Now that they were finally on their way to meet someone, all four of the recently awoken hibernaters found themselves once again acutely aware of their nakedness. Jane shrank back behind the others, using them to hide her from the sight of the man they were approaching, and her eyes darted around the valley looking for anyone else who might be around. There was a small cluster of buildings on the other side of the river, she saw, reminding her of the farmhouses she'd seen in old pictures of centuries past, but there were no people around them that she could see.

The man saw them approaching while they were still a hundred metres away and he stopped to stare in surprise. He was wearing a large knife belted around his waist, they saw. Was it real, or some kind of prop for the tourists? If so, where were the tourists? Maybe Jane was right and people hereabouts really did live like this. If that were so, though, then what was the knife for? Was there something hereabouts that people had to defend themselves against? Randall looked at Loach and saw him holding his knife so that it was hidden from the other man's sight by his body. If the man saw that he was hiding a knife, though, he might fear that he was about to come under attack.

Randall tried his head phone again, but it was still unable to connect to a network. He picked up his pace, therefore, to pass Loach and take the lead, holding out his hands to show the man that they were empty. "Hello!" he called out. "Hello! Can you help us?"

The man continued to stand there. Randall saw his eyes dart to the women and stare. Behind him, Jane shrank against Loach, hiding her body behind his, her small hands clutching at his arms. Emily strode boldly forward, though, her hands held out to her sides to show they were empty. The man's hand drifted towards his knife, then dropped away. There was puzzlement in his eyes, Randall saw, but the brief burst of fear was ebbing away to be replaced by amusement. These four people were the victims of some kind of prank, Randall imagined him thinking. A great tale for him to tell his friends later on.

"Wech a yez gettin hitched?" he asked with a broad grin as they drew closer. "Whozz the lecky man?"

It took Randall a few moments to interpret the man's strange accent. "Ah, none of us," he said. "We just need a little help. We have been the victims of an unfortunate accident."

The man, in turn, took a moment or two to figure out what the businessman was saying. "An eccident?" he said. "What kend of eccident?"

"That's not important right now. The thing is, our head phones don't work. Can you call Consolidated Industries please? Tell them it's George Randall, just out of hypersleep. Tell them I need them to send someone to pick me up. I'll make sure you're well rewarded for your trouble."

"Ken I whet? Whetter yez going on abet?"

"Your phone," repeated Randall, tapping the side of his head. "I need you to make a phone call for me. Can you do that, please?"

"Can I dae whet?"

The man's strange accent was making communication difficult so Randall told his head phone to contact the other man's head phone directly. Perhaps he'd understand a text message more easily. His phone scanned around, finding the head phones of the other hibernators, but it then declared that there were no other such devices within scanning range, a distance of about a kilometre. Randall cursed silently. Technology must have moved on to the extent that old and new devices no longer had the ability to communicate with each other.

"We need help," said Emily, coming forward. "Can you help us? We need to get in touch with our friends so they can help us." The man just stared at her. "The police!" Emily demanded with growing impatience. "Can you call the police?"

"The priests?" said the man, his eyes widening as he thought he finally understood. "Ye went the priests?"

"No, not the priests! The police! Po-lice!'

"The nearest priest is in Tallon, yonder." The man pointed to the south. "Ye'll need summazz tae wear, though. Ye can't go to a temple in nowt bet ye bare skin! Ye best come wae me. Ae cen't give ye nowt bet some auld pettito sacks but that be better then nowt, aye?"

The former hibernators stared at each other in growing exasperation, but Jane jumped forward eagerly. "If you can give us anything to wear, we'd be very grateful! Wouldn't we?" She turned eagerly to the others.

"Yes, of course," agreed Emily. She turned to the man. "We would be most grateful for anything you could give us," she told him. "Thank you very much."

The man seemed to understand what she said because he turned back the way he'd come and beckoned them to follow him.

He took them to the other side of the valley where there was a small wooden barn standing by the side of a field of potatoes. "Wood!" said Loach in amazement. "Who can afford to make anything out of wood these days?"

