A Visitor to the Future - 26 - An Orchard Town
I talked with Sarkona for more of the morning about things I'd be interested in for the short term. We'd often talked about the Human language, and I figured it would be a good starting point for me - it was something that I felt I would want to do eventually anyway. So Sarkona asked the Consortium about the closest linguist who would be willing to teach me. When it turned out that they were located in a nearby 'orchard town', Sarkona's face had lit up, saying that would be a fantastic place to start if I wanted to understand more about the Consortium.
At that we made our way out to to one of the platforms close to the sea. There was a drone-craft parked on three sleek landing legs, much larger than the ones we had used to move about Anchor yesterday. An aerodynamic wedge of a craft, it was about thirty meters long and twenty wide with four large turbofan engines protruding from the sides. The ship's cockpit window was slightly bubbled outwards - which may have been a stylistic choice.
We boarded the vessel - the interior layout was not what I had expected. I had been anticipating a private jet sort of layout, but as I looked left toward where I thought the cockpit would be, there was none. The comfortable, plush seating area extended all the way to the front window. I walked to the front of the ship and looked out the window as the vessel took off gently, straight upwards. I could now see the reason for the cockpit window's design - it provided a magnificent view. There were no traces of sound in the craft as the craft hovered in the air, the vessel patiently waiting for us to sit down before accelerating foward over the ocean.
Sarkona made some left-handed gestures and music began to play from around us. A high tempo, lively beat accompanied a traditional violin. "I was looking up 2200s music a bit this morning," Sarkona explained, "Apparently electroswing made a big comeback - who knew?"
The music seemed to mark a a swift increase in our pace, and I stared out as land began to come into view. Before I could really react, we had swung over both beach and cliff. Trees and bushes flew past - I couldn't guess how fast we were actually moving. We flew over a series of massive river deltas that seemed to swell with water, but even those soon faded into a mess of greenery. I decided to look away from the window, and enjoyed the the sounds of vintage 2200s electroswing music for the rest of the flight.
_
We eventually slowed to a pace which allowed me to once again look out of the window without risking dizziness. Ahead of us I could see a small town growing larger as we approached. A perfectly circular cluster of buildings was surrounded by another perfectly circular area of grass. The lush green expanse of trees around the grass the town were less circular, but still the three circles reminded me of a giant target, with the town as the bullseye. Three of the buildings were tall, distinctive pointed towers that shone in the early afternoon light.
Our ship headed straight for a raised landing pad on the outer edge of town. Peering through the windows I saw figures moving about the town - and I was amazed to see that about half of them were children. I saw large playgrounds, basketball courts, and a few games being played that I didn't recognise at all. Our craft gently touched down and the door opened for us. Sarkona dismissed the music and we stood and exited - as we stepped onto the landing pad the craft's door immediately closed behind us and it took off into the air once more. I stood there, watching as it rapidly vanished into the distance. I listened to the noises around me - I could hear both distant bird calls and the sounds of children playing. The air seemed a little drier here and the tang of sea salt was a distant memory. We must have come quite a way.
"Hello," said Sarkona's voice from behind me, "Who are you?"
There was a young child that I hadn't noticed - perhaps eight or nine years old, standing at the other side of the landing pad. He was short, with long, ruffled dark hair. He was slightly nervously looking between the two of us. I walked over.
"My name is Thomas," he said, his voice a little quiet, "Chisom asked me to get you."
Sarkona leaned forward slightly and smiled warmly - but not patronisingly - addressing Thomas just as anyone else we'd met. "Thank you, Thomas. Your English is very good. Can I ask how many languages you speak?"
Thomas smiled a bit nervously and replied meekly. "Just three," he said, "Human, Frafra, and some English. Chisom taught me English." He pointed to the stairs at the edge of the landing pad and began to walk in that direction, with us following.
We descended the stairs and came down into a beautiful stone-tiled plaza area which was only interrupted by large, circular ponds filled with plant life of all varieties. Lilypads and flowers covered the surface of one, and I could see a group of three children trying to spot fish swimming underneath. We walked calmly and carefully through the area until we came around the corner of a building. There was a group of six more children and a CI who were talking with a group of adults. The CI looked particularly different to those I'd seen so far - they were humanoid, but their lower legs were massively extended so that they towered over everyone in the group. They looked like they were walking around on stilts. Sarkona waved up in their direction, saying hello cheerily.
"Hello," said the CI, waving back, "I'm being tall today." Apparently that was all the explanation we would get.
We moved on, past two more buildings and towards one of the tower buildings I'd seen earlier. Two thirds of the bottom floor wall seemed to be made of dark grey glass, revealing a bright room filled with all kinds of colourful chairs, tables, bean bags, and cushions. As Thomas approached the door opened to let us inside, and I could see the form of a young woman sat at one of the tables, dressed in a blue-striped long dress and grey headscarf. Her demeanour was especially warm and friendly, her body language open. Despite her apparent youth, there was something in the way she looked at us that betrayed a razor-sharp intellect - I got the feeling she wouldn't miss a single detail.
"Thank you Thomas," she said gratefully, her voice entirely devoid of an accent, "You did well. I told Angela and Noa to wait for you in the quad if you'd like to go and join them." Thomas smiled and took off. She then addressed us with a curt bow.
"And thank you for letting Thomas escort you here - he asked me to help him with his confidence around strangers and that was a very good start. You must be Sarkona, and that makes you our recently revived newcomer - it is very good to meet you both. I confess that when I heard about a thousand-year cryocontained wanting to learn Human that I could hardly pass up the challenge. My name is Chisom, and I am a teacher here in Baobab. My specialism is linguistics. I imagine that you have questions - and I am happy to answer them."
We sat down at a table and Sarkona extended a hand in my direction, inviting me to start.
"There are a lot of children here - is this some kind of school?" I asked.
"In a way," said Chisom, "How much do you know about upbringing in the Consortium?"
"Not much," I said, "Sarkona mentioned that the general understanding of child development has improved - I'm curious as to how."
"Oh, for sure," said Chisom, eyes widening with an enthusiasm for her field, "Well, one of the most significant changes was the development of orchard towns. These are dedicated places for the raising of both children and CIs. We maintain a teacher-student ratio of approximately three to one. And that doesn't count the parents who stay here too."
"I'm sorry - did you say three to one?"
She nodded, "Yes, that is correct."
"That seems really high!" I said, "How do you do it? Growing up, we were lucky to have classes of less than thirty."
She chuffed through her lips and rolled her eyes, clearly not impressed with the standards of my time. "There was an old saying - how did it go? Ah, yes, it takes a village to raise a child. More teachers means more resources for each child as they need them. As for how, I'm not sure what you mean."
"I can handle that one," said Sarkona, "You probably won't be surprised to learn that with immortality on the table, the birth rate has plummeted. There are less children now as a percentage of the population than ever before. There are even months of the year with near-zero births. It might seem like there are a lot of children here but as a percentage of the overall population, it is practically nothing. And when you consider that teachers live much longer too, that is a great help."
"Yes," continued Chisom, "I myself have been teaching for about one-hundred and forty years. Though I am not sure how you could sustain even my levels of enthusiasm with class sizes of thirty! Hah! Ridiculous. How did you ever learn anything? Did you even get to do any one-on-one tutoring or mentoring in your early years?"
"Not really," I said, trying to remember my experiences in the overstretched public school system.
"Your teachers too - they must have been very stressed and overworked. No - I can safely say that our ratio is a great improvement over your previous time period - working with many colleagues gives us all the time we need to work on lesson plans, or spend time with the children, or even have a break whenever we need to."