Joiwind put her hand on Maskull’s shoulder, and pointed upward. “Here you have the highest peak in the whole land—that is, until you come to the Ifdawn Marest.”
On hearing that strange name, he experienced a momentary unaccountable sensation of wild vigour and restlessness—but it passed away.
Without losing time, Panawe led the way up the mountainside. The lower half was of bare rock, not difficult to climb. Halfway up, however, it grew steeper, and they began to meet bushes and small trees. The growth became thicker as they continued to ascend, and when they neared the summit, tall forest trees appeared.
These bushes and trees had pale, glassy trunks and branches, but the small twigs and the leaves were translucent and crystal. They cast no shadows from above, but still the shade was cool. Both leaves and branches were fantastically shaped. What surprised Maskull the most, however, was the fact that, as far as he could see, scarcely any two plants belonged to the same species.
“Won’t you help Maskull out of his difficulty?” said Joiwind, pulling her husband’s arm.
He smiled. “If he’ll forgive me for again trespassing in his brain. But the difficulty is small. Life on a new planet, Maskull, is necessarily energetic and lawless, and not sedate and imitative. Nature is still fluid—not yet rigid—and matter is plastic. The will forks and sports incessantly, and thus no two creatures are alike.”
“Well, I understand all that,” replied Maskull, after listening attentively. “But what I don’t grasp is this—if living creatures here sport so energetically, how does it come about that human beings wear much the same shape as in my world?”
“I’ll explain that too,” said Panawe. “All creatures that resemble Shaping must of necessity resemble one another.”
“Then sporting is the blind will to become like Shaping?”
“Exactly.”