"It is far, you see," Jones told me.
I nodded, dazed.
The city, Urula, was impeccably clean. It had a feeling of openness about it; it didn't close in and tower over you like Earth cities.
The streets were wide and landscaped with shrubs and trees. The walks were of turf and the lush trimmed grass provided a pleasant cushion for the feet. The buildings were low and rambling, set well back from the walks. There was no lack of room to force them up into the air beyond a story or two.
People passed us occasionally, never in crowds, radiating cordiality as they nodded to Jones and me. Other people lounged idly on benches or on the lawns in front of the buildings. I couldn't tell whether they were homes or business offices, or a combination of both.
I looked in vain for factories, for ugly smokestacks thrusting into the clean sky. Nor were there any automobiles, railroads or machines of any kind to foul the air with their exhausts or rend it with their din.
I asked a mental question and Jones said they had none of these things simply because they weren't needed. If one wanted to go somewhere he walked. There was no exertion and there was never any hurry. As for traveling to another city, there was no need to; one city was exactly like another. Each was self-sufficient and there was no trade among them. If one wished to see a friend in another city, why, the journey was a pleasant one, and since it was a pleasure trip it didn't matter whether the journey took a day or thirty days.
Because there were no factories or railroad yards there were no slums where people lived a marginal existence between the animal and human levels.
We turned off the main street and up a wide path to a building set back under tall shade trees.
"My home," Jones said.