So Sax paused for a moment, and checked his wristpad maps to get a precise fix on his position and his car’s. He had a very good map program in his wristpad these days. He found he was at 31.63844 degrees longitude, 84.89926 degrees north latitude, give or take a few centimeters; his car was at 31.64114, 84.86857; if he climbed to the top of this little breadloaf knoll to the west northwest, up an exquisite natural staircase, he should see it. Yes. There it rolled, at a lazy walking pace. And there, in the cracks of this breadloaf (so apt, this anthropomorphic analogizing) was some small purple saxifrage, stubbornly hunkering down in the protection of broken rock.

Something in the sight was so satisfying: the laminate terrain, the saxifrage in the light— the little car moving to its dinner rendezvous with him— the delicious weariness in his feet— and then something indefinable, he had to admit it— unexplainable— in that the individual elements of the experience were insufficient to explain the pleasure of it. A kind of euphoria. He supposed this was love. Spirit of place, love of place— the areophany, not only as Hiroko had described it, but perhaps as she had experienced it as well. Ah, Hiroko— could she really have felt this good, all the time? Blessed creature! No wonder she had projected such an aura, collected such a following. To be near that bliss, to learn to feel it oneself . . . love of planet. Love of a planet’s life. Certainly the biological component of the scene was a critical part of one’s regard for it. Even Ann would surely have to admit that, if she were standing there beside him. An interesting hypothesis to test. Look, Ann, at this purple saxifrage. See how it catches the eye, somehow. One’s regard focused, in the center of the curvilinear landscape. And so love, spontaneously generated.