He goes through the supplies, making sure everything is in place.

"What do you have in mind for, like, which tents are for which things?

Oh, uh, do you want any help with tent setup before I move on to doing this?"

(...he hopes the extra tents weren't too expensive. Maybe the Novel Illness Team is comping her for them.)

"Well, right now I'm turning the first tent into a dedicated bedroom tent, and setting up a separate bath and bathroom tent, and a living room tent. I don't think I'd need any more than that, and there isn't even more tent for you to help me set up at this point."

Oh, oops, she's done already.

He nods, trying not to feel too awkward.

It's faster with a pre-made trike wheel. He's done before sunset.

It looks sort of like this:

He tries drafting some test fibres--

--hmm, needs some more lubricant, and a slight adjustment here...

...and it works!

Iris looks at Minaiyu spinning with intense curiosity. "About how good is the fiber, and how fast do you make it? Would you say?"

"Honestly, it's hard to give a good answer to that. It varies so much by skill level, plus I would need time to get used to the quirks of this wheel and the quirks of these fibres.

I've done some weaving with yarn from Teludi--that's my friend who made the tricycle spinning wheel--and hers is fantastic quality. I'm definitely not at her level, though I do enough spinning to be moderately competent at it."

"I feel like spinning by hand would get boring quick? So I doubt I'd do it enough to get very good. Seeing the wheel set up makes me so incredibly grateful for how much fabric industrial technology lets me, and everyone else, have."

"It can be soothing in the right frame of mind, for some people more than others.

But yeah, you really don't want to have to rely on this sort of thing for all of your fabric. We learn this as a stepping stone, and a sort of...proof of concept? If you demonstrably know things about improved cloth-making techniques, people are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when you ask for help building a cloth factory. And if you're in a situation where you're struggling to get help building a cloth factory, well, at least you have a spinning wheel now and that's better than nothing."

"Right, that makes total sense... I manage to always forget the reincarnation in new worlds thing. Are there any clothes you're wanting to get? Or are you happy with everything and just spin because it's soothing?"

"I could start over on the robe I was working on back home, but...it was going to be a gift, and I can't give it to them now."

his friends and family will never know what happened to him, and that's so much worse than knowing for certain that he's gone to another world and they'll never see him again

"I think it will take some time for me to settle on what major craft project to do next. Maybe I'll do some small bits of yarnwork just for fun: I've been starting to miss that."

He looks contemplative for a bit, then smiles.

"I could make a little hat for Rellakri. Probably it wouldn't keep the hat on very long. It would be cute, though."

"Oh my god, a cute hat for the bird, that's so fantastic! Having one of those coming from your own hands would be so impossibly cute!"

He grins.

"It's a plan, then."

He settles in to do some more spinning.

Nothing interrupts him; he's free to spin, pet the bird, transcribe and read about thomassia all he likes. Iris eventually lets him know that she's to be tested and observed, and if no ill effect comes to her, he'll be considered to have finished his quarantine. And the phone call comes: Iris was completely fine, so everyone else would probably also be completely fine around Minaiyu, and he is officially no longer quarantined and free to go anywhere he wants.

It's going to be okay.

It...doesn't quite feel real.

But that feeling will come with time, he thinks.

He paces around his living room for a bit, then realises that there's nothing stopping him from going on a walk in the forest trails. The phone has a satellite-based geolocation system, so he doesn't need to worry about getting lost.

After that, he settles in to figure out what things will look like in the medium term.

He's welcome to continue living in the quarantine facility as long as he likes, and to keep the bird. He will have to pay rent (and pet food), but he's providing a very valuable service to Thomassian society by obtaining and translating alien books, and the pay will easily cover it.

(He does suspect he'll end up moving sometime in the next few years, but he'll need to experience more areas of Thomassia before he decides which one to live in.)

A couple of days later, he gets ready to travel.

He hesitates, then decides to leave his Rekkan joey at home. He's not prone to losing or breaking things, but the small chance is still too high. It feels weird not to have his library with him, but there is a large chunk of it on his phone now (and the remote-backup service he recently signed up for), and if he wants to do some work while he's out, he can record folk songs or mnemonics or language samples of signed Tashayan.

He does bring his customary alien bag with its customary collection of alien artifacts, minus the samples of ration bar and medications he's giving to science. (Upon reflection, he also removes the money from his wallet and replaces it with his new Thomassian debit card: it's silly to spend weight on carrying Tashayan coins around in a place that doesn't take them as currency.)

He wears his Thomassian respirator, too. He...at this point, he would be more surprised if the Thomassians made him sick than if they didn't, and he suspects that even if he did get sick some medical care and time would handle it okay, but he's not super sure; and anyway, he expects it will be emotionally easier to handle being in a hive-city if he's not actually sharing breath with a million people.

On his way out, he takes a picture of Rellakri wearing the little hat, the first entry in his travel photo album. "The robot petsitters will take good care of you," he tells the bird, giving it one last pat.

And then he sets off, to explore the nearest city.

It's a bit of a car ride, and at this point, masks like his are very rare to see. The city goes from towers reaching into the sky to green space, with little in between; the streets are fairly narrow, with few cars to be seen. People use subways more, with the trains coming incredibly frequently and sometimes coming with special "family cars" with more room for baby strollers and pregnant women. Just about any form of food that Minaiyu can think of can be bought somewhere in the city; there are also a fair few tailors, including ones specializing in things like underwear, PPE, outdoor clothes and large, fluffy, impossibly colorful animal costumes. Minaiyu would absolutely have seen a group of children playing in a park supervised by a few adults, dressed in bright blue skirts, playing around, climbing and having fun.

Wow.

It's a lot to keep up with. It...it kind of reminds him of working at the hospital, actually, juggling everything going on around you all at once.

He's fortunate, here, to be someone suited to hospital work. He wonders if Thomassians have naturally higher overload thresholds than Rekkans, or if it's from many years of practice.

He goes into a subway station and spends a few minutes watching the trains go in and out and observing the process of using them, but doesn't board one yet, not when the area of the city one block away is just as interesting as the area a few stops down the track.

Aww, he's glad the kids are having a good time.

(Maybe he should look into local climbing gyms that are sized for adults. That might be fun.)

He window-shops for a little while, then buys a fruit smoothie (strawberry-free) and sits on a park bench for a snack break, occasionally lifting his respirator to stick the straw in.

(There are no suspicious archways in the park. He checked.)

He's pretty spoiled for choice on what to do next. It's hard to make up his mind.

Hmm...

...ooh, he should find a building that lets random strangers into the upper floors and check out the view!

He'll start by doing a search-engine query for observation decks in this city, to see if there are any buildings specifically designed for this that he should aim for. (It might even make for a good excuse to ride the cool underground train.)

There isn't a proper observation deck in the city, rather there's a place offering blimp tours letting people take a leisurely look at the city from the sky. It's a fair distance away by intercity train, but Minaiyu can get a tour with time to spare if he starts heading there now.