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once more covered with gravel to match its surface surroundings. He wondered where the disappearing alien dumbwaiter went, what lay behind it, how his food was prepared, who or what decided it was edible for him, and finally came to the conclusion it was much too soon to try to figure it all out.
    For the rest of the afternoon he wandered around his enclosure (as he had come to think of it), exploring its limits while checking for possible gaps in the system of electrical fields that hemmed him in. After all, just because he was a captive did not necessarily mean he had been taken off Earth. The aliens might still be on the ground somewhere, or have a facility hidden high in the Himalayas, or (less promisingly for one afflicted with thoughts of escape) deep under the sea.
    Maybe they just wanted to chat, he told himself as he sat in front of his tent and watched the remarkably realistic counterfeit sun set behind the illusion of distant mountains. Although no one had come to try to talk to him yet. And sociable conversationalists did not go around kidnapping those with whom they wished to converse. He was trying to put the best possible spin on his situation, and it wasn’t easy.
    Astonishing himself, he managed not only to sleep, but to sleep well. Waking was momentarily disorienting until he remembered where he was and what had happened to him. Emerging from his tent, he saw the same bogus Steller’s jay arguing with the same dyspeptic chipmunk over the same illusory nut. That, he decided groggily, was going to get old real fast. He giggled. He would have to have a serious chat with the administrator in charge of prisoner programming.
    The giggle made him nervous and uncomfortable, and he broke it off fast. No doubt surrendering his sanity would provide his captors with additional entertainment. It might also make them question the health of their captive. Since the prospect of undergoing a physical checkup by giant, purple, pebble-skinned aliens wielding unfamiliar instruments was less than appealing, he made an effort to appear as normal as possible.
    Walking down to the splinter of transplanted lake, he washed his face in the cold, clear water. That helped, a little. As he returned to his tent, he saw two of the aliens watching him from the corridor that formed the fourth side of his more or less square enclosure. He could not tell from looking at them, or at their variable attire, if they were two he had seen before.
    Entering the tent, he dressed quickly, perfunctorily. When he reemerged, they were still there—watching, unmoving. After a moment’s hesitation, he headed deliberately toward them, halting just short of the restraining electrical field whose location he remembered from his encounter with it the previous day.
    The wraparound horizontal eyes that peered back at him were unblinking. He could not plausibly call them cold. He did not know enough about his captors to ascribe emotions to appearances. But neither did those penetrating, unvarying alien stares fill him with warmth.
    “Hi.” No reaction. Not even a quiet warning to “behave.” The solitary hearing organs atop the conical skulls pulsed hypnotically, like small anemones bobbing in a light current. “Who are you? Why have you taken me? Where are we? Are we still on Earth—on my world? Are we moving?”
    Since he had been able to understand them yesterday it stood to reason that they should be able to understand him. He had no way of knowing because they did not respond. After another minute of staring, both turned and trundled off silently down the corridor, moving in the same direction that others of their kind had taken yesterday. In place of the black plastic he had noticed previously, the flaps on their feet, he observed, were now encased in what looked like oversized dark socks. These made heavy
shush-shussh
ing sounds as their owners lumbered along, their massive bodies swinging slightly from side to side with each step. In the midst of