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.
I had the edge on Green Green, I felt, because it was my world he'd chosen for the encounter. How long he'd had to fool around with it, of course, was a thing I didn't know and a thing that worried me. What changes had he effected? He'd chosen the perfect bait. How perfect was the trap? How much of an edge did he think he had? Whatever, he couldn't be sure of anything, not against another Name. Nor, of course, could I.
Did you ever witness the combat of _betta splendens_, the Siamese Fighting Fish? It's not like a cock fight or a dog fight or a cobra-mongoose match, or anything else in the world but itself. You place two males in the same bowl. They move together quickly, unfurling their brilliant fins, like red, blue, green shadows, expanding their branchial membranes. This gives the illusion of their suddenly blooming into something larger than they had been. Then they approach one another slowly, remain side by side for perhaps a quarter of a minute, drifting. Then they move, so fast that the eye can't even follow what is happening. Then, slow and peaceful again, they drift. Then suddenly, the colored whirlagig. Then drifting. Then movement. This pattern continues. The colored-shadow fins. And even this may be misleading. After a time, a reddish haze will surround them. Another flurry. They slow. Their jaws are locked. A minute passes, perhaps two. One opens his jaws and swims away. The other drifts.
This is how I saw what was to come.
I passed the moon, the dark bulk of the world grew before me, occluding stars. As I neared it, my descent slowed. Devices beneath the cockpit were activated, and when I finally entered the upper atmosphere I was already drifting, slowly. The impression of moonlight on a hundred lakes: coins at a dark pool's bottom.
I monitored for artificial light, detected none. Flopsus appeared upon the horizon, adding her light to her sister's. After perhaps half an hour, I could make out the more prominent features of the continent. I combined these with memory and feeling and began to steer the sled.
Like the falling of a leaf on a still day, tacking, sideslipping, I headed for the ground. The lake called Acheron, with its Isle of the Dead, lay, I calculated, some six hundred miles to the northwest.
Far below me, clouds appeared. I drifted on and they were gone. I lost very little altitude during the next half-hour and gained perhaps forty miles on my goal. I wondered what detection devices might be functioning below me.
The high-altitude winds caught me, and I fought them for a time; finally, though, I had to descend several thousand feet to escape the worst of them.
For the next several hours I made my way, steadily, north and west. At a height of some fifty thousand feet, I was still over four hundred miles from my goal. I wondered what detection devices might be functioning below me.
Within the next hour, though, I descended twenty thousand feet and gained about seventy miles. Things seemed to be breaking nicely.
Finally, a false dawn began in the east, and I dropped a mile to get beneath it. My speed increased as I did so. It was like descending into an ocean, light water to dark.
But the light followed me. After a time, I ran again. I plowed through a cloudbank, estimated my position, continued to descend. How many miles to Acheron?
Two hundred, perhaps.
The light caught me, passed me, went away.
I dropped to fifteen thousand feet, picked up forty miles. I deactivated several more plates.
I was cruising at three thousand feet when the real dawn began to occur.
I continued for ten minutes, dropping, found a clear place and went to ground.