"Among my own people, there is a desire to dehumanize war," I related. "They have built aircraft that can be controlled by long distance. They build weapons that can destroy cities thousands of miles away, while the soldier firing it is safe at home."
"Disgusting!" she spat. "If you cannot taste your enemies’ blood, how can you know the glory of bravery? If you cannot look into his eye, how can you know the horror of death? I can see that you have lived a deprived life among a perverted people. I will try to help you." By this time the shuttle train had reached its destination, and we debarked. Here again was another station, very much like the others, with the exception of size. This shuttle station was huge--it made Grande Central Station seem tiny. Once we had taken the escalator up from the platform, we stood at the edge of a huge room, many stories high. In this station dozens of shuttle train lines converged, as did other forms of transportation. Thousands of people with black hair and blue faces bustled here and there. Amid them, perhaps fifteen or sixteen aliens, me included, were easy to pick out.
"We will need to come back here, but I wished to stop and have something to eat," Vena Remontar said.
"Not a bad idea at all," I thought aloud.
I was led out of the great station by my beautiful companion. Outside was the city street plaza that I had come to expect, with its moving walkways, and its decorative pools, trees, flower beds, and statues. On the other side of the street was a great park. I could see buildings on the far side, but they seemed to be a mile or more away. It reminded me of my one trip to Central Park. Here however, there was no discarded trash, no beggar asking for money, no drug dealer selling controlled substances to children, and I suddenly realized, no one walking a dog.
"Do Amatharians keep pets?" I asked.
"Other races keep pets," responded Vena Remontar. "The Preemor have a small animal that lives in their fur to help keep them clean, and the Gloonor have an animal that chews their food for them. But apart from the micro-organisms that cover every living thing, and animals we keep to eat, we Amatharians do not need pets. I'm surprised you asked. Our physiology seems so similar."
"Not just animals," I tried to explain. "Pets. Animals that are kept for companionship." She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. "Don't you have other people to keep you company?"
"Well, yes. But many of my people like to keep animals in their home. Older people for instance, tend to live longer, healthier lives, when they have a pet to care for."
"The children don't mind sharing the old people with an animal?"
"Often the children are with their peers. And many times the older people live in a special home for the aged."
Now Vena Remontar opened her mouth in shock. Her deep blue skin had actually attained a lighter hue.
"You segregate your ancestors?!" she practically gasped. "And the children let this happen?"
"Uh...I guess so. Amatharian children spend a great deal of time with older people?"
"Of course. Our children wish to be grown up. They are always asking to be treated as adults. How better to learn how to be an adult, than to observe the most adult people that they know. I have heard stories of what we were like before Amath came, but I never realized just what a horrible life we would have without his teaching."
"I guess I never really thought about this before either," I said, "having had neither a family, nor a pet."
"What do you mean, you had no family?"
"My parents died when I was a child."
"You lived with your grandparents? ...or your uncle?"
"No, I lived in a home for children."
"You mean strangers took you in as their son?"
"No," I elaborated. "There were adults there, but it was their job to care for us, it wasn't their home."
"You truly were deprived." She pursed her perfect lips and frowned. "Amatharians don't realize how lucky they are, to have their families, to have the wisdom of their ancestors, to not have to share their homes with animals."
We crossed the plaza and stepped into the carefully sculptured landscape of the park. There were walkways going here and there, around copses of trees, small fountains, and playgrounds where dozens of blue-skinned children jumped on large air-filled mattresses, dangled from high swings, and raced around obstacle courses. Just inside the park was an outdoor restaurant. Twenty tables with chairs were arranged in a rough circle under several large shade trees. I was wondering where the kitchen might be, when I saw a food server clad in white emerging from below ground by escalator. All of the tables in the restaurant were full of patrons, but when we approached, several groups of people stood up saying, "Take our table, Knight." Vena Remontar nodded politely to all of them, and we sat down at the closest of the proffered tables. The previous diners had just finished their food, and the table was quickly cleared and cleaned by the restaurant worker, a young man with very dark blue skin apparently both busboy and food server, who then waited for our order.
"What is the special?" asked the knight.
"Rackamir fish."
The young warrior wrinkled her nose in a way that made her particularly cute.
"No, we don't want that," she said. "We have been playing." She used an Amatharian slang expression, which means playing when referring to children, but which has a more dangerous connotation, when referring to warriors.
"We have ruorman," offered the server.
"Perfect," she pronounced, as the waiter hurried away with the order.
"This is a very nice park," I said, looking around.
"Yes. I used to come here to play when I was a child. It was designed by Kennis Berrontar and is, I think, the loveliest of the Sun Clan's parks.
"Are all of the Sun Clan's properties on this side of Amathar?"
