Sol And Grass

The Night Face, V.

The very last word on p. 585 is:

"'Sol..."

Over the page, the sentence continues:

"'...went there with a camera.'" (p. 586)

So this "Sol" is the name of a man, not of Earth's sun.

On p. 590:

"Grass whispered under [Raven's] boots..."

In a narrative set on the surface of another planet, Poul Anderson usually uses some phrase like "pseudo-grass" or "the local equivalent of grass" in order to make the point that, if there is any ground cover there, then it cannot be identical to any kind of Terrestrial grass - and should be shown to be different in any screen adaptation. The entire environment, not just some of its inhabitants, should look extra-terrestrial even in those cases, like the present one, where the planet is described as terrestroid.

The precision of Anderson's texts makes close readers sensitive even to minor terminological issues.