Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (The Vampire Chronicles 12)

That was all they had to say to us now. Tomorrow, they told us, after we had rested, they would go over the stories we would tell to the natives, and they would bring to the fore in our minds the knowledge they'd given us about plants and animals and their healing properties, the knowledge we would use to gain access to Atalantaya. Amel was always in search of those of the savage tribes that had special knowledge, and when our fame grew as healers Amel would inevitably send for us.

"Now, go watch the film streams as you have before," said the Parents. "Watch with new eyes, now that you know the purpose. Feast and rest."

We did as we were told. And we didn't dare to speak to one another about what we now knew. We knew that we couldn't risk this. But I know now that all of us were deeply troubled. It was not only the thought of our own deaths that disturbed us, it was the purpose to destroy all of life on Earth down to a lower level. It was the horrid and grisly descriptions of raging fires, of volcanic eruptions, and the thought of humans running in panic trying to save themselves; it was the horror of so much death! It was the horror of so much natural violence.

And why the Parents thought it would be restful to us to go on watching the transmissions again, these vivid streams of the complex forests and jungles and fields that we were going to destroy, these vivid streams of men and women living, working, loving, and dying, these vivid transmissions of magnificent animals struggling to survive--why the Parents thought we should watch all this, knowing we were to destroy it, we could not imagine.

I can't say I felt a great deal of emotion over this. I knew I had been made to lead the party and that I was colder in temperament than the others, but I was not only deeply disturbed, I had lost respect for and trust in the Parents in some vital way. I did not entirely believe them when they said they would consider changing their plan. Their utter indifference to our personal fate was obvious. And not believing some of what they said, I came to question everything they said. I wanted really only one thing and that was to get away from them. As it turned out Welf was feeling something similar and so was Garekyn. As for Derek, he was as miserable as any dying human mammal on Earth, and said little or nothing as the next few days passed.

Finally our orientation was complete and we were shown a small craft that would take us to Earth. This would have to be done in the far north, and under cover of night so that Amel's powerful sensors could not detect our coming. But we would be only a few days away from the south country, the great country around the sea in which Atalantaya was built, and we were well dressed in animal skin and woven cloth, and we had primitive weapons, knives, spears, hatchets, to defend ourselves on our short journey.

"Go to the friendly tribes," the Parents had instructed us. "Tell them that long ago your parents came out of Atalantaya to work in the Wilderness lands and that they died in a dreadful mishap. You be the teller of this, Kapetria. Tell how you and your brothers were orphaned young, and that you lost all connection with your parents and your home and are hoping to be accepted once again in Atalantaya. The savages of the Wilderness lands will treat you with respect. You have gold and silver to give them, and they will eventually take you to the landing to go to Atalantaya. You have abundant gold to carry you into Atalantaya. If this fails, use your healing skills. Use your intellect. Distinguish yourself until word of you and your achievements reaches Atalantaya. Actually none of this will be hard for you."

At last came the moment for departure.

III

The Parents saw us strapped into the craft, at which point they spoke to me again about persuading Amel to come out of the dome.

"We are of the mind that this might work after all," they said. "Please do all that you can to gain his personal trust, to stay in close proximity to him, and to persuade him to come out of the dome and to the nearest of the transmitting bases. And you must all come with him. You see, we do very much want to recover Amel, and it would be of great value to us to have Amel here once more on Bravenna where we can study him and question him and learn from him."

"I will do my very best to persuade him," I said. "I'm grateful. I am hoping that you will be so pleased that you will find some other use for us somewhere as we so much want to go on living."

The Parents indicated they understood.

Off we went for a journey of several hours to Earth. We knew that the craft would disintegrate after we were out of it. And that we would see Bravenna, or Home, in the night sky. We would see it as a bright star shining above. And that all the people of Earth knew this star was Bravenna, and they all knew the old legend that the Great One had come, aeons ago, from Bravenna.

