"No, sir." She strokes the baby's hair.

"Worried for their future?"

"Yes sir."

"I'm sorry."

She pets the baby.

"Someone is at some point going to notice we don't have permission for the kid, and unless they do that regularly -" shiver -"'oh, we found her in the woods' will be unpersuasive."

Shasali doesn't say anything.

"If it's an auction and they really don't have electricity we're all set but it could just be they haven't got it all the way out here."

"Do you know how to make a lightbulb? Fast enough to get a lot of money quickly?"

"I think I could convince somebody quickly that they'd get more than a credit's worth of money out of having consultants who are from a society more than a hundred years more advanced."

"You don't speak the language. Sir."

He gestures at the pocket everything. He turned it off a while back to save the battery.

"Maybe."

"It's possible to learn a language in a day, I've seen someone do it. But it might not work, or might not be an auction, yes."

She clutches the baby and purses her lips.

"And even if they're all right with the baby, are you going to pretend to be clean forever so you can keep her?"

"Are you going to tell them?" she murmurs.

"Not unless in some respects they are actually a hundred years more advanced than us."

Soft baby. Pet pet.

He keeps walking.

She follows.

"You could tell them I was, you know. I think that's what I'd do in your place, try to learn the language first and set the frame."

She doesn't say anything to that.

Reds are the only people he has met who have the talent of actually being quiet whenever it's probably not in their interests to answer. Most people can't help themselves.

Is there a train station anywhere to be seen.

Nope!

There's a dirt road. With wagon ruts.