dashed over there. There were three of them, all with receiving helmets on. And she seemed a head taller than usual, wingy, sparkling, flying like an ancient walkyrie, and those bluish sparks from the radio seemed to emanate from her,—from her also that ethereal, lightning-like odor of ozone.
“Someone—well, you for instance,” I said to her, panting from having run, “I must send a message down to earth, to the docks. Come, I shall dictate it to you.”
Close to the apparatus there was a small box-like cabin. We sat at the table side by side. I found her hand and pressed it hard.
“Well, what is going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Do you realize how wonderful it is? To fly without knowing where ... no matter where? It will soon be twelve o’clock and nobody knows what.... And when night.... Where shall you and I be tonight? Perhaps somewhere on the grass, on dry leaves....”
Blue sparks emanated from her and the odor of lightning, and the vibration became more and more frequent within me.
“Write down,” I said loudly, panting (from having run), “Time: eleven-twenty; speed 5800....”
“Last night she came to me with your note. I know ... I know everything; don’t talk.... But the child is yours. I sent her over; she is already beyond the Wall. She will live....”
I was back on the commander’s bridge, back in the delirious night with its black, starry sky and its dazzling sun. The hands of the clock on the table were slowly moving from minute to minute. Everything was permeated by a thin, hardly perceptible quivering (only I noticed it). For some reason a thought passed through my head: it would be better if all this took place not here but somewhere below, nearer to earth.
“Stop!” I commanded.
We kept moving by inertia, but more and more slowly. Now the Integral was caught for a second by an imperceptible little hair—for a second it hung motionless, then the little hair broke and the Integral like a stone dashed downward with increasing speed. That way in silence, minutes, tens of minutes passed. My pulse was audible; the hand of the clock before my eyes came closer and closer to twelve. It was clear to me I was a stone; I-330 the earth; and the stone was under irresistible compulsion to fall downward, to strike the earth and break into small particles. What if...? Already the hard blue smoke of the clouds appeared below.... What if...? But the phonograph within me with a hinge-like motion and precision took the telephone and commanded: “Low speed!” The stone ceased falling. Only the four lower tubes were growling, two ahead and two aft, only enough to hold the Integral motionless, and the Integral, only slightly trembling, stopped in the air as if anchored, about one kilometer from the earth.
Everybody came out on deck, (it was shortly before twelve, before the sounding of the dinner-gong) and leaned over the glass railing; hastily, in huge gulps, they swallowed the unknown world which lay below, beyond the Green Wall. Amber, blue, green, the autumnal woods, prairies, a lake. At the edge of a little blue saucer, some lone yellow debris, a threatening, dried-out yellow finger,—it must have been the tower of an ancient “church” saved by a miracle....
“Look, there! Look! There to the right!”
There (over the green desert) a brown blot was rapidly moving. I held a telescope in my hands and automatically I brought it to my eyes: the grass reaching their chests, a herd of brown horses was galloping, and on their back—they, black, white, and dark....
Behind me:
“I assure you, I saw a face!”
“Go away! Tell it to someone else!”
“Well, look for yourself! Here is the telescope.”
They had already disappeared. Endless green desert, and in that desert, dominating it completely and dominating me, and everybody—the piercing vibrations of the gong; dinner time, one minute to twelve.
For a second the little world around me became incoherent, dispersed. Someone’s brass badge fell to the floor. It mattered little. Soon it was under my heel. A voice: “And I tell you, it was a face!” A black square, the open door of the main saloon. White teeth pressed together, smiling.... And at that moment, when the clock began slowly, holding its breath between beats, to strike, and when the front rows began to move towards the dining saloon, the rectangle of the door was suddenly crossed by the two familiar, unnaturally long arms:
“STOP!”
Someone’s fingers sank piercing into my palm. It was I-330. She was beside me.
“Who is it, do you know him?”
“Is he not ... is he not?...”
He was already lifted upon somebody’s shoulders. Above a hundred other faces, his face like hundreds, like thousands of other faces yet unique among the rest....
“In the name of the Guardians! You, to whom I talk, they hear me, every one of them hears me,—I talk to you: we know! We don’t know your numbers yet but we know everything else. The Integral shall not be yours! The test flight will be carried out to the end and you yourselves, you will not dare to make another move! You with your own hands will help to go on with the test and afterward ... well, I have finished!”
Silence. The glass plates under my feet seemed soft, cotton-like. My feet too,—soft, cotton-like. Beside me—she with a dead-white smile, angry blue sparks. Through her teeth to me:
“Ah! It is your work! You did your ‘duty’! Well....” She tore her hand from mine; the walkyrie helmet with indignant wings was soon to be seen some distance in front of me. I was alone, torpid, silent. Like everyone else I followed into the dining saloon.
But it was not I, not I! I told nobody, save these white, mute pages.... I cried this to her within me, inaudibly, desperately, loudly. She was across the table, directly opposite me and not once did she even touch me with her gaze. Beside her, someone’s ripe, yellow, bald head. I heard (it was I-330’s voice):
“‘Nobility’ of character! But my dear professor, even a superficial etymological analysis of the word shows that it is a superstition, a remnant of the ancient feudal epoch. We....”
I felt I was growing pale,—and that they would soon notice it. But the phonograph within me performed the prescribed fifty chewing movements for every bite. I locked myself into myself as though into an opaque house; I threw up a heap of rocks before my door and lowered the window-blinds....
Afterward, again the telephone of the commander was in my hands and again we made the flight with icy, supreme anxiety through the clouds into the icy, starry, sunny night. Minutes, hours passed.... Apparently all that time the logical motor within me was working feverishly at full speed. For suddenly somewhere at a distant point of the dark blue space I saw my desk, and the gill-like cheeks of U- over it and the forgotten pages of my records! It became clear to me; nobody but she ... everything was clear to me!
If only I could reach the radio-room soon ... wing-like helmets, the odor of blue lightnings ... I remember telling her something in a low voice and I remember how she looked through me and how her voice seemed to come from a distance:
“I am busy. I am receiving a message from below. You may dictate yours to her.”
The
