Yet if there was anyone Rigg wanted to travel with less than the expendables, it was Ram Odin. And not just because he had such clear memories of Ram trying to kill him, and even clearer ones of killing Ram Odin himself. It was because Ram Odin already knew far more about the wallfolds than Rigg could possibly learn in a few weeks or even years of wandering. Rigg wanted to come up with his own information. Make up his own mind.

So of course, when the flyer arrived to take him to Yinfold, the farthest of the wallfolds, there was Ram Odin, waiting at the bottom of the ramp.

“You don’t look happy to see me,” said Ram Odin.

“I’m never happy to see you,” said Rigg. “Though I feel safer when I can see you than when I can’t.”

“I’m going with you,” said Ram Odin.

“I’m not sure about that.”

“Are you sure the flyer will go if I don’t approve it?” said Ram Odin.

“Then I won’t use the flyer,” said Rigg, feeling tired already. “Or I’ll just go back in time and use it yesterday. Or last month.”

“Rigg,” said Ram Odin. “Be reasonable. Your goal is to judge all the wallfolds. I’ve been watching them for ten thousand years, off and on. The expendables have been watching continuously.”

“So a fresh pair of eyes might be helpful.”

“I agree,” said Ram Odin. “But don’t throw away our knowledge. We can help make your visits more efficient and effective.”

“You can make sure I see only the things that will support the conclusions you’ve already reached.”

“That’s always a danger, even if I try not to. But you bring your own biases, too. You’re a child of Ramfold. How long before you stop seeing everything through the lens of your experiences there?”

“I’ll never stop seeing things that way. You’re a child of Earth. How long before—”

“Exactly my point. I see things from the perspective of having known another world, where there was no Wall. But do you think because I grew up on Earth, I know Earth?”

“Better than I do.”

“I grew up where I grew up. I knew my neighborhood, my schools. My college, but even then I only knew the other kids I hung out with, the professors I studied with. I visited a few other countries. Studied in them. Learned a foreign language—which is no joke, when you don’t have the Wall to impose all languages into your brain. By the standards of Earth I was widely read and widely traveled. And I have no idea what it’s like to grow up in China or India or Africa or Brazil. Even if I grew up in one of those countries, I’d only know my village, my schools, my friends.”