Barkworth awoke the following day at what appeared to be the crack of dawn, though it was hard to be sure in that dim gray light. Nor could he even quite tell where he was. The weather was as it had been the day before, but it appeared the worst of the typhoon had passed in the night because the landscape looked like a tidal wave had swept across it. The village was  gone, the palm trees had been laid flat apart from a few straggly survivors. It was only a patch of light and the sound of the sea that told him he was still somewhere near the beach. 

Suddenly the girl from the night before, wearing just the few remaining shreds of her clothing, flitted past behind him heading for that patch of light.

 He turned and followed since there seemed to be nothing better to do.

 He nearly fell onto the beach before he saw it. He couldn't even be be sure it was the same one, the typhoon had left it totally unrecognizable. Worse, just two or three meters off from it there appeared to be more land. He wondered if he had somehow blundered onto the stream outfall and he was just seeing the rest of the beach on the other side. But it looked different somehow, its opposite bank was covered in what looked like tapa cloth, and it smoothly curved up onto flat land that extended into the mist on either side of him. And the piles of debris he managed to see several meters inland looked regularly arranged somehow.

 He wondered if he had been been moved to another location in the night. But the presence of the girl...

 Then he saw the first signs of movement from one of the nearer mounds. What looked like a wiry Filipino youth wearing a simple loincloth emerged and looked around. Spotting the girl on the beach, he waved to her with the friendliest of smiles and called out to her. Barkworth couldn't see the expression on her face from where he was standing, but the youth's expression quickly changed to one of concern. He then strode quickly forward and stepped into the water. He tried to approach the girl, but she shrank back. It crossed Barkworth's mind that she had probably never encountered somebody of   different appearance from the people she had always known, and was naturally a little frightened.

 The youth turned round and called out to someone. There was no response at first, but when he called again another mound of debris near to his began to move. A large Polynesian man emerged, then what was apparently his wife. Two smaller children then came out shyly behind them. The Filipino youth pointed at the girl on the beach, and when the woman saw her, her large face beamed with delight. As she began to make her way across the land with surprising agility considering her size, the few other piles nearby began to stir, and new heads emerged.

 The youth helped her down into the water. The girl still shrank back at her approach, but not so much. When the woman extended her hand toward her she relented. Then, throwing all caution to the wind, she allowed the woman to pick her up and hug her close, and she nuzzled her head into the nape of the woman's neck. Her children bounded forward with delight as if eager to welcome a new sister into their midst, and the adoption appeared complete.

Barkworth then had an idea – get airborne and try and see the whole of this very strange new village as far as the rain would permit. He was only able to rise a few meters before he risked losing sight of it altogether, so he headed left to try and fly around its perimeter.

 What he saw appeared to be more tapa-covered land, something he couldn't understand at all. Yet it had canoes, fishing nets and other such items lashed to tie points somehow inserted in it. A few more mounds, mostly canvas and wood so far as he could see now, were dotted around in between. People began to emerge from them into the new day. As he flew further, he began to wonder if this new land was some sort of circular island which had somehow arisen between the two closest motu to Muri Beach.

 But if that was the case, how come it had been populated and settled so quickly? Had he been moved in time again perhaps? No, that little girl again... he was sure it was the same one. Then another thought came to mind; he had noticed the 'land' bounce a little as that large Polynesian woman stepped off it into the water, though it hadn't registered at the time. Was the island in fact some sort of giant raft? That was difficult to believe. It was difficult to gauge its size, but it would have to be at least a kilometer across.

 The answer would just have to wait.

  But whatever it was, it was certainly coming alive – and only a few of the people were Polynesian. The rest appeared to be representative of the peoples of the western Pacific Rim so far as Barkworth could see: Chinese, Thais, Micronesian, even one or two Japanese and Koreans.

 And they all wore loincloths, almost as if they were a uniform.