"These aren't these days any more," Emily reminded him. "We're in the future now. Wood is rather more plentiful than it was in our day."

"Maybe that explains why it's so crude," the crime boss replied. "It looks like he made it himself with his own two hands."

"Maybe he did. If this is some kind of anti-technology commune they may do everything by hand. Including make their own clothes." She said this while staring at the local man's clothes which did indeed appear to have been sewn together by hand.

Inside the shed was a small collection of agricultural tools made from wood and crudely forged steel as well as loose tangles of baling twine and a pile of potato sacks. Jane fell on the sacks in delight, shaking dust and dry soil from two of them before dancing over to Loach. "Could you cut a couple of holes in these, please?"

While the two of them were making some crude clothes for themselves, Randall turned back to the local man. "May I ask," he said, "where is everyone? Working farms like these without the benefit of modern machinery must take a lot of manpower, so where is everyone?"

"Where yae shed be," the man replied, smiling. "At worship, at the temple. It dea be God's day after ell, be it aint?"

"They're Christians!" Cried Jane in delight, pulling a potato sack up her legs and tying a length of baling twine around her waist as a crude belt. "I knew belief in God would come back one day!"

"You're a Christian?" asked Emily in surprise.

"There's more of us around than you think!" the young woman replied, beaming with delight. "Were, I mean. The Faith never died out. A few of us kept it alive. Meeting in secret, enduring the scorn and disdainful amusement of the atheist masses whenever one of us let the secret slip. We kept it alive, and now a glorious rebirth has taken place! The true Faith is spoken openly again!"

"Here, at least," said Loach, cutting arm holes in another potato sack with his kitchen knife. "Probably just some local group of nutters cut off from the rest of the world. I bet he doesn't even have a head phone. Probably considers it sinful and evil or something."

"Maybe he does," Jane replied, "and who's to say that he's wrong?"

"You've got one!"

"You had to have one just to function in our society. Here, though, they've created a simpler way. A better way! One in which they can live without these devices in their heads." She spun around to face the others. "We have to go to this temple! I want to worship there! Worship God openly with fellow Christians, right out in the open, without being laughed at and treated like idiotic children!"

"Go, then," said Randall. "Nobody's stopping you."

"If they really are religious revivalist," said Loach, though, "that may mean they have no communications with the outside world. We may have to walk out of here."

Randall stared in dismay as he realised he was right. The walk from the hibernaculum, which couldn't have been more than a couple of kilometres, had sapped the strength from his diseased body. Every joint ached and a headache was beginning to pound in his head. Luckily, the evening was drawing on. They wouldn't be moving much further today, surely, but the approach of night also brought with it the dismaying prospect of even greater cold. He shivered to himself and hoped that the potato sacks would be warmer than they looked. Maybe the local man had a place nearby where he would let them spend the night.

"How far is the nearest city?" Loach asked the local man whose name turned out to be Wilks.

"Cety?" he replied, brow furrowed in puzzlement. "Whet's a cety?"

"A city! You know, a city! Lots of people all living in the same place. Lots of big, tall buildings."

"Yes!" said Jane. "A city with a hospital! Maybe they can cure us!"

The prospect cheered all of them. They were in the future, after all. Maybe as much as a hundred years. Who knows what medical advances had been made? Maybe they would all soon be healthy again, and then have the rest of their lives to explore the wonderful, futuristic world they'd found themselves in. They'd laugh as they remembered their brief adventure wandering naked into a backward, religious commune and then they would return to their enjoyment of the wonderful technological advances that had been made while they'd been asleep.

Then Randall felt a shiver of fear, though. Cities were wonderful places, he mused, for people who had money. Randall had been wealthy beyond the ability of most people to imagine back in his previous life, but how much of that fortune remained in this new world? If his trustees had done their jobs properly, his huge business empire would still be there, ready for him to step into and take charge of again, but it was clear now that they'd been asleep for far longer than they'd originally planned. What if nothing of his business empire remained? What if he found himself to be penniless and destitute? Cities were merciless places for such people.

