“No, we just don’t want you getting jealous of how in love we are,” said Loaf.

“Thank you for everything, Umbo,” said Leaky. “Especially the warning. I wish it had worked. But I’m glad that you kept me from giving up my life for nothing.”

“Thanks for trusting me enough to believe my warning,” said Umbo. He turned to Vadeshex. “Take me back to Param?”

“Wherever and whenever she is,” said Vadeshex.

“Get me to the where, and I’ll work on the when myself.”

Chapter 13: Where Not to Go

CHAPTER 13

Where Not to Go

“Have I ever resisted your visiting any of the wallfolds?” asked Ram Odin.

“We’ve only been to two,” said Rigg.

“Well, we happen to have come rather early to the one that I will advise you not to visit.”

“You understand that it makes me all the more determined to go there.”

“I took that into account,” said Ram Odin. “But I have no choice. Janefold is as interesting as any of the others. It has only one statistical quirk.”

“Which is?”

“The life expectancy is about half that of other wallfolds.”

“And why is that?”

“Disease,” said Ram Odin. “This is the place where plagues begin.”

“Because it’s tropical?” asked Rigg.

“I don’t know why, though that may be part of it. Some of the diseases are vectored through biting insects, some of them through other mammals. Some originated in animals that thrive in this climate. None of the diseases depend on microbes native to Garden. Nothing smaller than a facemask or a mantle has yet jumped the barrier between the biotas of Earth and of Garden.”

“So you don’t want me to go there because you’re afraid I might die?”

“I’m reasonably sure you would die.”

“How sure?”

“Your odds of survival are about one in fifty. But that’s a guess, since you’d be the first visitor from outside the wallfold since I last visited there about ten thousand years ago, give or take.”

“Did you get sick?”

“Almost died. And the really interesting diseases hadn’t started up yet. This is the incubator of hellish death, Rigg. If it weren’t for the Wall, diseases from Janefold would sweep across the world, killing half each time.”

“Then why is there anyone left there at all?” asked Rigg.

“They’ve built up resistance. Not individually. But each time a new plague comes up, the only survivors are those with natural defenses. The deadly disease that almost killed me is now no more than an itchy rash and a case of sniffles—to the Janefolders. But if it got out of the wallfold, it would probably have the twenty percent kill rate that it had when I caught it.”

Rigg thought about this. “If they have resistance to disease, then why is their life expectancy so low?”