As soon as they emerged, most of them made their way round the island and stepped onto the beach Barkworth had left. The menfolk then quickly organized themselves into what looked  like a landing party, with bows and quivers full of arrows slung across their backs. These were something Barkworth knew were totally foreign to the Pacific – except on Tonga, where he knew the aristocracy had used them in games of sport, but never in conflict.

 He hoped he wouldn't have to witness yet another horrific mass bloodletting anytime soon.  

 The few people who stayed behind, mostly women and old men, got busy on the mounds. It didn't take long before they began turning into sizable huts, even houses. They had obviously been designed to be collapsible in a storm, yet still provide minimal shelter even through the worst. Their walls were made of the same tapa cloth as covered the land, though of a finer weave. Their supporting poles were all on the outside, with the tapa lashed to them. Doors and windows were made of rattan. His eye caught one being rolled up, perhaps to signal that the re-erection of the owner's hut was now complete.

 Barkworth wondered who on Earth had designed all this, and how all those variegated people had been brought together.

 But then he was totally surprised. For he now saw a middle-aged European woman emerge from one of the huts, perhaps no more than 50 meters away in front of him. She looked so totally out of place.

 Suddenly she looked up and stared right back up at him.

 “Good morning,” was all he could think to say as he slowed rapidly to a stop above her.

 “Good morning to you,” she replied with the nicest smile. “I am so very glad you are here.”

 Barkworth just couldn't think what to say next. She wasn't exactly unattractive – indeed, to his eye at least, far from it. She had short but nicely fringed blond hair, blue eyes, and was plumply middle-aged in a matronly way, as if straight out of New Zealand's pre-Contact era. Her simple dress, which certainly showed her figure to advantage, was a belted Gingham affair – at least he assumed it was Gingham, he had only seen it in pictures from the era. He could imagine her having a mob of kids and a gruff, tough but  generous-hearted dairy-farmer husband.

 “Please, do come down,” she asked. “I think we need to talk.”

 Barkworth was only too happy to oblige. He landed beside her as quickly as he decently could.

 He noticed immediately that she had the most wonderful salty smell... which  frightened him a little. With that wonderful figure as well, he was already beginning to think of Innisheer....

 And with that the same pricklings of lust.

 “I can't understand all this – or even where we are,” she pleaded, spreading her hands just as a young Asian man quickly trotted right through them. This jarred Barkworth, though she seemed unperturbed. But then there had been no opportunity for it to happen to him back on the island, he had instinctively kept his distance from people just as he would under – normal – circumstances. These clearly weren't.

 “We are in a Lalleldil Simulation,' he explained. “People come here – or get sent here – when they suffer a major emotional trauma, a lost love – as I did – a death in the family perhaps, or often something that can just arise out of the blue, teenage angst, middle age boredom, people who just get lost in the system. How did it happen to you – if you don't mind me asking. I don't know if I can help...”

 “A Lalleldil?” she asked. “What do you mean? All I know is that I had four wonderful young friends whom I loved very much and with whom I shared many journeys. Then suddenly – here.”

 “Sounds like some sort of accident,” Barkworth ventured, “which has also cost you your memory. I really am sorry if that's the case. - Have you never heard of the Lalleldil Division?'. Then a thought struck him: “Have you ever heard of the Iskurahi? The Torsyne?”

 “No, I haven't' she replied. “I have no idea of who, what they might be.”

This shocked him. She was clearly from an Uncontacted World.

 “Where are you from?” he asked her then. “Which World?”

 “I don't know,” she replied. “The first world I had any contact with was Earth. That's where I found those wonderful friends. - Are we on Earth now?” she then asked him.

 “That's something I am reasonably sure of,'” he replied. “I recognized this island as soon as I arrived as being Raratonga, somewhere between two and three thousand kilometers north east of New Zealand. But it doesn't appear to be 2050 here, looks like we've arrived – I don't know when. Could even be two or three thousand years before. The people of the Pacific first started entering it something like three and a half thousand years ago.”

 “What did you say – 2050?” she asked in a way which completely startled him. “What do you mean?”

