ol Time.

"Now, the Last Hot Time has come. The Sky Fire will come closer and
closer, and it will pass the Always-Same, and then it will burn up the
World. Then will be a new World, and the Gone Ones will return, and the
People will be given new bodies. When this happens, the Sky Fire will go
out, and the Gone Ones will live in the World again with the People; the
Gone Ones will make great magic and teach wisdom as I teach to you, and
will no longer have to send dreams. In that time the crops will grow
without planting or tending or the work of women; in that time, the game
will come into the villages to be killed in the gathering-places. There
will be no more hunger and no more hard work, and no more of the People
will die or be slain. And that time is now here," he finished. "All the
People know this."

"Tell me, Grandfather; how is this known? There have been many Hot Times
before. Why should this one be the Last Hot Time?"

"The Terrans have come, and brought oomphel into the World," the old
shoonoo said. "It is a sign."

"It was not prophesied beforetime. None of the People had prophesies of
the coming of the Terrans. I ask you, who were the father of children
and the grandfather of children's children when the Terrans came; was
there any such prophesy?"

The old shoonoo was silent, turning his pornographic ikon in his hands
and looked at it.

"No," he admitted, at length. "Before the Terrans came, there were no
prophesies among the People of their coming. Afterward, of course, there
were many such prophesies, but there were none before."

"That is strange. When a happening is a sign of something to come, it is
prophesied beforetime." He left that seed of doubt alone to grow, and
continued: "Now, Grandfather, speak to us about what the People believe
concerning the Terrans."

"The Terrans came to the World when my eldest daughter bore her first
child," the old shoonoo said. "They came in great round ships, such as
come often now, but which had never before been seen. They said that
they came from another world like the World of People, but so far away
that even the Sky Fire could not be seen from it. They still say this,
and many of the People believe it, but it is not real.

"At first, it was thought that the Terrans were great shoonoon who made
powerful magic, but this is not real either. The Terrans have no magic
and no wisdom of their own. All they have is the oomphel, and the
oomphel works magic f