The Practice Effect by David Brin

couldn’t maintain his ire for long—not with it looking at him that way, purring, watching with apparent fascination the adjustments he made to the little machine.
    Dennis shrugged and picked up the small creature. “What is it about you and machines? You sure can’t
use
them. See?” He shook its little paws. “No hands!”
    With the stove turned off, the forest night settled in around. In a little island in the quiet, Dennis soon found himself telling the pixolet about the constellations and all the other things he had discovered.
    And he realized it
was
good to have company again, even if it was an alien creature who didn’t understand a single word he said.

3
Nom de Terre
1
    The next day the road began to descend into a broad river valley.
    Riding on Dennis’s shoulder, the pixolet peeped and grabbed a cluster of berries from an overhanging branch. It munched on a few of the purple fruits, and juice ran down its jaws. When it offered some to Dennis, he politely declined.
    Dennis was feeling pretty good. His old camping skills had obviously come back. His backpack was snug now that he had found the right knots. His boots—broken in now—felt like supple extensions of his own feet as he stepped along the resilient highway. He was making good time.
    But he could tell the forest would end soon. He still faced the problem of what he would do when he found civilization.
    What sort of creatures were the autochthones? Would they have the technology to help him rebuild his half of the zievatron?
    More important, would they decide to arrange
his
pieces neatly, by size and color, like someone had already done to the zievatron?
    Maybe it might be a good idea to spy on the natives, as a first step.
    “Easily suggested,” Dennis mocked himself. If their facial features are a little different, I’ll just use some river mud to make fake antennae and eye stalks and be in business! I might have to remove my nose and lengthen my neck a bit, of course, but only a few inches, at most.
    “I wonder if I’ll need scales.”
    As he hiked along, a number of fantasy scenarios occurred to him.
    I
know! I’ll keep my eye out for the country estate of the eccentric squire scientist
G’zvreep.
I’ll recognize it by the observatory dome protruding prominently from the west wing of his manor house
.
    Right, Dennis.
When you knock, the kindly old native savant will answer the door himself, having sent the servants to bed while he scans the skies for comets. On seeing you he’ll flap his thorax in momentary revulsion at your two hideously flat eyes, your millions of tiny cranial tendrils. But when you raise your hand in the universal gesture of peace, he’ll hustle you inside and say, “Enter quickly! Thank Gixgax you came here first!
”
    In a meadow by the road, Dennis found the remains of a campsite. Coals were still warm in the firepit.
    Dennis put down his pack. He set up the campwatch on one large stone and the pixolet on another. “All right, bright eyes,” he said to the creature, “let’s see if you’re good for anything but company. You can keep a lookout while I do some serious detective work.”
    Pix cocked its head quizzically, then yawned.
    “Hmmph. Well, it just goes to show how little you know. I’ve found something already!” Dennis pointed to the ground. “Look. Footprints!”
    Pixolet sniffed, apparently unimpressed. Dennis sighed. Where was an appreciative audience when you needed one?
    There were many deep impressions in the ground—apparently made by the large draft animals—and smaller hoofprints like those an unshod pony might leave. The droppings, too, indicated that this world must indeed have close analogs to horses.
    After finishing with the animals, he searched for a clear set of bipedal prints and soon realized that everyone in the caravan had worn shoes.
    From the sharp outlines of the corrugated tread, it was apparent these people used boots not unlike his own!
Here
certainly was evidence of