With that he turned and set off with a step of exuberance to the northwest, the other Munams and myself following him. He walked quickly, and it was all that I could do to match his pace, so that I was left without breath enough to ask any more questions. From what I saw on our journey, the landscape was the same across the whole mainland that was near to the coast, and there was neither change enough nor any landmark conspicuous enough for me to take any bearings. Without the Munam's company, I would have been lost. Ramma led us on a straight course for about half an hour, there being nothing to steer around, and when that time had elapsed, we found ourselves in a small, battered city. There were no great buildings or infrastructure like in Nunami, nor any complex labyrinths like the Canitaur's military base. Instead there were only weak, unsound huts, built with a framework of oddly shaped driftwood and covered with a thick layer of insulating sod. A road ran through the center of the city, only distinguishable because it was packed down by constant use, and on either side were groupings of the huts in semi-circular patterns, with no space between them left unfilled by soil. This created a wind barrier, preventing the strong winds that whipped across the desert lands from harassing the inhabitants as they worked and played in their communal yards. Each such grouping had a field of a strange, potato-like plant that spread across the back ends of the houses, where the fierce winds piled up loads of nutrient rich top soil from miles and miles around. In the center of the protected areas, each of the communities, for such they were called, had a well that reached hundreds of feet downwards, bringing them almost unlimited supplies of fresh water. Using these two major systems, they were able to live in a comfortable manner, not comfortable in a sense of comparison with the Zards or Canitaurs, but comfortable in the sense that they had food to eat, clothes to wear, and shelter to protect them. Under such conditions humanity can thrive, for happiness is not found in the accumulation of excess comforts, but in the accumulation of excess love. This the Munams had plenty of, and from that point of view were more the evolutionary form of humanity than the devolutionary.