As Kino rides Hermes along an old railroad, she meets a railway track polisher who has been working for fifty years. Stopping for a break, he asks her to tell him a story about her travels. She recalls a modernized country with advanced machines, where people chose to do meaningless tasks instead of work, encountering a working stiff who did calculations all day just for the stress. As she rides further, she meets a railway track demolisher who has also been working for fifty years...