Alec made camp about an hour before dark, slept a restful night, and was on the trail early the following morning. He still was assailed by occasional fits of paranoia. He ignored those. Too much danger had infected his life over the years for him to succumb to mere weakness.

He set out on the trail east, and something in his heart told him that there was no reason that he should limit his rambles to a single day ... or even to two days. He would turn back toward home when his curiosity finally was sated, and not a moment before.

There was something about being on the road that liberated him. He chose not to examine that feeling but to follow it.

It was another pleasant few hours of strolling and examining the world around him amidst the tall stands of pine, oak, and elm and occasional meadows. A light rain came and went, a hundred or more deer and antelope passed him by, and he dallied only a short time to let a pack of lean and hungry looking wolves go their way.

It was a most excellent morning.

His first true fright came not long before the sun reached its highest point in the sky. It was then that he caught sight of the first of several small fields near a slight stream that bubbled nearby, each of which was perfectly laid out and impeccably cared for.

Anyone else may have missed those small plots of paddy not far from the stream. The largest of them was scarcely half an acre, and the smallest of them was but a few dozen meters across. They were unlike any farm fields he so far had encountered on this world, but they were farm fields, nonetheless.

It was but a scant 10 minutes more of walking before he finally encountered the buildings associated with those fields. A series of low and earthen-colored structures were set back amid the woodlands, the type of things that he might have walked past without noticing had he not seen the fields of which they were a part.

For a scant few moments, he struggled to decide whether he should approach the place. There was something about the farmstead that suggested the inhabitants within wanted nothing more than to be left to themselves.

After a short time, he relented. As he approached the main building along the faint footpath that led to it, he raised his voice in English and let out a full-throated, "Hello, the farm!"

Nothing.

He paused a moment and gave the farm and the area around it his careful scrutiny, looking to see whether he already was being observed. There was no one, so he let out another call of greeting.

Nothing.

There was no reply at all. Everything about the place seemed neat and cared for, and it was nothing at all like the overgrown hovel in which he so recently had ensconced himself. He continued onward, looking carefully here and there as he went.

He very nearly had reached what appeared to be the main building's front entrance when the sound of something caught his ear. It was the sound of water on stone. The noise wasn't a steady thing, but it was enough for him to follow it to the right. After he rounded the corner of the building, the sound of splashing water grew more obvious, and he followed it to the rear of the place. The building wasn't large, so it took him only a short few seconds to round the second corner.

There he found a young woman, a lean young lass who appeared to be engaged in washing a large bowl of rice. Her back was to him, so he did what any civilized person would do. He cleared his throat.

The woman lay down the large colander in her hands and spun around so quickly that Alec scarcely saw her move. There was a naked blade in her hand that seemed to come out of nowhere.

He raised his hands toward her, palms out, in a gesture he hoped would signal his friendliness. He spoke again in English.

"Hello," he said. "I called out and no one answered. I'm Alec."

As he expected, the woman gave no indication that she understood his words. There was no hint of hostility in her eyes, only wariness.

He tried another friendly gesture, the very first one that came to mind. He moved his hand toward his mouth several times in an eating gesture. It couldn't hurt.

To his relief, the knife disappeared into the young woman's robe, and she pointed to a small table near the back door of the building behind which she was working. The table and the place where the woman worked were under a broad and heavily vined pergola. The smell and overall effect of the place was delightful. The whole farmstead had a charming feel about it.

When Alec took his seat, the young woman—for she did appear to be somewhat younger than he'd first estimated—began to move about, gathering things from various bowls and jars, as if preparing for a meal. It did not escape Alec that his host did not once turn her back on him.

Despite her wariness and caution, his presence there didn't seem to surprise her. She behaved as if hosting guests was not a strange thing for her. That boded well, or so he hoped.

There soon was a pot of what smelled like tea in front of him, and, as his host busied herself with the meal, Alec discovered that it was tea or something very much like it.

It only dawned on him that his new companion so far had not spoken a single word, and she did not do so over the next 15 minutes. When the meal was ready, a combination of rice, vegetables, and fish, she laid the dishes on the table in front of him and took a seat on the floor across from him and began to eat. So, he joined her.

It was a remarkably pleasant silence. His host seemed not the least put off by his presence and enjoyed her meal with great gusto. Her table manners left much to be desired, but what could that possibly matter?

This host was a handsome young woman, but she burped, belched, chewed with her mouth open, and passed wind at least once as they otherwise enjoyed their meal.

The food was quite good and filling, and the end of it the young woman cleared the table and cleaned the dishes as swiftly as she had thrown the meal together. She was a steady and efficient worker who went about everything with single-minded diligence.

Her efficiency left Alec feeling that he should in some way help, but he remembered the knife and how quickly it had appeared in the youngster's hand. He didn't want to do anything that might startle anyone. He chose to try and communicate again.

"So ... um, you get much company out here?"

She looked up from where she was scrubbing a pot, and for a moment he thought she might smile. She made no attempt to reply in any language.

He cleared his throat and said in a meek voice, "Parlez-vous français?"

Nothing. Well, no. There was an amused look on the woman's face. He decided to try again. But there were limits to the languages he knew. "¿Hablas español?"

Nothing. But his Spanish was even worse than his French. He was beginning to feel silly. He knew only smatterings of other languages.

"Farsi mi-fahimi?"

Nothing. He began to think that his companion couldn't speak at all, not even the incomprehensible language he'd heard spoken by the original inhabitants of this place. But was she a local? The locals he so far had met looked as if they had sprung from northern Europe. There was something about his new companion that left Alec thinking she was East Asian ... or at least appeared to be so.

But what did such distinctions mean in this new world?

He patted himself on the chest with the palm of his right hand. "I'm Alec ... Alec."

This time, a smile did escape her, followed by a sweet chuckle. His host patted her own chest with a hand still damp from wash water. Then she mumbled something that might have been "I'm Alec ... Alec." It was followed by peals of good-natured laughter.

Well, that was progress of a sort. Even better, it didn't feel like Alec was going to get stabbed. He came to his feet, moved cautiously toward her, and motioned toward the dishes as if he wanted to help.

She didn't protest, and soon he was scrubbing pots beside her. The looks she gave him weren't suspicious, but she did give him occasional sideways glances, as if she didn't have the least notion of what to make of him. When at last they were finished with their cleaning, the woman reached up and moved Alec's now shaggy mop of hair aside and gave his ear a faint flick.

It was the strangest thing. Her movement was somehow swift and awkward at the same time. And she withdrew her hand and stepped away from him afterward. But something in her seemed to have been satisfied. She thereafter took up a wicker basket and headed out from under the pergola toward a small field behind the house.

After a few moments, Alec followed.