We
clearly among the unifs dark, red, golden, black, brown and white
humans--apparently they were humans. None of them had any clothes
on, and their bodies were covered with short, glistening hair, like
that which may be seen on the stuffed horse in the Prehistoric
Museum. But their females had faces exactly, yes exactly, like
the faces of our women: tender, rosy and not overgrown with hair.
Also their breasts were free of hair, firm breasts of wonderful
geometrical form. As to the males, only a part of their faces were
free from hair, like our ancestors', and the organs of reproduction,
similar to ours.
All this was so unbelievable, so unexpected, that I stood there
quietly (I assert positively that I stood quietly), and looked
around. Like a scale: overload one side sufficiently and then you
may gently put on the other as much as you will; the arrow will not
move.
Suddenly I felt alone. I-330 was no longer with me. I don't know how
nor where she disappeared. Around me were only _those_, with their
hair glistening like silk in the sunlight. I caught someone's warm,
strong, dark shoulder.
"Listen, please, in the name of the Well-Doer, could you tell me
where she went? A while, a minute ago she...."
Long-haired, austere eyebrows turned to me.
"Sh ... sh ... silence!" He made a sign with his head towards the
centre where there stood the yellow, skull-like stone.
There above the heads of all I saw her. The sun beat straight into
my eyes, and because of that she seemed coal-black, standing out
on the blue cloth of the sky,--a coal-black silhouette on a blue
background. A little higher the clouds were floating. And it seemed
that not the clouds but the rock itself, and she herself upon that
rock, and the crowd and the clearing,--all were silently floating
like a ship, and the earth was light and glided away from under the
feet....
"Brothers!" (It was she.) "Brothers, you all know that there inside
the Wall, in the City, they are building the _Integral_. And you
know also that the day has come for us to destroy that Wall and all
other walls, so that the green wind may blow all over the earth,
from end to end. But the _Integral_ is going to take these walls
up into the heights to the thousands of other worlds which every
evening whisper to us with their lights through the black leaves of
night...."
Waves and foam and wind were beating the rock:
"Down with the _Integral!_ Down!"
"No, brothers, not 'down'. The _Integral_ must be ours. And it
_shall_ be ours. On the day when it first sets sail into the sky,
_we_ shall be on board. For the Builder of the _Integral_ is with
us. He left the walls, he came with me here in order to be with us.
Long live the Builder!"
A second--and I was somewhere above everything. Under me: heads,
heads, heads, wide open yelling mouths, arms rising and falling....
There was something strange and intoxicating in it all. I felt
myself _above everybody_; I was,--I,--a separate world; I ceased to
be the usual item; I became unity....
Again I was below, near the rock, my body happy, shaken and rumpled,
as after an embrace of love. Sunlight, voices, and from above--the
smile of I-330. A golden-haired woman, her whole body silky-golden
and diffusing an odor of different herbs, was near by. She held a
cup, apparently made of wood. She drank a little from it with her
red lips and then offered the cup to me. I closed my eyes and with
avidity I drank the sweet cold prickly sparks, pouring them down on
the fire which burned within me.
Soon afterward my blood and the whole world began to circulate a
thousand times faster; the earth seemed to be flying, light as down.
And within me everything was simple, light and clear. Only then
I noticed on the rock the familiar, enormous letters: M E P H I,
and for some reason the inscription seemed to me _necessary_. It
seemed to be a simple thread binding everything together. A rather
rough picture hewn in the rock; this too, seemed comprehensible;
it represented a youth with wings and with a transparent body, and
in the place ordinarily occupied by the heart,--a blinding, red,
blazing coal. Again, I understood that coal, or no, I _felt_ it as
I felt without hearing every word of I-330 (she continued to speak
from above, from the rock), and I felt that all of them breathed one
breath and that they were all ready to fly somewhere like the birds
over the Wall.
From behind, from the confusion of breathing bodies,--a loud voice:
"But this is folly!"
It seems to me it was I, yes, I am certain it was I, who then jumped
on the rock; from there I saw the sun, heads, a green sea on a blue
background, and I cried:
"Yes, yes, precisely. All must become insane; we must become insane
as soon as possible! We must; I know it."
I-330 was at my side. Her smile--two dark lines from the angles of
her mouth directed upward.... And within me a blazing coal. It was
momentary, light, a little painful, beautiful.... And later,--only
stray fragments that remained sticking in me....
... Very low and slowly a bird was moving. I saw it was living, like
me. It was turning its head now to the right and then to the left
like a human being, and its round black eyes screwed themselves into
me....
... Then: a human back glistening with fur the color of ancient
ivory;--a mosquito crawling on that back, a mosquito with tiny
transparent wings. The back twitched to chase the mosquito away; it
twitched again....
... And yet another thing: a shadow from the leaves, a woven,
net-like shadow. Some lay in that shadow, chewing something,
something similar to the legendary food of the ancients, a long
yellow fruit and a piece of something dark. They put some of it in
my hand, and it seemed droll to me for I did not know whether I
might eat it or not....
