Vadeshex came not long after, and spread out a picnic for them on the grass in sight of the Wall. He offered the suggestion that some of Leaky’s grief might be owing to their having just passed through the emotions induced by the Wall, and to the fact that they were still close to it and bound to be feeling some residual effects.

“Thank you for your suggestion,” said Loaf.

“Thank you for the meal,” said Umbo. “It was very good.”

“I don’t often get to check out my culinary routines,” said Vadeshex. Shyly? Was he actually trying to conceal a bit of pride? No, it was just the way he was designed. Or a ­deliberate manipulation, to try to change their attitude toward him. It wasn’t going to work.

Wasn’t going to work much. The food had been very good. And they had come to him to get a facemask. The old machine had its uses.

Vadeshex offered to fly them home, and they accepted. They traveled that night; Vadeshex landed them in a field a mile from Leaky’s Landing. They were home before midnight.

“I can’t believe there’s such a machine, to fly through the air. Remember how long we had to ride, how many days, and here we are on the very night.”

“People on Earth do this kind of thing all the time,” said Umbo.

“Well if we had eleven thousand years here,” said Leaky, “and you say that humans on Earth got technologies like this only ten thousand years after inventing agriculture—”

“Ten thousand, give or take,” said Loaf.

“Why haven’t we done any better?”

“We’re blocked,” said Umbo. “It’s one of the things the expendables do. And the ships’ computers. They choke off any line of development that might lead to high technology. Except in Odinfold, and that’s because Ram Odin gave it an exemption, up to a point.”

“The thing’s almost as big as the roadhouse, and it flew,” said Leaky again.

“And here we’ve gotten used to it and think of it as nothing special,” said Loaf. “You’re reminding me how miraculous it really is.”

“Don’t go yet, Vadeshex,” said Umbo. “I think I may be needing a ride back to Larfold, where my fiancee is waiting.”

“Stay with us,” said Leaky. “You hardly visited.”

“I’ll be back,” said Umbo. “The question is, when?”

“Give us a couple of years,” said Loaf. “That’s time enough. Check back and see how we’re doing.”

“I could go right now into the future and find out.”

“Then you’d be tempted to tell us,” said Loaf. “No, go somewhere else and have something like a life—whatever’s possible with the lovely Queen of Nothing Much and her Kingdom of Nowhere.”

“In other words, you’d like me to try to accomplish something before I come back pestering you.”