Alien III

Imagine that you have completed a major work of scholarship and that now you are resting while appreciating a view of mountain tops from the place where you live. So far, you have imagined this as if you are a human being. Now read the concluding paragraph of Poul Anderson's The Earth Book Of Stormgate:

"Now The Earth Book Of Stormgate is ended. From my tower I see the great white sweep of the snows upon Mount Anrovil. I feel the air blow in..."

OK, so far...

"...and caress my feathers. Yonder sky is calling. I will go.
"Fair winds forever."
-Poul Anderson, The Earth Book Of Stormgate (New York, 1979), p. 434.

Anderson puts us not only on an extrasolar planet in the future but also inside an alien body. In reality, we cannot feel air in our feathers like Hloch but there is a possible intermediate status. Human Avalonians who join a choth can soar with Hloch on their gravbelts. We might have that or a similar technology in the near future.

Fair winds forever. High is heaven and holy.