Although new, the blade in his hand felt like an old friend. Not because the creation of a knife had led to him feeling safer, but because it allowed him to engage in the one activity that truly made him happy. The shard of spaceship-glass that Marcus had bound tightly onto a handle was only about ten centimetres long, so it wasn’t particularly useful as a weapon. As a knife to whittle with, however, it was perfect. Much better than real glass, it held its edge after repeated use and had an effective weight, more like that of metal than glass. If his knife was a person, then it would be a sombre and careful, middle-aged civil servant, in contrast to the flighty, brittle character of a knife made of Earth glass.

Smiling to himself, Marcus shaved another sliver of wood from the side of the block he was working with. As with timber from trees on Earth, the effect of pushing a sharp blade against wood varied enormously according to the grain. For him, the art of sculpting in wood was about realising what the wood itself wanted to express and allowing that to emerge by a kind of flow between it, the knife, his fingers, and his mind. Turning the block around and around in his hands, he visualised – felt, rather – all the possibilities and collapsed all but one of them with another stroke of the knife.

Only now did he realise how much pleasure in life he had lost while aging. Back on Earth, his eyes had misted over with cataracts and his hands had lost much of their strength. The process had been so gradual that it never felt as though his ability as a sculptor was noticeably declining. Not until now. With his strength and vision restored, Marcus felt transformed: that it was possible for him to make more daring art than he’d ever managed before. In the case of this piece of wood, it would take some effort, but there was a bird inside of it, which he could release, one of those purple-breasted equivalents to robins.

Wearing only his cotton long johns, Marcus was sitting on a fallen tree, just inside the treeline. The princess was nearby, looking for nuts and berries in the hope of triggering the forage skill. She was working hard, crawling through bushes and bringing out seeds and fruits, which she had made into a pile on an area of bare earth. Her new spear was leaning against a nearby tree. Which was just as well, thought Marcus. All the way back from the wreckage of the spacecraft, he had felt that they were being followed by that lion-like creature.

It hadn’t taken much tinkering with the blades and suitable branches for them both to get Weaponsmith One and complete the spear quest. His own was lying on the ground in front of him. And with the spears having been made, several other quests had come into existence, related to fishing and hunting as well as the manufacture of a sword, javelin and bow and arrows. The latter appealed to Marcus for hunting as well as defence against possible slavers. If he had to fight, he was handy enough with his fists. But the smart option was always to hit an enemy from a distance.

‘Got it! I got it!’ Sina’s delighted cry caused Marcus to look up sharply from the nearly-finished bird. ‘These nuts are called viabrands. And I’m Foraging level one.’

‘Are they edible?’ Marcus got up eagerly. He was thoroughly bored of the Rittle berries and never satisfied by them.

‘According to the menu they satisfy hunger, the same as Rittle berries. Here; you should be able to see for yourself.’ The princess tipped four little nuts – like pine nuts – into his hand and immediately he opened his completed quests.

Obtain vibrand nuts

Requirements: Foraging 1; vibrand bush; summer season.

Reward: alleviates hunger. Unlocks new recipes.

The nuts were good, not too bitter.

‘You find them inside these kernels,’ Sina showed him a brown tubular shell with strands of fibre on it. ‘Come over here, I’ll show you the bush.’

‘Let me just finish this artwork please, while I have it in my thoughts.’

Sina said nothing, only watched with interest as he finalised the sharp beak of the bird and added a hint of a mischief to its eyes. When he was done, Marcus held the sculpture up to her allowing himself a sense of achievement. Whatever her reaction would be, he was delighted with the bird.

‘For me? Why Marcus, that’s extraordinary. I can’t believe you did that just now. It’s the most wonderful creation. I’ve visited hundreds of art galleries and honestly, I’ve never seen anything better.’ The princess was holding the bird up to the sunlight, as though to better appreciate the curves of the wood and the flow of the exposed grain. Her genuine enthusiasm for the bird made Marcus smile.

He stood up, ready to learn about the vibrand bush, only for a new quest alert to appear, which he opened.

Trade with the Kangaran tribe

A Kangaran ship is passing the coast. Your current standing with the Kangarans is 0 (neutral). You may trade with the Kangarans.

Reward: proportional to the value of the goods you trade.

‘Did you see the new quest about the Kangaran tribe?’

The princess lowered her arm, but clearly found it difficult to take her eyes off the bird. Marcus reached across and closed her fingers around it. Only then did she have the distracted look he’d come to recognise as meaning she was looking at the menus.

