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136 gamesh, "pulled it up by the forepart." The dreamlike recol- lection became a vividly remembered vision as Gilgamesh described his efforts to open up the object's top: I pressed strongly its upper part; I could neither remove its covering nor raise its Ascender. Retelling his dream-vision, unsure no more of whether it was a recollection of an obscured reality or a nighttime fan- tasy, Gilgamesh was now describing an Ascender that had crashed to Earth, the "handiwork of Anu," a mechanical contraption with an upper part mat served as a_ covering. Determined to see what was inside, Gilgamesh continued, With a destroying fire its top I then broke off and moved into its depth. Once inside me Ascender, "its movable That-which-pulls- forward"—its engine—"I lifted, and brought it to my mother." Now, he wondered out loud, was it not a sign that Anu himself was summoning him to the Divine Abode? It was undoubtedly an omen, an invitation. But how could he answer the call? "Who, my friend, can scale heaven?" Gil- gamesh asked Enkidu, and gave his own answer: "Only the gods, by going to the underground place of Shamash"—the Spaceport in the forbidden region. But here Enkidu had a surprising bit of information. There is a Landing Place in the Cedar Mountain, he said. He discov- ered it while he was roaming the land, and he can show Gilgamesh where it is! There is, though, a problem: The place is guarded by a guardian artfully created by Enlil, a "siege engine" whose "mouth is fire, whose breath is death, whose roaring is a flood-storm.". The monster's name is Huwawa, "as a terror to mortals Enlil has appointed him." And no one can even come near him, for "at sixty leagues he can hear the wild cows of the forest." The danger only encouraged Gilgamesh to try and reach the Landing Place. If he succeeds, he will attain immortality; DIVINE ENCOUNTERS