 “This is the year 2050 - or was when I left. Why, what year do you think it is?”

 “1968,” she replied. “I - I just can't understand any of this at all.”

 “1968..!”  Barkworth gasped. “Good heavens...I really don't know what to say.  I've no idea how... Unless you were somehow kept in suspended animation for eighty-odd years.”

“Time travel?” she suggested.

 “Possible I suppose, though very few of the Worlds of Paradise ever achieved that. Unfortunately, there's no way of finding out. Certainly not here.” He looked around.

 “Paradise...?" she asked.

 “Oh wow,” Barkworth said, taken aback. “I can see there really is a lot of explaining I'll need to do. I wouldn't even know where to begin. I guess am going to have to do it in bits and pieces over a period of time. And I've no idea how long we're going to be here. - How long have you been here, by the way? And this island - or whatever it is - certainly wasn't here when I came. - Or did you start off somewhere else, as I did, on Raratonga itself?” he pointed.

He then looked around to see that the erection of all the huts – those he could see at least, appeared to be complete. There was now no-one to be seen, it seemed they had all gone inside to recover from their exertions and eat whatever breakfast there was.

 “Can you fly, as you've seen me do?” he asked the woman. “ - And what is your name by the way? I'm sorry, in the rush of things I had completely forgotten to ask. - My name is Barkworth. It's so unique even in Paradise it's all I bother with.”

 “Estelle,” she smiled at him in a way that gave him a warm glow. She then rose a little into the air. “Yes, it seems I can,” she replied with obvious delight. “it had simply never occurred to me to try. I woke up on this raft three days ago, when your island was still just a blob on the horizon. I could see why they needed to come here when the weather started to worsen in the way it did.”

"Worsen?”  he laughed. “Weren't you aware that that was a full-blown typhoon?” He was beginning to wonder again just where Estelle was actually from. Her name was certainly – well, French perhaps. And her English was completely unaccented, it was as Kiwi as her appearance.

He now also knew for sure that he was standing on a raft, probably the biggest ever in Earth's history. Assuming it had ever actually existed.

 Then a jarring thought crossed his mind – was Estelle herself any more real?

But of course there was no way of determining that. Best to treat her as if she was and hope for the best. She certainly looked real, and compulsively so too. Again Barkworth couldn't help feeling a faint prickling of lust.

 “Come on,” he said, taking her hand, “let's get airborne, there's got to be a lot to see. Since you've not seen it from above, you might get a better perspective on your – and now I guess my - new home. Then we'll set down somewhere and just wander, get a ground view. - If this can be called ground.”

 He stamped his foot. It was rather like stomping on a lumpy surface covered in several layers of matting.

 It appeared solidity and invisibility were selective in this version of reality; he and Estelle could see and touch each other – for which he now felt immensely gratified - but no-one else. They could stand on the raft's surface, but pass through anything on it like spirits. They could hear its people speak to each other, but not to them.

 And for Barkworth right now, he has happy with that.

 After they had risen into the air a few tens of meters, Estelle led him on a path that looked like it would cross over the raft's center, so far as Barkworth could tell. It quickly became apparent that there were in fact two rafts, one inside the other with a gap of perhaps thirty meters, and joined to it by several bridges. The inner raft had many more huts on it, people scurrying around like ants frantically re-erecting them. Boxes with plants also began to appear, dragged and righted from within the newly-complete huts where they had apparently been tipped over on their sides. A village was taking shape.

 Barkworth wondered if this inner raft had been the first to be built, with the outer one with its few huts and large open areas added relatively recently. Masts were now also being erected, one already had what might have been the beginnings of a Chinese junk-like sail being raised on it. Clearly the raft's crew was making preparations to get under way as soon as the landing party returned. Barkworth doubted the raft could make more than a few knots at most with sails like those.

