I was numb. That's the easiest way to put it. I had been there before--the place from which I had just returned--and, as before, I came away with a certain indecipherable scribbling upon my soul. I wished now for the sadness or the fear again--anything. But I felt nothing, not even anger. This would come later, though, I knew; but for the moment, I was too young or too old.
Why did the day bloom so bright and the sea sparkle so before me? Why did the air burn salt and pleasant within me, and the life-cries of the wood come like music into my ears? Nature is not so sympathetic as the poets would have you believe. Only other people sometimes care when you close your doors and do not open them again. I would stay in Megapei Megapei Megapei and listen to the litany of Lorimel of the Many Hands while the thousand-year-old flutes covered it like a sheet a statue. Then Shimbo would walk into the mountains once again, in procession with the others, and I, Francis Sandow, would see the opening of the cavern and gray, charcoal, black, the closing of the crypt. I would stay a few days more, to help order my master's affairs, and then depart upon my own journey. If it ended the same way--well, that's life.
So much for nightthoughts at mid-morning. I rose up and returned to the tower to wait.
In the days that followed, Shimbo walked again. I remember the thunder, as in a dream. There was thunder and flutes and the fiery hieroglyphs of lightnings above the mountains, beneath the clouds. This time Nature wept, for Shimbo dragged the bell-pull. I recall the green and gray procession, winding its way through the forest to the place where the timber broke and the dirt gave way to stone. As I walked, behind the creaking cart, the headgear of a Name-bearer upon me, the singed shawl of mourning about my shoulders, I bore in my hands the mask of Lorimel, a strip of dark cloth across the eyes. No more would his light burn in the shrines, unless another was given the Name. I understand that it did burn for a moment, though, at the time of his passing, in every shrine in the universe. Then the last door was closed, gray, charcoal, black. A strange dream, is it not?
After it was all over, I sat in the tower for a week, as was expected of me. I fasted, and my thoughts were my own. During that week, a message came in from the Central Registration Unit, via Homefree. I didn't read it until Weeksend, and when I did, I learned that Illyria was now owned by the Green Development Company.
Before the day was over, I was able to ascertain locally that the Green Development Company was Gringrintharl, formerly of Dilpei, ex-student of Delgren of Dilpei who bore the Name Clice, Out of Whose Mouth Proceedeth Rainbows. I called Deigren and made arrangements to see him the following afternoon. Then I broke my fast and I slept, for a long, long time. There were no dreams that I can recall.
Malisti had uncovered no one, nothing, on Driscoll. Deigren of Dilpei was of very little assistance, as he had not seen his former pupil for centuries. He hinted that he might be planning a surprise for Gringrin should he ever return to Megapei. I wondered if the feeling and the plans were mutual.
Whatever, these things no longer mattered. My time on Megapei had come to an end.
I boosted the _Model T_ into the sky and kept going until space and time ended for a space and a time. I continued.
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.