Mildred found herself out of doors beside what could have been a river or an inlet of sea, surrounded by a small, rambling town. The houses were ornate and colorful, mixing all manner of styles, modest in scale, simple and functional compared to some of the things she had seen. She got the feeling this was an old town that hadn't changed much in a long time. Steep, tree-covered hills gouged by valleys rose behind the houses. The sky was sunny with a few clouds, the air warm, stirring enough to carry a hint of forest scents. Mildred was standing inside an area of yard by the water's edge, screened by a fence from a row of buildings. In the upper parts of one of them, some Thuriens were sitting out on a deck in front of a window opening through to the interior. The yard contained a few sheds by the water, another building behind, complicated-looking things with hoists and tackle, and a small dock. About a dozen Thurien children and two adults that Mildred could see were busy around the dock. They were building a boat.
"Oh…" Mildred looked around again, as if to check her bearings. She knew by now that if she was careless and stepped on a rope or something she would trip and feel the tumble-without actually bruising herself or breaking anything, of course. Her voice carried a note of doubt sufficient to cue VISAR.
"You rang?"
"Yes, er… this is all very nice, VISAR, but maybe I wasn't clear enough. What I wanted to see was a school-you know, where children learn the basic things they have to know for living in a community."
"Yes, I know. This is how they learn them. Or it might be laying out a garden and tending it to make things grow; renovating a theater and creating a play for it; building a machine with hands and tools the ancient way; exploring the arts of athletics or dance; learning to handle animals… It depends on what they're interested in or think they can do. This is where they find out."
"Isn't there any standardizing process that they all have to go through to conform?" She realized as she heard herself using the words that some part of her was already anticipating the response.
"Not really," VISAR answered. "We're not seeking conformity. The intention is to discover and cultivate differences. Everyone is unique. Thuriens believe it's for a reason. It makes every individual priceless. They have a saying that if any two people were the same, one of them would be unnecessary."
Mildred saw that one of the Thuriens had left his charges and was making his way across through the jumble of boat parts, materials, and work tables. Naturally, he was "here" and not connected through another neurocoupler somewhere else-which would have made it difficult to build a boat. Mildred knew the system sufficiently well by now to guess that VISAR had superposed her visually via his avco disk that Thuriens were seldom without. Protocol would have required that VISAR announce Mildred's "presence."
"Armu Egrigol," VISAR said by way of introduction.
Egrigol was one of the smallest adult Thuriens that Midred had come across, measuring somewhere around six feet. He also had one of the lightest crowns, sandy yellow, with skin varying from purple to dark red, in contrast with the normal tones of blue-black and gray. He greeted her with a broad smile, obviously expecting her. VISAR updated him on Mildred's impressions and questions since arriving. Egrigol nodded and seemed amused, apparently prepared for it. Mildred suspected that VISAR had given him some kind of briefing beforehand. He spent a short while explaining what they were doing and pointing out details. When the boat was finished, they were going to sail it along the coast and then out on the ocean to an island that sounded alarmingly far away. Mildred was struck by how young some of the Thurien children seemed for such a venture. But there seemed no shortage of enthusiasm.
As yet, they were either too engrossed to notice that he had moved away and was talking to thin air, or it was too commonplace an occurrence to warrant attention. Either way, they were not showing any signs of registering her existence themselves, although they were wearing the ubiquitous avco disks. Mildred queried this, and VISAR confirmed that her image was not being fed through to them yet.
"I think they'll forgive us if I let you snoop a little bit," Egrigol chuckled. "I wanted to let you see them working naturally for a while. They'll start showing off if they know they have an audience. Are Terran children the same?"
"Probably worse," Mildred said. "But I was just starting to ask when you came over, what about the basic skills that they have to have, surely, before they can learn anything like this? Things like being able to read and write, carry out elementary calculations… Those are what I think of as 'school.' But VISAR says you don't have anything like that. Is that really true?"
"Do you need schools on Earth to teach children to walk and to talk, to open their eyes and know what objects they see?" Egrigol asked.
"But those are natural instincts," Mildred objected.
"Yes. And so is the desire for inner satisfaction that comes from creating and from doing worthwhile work. We all want to measure as best we can in our own eyes and in the esteem of others. The skills you're talking about are what you have to know to become what you can be. When they understand that, they learn them."
"But where do they learn them?"
Egrigol shrugged. "At home, from their friends… Many who are so disposed teach themselves. Each finds the way that is right, when they are ready. It has to come from the inside."
He turned his head to look back as he spoke. Mildred followed his gaze, and she began to see it all in a different light. A short distance away, a girl called two of the others across and pointed at something that one of the boys was doing at a bench. "Look at how Kolar can cut these joints!" It was a genuine compliment. There was no jealously or put-down. They were learning, Mildred realized, that the most important lesson life had to offer was that they all needed each other.
"Kolar was a late starter," Egrigol commented. "He had trouble working out some of the dimensions at first. We helped him with some basics." He shrugged again. "And he picked up the rest from somewhere… But anyway, it's about time we introduced you, don't you think?"
Egrigol called for attention and announced that he had a surprise, and also a mild apology to make. "One of the Terrans, who has come here to find out more about Thuriens and is going to write a book about us when she gets back, is here virtually and would like to say hello. Her name is Mildred." A moment later all eyes turned toward her as VISAR put her onstage.
At first they were awed and little reserved. But as their inhibitions melted they became first curious, then talkative, and finally eager to show her the things they could do. This was not an artificial world existing apart from the realities of adulthood, living by its own invented standards and measures that were meaningless outside. The adults were the acknowledged experts in skills they all needed to acquire, and respect was the natural outcome. Mildred found she was among young people who were loved, secure, with growing confidence in themselves and exuberance to experience this adventure ahead of them that was called life.
But it was no stranger, she realized. For she had seen it before. She had seen it kindergartens in every country she had been to on Earth. She had seen it in the eyes of the children in villages of the Amazon headwaters; of desert margin tribes in Namibia; of peasant families in Croatia. "Come and see, Johnny can stand on his head!" "Chano gave it to me. She made it herself!" "Bannuti caught three fish today!" "Juliusz, show me how to ride a horse too." What made it genuine was that their confidence came from knowledge of things they could do, as opposed to just knowing how to talk-from which stemmed every form of phoniness and delusion.