 As they flew on it became apparent there was yet a third raft at the very center of this one, perhaps a hundred meters across, and joined to it by just four bridges. Its huts, if they could be called that, were much larger than those on the outer rafts. The circular one at the very center sat on a large dais and had open walls, rather like a Polynesian meeting house.

 “Heavens...” was all Barkworth could say. “I've never remotely encountered anything like this on my travels.”

 He wondered if he was about to experience something like Rock of Ages.

 “Did you see much after you arrived here?” he asked Estelle. “You must have wondered around a fair bit.”

 “No, I didn't. It was all too much for me, I just scrambled under cover with that family before that typhoon arrived.... It's just so different from my life before … Just so different.”

And she burst into tears.

 Barkworth couldn't help but at least try to cuddle her, but it was impossible in midair. But he did manage to grab and squeeze her hand.

 They flew on towards the raft's other side, but it was little different from what they had already seen. He led Estelle down for a landing right near the outer edge of the perimeter raft, where the tapa sloped into the sea.

 “Come on,” he said. “Walking back towards the center seems like a good idea right now. Then perhaps we can make a little more sense of things.”

 As they made their way across the perimeter raft, upon which a few people were now to be seen, they discussed the possibility that it served many functions. An open area for recreation, a hauling out area for the many canoes now strewn around, used presumably for fishing, and the occasional large huts what may have been used for net storage and the like.

 “It's essentially an artificial beach,” he suggested. “The huts on it are probably for fishermen - and lookouts, which probably explains the gap between the rafts. They're literally last-ditch defensive moats if they find themselves under attack.”

 “They could also be there for structural reasons,” Estelle suggested. “I don't know how that would work, but it might help in rough seas - though apparently not in a cyclone.”

 “Could be. One thing's for sure though,' Barkworth said as they finally approached the raft's inner edge which, unlike the middle raft, was not roped off. “while the materials this raft is made of seem in keeping with its era, it's design is definitely not. It's way too advanced to have been invented here. Might well be someone from – my world who has somehow come back in time, did it for the fun of it perhaps.”

 “I wouldn't be so sure,” Estelle said as they looked across to the inner raft, and pointed. “look at the pontoons these rafts float on.”

 “Good Heavens...” was all Barkworth could say. Each pontoon was made up of two canoes, one on top of the other with the topmost inverted, and lashed together with a heavily caulked seam. It was absurdly simple, but ingenious in its way. The raft was supported on them by two meter-long posts hacked from coconut palms and crossed braced to each other. Its decking was two layers of bamboo lashed together in crossed directions and overlain with three or four layers of tapa cloth.

 An elderly man stood on one of the pontoons holding a fishing line. Suddenly he caught a fish, which turned out to be a quite large snapper.

 “Notice how the pontoons all align in the same direction,” Estelle observed, “towards the bow I would imagine.”

  “You're right...” Barkworth was impressed. “Nothing like this raft has ever shown up in Earth's Rolodon – so far as I know. It may well be total fiction, this is after all just a simulation.” he suggested.

 “- Simulation..?” she stared at him “That's brought back a few memories. I am sure I was able to create something like this in my own – world. I wonder if you might find me a little stranger than you imagine.”

 “To me that would make you an even more attractive and likable woman,” he said to her, meaning it.

“Thank you,” she said simply.

 Estelle was clearly one intelligent lady, and he was very glad of that. To find another one In a Paradise of Vacuous Chatterbunnies was unusually lucky. But she was certainly a very different lady from Quincey. And, he had to say it, somewhat more attractive.

 Quincey...

 “You mentioned a `Rolodon',” she asked him. ”What is that? Some form of historical record?”

 Heavens, how was he going to explain that without explaining everything else about Paradise?

 “Yes it is,” he replied, “from the birth of Planet Earth four and a half billion years ago right through to the present day – well, our present day, at least. You can approach it in many ways, from a quick overview, to as much detail as you like. Some people build their lives round it. But then the history of any world is going to be interesting to its inhabitants, isn't it?”

 “But humans didn't exist so long ago, did they? So who created it?”

