“If they make it through childhood, then they tend to have lives of normal length. Childhood is when disease weeds out the weak and selects for those who adapt well, whose bodies resist. The longer the disease has been around, the more children live through it. But there are some diseases that are less than a thousand years old, and those are still taking a lot of children. So at birth, half the life expectancy. But if you live to adulthood, then the survivors have normal lives.”

“Do they have larger families?”

“Some cultures within Janefold do, some don’t. Some don’t bond with their children until they’re older. Some break their hearts loving all their children from the start. Some regions and tribes avoid large concentrations of people. Some keep their children isolated. Some deliberately allow their children to get exposed to everything—I suppose to end the suspense. Some villages, some tribes routinely burn down the houses of families who have a few key symptoms—open sores all over the body, bleeding from eyes, nostrils, and ears, blood in sneezes and coughs, that sort of thing.”

“Burn them down with the people inside.”

“That’s the point.”

“So you’re just protecting me.”

“If somebody comes at you with a knife, you can pop back in time and save yourself. If somebody comes at you with a sneeze, you have nowhere to run.”

“But I don’t breathe,” said Rigg. “The facemask does.”

“The facemask doesn’t have an Earthborn biology. It will pass the disease through to you without noticing it’s there.”

“You have to understand, Ram Odin. I’ve been lied to so much.”

“Not by me.”

“We only just met, and your lie-to-truth ratio is pretty high. Plus most of the expendables’ lies originated with you. Or they were invented in order to protect your secrets. What are you protecting in Janefold?”

“The future of the human race on Garden,” said Ram Odin. “By not letting that poisonous place kill you.”

“The future of the human race here no longer depends on me,” said Rigg. “You’re thinking of my other self, Noxon.”

“We don’t know how that mission will turn out. Rigg, please trust me on this one. There are no great secrets in Janefold, except death. Maybe because of systematic isolation, there are a few more languages. Some intriguing philosophies, a few death-worship religions, a lot of fatalism. One religion that for almost a thousand years was almost universal in Janefold, not because the doctrines were so convincing, but because the believers routinely risked their own lives to care for the sick and dying, and to bury the dead.”

“That made the religion more attractive?”

“It made the believers seem more sincere, and filled others with gratitude and admiration. Rigg, all the records are open to you. Explore this one from inside the ship and save your legwork for a healthier place.”