Osgood was far from alone in the clouds: the skies were filled with airships. Spread below him Osgood could see bustling roads and a delicate lacework of monorail tracks leading here and there across the city and beyond its borders - its very distant borders, now - to the lands beyond.

They have spent so much energy, he thought, on getting from place to place.

It wasn't surprising, he decided; it was something to which he himself had devoted a great deal of work. But it did leave him wondering what all these people did when they arrived where they were going. Did they just turn around and go back again? From his place in the clouds, he couldn't tell.