Princess of Amathar (14 page)

Just like the shuttle train in which I had previously ridden, this car was decorated and furnished as if it were some one's den, rather than a mode of public transportation. The car shifted into motion, and the passengers took their seats. There were a variety of people--of different ages, and different occupations, but all were well-groomed, attractive, and polite.

"There seem to be a lot of people out and about," I remarked.

"The shuttle train is always busiest near the fifth city-cycle," Vena Remontar explained. "That is when most Amatharians make appointments, or go to and from their duties."

"I was wondering about work schedules," I said. "Who decides when work is to start and finish."

"Duties are determined by the leaders of the companies, whom you must remember in Amathar, are usually also relatives. In truth, most Amatharian duties are purely supervisory. In our society we have machines to guard our walls, machines to grow our food, machines to clean our homes, machines to keep our records, and machines to build and repair our other machines."

"You sound as if you don't entirely approve," I said.

"Don't get me wrong," she replied. "I am very pleased with the functioning of our society. Because our people have more free time, we have a great abundance of art and science, but I am glad to have Amath's teachings. He said “let no machine live in the guise of a man". I have heard of people far away in Ecos, who build machines that resemble them. That is a vile thing. Also, I personally have no affinity for machines. That is why I am a warrior. It is one of the few jobs that we still do with our own hands."

"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."