The ensuing silence lasted a long time: long enough for the final stanza of "Bread of Heaven" to stop reverberating from the mountain walls, long enough for the Aïdan leader’s opening greeting—written and pronounced in flawless pre-Zero English—to move through a solid paragraph of awe-inspiringly sycophantic salutations. Long enough for Bard to get the unchained Kath socketed into his backpack.