‘Oh, do you think we should go to the coast right away?’ she asked.

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‘Let’s hurry and take some of the glass and metal. The quests are teaching us about the planet. They are our best tool. We should believe in it. We wouldn’t even know about the edible nuts and berries without those messages.’

With a nod, Sina put the bird into a pocket of her long johns and set off. Curiously, she was much faster than Marcus. Even though he thought he was at home in his new body, the old Marcus – with his concerns about the risk of falling and a restraint in the length of his stride – would not yet let go enough to really move. By the time he had reached the camp, Sina had thrown a parachute onto the ground and they hastily filled it with their piles of glass and metal before the princess bundled it up, clasped it to her chest, and began to run towards the sea.

Marcus felt a slight anxiety about leaving the spacesuits behind, but this quest was important.

The long haul across mud and sand to the water’s edge was demanding enough that they each had taken two turns with their bundle by the time they had arrived to where the waves ran up to their boots. To their right, about a mile away, was a headland. To their left, the bay had a very gentle curve over about ten miles to its headland. There were no vessels in sight.

Even as Marcus felt the full disappointment of this thought, his discouragement was swept away by excitement, because a ship with a tall mast rounded the headland to his right. It was a catamaran, with one large central sail, whose striking design looked like seven vertical red snakes on a purple background. There were about a dozen people on the ship.

‘Quick,’ said Marcus, grabbing on edge of the parachute. ‘Let’s open this and wave it.’

Careless of the items that fell on the sand, Sina grasped the opposite side and soon the bright blue-and-white parachute was stretched out and catching something of an on-shore breeze.

The people on the ship saw them! Marcus found his heart pounding as he heard their calls and saw them steer toward the shore with surprising speed. Neither Sina or he had brought their spears. Now that his life depended on the menu information, Marcus found he wasn’t so confident that it was guiding them in a benign fashion. What if these people were slavers? Or cannibals?

‘What language do they speak? Will they understand us?’ asked Sina.

‘Oh…’

‘What language are you speaking?’ hurriedly, she started to fold the parachute up and as soon as he realised what she was about, Marcus assisted her.

‘English,’ answered Marcus.

‘Well, I’m speaking Finnish.’

‘You are?’ Her smile, even her simple, lively smile, was so beautiful that Marcus paused, mid-fold to take it in.

‘I am. The planet’s system must be allowing us to communicate and hopefully, that means the same process will let us speak to them.’

Once the parachute was tidy and their items lined up, Marcus watched the newcomers arrive. Their fierce appearance did nothing to stem an anxiety that was growing stronger and stronger in his stomach. Small and lithe, pale skinned and dark-haired, they had large metal earrings that stretched their earlobes and sinuous tattoos in dark blue ink all around their limbs but not on their faces. There were a mix of men and women in their twenties and thirties, to judge by Earth standards. Everyone one of them was dressed in a purple tunic and none of them were smiling.

A woman a little older than the others jumped off the ship as it slid up the beach. And while other crew members climbed down with ropes, looking for rocks to secure the ship to, she walked towards Marcus and Sina.

At about ten metres away, the woman stopped, folded her arms across her chest and shouted. ‘What tribe are you? Why do you not show in my God-view?’

Relieved he could understand her, some of the pressure in his body dissipated. This might not go too badly.

‘Don’t tell her we are just two people,’ muttered Marcus, placing a hand over his mouth. For some reason, he wanted Sina to do the talking. Perhaps, because the princess was a woman. If this was a matriarchal tribe they were dealing with, then woman to woman was going to allow the best trade. Perhaps too, it would help that Sina was so extraordinary to look at. And didn’t she have some kind of negotiating skill? ‘Tell her we are the Irish.’

‘We are the Fins,’ said Sina.

The woman nodded, then took several steps forward, so she did not have to shout. ‘I have not heard of you. But I see you on the God-view now. I have a new quest to trade with you for the first time.’

‘You must be from the Kangaran tribe. I have that quest.’

‘Then let us trade.’ Close up, the woman’s face was less severe; she had wrinkle lines at the eyes that suggested laughter and Marcus found his anxiety fading. ‘You are offering these?’ She gestured to the pieces of iron and space-glass.

‘Possibly,’ replied Sina, ‘and the cloth too. It is unique. Light but strong. It would make a better sail than the one you are using.’