 He had rather hoped she wouldn't ask him that either.

 He took her hand again, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

 “Actually, humans have been around for billions of years, just not here on Earth. Well, not until we evolved independently five or six million years ago. The Rolodon was in fact created by the Iskurahi, who intercede between us and the race of non-human beings who run the universe and who came into existence about a billion years after the universe itself was created – and please, I don't want to even try to describe that just now. It's a very, very long story.”

 “I am sure it is, and I suspect mine is too, now I'm beginning to remember it.”

 “And I really am looking forward to hearing it,” he replied, kissing her lightly on the cheek. “I guess right now though we have to concentrate on the story of here, where we are, for better or for worse.”

 They had walked along the edge of the outer raft until they finally came to one of the short suspension bridges joining it to the middle raft. It was about two meters wide, and had rope handrails either side plus one down the middle.

Crossing the bridge was awkward, Barkworth knew he should have felt instantly seasick. But it seemed they were spared such feelings along with hunger and thirst.

 The first thing they noticed as soon as they stepped onto the inner raft was how bright and lively it had become even in the short time since they had flown over it. Now that the village had been fully `resurrected', so apparently had the lives of its citizens. The loincloths had gone, they were now dressed in all manner of styles as if to celebrate their different origins. Many were singing, a few played instruments of the like Barkworth had not seen before, though he thought he heard the classic dop dop dop sound of a Tongan drum. Yet for all this the huts were arranged in avenues and lanes in a tidy manner, indeed Barkworth could see right up through the avenue they were now standing in towards the center raft. The huts were a good few meters from the edge, leaving a broad avenue round its perimeter, which was bounded by rope handrails like those on the bridge.

 Barkworth still found the profusion of trees amazing. They were of all tropical kinds, but most appeared to be breadfruit with a few palms, complete with coconuts. They grew individually in large planter boxes outside each house, obviously to provide some vegetable supplements to their fish, plus perhaps a few spices for flavoring and preservation..

 “There aren't any children anywhere,” Estelle observed.

 “That's odd, now you mention it. Only the adults seem to be playing games,” he laughed. “Perhaps they follow the Victorian dictum with respect to kids: `Seen but not heard.' Except we can't see them either.”

 “Victorian..? Estelle inquired.

 “Describes one of the favorite historical eras in England that happened about 150 years before our time. - Let's head for one of those masts and, if you don't mind trespassing on someone's privacy, take a quick peek into one of those houses.”

 There were two masts equidistant from the avenue on either side; Barkworth picked the one to his right.

 As they began to walk around the perimeter avenue, Estelle poked her head through the wall of the hut on the corner.

 “ - Gosh..!” she said.

 Barkworth quickly stepped forward and looked through the wall himself. Although there was a solid table pushed up against on of the walls the family, made up of two adults and two very young boys, was sitting cross-legged on the floor eating from plates woven from palm leaves. There was no sign of any pottery, they obviously had no need of it. Barkworth wondered if that had to do with its being abandoned in the very early stages of the settlement of the Pacific.

 “Gosh?” he asked. “They're just eating. - Or is there something I've missed?” he grinned.

 “Yes, but what are they eating?” she asked.

 Barkworth approached the group for a closer look.

 “Looks like some sort of sushi, a Japanese cold dish made up of rice, fish, and vegetables. Except they've replaced the rice with breadfruit, and the vegetables look more like herbs. That would figure, since how would they cook anything without stoves?

 “There would have to be at least two good reasons for that. What would they use as fuel? Also, this raft doesn't look terribly fireproof.”

 “You're right..!” Barkworth had to laugh. “I also see that that table is really solid - is that what they all crawl under when they collapse these huts - as you did yourself? There's no beds of any kind, I guess they just sleep on the floor, which is comfortable enough anyway. It's almost Japanese - I wonder if this raft first began in Japan.”

 “I  only know a little about Japan, so I can't answer that. Errol – one of my friends - and I were only there for a few days. We had an entire world to see. Errol thought so, anyway.”

