by Anne Rice
However, there were dreamers and madmen who seemed to do nothing, and people cared for them as best they could without complaint. There were elders who were universally revered.
I wish there were time, or that I was up to the task of documenting all of these observations, but suffice it to say I became deeply intrigued as to whether I was seeing all this realistically or seeing it as positive due to my own Replimoid nature, and I could not resolve my conflicts with regard to this. I only knew that the species had an innate love of fairness and goodness, though the definitions as expressed might be vague.
As for the mining communities we encountered, we were pleased to discover that work in them was entirely voluntary and generally offered for consistently good rewards. Indeed, there were humans clamoring to work. The workday was four hours, with different shifts working round the clock to mine the gold, the silver, and the copper from the earth. Same in the large orchards and herding communities. About four hours was as long as any man, woman, or child worked to fulfill the commitment to the community and to Atalantaya. After those four hours, people spent time as they always have and always will, working on their own dwellings, training their children, cooking, dining together, playing games, working at handicrafts such as the making of clay pots or the weaving of baskets, and the making of clothes. We found out that four hours a day was the accepted time for work all through the Wilderness lands--as these lands were called--and that people in Atalantaya worked four hours a day as well.
People felt it was admirable and good to work four hours. They admired those who worked at least six days in a row before enjoying a work-free day. And they told us that that was the way of Atalantaya.
Clothes all over the Wilderness lands were in a state of flux. People wore skins mostly for warmth, protection, and prestige, but some people had begun a simple kind of weaving, and others were tanning leather to make it more flexible and durable, and some even wore silk garments that had come from the new silkworm communities near to Atalantaya, and some wore chemical clothes, or clothes made in Atalantaya of materials that did not come from nature, as far as I could see.
As for the pyramids, we encountered them everywhere and stood silent through many an evening ritual when humans gathered to watch the fires burn atop the pyramid and pray to the Maker. Adjacent to these pyramids and sometimes right inside of them were chambers where people came for the sole purpose of reflecting on their sorrows or their frustrations, with people weeping as they sat on benches, or chanting their tearful prayers. These were the Chambers of Suffering. This was the place, we were now told, where all could cry and even bang their fists on the stone walls. These were the places where we could shout aloud about our losses or disappointments.
We were even told once or twice that the Maker heard all that went on in these chambers, and the Maker loved it, that the Maker loves those who suffer pain and misery yet have courage to cry out against it, and go on with their lives. We were told in one instance by a guardian of one of the chambers that the Maker was particularly attentive to weeping, far more than ever to songs of praise or thanks. The Maker had compassion on the beings of Earth, and knew how hard life was, with many dying young, and many injured or wounded, and even sometimes whole villages dying in a flood or a forest fire.
Now the Parents had told us of one Chamber of Suffering near Atalantaya, but they had not told us that these chambers existed all over.
I noted all this with great suspicion, and I could tell by the expressions on the faces of Welf and Garekyn and Derek that they also thought this was intriguing, to say the least. We inquired more about all this, and the explanations came back the same: a Chamber of Suffering helps people to weep here, to have a place for weeping; it helps people to weep in groups; it helps people to bare their suffering hearts. But now and then there was the hint that the Maker was especially pleased with these places and those who sought them out. Of course the Maker could hear cries uttered everywhere, but the Maker especially favored those who took the time to come to the Chambers of Suffering, and some had guardians who helped sufferers come in and go out, and others had guardians who guided singing that went on with the weeping and grieving. Those who came often to the Chambers of Suffering were the people most likely to see the intervention of the Maker in their lives.
What did this mean? Could the Parents see into all of these chambers? We were not certain that we had seen inside these chambers when we were on Bravenna, because we had seen so much suffering in the film streams that we had not noticed anything that might have involved special gatherings here. Did the Parents intervene in the lives of the suffering people who came to these chambers? I couldn't imagine it.
I asked about the Maker. I asked what he or she might do. And when I did I made people uneasy.
