"Huh. I don't know nearly as much as I'd like about the history of technology right now, it wasn't terribly relevant to my life before."

"What kinds of things did you aliens invent after you had steam engines?"

"Lots of them, but I don't know in what order. We've got airplanes, and shuttles that can go to the moons and back, and electric trains. Computers and the internet and all their attendant complexity."

"Internet..." He mutters. "Internet... Hmm... Is it better than newspapers or libraries?"

"Yes."

"I don't like feeling like I'm making you sad."

"I don't think any of this is your fault. If I'd ever been inclined to think that you decided to address your problems by summoning an alien, investigating the orbs for myself would've made it clear that isn't what happened, they don't really want to deal with interplanetary distance."

"You're really not mad?"

"I'm unhappy but I have no one to be mad at."

"I get like that sometimes."

"It comes up so frequently, doesn't it."

"Yeah. Especially when something isn't even anybody in particular's fault... I dunno how to explain what I mean."

"I think I get it."

"I want to be a scientist or an inventor. Like Louis Pasteur who proved to everyone you have to boil milk to make it safe from germs, and Mr. Otis who made safety elevators."

"...good for Louis Pasteur!"

"Germs are kind of new. I mean, knowing about them."

"I'm glad they are known about now."

"Not everyone believes it.. If you take over a town you should make soap and water mandatory for doctors and restaurants... We should probably keep walking."

"Just doctors and restaurants?" Yeah, they can move on.

"I think those are the most important for the least soap? Maybe I can invent a way to make more soap, cheaper."

"...wow, I really really wish I knew anything about soap manufacture but I don't."

"The bad kind you make at home with ash and oil or fat. The good kind I don't know either. Probably someone figured out what chemical in ash is important, and what chemical in fat, and experimented until it wasn't all scratchy and hard."

"...something something lye? Saponification of the fat? That's.... basically all I have."