"No. Amathar is a great patchwork of the Clans. It was all laid out and designated in the Time of Amath, when the whole city was the size of this park." Vena Remontar explained. "In fact, it is that old portion of the city to which I wish to take you. The greatest monuments are there." Our food arrived quickly enough. The main course appeared to be a breast of fowl about the size of a turkey breast, covered with a glaze, and lying upon a pile of vegetables. Upon tasting the meat, my mouth took flame. It was spicy to a degree that would shame any proud jalapeno. The power to bring tears to one's eyes was in the glaze, and so it dripped down from the fowl onto the vegetables so that there was no bite which provided respite from the fire. Of course, water was provided, and I drank several glasses. At last we finished eating, and left. It wasn't necessary to tell the waiter we were from the Sun Clan, as this was a Sun Clan establishment.
We made our way back to the station. This time instead of going down to the shuttle train level, we took stairs to the upper level where a different type of train waited. This train looked very much like the bullet trains used in Japan and Europe, though this one, like the subway, had no discernable engine. All of the cars were similar. There was quite a group of people waiting for the doors to open, but we were ushered to the front, as allowances were made for Vena Remontar's rank.
"I don't see any other knights nearby," I commented. "I somehow thought that they were more common. It seems that every Amatharian I know has a crest on his chest."
"Only one in ten thousand Amatharians achieve remiant stature," she replied. "So there are less than a million of us."
The doors of the train slid open, and we entered, followed by several dozen others. The interior of this train was more conventional in design, with rows of seats rather than the homey atmosphere of the subway, though the seats were large and comfortable and spaced at a decent distance from one another. Most of the wall space was taken by the large windows, toward which the occupants were slightly turned. As soon as the train got under way, I understood the attraction. The train rode some thirty feet above ground on a raised rail, and the view of the city below was excellent. Our train passed to the left of the park and ran toward the center of Amathar. I figured our speed to be near one hundred miles
per hour, though the Amatharians around me didn't believe time to be a constant, therefore invalidating that estimation. The Amatharians had no words in their language for velocity, since they had no words for measurement of time. Of course Amatharians made distinctions between the speeds of different things. If, for instance, a new fighter aircraft was developed which was faster than the old model, they would refer to it as such, using a word which translates to "better at going". I found the view out the window mesmerizing. Amathar was a beautiful city. Every single building was a work of art, carefully designed and skillfully constructed. I later learned that this was necessitated by Amatharian tradition. All buildings were designed and constructed to last forever. Demolition was almost unknown, only occurring if the building in question was falling down of its own accord, which they almost never did. The Amatharians spent much more effort and labor in maintaining older structures than they did in designing and building newer ones. Of course they did the same thing with everything else they used; appliances, clothing, and furniture were all repaired, when in my culture of origin, they would have been thrown away.
These marvelous buildings came in all shapes and sizes, and in most cases, I could easily determine their function. There were large apartment buildings and small family residences. There were food distribution sites which bore quite a resemblance to supermarkets, though in Amathar, no one paid for their food. There were sports stadiums, though they only offered free, amateur events--there were no professional sports. There were offices and warehouses and processing centers. And there were many libraries. On one level, Amathar was very familiar. On another level, Amathar was quite strange. While there were distribution sites which looked like clothing stores, appliance stores, and grocery stores, there was no competition between them, and they were evenly spaced apart. There were no movie theaters or radio stations or television stations. This last fact was due primarily to a curious feature of Amatharian society. Amatharians loved the written word. Every Amatharian spends much of his free time writing --letters, poetry, or books. It was rare for an adult not to have at least one book published. Libraries were everywhere. On the other hand, they seemed to despise the recorded or transmitted voice. They did not have radio or television--either for mass communication of direct communication between individuals. When a flyer or a battleship left port, there was no word from that ship until it returned. There were no telephones in Amathar of any kind. I think that the very idea gave them the willies. The only communication to intrude into their home was mail, which was sent to every home in a pneumatic tube, the capsules of which were programmed with a tiny computer to find the correct destination from among the tens of millions of homes interconnected. Even artificial voices like the door announcer or my letter-learning pad, were used sparingly.
There were also no courthouses, jails, or police departments. Crime was all but unknown in Amathar. No Amatharian would think of committing vandalism, and there was no reason for theft since there was little want. Amatharians were incredibly polite and respectful, and seldom had disagreements. If however a situation arose in which a crime was committed by an Amatharian, it was such a disgrace that it dishonored not only the individual, but his family and his clan. In those situations, the head of one's family became judge, jury, and quite probably executioner. There was nothing worse than dishonoring one's family in Amathar. Nothing.
Chapter Fifteen: The Garden of Souls
The sky train sped above the seemingly endless city. Several times it stopped at stations, but we remained aboard. I continued to watch in fascination, the buildings passing by. Abruptly the color, style, and size of the structures changed. We were now crossing a region of huge, dark buildings, many of which were larger than the giant warehouses and sports stadiums which I had seen before. These were far less ornate and far more utilitarian than the other buildings as well.