Gradually, I inferred from all this that it was not permitted to say as fact that the Maker would intervene, or to claim that the Maker had. What was accepted was faith that the Maker might. And that the Maker appreciated the sufferings of those on Earth. I was even told once that "not a tear was wasted."
As for the guardians of these Chambers of Suffering, there seemed no overall network. In some places there were strong guardians of the Chambers of Suffering, and in others only one or two old guides. And in some places, the chambers had fallen into positive neglect.
I felt more and more uneasy about the chambers, because no one had called our attention to them on Bravenna.
I often studied the way the chambers were constructed, and how the pyramids were constructed, but I could come to no conclusion. Indeed, I didn't see any evidence anywhere of the transmitting stations that were sending streams to Bravenna, and I learned early on that no one seemed to know anything about such stations.
This didn't make very much sense. But then the whole question of the transmissions didn't make sense. How had we, on Bravenna, been able to see into people's huts or houses, or caves? How had we been able to hear and see people coupling in the privacy of their beds?
I stored all I saw in my memory. I had no other way to store it. No one in this wide world was writing things down. I had seen no writing on Bravenna. I didn't even think of "writing" or what it had to involve.
Another thing fascinated me: people, far and wide, visited Atalantaya any number of times during their lives. Some visited regularly. They traded with Atalantaya, and indeed they had begun to use a coinage from Atalantaya as well. The representatives of Atalantaya were everywhere teaching people things such as how to graft branches from one fruit tree to another and how to construct small and easily managed looms.
Over and over, people told us we'd be welcomed in Atalantaya--that anyone with our knowledge of brewing healthful tonics and teas, of using plants to heal injuries, and reduce fever--would find a ready audience in the representatives of Atalantaya on the coast.
Nowhere did I encounter anybody who felt shut out of Atalantaya, or who had been rejected for a visit to the city, or who blamed Atalantaya for any circumstance in his or her life.
Now understand we were seeing many kinds of people, simple people, more complex and vocal people, people with the ambition to make pots and fabrics, and others who seemed content to rock their babies in their arms and sing to them, or dance around evening fires.
But none of them spoke of exploitation by Atalantaya. Indeed, some blushed when they told us that they just weren't strong enough to live in Atalantaya, but they had enjoyed the "festivals" there very much. Others said they couldn't live in those tall towers, and others that it was too crowded and others that it was too noisy. But no one, no one complained of being used by Atalantaya or excluded from it.
And this contradicted, directly contradicted, things which the Parents had said.
In sum, I loved this Wilderness world. We all did.
It was a great experience, our journey to Atalantaya, and when at last we did present ourselves in the coastal community nearest the great city, we were welcomed and approved for passage across the water a
lmost at once. We scarcely needed to utter our "cover story."
All around us were happy people excited to be going to Atalantaya, many for the first time, and the officials in charge seemed excited for us as well. It was rather like being in a group today that is visiting the cities of Jerusalem or Rome for the first time.
After we walked through a great hollow tube of metal and stepped into the crowded white ferryboat, we gazed in wonder at the immense city rising before us, and felt not fear of Amel so much as desperate curiosity for more surprises, more revelations, more sheer pleasure, and more knowledge of the marvels of Earth. Hundreds upon hundreds of small fishing boats were on the sea around us, and other boats carrying various supplies to Atalantaya. It was a lovely spectacle, as these boats had small sails of individual colors and they were sprinkled as far as the eye could see. And before us Atalantaya became so immense as to seem like something beyond belief--that anyone or any group of beings could have built such a habitation.
IV
The ferry appeared to fly across the water, and burrow into the very foundation of the city, entering a lock and coming to a stop at a station where other ferries were also docking, and people were streaming out of them and through gateways to stairways that led to the surface.
The officials who were stopping and questioning many only took one look at us and waved us through.
The sidewalks and the stairways moved under our feet, in ways that would surprise no one in the twentieth century but absolutely confounded us.