But no, he and the others were survivors from the twenty first century. They would be feted as curiosities, celebrities. They would be able to sell their stories to the media, in whatever form it existed in this modern world. Randall was a business genius. He'd clawed his way to the top from nothing once, he could do it again if necessary. Let him sell his story once, give him some startup money, and he'd invest it. Buy and sell until he'd rebuilt his fortune. He nodded in relief, his momentary fear dissipating. He'd be okay. Just give him a city and he could do the rest.

The local word for city turned out to be burg and the biggest one Wilks had heard of was Tettlehall on the south coast, although he'd never been there and only knew one man who had. Mikel the trader. He made the thirty league journey once a year, Wilks told them, bringing his wares to the valley to be traded for goods and vegetables produced by the farmers. "Yezz come from a fair destance net tae have heard of Tettlehall," the man said, eyeing them curiously. "Met a man frem Danland a few years beck. Even he'd heard o' Tattlehall. Famous acress the world it is. Even the gree felk frem ecross the wetter have heard o' Tattlehall, or sae Clumper sez. Mysel, ae canna say, but Tettlehall ae grend and there ain't none cen deny that!"

"Sounds like we're going to Tettlehall then," said Loach.

"Do they worship God in Tettlehall?" asked Jane hopefully.

Wilks laughed. "Who else wed they worship? Clumper's eld nanny goat?"

"So God is worshipped everywhere? By everyone" She turned triumphantly to each of the other hibernators in turn.

Wilks laughed again, louder this time. "Yez ask strenge questions. Ennyone wed think ye'd never heard o' God where yez cem frem."

"Anyone would think that indeed." The young woman smiled a smile of delight and satisfaction; the smile of someone who'd been called a liar and a fool for longer than she could remember but who had finally been proven to have been telling the truth. What do you say now? that smile said as she turned it on one after another of the other hibernators. How does it feel now that you're the one in the minority?

Randall turned away from her to hide a smile. Did she think truth was a democracy? Did she think that the Universe would rearrange itself to comply with the beliefs of the majority? He said nothing, though. He hadn't risen to the very pinnacle of the business world by getting into useless arguments with people. Let her keep her delusions. He might even reinforce them if it benefited him, as it hopefully soon would when she gave him his fine suit of potato sack clothes. He laughed inwardly. In his time, he'd worn jackets and shoes, even cufflinks, that had cost more than a house in the centre of London. If his rivals and competitors could see him now...

They'd see him still alive, he thought. Decades after he would have died of old age even if he'd been in perfect health. So let his imaginary enemies laugh all they wanted. George Randall was still alive, and would go on being alive for a long time yet. It was better to wear a suit of potato clothes than the finest coffin ever created.

"Ye felks got any place te spend the night?" asked Wilks. "Ye denna went ter be striding abroad in nae bet pettito sacks."

"Perhaps you could recommend a good hotel," said Loach.

Emily waved a dismissive hand to tell the local man to pay him no attention. "Perhaps there's a boarding house nearby," she said. "A place that caters for out of towners. We don't have anything to pay them with, but perhaps we can work for the cost of a night's bed and board." She was visibly exhausted, though, and had sat down on an old, empty wooden crate. Even the effort of standing was too much for her.

"Ae wes genna ask ye if ye wented tae stop wi' me en the messus for the night," Wilks replied with a sideways look at the crime boss. "A het bowl o stew ta warm ye bellies an a warm barn tae shet out the night. E it aint tae far below ye station, ocourse."

"We'd be delighted!" cried Jane happily. "Wouldn't we?" she said, turning to the others.

"You're very kind," said Emily warmly. "We're so lucky to run into someone as kind and generous as you."

"It's ne more then a God fearing man cen do. Desn't he command us te be kend to the needy and the unfortunate?"

"He does indeed," said Jane. "Knowing the love of God is such a comfort! I can't imagine how anyone can live without it."

"There are those thet God desn't love, it be true," said Wilks, looking suddenly uncomfortable, "bet let's nae be telking about sech. Finish yer sewing, gel, and I'll show ye the way tae me place."

Jane nodded happily and went back to her work.