Wind, Waves, Sun And Sea

"The wind ruffled waves and strummed idly on rigging. The sun struck long copper-tinged rays through scudding cloudbanks, to walk on the sea with fiery footprints. The air was cool, damp, smelling a little of salty life." (XIX, p. 483) (For full reference, see here.)

Four senses - or five if we imagine the taste of salt.

See also South Pacific Sunset II, which discusses a passage in the concluding novel of the Polesotechnic League period of the Technic History. In this later passage, the sunset symbolizes the end of that era. The Man Who Counts is not an end but a beginning, the first novel to feature van Rijn, collected in Volume I of The Technic Civilization Saga. Readers can move forwards, then backwards, in the series whereas the characters, like the readers in real life, can move only forwards. Even Time Patrol agents, who are able to re-live and re-experience past periods, find that entropy still flows in only one direction.