Our landing was uneventful. We easily got free of the craft, and indeed it did disintegrate. We then set out, as it was still night, to make our first campfire and eat our first meal on the planet. We found ourselves submerged in the beautiful world that we had studied through the film streams, and our immersion in it was a sensuous experience far exceeding our life on beautiful Bravenna. This was, after all, an open and varied world, filled with night breezes, the songs of night birds, and fragrances of grass and flowers and woodland and even the smell of the sea coming to us on the wind; and in the clear night sky we saw the great sweep of the stars in a way that had not been possible from the portals of Home. But we did not dare to share our thoughts. We were too well aware of the fact that the Parents might easily enough see and hear us through a hidden transmission station, or that there might be devices built into our bodies which enabled them to hear anything that we said, and even to see one another through hidden eyes that we could not detect on our own skin. In fact, we knew, positively knew, that only inside the dome of Atalantaya would we be able, perhaps, to talk honestly with one another, and become ourselves with one another. Nevertheless there was a shared sadness, a shared seriousness that united us. We might have been born in innocence, but we were not innocent now.

We were among the tribes of the Wilderness lands for about three months. But I wish to collapse this part of the story. I could talk for a long time about our adventures with the tribes, what we learned, and what we saw. But I will only summarize this.

Essentially, we were surprised by the tribes. We were surprised that we discovered traits among the humans we encountered which had not been fairly represented in our orientation by the Parents. We were surprised by the daily lives of the tribes, whether they were hunter-gatherers, or communities of miners working under overseers from Atalantaya, or whether they were bound together in larger groups to maintain orchards or flocks or beehives.

What surprised us more than anything was the openness they displayed, the hospitality they offered us, the huge feasts to which they invited us, and what we saw of their family life. True, we had watched endless streaming on Bravenna, but little of it had revealed the way that humans loved and nurtured their children, or the sheer dependence on love that seemed a part of their everyday life. Admittedly, there were quarrels, there was casual cruelty, yes, and there were times when we saw eruptions and disputes that frightened us and caused us to move on; but the larger fabric of human mammalian life struck us as vastly more complex than the Parents had acknowledged.

We had gained little sense on Bravenna as to how much feasting was part of daily life, and how much these tribes enjoyed the intoxicating

beverages they made from grapes, or wild grains, or fermented honey, and how many hours they lavished on preparation of the roast meats, and the thick sauces and the crude breads that they baked. We were not prepared for the hours of singing and talking at these feasts and how much a part of ordinary life this had become. It was an easy thing to spend our days at such family or village feasts, and to drink to excess, and sleep it off in some garden here or there or on the floor of a village hut while a woman drowsing in a corner cheerfully waved the flies away from us with a palm-leaf fan.

Resources were obviously abundant. The woodland and the southerly jungles were filled with game. Rich tuberous vegetables, similar to potatoes or yams, were a staple which people grew in their village streets or in their backyards. Bread made from grain cost, but people had plenty to barter for it. Honey cost, but they had plenty enough of this too. I don't remember butter, but there must have been butter. What I mostly remember is that there was no want, no hunger, no struggle. Some who welcomed us were obviously richer than others, but this advantage showed itself in ornamentation more than anything else, or the size of a dwelling.

We studied these people.

And we saw everywhere we went an inveterate obsession with "fairness," whether it was a group of gold miners arguing with the overbosses, or members of a small hunting band arguing with the headman over the distribution of food, or whether it was two daughters arguing with a mother about the chores or benefits offered by the parent. Fairness, fairness, fairness. The species had an instinctive understanding of fairness, and this extended to displaying what I would now call altruism in many areas of life. In other words, humans were willing to sacrifice for other humans; humans were willing to fight at the risk of their safety and lives against those whom they felt were oppressing them or threatening them; humans were willing to stand up for what they believed, even if this meant they would be attacked. When a human suffered a broken ankle or leg or worse, others pitched in to work for him and provide for his family, and fierce arguments sprang up if someone did attempt to hoard or cheat or get away with doing nothing.

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.