Within minutes we were in a huge spacious loggia with translucent walls where officials questioned us briefly as to whether we had gold to sustain us in Atalantaya (we did) and whether we would need shelter (we would) and then waved us on to a welcoming agent who told us we would find places of shelter all up and down the walkway before us, to our right and our left.
As we emerged from the loggia, we found ourselves in the very midst of the metropolis on a shining pathway bordered by enormous fruit trees and banked with vibrant flowers, winding its way amid the myriad towers, with doorways open to the walkway on either side from shops and hostelries and other "businesses" for which we had no name. In truth we had no name for most of what we beheld. But it would be no surprise to anyone returned to this moment in a Time Machine from a time such as this. Shops sold jewelry, clothing, communication devices, strange gadgets, sandals, shoes, bags for carrying things, and a multitude of other "goods" such as we had never beheld.
Above us the towers rose higher than any tree in existence on Earth as far as we knew.
But it was the people, the people of Atalantaya, who astonished us, dressed as they were in shimmering garments, mostly of pale pastel colors, and decked all over with gold and silver jewelry, many with pendants of precious or what we call now semiprecious stones.
Young and old, they seemed more spry and healthier than the people of the Wilderness. Some painted their faces in exquisite ways, not like the savages of the Wilderness but in a more subtle manner to enhance their features.
The clothing ranged from carefully made jackets and trousers and well-fitted dresses to loose tunics long and short, and formless robes. Some people were scantily clad just as the Wilderness people had been, but gone were the shaggy heads and long beards and strong natural odors of the Wilderness people, as these people were clean and groomed and striding along with a fierce self-confidence that startled us and confused us and momentarily brought us to a halt.
These people included women and men in what might have been equal proportion, and numerous children, and people cleaning the streets with sleek wandlike machines that appeared to be devouring dust and dirt and falling leaves. The fruit for the picking was everywhere, just as it had been in the Wilderness really, and out of the doors of cafes and dining places came the scent of delicious concoctions which we found ourselves craving right away.
As soon as we were seated in one of these places, a spacious eatery with a huge back garden, we discovered that everything offered was made from vegetables and fruit, eggs, and wild grasses or grain, and that meat was only eaten in Atalantaya during the Wilderness Festivals, or the Festival of Meats, that took place six times a year. Fish, however, was abundant. Fresh fish was sold at the docks in the early morning and then before noon and then before evening. We could have any number of kinds of fish, prepared roasted, or broiled, and even sometimes raw. We could have shellfish also, and sea grasses and other delicacies which I realize now included caviar.
That was fine with us. We loved the food we consumed, which was much more artfully prepared than the feasts we'd had in the villages, and that first meal is engraved on my memory for all the nuts offered us in bowls, and the vegetables both fried and baked, and the cooked grain mixed with raisins and sliced onions and bits of spices and herbs. There was something sacramental about the presentation but it seemed at the same time to be pedestrian to all those coming and going and taking their places at the tables and arguing and chatting with one another as they ate and drank. What I realized much later on was that it was competitive consumer presentation of food just as competing restaurants offer today.
Each restaurant had its own dovecote or henhouse for eggs, usually in a garden in back where fruit trees grew in abundance as they did everywhere. We'd stumbled into only one of many choices, and it took a pittance of our gold to pay for it, in change for which we received a lot of Atalantaya coin, in fact so much coin that we had to buy purses to hold it, which involved our very next stop in a clothing store.
But let me get back to what we actually saw in the city. If I go from point to point like this, it will take far too long.
As we emerged and began wandering, we soon encountered numerous moving staircases, and tracks on which people were carried about as on electric walkways today. Some of these tracks circled as high as three stories around various towers, carrying people up to doorways dozens of feet above the street.
And everything we saw, positively everything, seemed to be made from lightweight, flexible material of varying strengths as if this were a whole world made of plastic.
