I anesthetized and cut open the middle finger of my left hand, implanted a laser crystal and some piezoelectric webbing, closed the incision and kept the hand in a healant unit for four hours. There was no scar. It would sting like hell and cost me some skin if I used it, but if I were to extend that finger, clench the others and turn my palm upward, the beam it emitted would cut through a two-foot slab of granite. I packed rations, medical supplies, food, _glitten_ root in a light knapsack, which I cached near the port. I would not need a compass or maps, of course, but some firesticks, a sheet of flimsy, a hand torch and some night-specs seemed advisable. I laid out everything I could think of, including my plans.
I decided not to descend in the _Model T_, but to orbit and ride in on a non-metallic drift-sled. I'd give myself an Illyrian week on the surface. I would instruct the _T_ to descend at the end of that time and hover above the strongest power-pull nexus--and then return once every day after that.
I slept, I ate. I waited, I hated.
Then one day there came a humming sound, rising to a whine. Then silence. The stars fell like fiery sleet, then froze all about me. Ahead, there hung one bright one.
I ascertained Illyria's position and moved toward a rendezvous.
A couple lifetimes or days later, I regarded it: a little green opal of a world, with flashing seas and countless bays, inlets, lakes, fjords; lush vegetation on the three tropical continents, cool woodlands and numerous lakes on the four temperate ones; no really high mountains, but lots of hills; nine small deserts, for variety's sake; one humpbacked river, half again the length of the Mississippi; a system of oceanic currents I was really proud of; and a five hundred mile land bridge/mountain range I had raised between two continents, just because geologists hate them as much as anthropologists love them. I watched a storm-system develop near the equator, move northward, disperse its wet burden over the ocean. One by one, as I drew nearer, the three moons-- Flopsus, Mopsus and Kattontallus--partly eclipsed the world.
I set the _Model T_ into an enormous, elliptical orbit, beyond the farthest moon; and, hopefully, also beyond the range of any detection devices. Then I set to work figuring the problem of the descents--my initial one, and those later ones, by the vessel itself.
Then I checked my current position, set an alarm and took a nap.
When I awoke, I visited the latrine, checked the driftsled, went over my gear. I took an ultrasonic shower and dressed myself in black shirt and trousers, of a water-repellent synthetic the name of which I can never remember, even though I own the company. I put on what I call combat boots, but what everyone else calls hiking boots these days, and bloused the trousers up inside. Then I clasped on a soft leather belt with a dark, two-piece buckle which could become the handles for the strangling-wire that tore loose through the center seam. I hung a pistol-belt over that, to hold a laser handgun at my right hip, and I hooked a row of small grenades along the back. I wore a pendant around my neck, with a spit-bomb inside, and on my right wrist I strapped a chrono set for Illyria and gimmicked to spray para-gas from nine o'clock when the stem was pulled. A handkerchief, a comb and the remains of a thousand-year-old rabbit's foot went into my pockets. I was ready.
I had to wait, though. I wanted to descend at night, drifting down like thistledown but black, onto the continent Splendida, going to ground no closer than a hundred, no further than three hundred miles from my destination.
I wriggled into the knapsack, smoked a cigarette and worked my way back to the sled-chamber. I sealed it off and boarded the sled. I pulled shut the half-bubble, locked it about me, felt a tiny jet of air just above my head, a small wave of warmth just about my feet. I pushed the button that raised the hatch.
The wall opened, and I stared down at the crescent moon my world had become. The T would launch me at the proper moment; the sled would brake itself at the right time. I had only to control the drift, once I'd entered the atmosphere. The sled and I together would weigh only a few pounds, because of the anti-gray elements in the hull. It had rudders, ailerons, stabilizers; also, sails and chutes. It's less like a glider than one assumes on first hearing of it. It's more like a sailboat for use on a three-dimensional ocean. And I waited in it and looked down at the wave of night washing day from Illyria. Mopsus moved into view; Kattontallus moved out of it. My right ankle began to itch.
As I was scratching it, a blue light came on above my head. As I fastened my belts, it went out and the red one came on.
As I relaxed, the buzzer sounded and the red light went out and a mule kicked me in the backside and there were stars all about, dark Illyria before me, and no hatch to frame them.
Then drifting, not down, but ahead. Not falling, just moving, and even that undetectable when I closed my eyes. The world was a pit, a dark hole. Slowly, it grew. The warmth had filled the capsule, and the only sounds were my heart, my breath, the air jet.
When I turned my head, I could not see the _Model T_. Good.
It had been years since I'd used a drift-sled for purposes other than recreation. And each time I had, like now, my mind skipped back to a pre-dawn sky and the rocking of the sea and the smell of sweat and the bitter after-taste of Dramamine in my throat and the first _thud_ of artillery-fire as the landing vehicle neared the beach. Then, as now, I'd wiped my palms on my knees, reached into my left sidepocket and touched the dead bunnys-foot there. Funny. My brother had had one, too. He would have enjoyed the drift-sled. He'd liked airplanes and gliders and boats. He'd liked waterskiing and skindiving and acrobatics and aerobatics--that's why he'd gone Airborne, which is probably why he Got It, too. You can only expect so much from one lousy rabbit's foot.
The stars blazed like the love of God, cold and distant, as soon as I dropped the blackspot on the bubble and blocked out the light of the sun. Mopsus caught the light, though, and cast it down into the pit. She held the middle orbit. Flopsus was nearest the planet, but was on the other side just then. The three made for generally tranquil seas, and once in a score or so of years they'd put on a magnificent tidal display when all of them were in conjunction. Isles of coral would appear in sudden deserts of purple and orange, as the waters rolled back, humped up, became a green mountain, moved round the world; and stones and bones and fishes and driftwood would lie like the footprints of Proteus, and the winds would follow, and the temperature-shifts, the inversions, the fields in the clouds, the cathedrals in the sky; and then the rains would come, and the wet mountains would break themselves upon the land, as the fairy cities shattered and the magic isles returned to the depths and Proteus, God knows where, would laugh like thunder, as with each bright flash Neptune's whitehot trident dipped, sizzled, dipped, sizzled. Afterwards, you'd rub your eyes.
Now Illyria was moonbeams over cheesecloth. Somewhere, in her sleep, a cat-like creature would stir soon. She would awaken, stretch, rise and begin to prowL After a time, she would stare at the sky for a moment, at the moon, beyond the moon. Then a murmur would run through the valleys, and the leaves would move upon the trees. They would feel it. Born of my nervous system, fractioned from my own DNA, shaped in the initial cell by the unassisted power of my mind, they would feel it, all of them. Anticipation. --_Yes, my children, I am coming. For Belion has dared to walk among you_ ...
Drifting.
If only it had been a man, there on Illyria, waiting for me, it would have been easy. As it was, I felt that my armaments were mainly trappings. If it had only been a man, though, I wouldn't even have bothered with them. But Green Green was not a man; he was not even a Pei'an--which, in itself, is a frightening thing to be. Rather, he was something more than either.
He bore a Name, albeit improperly; and Name-bearers can influence living things, even the elements about them, when they raise up and merge with the shadow that lies behind the Name. I am not getting theological. I've heard some scientific-sounding explanations for everything involved, if you'll buy voluntary schizophrenia along with a god-complex and extrasensory faculties. Take them one at a time, and bear in mind the number of years' training a worldscaper undergoes, and the number of candidates who complete it.