The Leviathan city was a teeming variety of culture. Uniform wasn’t even in the vocabulary when describing this city. There were no two copies of a thing to be found anywhere. Hundreds of different alien species mingled about without a second glance at each other. Dozens of architectural styles were on display among a thousand buildings or more. Even determining what street you were on became a challenge as they grew more and more densely packed the closer we came to the center of the city. If such a distinction could even be determined.
And Guhle drifted through it with ease. Never pausing to gawk in amazement or stare in confusion. Better yet, he led with ease. While I would glance around and be drawn this way or that by some unexpected sight, he would press determinedly onward, forcing me to refocus my attention on movement — a constant in this place, it seemed.
Even when he disappeared into the crowd, seamlessly blending in among the inhabitants, he would soon reappear without warning and in the exact proper place for me to notice him and resume my discipleship to his path.
Through it all, I wondered where we might be going, and how Guhle knew the city so well. Clearly, he had to have visited before. Perhaps even lived here. I often got the sense from Guhle that he had had a long and varied career as a pilot before joining the captain and crew aboard Bessie.
In any case, we continued on, passing a menagerie of sights and sounds until it seemed more like I was at one of the carnivals of my youth, rather than a city of wonders drifting through the depths of space dozens of lightyears away.