The other people of the Kangaran tribe came up and three of them crouched among the trade items, picking them up and testing the sharp edges. After a few minutes of this and an examination of the outstretched parachute, they all walked some distance away and formed a circle, within which their conversation was indistinct.

‘Where did you get these?’ their leader came back over.

Sina laughed. ‘Are we trading information? Because I have a lot of questions too.’

The woman smiled and Marcus saw the lines of her face fall into a naturally happy state. Then the spokesperson of these people surprised him by walking right up to Sina and stroking her cheek. Next, their visitor carefully examined Sina’s hair. Sina allowed this.

‘You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen. Very well, let us talk and let us trade and perhaps the Fins and the Kangarans can become more friendly.’ With a curt, angry shout that suggested the woman might be quick to take offense she called out to her crew, who set to work hauling the ship far up the beach, well above the seaweed line that marked the high tide.

In a nearby dip between two dunes, the Kangarans lit a fire (using flints and a material like wool, that Marcus paid close attention too) and once it was strong, they placed fish halves inside large shells whose outer surface was already blackened from use, then they pushed the shells into the flames. Soon a mouth-watering scent of fish meat sizzling in its own moisture was everywhere.

While moving their goods up from the beach to the fire, Sina asked Marcus quietly, ‘what should I tell her about us?’

He thought about this and the possible stories the two of them could invent to explain their presence here. But really, nothing made sense but the truth. Or mostly the truth. ‘Tell her we came in a spacecraft that has crashed. But let her think there are twenty of us.’

Sina nodded.

While they all ate fish – so good, despite having to spit out the bones – the Kangaran leader introduced herself as Lupelele and explained that their tribe was a seafaring one, with a strong presence on an archipelago about half a day across the sea. Where Marcus and Sina were now was on the east coast of a large continent. The Kangarans worshipped a pantheon of gods whose presence sometimes became manifest when they took the form of sea creatures. Above the local Grimworld gods, however, was Igalla, the planet herself, who communicated with her people through what Marcus and Sina called a menu, but which they called the God-view.

On Earth, Marcus was an atheist, but here. Well, it could all be true. Certainly, the planet seemed to have a guiding sentience. And who was to say that minor gods weren’t part of the game?

The response of the Kangarans to Sina when the princess said that they were survivors of a crashed spaceship was interest but not surprise.

‘We saw the smoke,’ said Lupelele, pointing in the correct direction. ‘Over there.’ She turned to the items lined up on the ground. ‘So what do you need?’

‘What have you got to trade?’ Sina responded.

‘Food and tools are especially important to us,’ Marcus added.

Lupelele gave a wave of her hand in the direction of their ship and immediately all five of their men got up and went running to it. The amount of gear they subsequently started to unload onto a spare sail was encouraging and after they had dragged the pile to the fire, Marcus squatted eagerly beside the goods. There were three sizes of metal saw; a metal hammer; bags of nails; screws; chisels; gouges; two borers; a sickle; a pulley; two coils of rope; and a file. Then too, there were four bags from which came the scent of food.

‘Can we have all of these?’ asked Marcus and Sina nodded too when Lupelele turned her thoughtful brown eyes to the princess.

The leader of the Kangarans shook her head with a rueful smile. ‘These we need for our repairs; if I trade them all, I have to return home and that means with something more worthwhile than your metal and glass. For them and the sheet, I can let you have an awl and a saw and some nails and a rope. Also a bag of jerky.’

Perhaps Lupelele noticed how these words had disheartened Marcus, for she continued, ‘perhaps you have something else? An off world weapon?’

‘Nothing that survived the crash. We have nothing else… Well, except this.’ Sina took the bird sculpture out of her pocket.

‘Lupelele!’ one of the other people exclaimed. They were all staring at the small bird with expressions of admiration if not downright reverence. Marcus’ hopes began to rise.

‘May I?’ Lupelele held out her hand and after receiving the statue from Sina laughed with delight as she looked at the wooden bird from every side. ‘I am named after this species of bird. It is beautiful. So very beautiful. That expression, it is the one the lupelele make to get your attention, when they want feeding. It is perfect. Where did you get it?’

‘He made it,’ Sina had a note of pride in her voice, which brought a surge of warmth to Marcus’s chest.

The leader of the Kangarans, in fact all of them, were staring at Marcus with expressions of the greatest respect.

With a tender smile, Lupelele looked down at the sculpture. ‘Very well, we will trade.’