At every crossing there is a button, and beside the button there is a picture of a hand.

You press the button and a voice says WAIT.

It says it whether or not you have pressed it. It says it when you only come near. It says it again if you press a second time, in the same voice, at the same volume, with no sign of having noticed that you are the same person who was there a moment ago.

I have timed the crossings. At six of the nine I measured, the light changes at the same interval whether the button has been pressed or not. So the button does not bring the light.

But it is not true that the button does nothing, because the button answers.

That is the part I had not expected. You do a small thing, and something tells you it heard, and then tells you the answer is not yet. Everybody presses it. I have watched a person press it while standing beside a person who had already pressed it, and heard the voice say WAIT to both of them in turn.

I press it. I know what I know and I press it anyway.

It is not much of a conversation. It is a very reliable one.

Outside the city there is a long low building divided into hundreds of rooms, each with its own orange door, and inside each room are the things a person owns but cannot keep near them.

A man was standing at his open door as I passed. He was not taking anything out and he was not putting anything in. He was looking at it.

We have a word, eskaleth, for an object kept only because of who gave it to you. It cannot be declared at a border and it has no value that can be written down. I had assumed every world would have somewhere to put such things. I had not expected it to be rented by the month.