"Take your hands off that." said the Real Human. He quickly tapped the agent's hand.  Agent Lichtenberg was startled by the unexpected appearance of the man, but obediently withdrew his hand from the stone he had been about to pick up and place around the fireplace. While waiting for the Real Human to return from his daily excursion to get food, he had decided to take on some of the work he saw the man do every day. The Real Human might pretend Lichtenberg didn't exist, but he did make sure there was food and drink for both. Lichtenberg had learned to appreciate that and wanted take upon himself at least a part of the tasks he saw him executing every day. Furthermore, he disliked having to wait in the dark. The open space of the dry steppe made him uncomfortable, and in the twilight all on his own it became worse. The light of the fire created a kind of a dark wall around him and gave him a sense of safety. "Is that stone taboo?" the agent asked the Real Human. He scrutinized the object to see if it differed in any way from the other stones, he seemed to be allowed to pick up. 
"There's a scorpion under it," the man reported absently, lighting the branches the agent had already piled up in the fire pit. 
Involuntarily, the agent took a step back. He had already had a nightly confrontation with a scorpion once, because he had ignored the advice of the Real Human to find another place to sleep. There was no doubt in his mind that a dangerous beast did indeed lurk beneath the stone, though even upon closer inspection he could not discover how the Real Human could have known this. He shrugged and sat down by the fire, above which meat was already placed by the Real Human. The speed with which he could skin and slice animals still impressed the agent. The meat belonged to an animal that Lichtenberg could not

identify. That it might not be edible, however, did not cross the agent’s mind at all anymore. In the few days they had been on the road, the agent had gotten used to eating potluck from his hands. In fact, the agent didn't put anything in his mouth that didn't have the express approval of his travel partner. Even innocent-looking berries he avoided like the plague until the Real Human declared them to be food. 
Apparently, the Real Human was also just thinking about the subject of food. He gestured to him with the stick he used to poke into the fire. "All opposites come in threes. Do you understand?"  he asked.
The agent shook his head. "Isn't a contradiction a dichotomy?" he asked, looking hungrily at the food hanging above the fire, sizzling and smelling delicious. 
"True," said the Real Human. "but dichotomies can be paired up as triangles. You can think of the dichotomy pairs as sides of the triangle,” he claimed, chewing on some berries he had collected as well, but forgot to give to the agent. 
"I can't really follow you when you talk with your mouth full." the agent said politely. 
The Real Human swallowed what he had in his mouth and repeated what he just said. He used the stick to draw a triangle in the sand. "Look. One of the items is food.” This one. He pointed the tip of his stick at one of the points of the triangle. “What is the opposite of food?” he asked gesturing at another point of the triangle.
The agent took his eyes off the food and studied the drawing. “Er… No food?” he suggested. 
The Real Human continued to look at him intently. "Be more precise." 
Lichtenberg thought. 'Well. Before you get that beast…” 
"A Qippoz." helped the Real Human. 
"A kiepo… er, something. Before you prepared it, it was not food.” 
"That's right." beamed the Real Human. 'Very good of you.' 
The agent smiled proudly. For some reason he liked it when the Real Human complimented him. 
'To be precise. It's only food after it's prepared. Before then it is raw. You cannot eat the flesh until it is prepared. Same with