 “It's possible, you know, that they pick up people from around the Pacific, perhaps lost fishermen with little chance of returning home. But that wouldn't account for the women - unless they go on raiding parties. I saw one of those when I came aboard, but I would imagine they would grab whatever else they could find as well. Guess we'll find out eventually. Meanwhile, let's move on.”

 He walked around the table, but straight through the far wall.

 The lane which separated it from the next house wasn't much more than the width of his shoulders. He waited for Estelle to join him before they made their way between the huts as best they could until they reached the next radial avenue.

 The mast stood proud and erect before them, though its sail was still only half hoisted. There were large numbers of young men and women surrounding it and pulling on ropes, which were fastened to the ends of the horizontal battens separating each section of fabric from the next. Barkworth couldn't identify the coarsely woven fabric, though the ropes appeared to have been made from coconut hair.

 It all looked just as much a social event as preparations for getting under way.

 “Those are Asian sails,” Barkworth commented. “The Polynesians used triangular ones. - And that makes me wonder: Polynesians originally came from Asia, Taiwan in fact. Did they spread out across the Pacific on rafts like this? They would certainly have been big enough for mass emigrations.”

 “But there's already Polynesians here,” Estelle reminded him. “Unless this raft is one of the very few left over from that era.”

 “Yeah, could be. Guess once more we'll have to wait for the answer,” Barkworth replied.

   They walked up the avenue towards the innermost raft. Estelle didn't appear to have a problem walking right through the cheerful young mariners or anybody else who came their way, but Barkworth skirted around them as best he could.

 On an impulse Barkworth decided to look into another house. He quickly withdrew when he saw a middle-aged couple of Melanesian origin apparently intimately engaged.

 “What did you see?” Estelle asked him.

“I'm not sure you would want to know,” Barkworth had to laugh, “but that's up to you.  - How much do you know about human sexuality, by the way?”

 “A little,” Estelle smiled at him.  “I don't think I need to look. And going by the expression on your face right now...”

 He didn't know whether it was as a result of what he had just seen, or the feelings of lust that had been ever-present ever since they had first met, but suddenly they became overpowering.

 He slid his arm around her waist. She all but melted to his touch, her lips parted, and she stared at him, the irises of her eyes wide open.

“You really are the loveliest person, you know,” he said to her.

 “Barkworth,” she continued to gaze at him, “I do understand your need. Come with me.”

 And with that she began to lead him to the nearest hut and all but dragged him straight through the wall into it.

 His relief was immense, the most powerful surge he had ever known. She was exactly like he had imagined Innisheer to be, only Estelle was a far, far lovelier person. Had he been capable, he would have found his relief with her again, and again and again. But instead that delicious pink mist he had known before descended, and he found himself in total oblivion.

 When he awoke, he found himself lying beside her with their arms around each other. He knew he just didn't want to be anywhere else.

 When he nibbled her ear gently, she began to come awake, then kissed him in a way that inflamed him again. She made no move to resist, indeed she quickly became as eager as he. He had had no idea that...

 But he didn't want to think anymore. Or remember...

When they finally struggled to their feet and held each other again, they emerged into the most gorgeous sunset glow Barkworth had ever seen.

 They quickly made their way forward to the inner edge of the middle raft for a better look. Though its perimeter avenue was narrower than that of the outer edge, it was still filled with people. They sat or lay everywhere they could, gazing in total bliss toward what was indeed a most exquisite sunset. The remnants of the typhoon had gone.

 Barkworth realized then that he and Estelle must have been moved forward a little in time, for the raft had clearly left the island and was now in the open sea. The deck on which they stood slowly undulated with the ocean rhythm in the most extraordinarily pleasant way. He could hear waves gently lapping beneath his feet.

They found themselves a vacant spot, sat down and, in complete silence, watched the sun go down too.

Then, after a brief tropical twilight, darkness once again claimed them.