I let my eyes savor the gleaming blue Earth-like sky, which for a moment felt like home. But there was no escaping the oversized red ball up above. If my sun, Earth’s sun, was a volleyball, this was a beachball, maybe three times larger than the one I’d always known. But I could look at this orb more directly—it wasn’t as bright as Earth’s, yet because it was so much larger, it seemed to generate about the same amount of light. And heat too; the temperature was maybe sixty degrees and rising. It cast a slight crimson tint over everything, as if I were wearing rose-colored glasses.

I stood, slowly rotating my neck. I was near the base of a great mountain, red and black volcanic rocks strewn everywhere. A tumble of those rocks surrounded me. They were covered with a white mossy-looking overgrowth, the spew of a great mountain once filled with anger or indigestion.

Hope this volcano’s not active.

I walked over to a windblown fir tree that had managed to rise up through the lava, its branches dripping with cold dew. I drank some droplets from my hand—they tasted too much like tree and not enough like water. I looked for puddles or ponds but didn’t see any, as the rocky porous ground had drained away last night’s rain. I drank dew from the branches again and gathered a few mouthfuls into the water bottle, unsure when I would next find water.

A few hundred feet below, a dirt road cut through a grassy valley, the stalks leaning with the wind. Three-quarters of a mile farther, the road began winding its way from the valley floor up a hillside with more valleys and some mountains visible beyond. The road’s dirt surface was distinctly red, like photos of the surface of Mars, as if a long piece of rust-colored yarn stretched out over the countryside. Judging from the sun’s position and direction, the road appeared to be heading west.

But how could I know for sure what direction was what in this world?

Suddenly a shadow flashed over the ground in front of me. Instinctively I hunched over. I looked up and relaxed my shoulders. An eagle, great wings extended, swooped low, eyes sharply focused on me. I smelled no sulfur, only fresh mountain air. The slight breeze invigorated me, and I felt neither weary nor sore. I slung the pack on my back and took off. When I felt a slight tremor in the ground, I picked up my pace.

Gray smoke rose from the south side of the mountain. I considered following it to see if it led to a city. But that would require going nearly the opposite direction from the red road. I finally decided to head for the red road, at least for now.