloured shapes flickered across its surfaces faster than Masklin's eyes could follow. Most of them were red.
Torrit sank to his knees. 'It is angry,' he moaned. We shouldn't have eaten rat, we shouldn't have come here, we shouldn't-' Masklin also knelt down. He touched the bright areas, gingerly at first, but they weren't hot.
He felt that strange feeling again, of his mind wanting to think certain thoughts without having the right words.
'When the Thing has told you things before,' he said slowly, 'you know, how we should live proper lives-' Torrit gave him an agonized expression.
'It never has,' he said.
'But you said-' 'It used to, it used to,' moaned Torrit. 'When old Voozel passed it on to me he said it used to, but he said that hundreds and hundreds of years ago it just stopped.' What?' said Granny Morkie. '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.
The Thing gave the impression that it was thinking busily. At last it said: 'Do you still know the meaning of the words Flight Navigation and Recording Computer?' 'No,' said Masklin earnestly. 'None of them.' The light pattern moved.