The cables ran in parallel right up the face of the mountain. I wondered if it was a kind of race. This is the Avenue of Stillness. Having been on the island now for a few days, I began to guess a little more quickly what was coming. Branderen looked at me.
Silence is good, but stillness is better.
I thought about it for awhile, and it began to make sense. Silence could be merely external, whereas the stillness Branderen was referring to was probably an inner quality. As the campers arrived, Branderen and I began our ascent, but the view of the cars remained clear, and I kept looking back while we climbed to see how the campers were doing. For a long time none of the cars moved, and I wondered when the experiment was scheduled to begin. Quite a while ago.