Though people walked everywhere, there were lightweight pods--of a glistening white material--also traveling the thoroughfares of the city, and as I recall, all of them looked similar, varying only in size. Some pods held only one person. Most held up to four. Though I myself never obtained or rented or borrowed one of these pods, it seemed anybody could do that, and that the pods actually drove themselves. In retrospect I think the pods were relatively new to Atalantaya and just catching on. I never learned any more about them.
As for the buildings themselves, they were fabulously translucent, but when you tried to see inside them you found that sometimes you could not. People had plenty of privacy in their shops, rooms, or offices, because with the wave of a hand, a wall could become utterly transparent or opaque, and we saw all around us walls changing in these ways.
Of course we found moving-picture places, dimly lighted salons into which we could enter to watch film streaming on walls, just as we'd seen it on Bravenna. But these films were not of ordinary life. It took only a few moments for us to gather that what we were seeing were artful and fictional depictions, in other words dramas in which people acted out parts.
If I had one regret of my time spent in Atalantaya, it is that I did not take enough time to understand the nature of these films, the values that these stories embodied or reflected, and the overall differences between one film and another. This was a burgeoning art form. I should have come to know it. Welf wanted to know it also and was forever urging us in the first weeks to go into the film houses and study the films. There were also stage plays, shows involving shadows only, and puppet shows. Garekyn had some interest in all this too. But the films and plays frightened Derek and he didn't like them; he could not quite grasp what the artifice sought to achieve.
"Why would someone pretend to have a fight with someone else?" he asked. Of course we could have come to understand this level of
cultural expression if we'd taken the time. But we were too attracted by other mysteries such as: What were the walls made of? Why did people constantly talk to their own hands or wrists, and where were the energy stores of which the Parents had spoken and how was this energy actually used?
I need to add, at this point, that all through the crowds in the streets were Wilderness people like us, and many of them were asking questions, just as we wanted to do, so there seemed to be no risk. About one-fourth of the crowd in any lane or street through which we wandered seemed to be Wilderness people, coming to enjoy and "see" Atalantaya--"Behold Atalantaya, the beauty of Atalantaya, behold the talking clothes, the talking bracelets, behold the dome, behold the wonders!"--so we blended in.
Well, the talking clothes and talking bracelets were of course communication devices united by a wireless network, and analogous to today's cell phones. These were built into garments and certain kinds of jewelry, even rings, and people were not talking to their hands.
Within an hour of our arrival, we had bought talking bracelets for ourselves and we had our numbers and our names entered into the great network, and we could call one another, we were told, from anywhere in Atalantaya, and we need not shout as we were doing when we experimented with these things, we needed only to talk in a "soft voice" as the device would adjust the volume.
When I asked how these things worked, I received detailed and vague answers, both of which were usually beyond the understanding for which I'd been equipped. Essentially, what I came to understand was that all sounds had waves, and waves conducted communications, and the energy that made this possible was abundant and came from the roofs and walls of the towers as well as the surface of the streets, and even from the material of the immense citywide dome.
What they were not saying, because it was so obvious, was that sunshine provided the energy of Atalantaya and there were no actual energy stores.
I couldn't begin to guess what this actually meant. But in the entire time I was there it was the only explanation given me for virtually everything, and indeed on some overcast days, days when the marine clouds hung so thick above the dome that the city was grayish and even cool, some communications were slightly dimmed. Everybody expected this and didn't care. In fact, they loved it when rain pounded down on the dome and giant waves splashed on the bulwarks of the city, and there was much talk about how water as well was used in Atalantaya, and salt was extracted from seawater so that it was healthy for the fruit and nut trees that grew everywhere, and the vines that grew on walls and in gardens filled with gourds and pumpkins, and squashes and melons and vegetables for which I never learned names. Water fed the innumerable fountains of Atalantaya in gardens and groves and in nooks and crannies off the sidewalks everywhere. The people uttered expressions like "Sing the song of water!" equal to people today saying, "How beautiful the rain is."
