The project had filled Alvin with enthusiasm when he heard of it. He looked forward to seeing more of this wonderful country, and although Theon’s interests lay in a different field of knowledge from his own, he felt a kinship for his new companion which not even Rorden had ever awakened.
Theon intended to travel south as far as the machine could go-little more than an hour’s journey from Airlee- and the rest of the way they would have to go on foot. Not realizing the full implications of this, Alvin had no objections.
To Alvin, the journey across Lys had a dreamlike unreality. Silent as a ghost, the machine slid across rolling plains and wound its way through forests, never deviating from its invisible track. It travelled perhaps a dozen times as fast as a man could comfortably walk. No one in Lys was ever in a greater hurry than that.
Many times they passed through villages, some larger than Airlee but most built along very similar lines. Alvin was interested to notice subtle but significant differences in clothing and even physical appearance as they moved from one community to the next. The civilization of Lys was composed of hundreds of distinct cultures, each contributing some special talent towards the whole.
Once or twice Theon stopped to speak to friends, but the pauses were brief and it was still morning when the little machine came to rest among the foothills of a heavily wooded mountain. It was not a very large mountain, but Alvin thought it the most tremendous thing he had ever seen.
“This is where we start to walk,” said Theon cheerfully, throwing equipment out of the car. “We can’t ride any farther.”
As he fumbled with the straps that were to convert him into a beast of burden, Alvin looked doubtfully at the great mass of rock before them.
“It’s a long way round, isn’t it?” he queried.
“We aren’t going round,” replied Theon. “I want to get to the top before nightfall.” Alvin said nothing. He had been rather afraid of this.