Chap­ter XIX begins with a detour. As we returned toward the city, Taee sug­gest­ed an alter­nate path that would take us past the cen­tral depar­ture sta­tion used by trav­el­ers and emi­grants. I agreed out of curios­i­ty, eager to see more of this remark­able world. What await­ed was a dis­play of mobil­i­ty unlike any­thing I’d encoun­tered. The land trans­ports, pow­ered entire­ly by vril, ranged from small per­son­al units to vast, mul­ti-roomed homes on wheels. These vehi­cles moved silent­ly, their motion grace­ful and flu­id, almost as though they float­ed rather than rolled. Each served a spe­cif­ic pur­pose but shared the same silent ener­gy source that defined so much of their civ­i­liza­tion.

Near­by, I observed the launch of a con­voy, its vehi­cles sleek and gleam­ing, des­tined not for tourists but trade. Goods, not pas­sen­gers, were being car­ried to anoth­er Vril-ya set­tle­ment, show­ing the robust exchange sys­tems in place between these far-flung com­mu­ni­ties. Their com­merce, how­ev­er, didn’t revolve around gold or oth­er tra­di­tion­al forms of wealth. Instead, I was intro­duced to a cur­ren­cy made of an unusu­al fos­silized shell—valued not for rar­i­ty but for his­to­ry. It served small exchanges, while larg­er deal­ings relied on flat metal­lic plates or bills of exchange. These sym­bols of trade, though sim­ple, were deeply respect­ed. Trans­ac­tions were not com­pet­i­tive but coop­er­a­tive, reflect­ing a dif­fer­ent world­view.

Taee explained that while the state col­lect­ed tax­es, the process caused no dis­con­tent. Con­tri­bu­tions were cal­cu­lat­ed fair­ly and vis­i­bly returned to the peo­ple through improve­ments in infra­struc­ture, sci­ence, and wel­fare. Every­one saw the ben­e­fit, which elim­i­nat­ed resent­ment. There were no loop­holes, no eva­sion, and no fear of mis­man­age­ment. Pub­lic resources were seen as a shared respon­si­bil­i­ty, not as bur­dens. This tax-sup­port­ed uni­ty extend­ed to vast sys­tems of illu­mi­na­tion, which bathed even the most remote regions in gen­tle light. Even the dimmest cor­ners of their realm glowed with inten­tion. Their sense of com­mon good out­shined the dri­ve for per­son­al accu­mu­la­tion. That, more than their machines, felt tru­ly advanced.

Their aer­i­al vehi­cles struck me most. They did not resem­ble our bal­loons or glid­ers but looked like long-winged ships, capa­ble of direc­tion­al flight with aston­ish­ing pre­ci­sion. Con­trolled by helms and rud­ders, these crafts used vril ener­gy to ascend and nav­i­gate effort­less­ly. They moved with­out noise or vibra­tion, sta­ble even in mid-air. The scene of one lift­ing off, wings extend­ed and glow­ing faint­ly, remained etched in my mem­o­ry. I stood in awe, remind­ed of how lim­it­ed our own world’s reach remained. What they had achieved was not the dream of one inven­tor, but a norm made pos­si­ble by gen­er­a­tions of refine­ment.

I was sur­prised to learn that emi­gra­tion among the Vril-ya was not uncom­mon. Whole fam­i­lies some­times moved from one region to anoth­er, either to seek new roles or to strength­en ties with dis­tant tribes. Move­ment was vol­un­tary, nev­er forced, and always metic­u­lous­ly pre­pared. The sta­tion we passed func­tioned more like a calm mar­ket­place than a bustling ter­mi­nal. There were no farewells filled with sor­row, only mat­ter-of-fact con­ver­sa­tions and serene depar­tures. The absence of emo­tion­al dra­ma around leav­ing sur­prised me, yet it matched their broad­er cul­tur­al temperament—composed, order­ly, and pur­pose­ful. Every jour­ney, it seemed, served a col­lec­tive goal.

While I mar­veled at their sys­tems, I couldn’t help but reflect on the val­ues beneath them. It was not just vril that pow­ered their world—it was coop­er­a­tion. Noth­ing was done for per­son­al gain at another’s expense. The effi­cien­cy of their tech­nol­o­gy stemmed from the uni­ty of their inten­tions. With no hunger for fame or prof­it, inno­va­tion bloomed with­out greed. What one dis­cov­ered, all ben­e­fit­ed from. The atmos­phere of trust, more than any machine, cre­at­ed the real strength of their soci­ety.

The walk back to the city felt dif­fer­ent after what I had seen. The land­scape, gen­tly lit and qui­et­ly hum­ming with ener­gy, appeared less alien than before. The silence was not emptiness—it was bal­ance. Every­thing had a place and a func­tion. And though I still felt like an out­sider, I began to under­stand that their progress was not just mechanical—it was moral. They had built a civ­i­liza­tion on the shared belief that the good of one must nev­er out­weigh the good of all. In that prin­ci­ple, per­haps, lay the great­est pow­er of all.