... And again: a crowd, heads, legs, arms, mouths, faces appearing
for a second and disappearing like bursting bubbles. For a second
appeared (or perhaps it was only an hallucination?) the transparent,
flying wing-ears....
With all my might I pressed the hand of I-330. She turned to me.
"What is the matter?"
"He is here! I thought, I--"
"Who?"
"S-, a second ago, in the crowd."
The ends of the thin coal-black, brows moved to the temples--a smile
like a sharp triangle. I could not see clearly why she smiled. How
could she smile?
"But you understand, I-330, don't you, you understand what it means
if he, or one of them is here?"
"You are funny! How could it ever enter the heads of those within
the Wall that we are here? Remember; take yourself. Did you ever
think it was possible? They are busy hunting us _there_,--let them!
You are delirious!"
Her smile was light and cheerful and I too, was smiling; the earth
was drunken, cheerful, light, floating....
RECORD TWENTY-EIGHT
Both of Them
Entropy and Energy
The Opaque Part of the Body
If your world is similar to the world of the ancients, then you may
easily imagine that one day you suddenly come upon a sixth or a
seventh continent, upon some Atlantis, and you find there unheard
of cities, labyrinths, people flying through the air without the
aid of wings or aeros, stones lifted into the air by the power of
a gaze,--in brief, imagine that you see things that cannot come to
your mind even if you suffer from dream-sickness. That is how I feel
now. For you must understand that no one has ever gone beyond the
Green Wall since the Two Hundred Years' War, as I already have told
you.
I know that it is my duty to you, my unknown friends, to give more
details about that unsuspected strange world which opened to me
yesterday. But for the time being I am unable to return to that
subject. Everything is so novel, so novel it is like a rainstorm,
and I am not big enough to collect it all. I spread out the folds of
my unif, my palms,--and yet pailfuls splash past me and only drops
can reach these pages....
At first I heard behind me, behind the door, a loud voice. I
recognized her voice, the voice of I-330, tense, metallic--and
another one, almost inflexible, like a wooden ruler, the voice of
U-. Then the door came open with a crack and both of them shot into
the room. _Shot_ is the right word.
I-330 put her hand on the back of my armchair and smiled over her
shoulder but only with her teeth, at U-. I should not care to stand
before such a smile.
"Listen," she said to me, "this woman seems to have made it her
business to guard you from me like a little child. Is it with your
permission?"
"But he _is_ a child. Yes! That is why he does not notice that you
... that it is only in order.... That all this is only a foul game!
Yes! And it is my duty...."
For a second (in the mirror) the broken, trembling line of brows.
I leaped, controlling with difficulty the other self within me,
the one with the hairy fists; with difficulty, pushing every word
through my teeth, I cried straight into her face, into her very
gills:
"Get out of here at once! Out! At once!"
The gills swelled at first into brick-red lumps, then fell and
became gray. She opened her mouth to say something but without a
word she slammed it shut and went out.
I threw myself towards I-330.
"Never, never will I forgive myself! She dared! You ... but you
don't think, do you, that you, that she.... This is all because she
wants to register on me but I...."
"Fortunately she will not have time for that now. Besides, even a
thousand like her.... I don't care.... I know you will not believe
that thousand but only me. For after all that happened yesterday, I
am all yours, all, to the very end, as you wanted it. I am in your
hands; you can now at any moment...."
"What, 'at any moment?'" (But at once I understood what. My blood
rushed to my ears and cheeks.) "Don't speak about that, you must
never speak about that! The _other_ I, my former self ... but
now...."
"How do I know? Man is like a novel: up to the last page one does
not know what the end will be. It would not be worth reading
otherwise."
She was stroking my head. I could not see her face but I could
tell by her voice that she was looking somewhere very far into
the distance; she hooked herself to that cloud which was floating
silently, slowly, no one knows where to.
Suddenly she pushed me away with her hand, firmly but tenderly.
"Listen. I came to tell you that perhaps we are now ... our last
days.... You know, don't you, that all Auditoriums are to be closed
after tonight?"
"Closed?"
"Yes. I passed by and saw that in all Auditoriums preparations are
going on: tables; medics all in white...."
"But what does it all mean?"
"I don't know. Nobody knows as yet. That is the worst of it. I only
feel the current is on, the spark is jumping, and if not today, then
tomorrow.... Yet perhaps they will not have time...."
For a long while I have ceased to understand who are _they_ and who
_we_. I do not understand what I want; do I want them to have or not
to have enough time? One thing is clear to me: I-330 is now on the
very edge, on the very edge, and in one second more....
"But it is folly," I said. "You, versus the United State! It is the
same as if you should cover the muzzle of a gun with your hands and
expect that way to prevent the shot.... It is absolute folly!"
A smile.
"'We must all go insane,--as soon as possible go insane.' It was
yesterday, do you remember?"
Yes, she was right; I had even written it down. Consequently it
really took place. In silence I looked into her face. At that moment
the dark cross was especially distinct.
"I-, dear, before it is too late.... If you want ... I'll leave
everything, I'll forget everything, and we'll go there beyond the
Wall, to _them_.... I do not even know who they are...."