"You said you were going to practice speaking, use real words. Last time I came in on a sail. It was long ago, I don't remember it too well."

He might not believe himself either.

"Why did you come on the sail?"

"Papertree was empty, full of stuff that people'd want, space for us to live on forever."

Empty huh? Sure it was.

"So place you came from was crowded and used up? What you do when this place crowded and used up?"

Compost compost compost.

"Oh, no, I came from Horizon. You can see it from the other side of Papertree, not this one, but it's still in sight. People live there. But they didn't like reincarnations there so anyone who wanted to reincarnate came here."

"Why not like reincarnate? What they do about it?"

He's starting to have more questions about rounds, sails, and distances, but doesn't know how to ask.

"They just mourn dead people and make new people, they don't even try to get them back. They think it's too hard and it's not worth it to try, not even to save someone's life."

"What do they do about you since they don't like you do it?"

Somebody on this planet has to be angry about something.

"Oh, they let us do it here. They wanted somebody to grow things and make paper here and we'll do that."

"They make new people grow things and make paper here?"

He's probably done with the compost at this point, and will look at the old guy for any indication of what to do next.

The guy doesn't complain when he puts the pitchfork down. "You haven't got gardening gloves," he points out. "Some of these weeds are spiky. Anyway, they could've made new people for Papertree but then we'd still be around having religious differences. Simpler to shove us off here."

"They could have made people who liked them?" There are problems with obedient clone armies but Briseadh has never been exactly sure what the problems are if you're the one making the army and not, you know, the people the clones have been secretly trained to betray at a critical moment.

"They were obnoxious, but they weren't murderers."