"This is one of the industrial regions. It is a circle one hundred kentads (about fifty miles) in diameter containing nothing but factories and warehouses. This is where the majority of our manufactured goods come from--this or one of the nine other regions just like it."
I acknowledged Vena Remontar's commentary, and then turned away from the window. Several food servers in the traditional white bodysuits were delivering tall glasses of ice water and trays of small appetizer cakes. The young knight, and I as her companion, were served first.
"There certainly seems to be a great deal of respect and privilege associated with being a knight," I observed.
"That is very true," Vena Remontar replied, with a slight smile, "but it is more than that in my case. The Remontar family name is well known, as are all who carry that name. In addition, my cousins are the heirs of the Sun Overlord. Norar Remontar and his sister are beloved of the entire city." We busied ourselves eating the delicious cakes, which were filled with a ground meat and a variety of vegetables. In certain parts of the land of my birth, they might have been called pasties, though they were seasoned unlike anything found on Earth. The water was delicious. It seemed that water was the beverage of choice among the Amatharians, and they went to great lengths to see that any water found within the city was not only crystal clear and healthful, but tasty as well. With the exception of mirrah, and a few other fermented drinks, water was all that was available to drink in most city places. We had just finished eating when the sky train made one more stop in the industrial center. After it began on its way again, we crossed out of the region of factories and complexes and began crossing a vast open cultivated land. I watched out the window as we continued on, and the buildings of the city grew distant behind us. Roaming the ground like huge grazing animals, were monstrous machines, planting, thinning, and harvesting a tremendous variety of vegetables and fruits.
"Have we left the city?" I asked.
"This is one of the five cultivation areas within the city," explained the knight. "Each is a circle two hundred fifty kentads (about two hundred miles) in diameter. Four are in operation growing our food, while a fifth lies fallow."
As we cruised along, our conversation did not lag. I had a thousand, no ten thousand questions for this lovely young woman from a very alien culture. She explained much about the hopes and aspirations of the Amatharian people, the day to day functioning of the clans and family businesses, and the many obligations and requirements. Even though I know that I learned much during the course of that lengthy ride, it is hard to remember the exact order of the conversation now.
We passed the far edge of the cultivation area and once again entered into the urban mass. This portion of the city was obviously of far greater age than the majority of the buildings I had seen until now, though these old edifices maintained the same style and ornamentation as the newer ones. I had come to think of Amathar as one would think of a city one Earth, a great urban realm, but this city was on an entirely different scale. Within the walls of the Amatharians' home were not only vast areas of cultivated fields, but mountains, lakes, and rivers as well. This older portion of the city, though still urban, was built upon a low mountain range.
The train stopped at a station upon a platform high in the air, and this time we stood up and stepped off the sky train. Vena Remontar led me down a great escalator so steep that it seemed I was walking straight down. Once at the bottom I looked around at a plaza some two miles across. Great statues of stone, some as high as forty feet were interspersed with surging fountains, tall green hedge rows, and monstrous tile pictures. Two sides of the plaza were lined with large buildings resembling hotels. The third side faced a large park or wilderness area. Facing the fourth side was a fantastic stepped pyramid, more than a mile wide and more than two thousand feet high.
"That is the Temple of Amath," my blue-skinned companion said. "At the other end is the Garden of Souls."
"Wow," I said. "Of course I could very well be delirious. I feel like I haven't slept in a... well, in a long time."
"It was a long train ride," she agreed. "We will rest before we see the sites
." The beautiful knight led me to one of the large buildings on the plaza, and we walked inside. At a large desk was an Amatharian in a great brown robe. He had a shaved head which gave him a slightly sinister though still handsome look. He was the first man I had seen here who did not have a head of straight black hair.
"Greetings Remiant Vena Remontar," said the man.
"Greetings Templar. We wish a room."
"Come with me."
The bald man came out from behind the desk, and led the two of us up several flights of stairs to a room. I found myself for the first time in the Amatharian equivalent of a hotel, and in many ways, it was very like many hotels I had stayed in--the bedroom was about the size one would expect, though the bathroom was proportionately much larger. The real differences were subtle. One did not pay for the room. There we no numbers on the door. There was no checkout time. There were no locks on the doors. The room featured two large beds of the Amatharian style--embedded into the floor. I removed my weapons, boots, and tabard and placed them beside one of the beds, then lay down and stretched out. Vena Remontar did the same on the other bed. I believe that at that point in time, my body still had not adjusted to the eternal day, and I was not sleeping as much as I should have. When my head hit the pillow though, I was ready. Within only a few minutes, I had fallen asleep. I awoke slowly, my mind gently drifting back to reality. I opened my eyes and looked around. I was alone in the room, though a moment later I saw Vena Remontar through the door, bathing in the bathroom. The bath was large enough to be considered a small swimming pool. She called out and invited me to bathe with her. One of the reasons that the baths were so large, though by no means the only reason, was that Amatharians often bathed together.
Princess of Amathar Page 11
