In the clearing, around a bare, skull-like rock, there was a noisy crowd of three or four hundred… people—I must say “people”—it is difficult to call them anything else. Just as on the platforms in our Plaza one sees at first only familiar faces, so here I first saw only our gray-blue unifs. A second more, and there, among the unifs, clearly and simply—black, red, golden, bay, roan, and white people—they must have been people. All were without clothing and all were covered with short, glossy fur, like the fur that can be seen by anyone on the stuffed horse in the Prehistoric Museum. But the females had faces exactly like those of our women: delicately rosy and free of hair, as were also their breasts—large, firm, of splendid geometric form. The males had only parts of their faces hairless— like our ancestors.
All this was so incredible, so unexpected, that I stood calmly (yes, calmly!) and looked. It was the same as with a scale: you overload one side, and then, no matter how much more you add, the arrow won’t move.
Suddenly, I was alone. I-330 was no longer with me—I didn’t know where or how she had disappeared. Around me, only those beings, their furry bodies glowing like satin in the sun. I seized some-one’s hot, firm, raven shoulder. ‘For the Benefactor’s sake, tell me—where did she go? Why, just now, just a moment ago…”
Stern, shaggy eyebrows turned to me. “Sh-sh! Quiet!” And he nodded shaggily toward the center of the clearing, toward the yellow, skull-like stone. There, above the heads, above everyone, I saw her. The sun shone from behind her, directly into my eyes, and all of her stood out sharp, coal-black against the blue cloth of the sky—a charcoal silhouette etched on blue. Just overhead, some clouds floated by. And it seemed that not the clouds, but the stone, and she herself, and with her the crowd and the clearing were gliding as silently as a ship, and the earth itself, grown light, was floating underfoot…
“Brothers…” She spoke. “Brothers! You all know: there, in the city behind the Wall, they are building the Integral. And you know: the day has come when we shall break down the Wall—all walls—to let the green wind blow free from end to end—across the earth. But the Integral is meant to take these walls up there, into the heights, to thousands of other earths, whose fires will rustle to you tonight through the black leaves…”
Waves, foam, wind against the stone: “Down with the Integral! Down!”
“No, brothers, not down. But the Integral must be ours. On the day when it first rises into the sky, we shall be in it. Because the Builder of the Integral is with us. He has come out from behind the Wall, he has come here with me, to be among you. Long live the Builder!”
A moment, and I was somewhere above. Beneath me—heads, heads, heads, wide-open shouting mouths, arms flashing up and falling. It was extraordinary, intoxicating: I felt myself above all others. I was I, a separate entity, a world. I had ceased to be a component, as I had been, and become a unit.
And now—with a dented, crumpled, happy body, as happy as after a love embrace—I am below, right near the stone. Sun, voices from above, I-330 smiling. A golden-haired, satiny-golden woman, spreading the fragrance of grass. In her hands, a cup, apparently of wood. She takes a sip from it with scarlet lips and hands it to me, and greedily, with closed eyes, to quench the fire, I drink the sweet, stinging, cold, fiery sparks.
And then—my blood and the whole world—a thousand times faster. The light earth flies like down. And everything is light, and simple, and clear.
And now, I see the huge, familiar letters, MEPHI, on the stone, and for some reason this is right and necessary—it is the strong, simple thread that links everything together. I see a crude image—perhaps on the same stone: a winged youth with a transparent body and, where the heart should be, a dazzling, crimson-glowing coal. And again—I understand this coal… Or no: I feel it—just as, without hearing, I feel every word (she is speaking from above, from the stone). And I feel that everybody breathes together—and everybody will fly together somewhere, like the birds over the Wall that day…
From behind, from the densely breathing crowd of bodies—a loud voice: “But this is madness!”
And then it seems that I—yes, I believe it was I—jumped up on the stone. Sun, heads, a green serrated line against the blue, and I shout, “Yes, yes, madness! And everyone must lose his mind, everyone must! The sooner the better! It is essential—I know it.”
Next to me, I-330. Her smile—two dark lines: from the ends of her lips—up, at an angle. And the coal is now within me, and all this is instant, easy, just a bit painful, beautiful…
After that, only broken, separate fragments.
Slowly, just overhead—a bird. I see: it is alive, like me. Like a man it turns its head right, left, and black, round eyes drill into me…
Another fragment: a back, with shiny fur the color of old ivory. A dark insect with tiny, transparent wings crawls along the back, and the back twitches to drive it off, then twitches again…
Another fragment: the shadow of the leaves-interlaced, latticed. In the shadow people are lying and chewing something that resembles the legendary food of the ancients—a long yellow fruit and a piece of something dark. A woman thrusts it into my hand, and it is funny: I don’t know whether I can eat it.
Again—a crowd, heads, feet, hands, mouths. Faces flash momentarily and disappear, burst like bubbles. And for a moment—or did it merely seem to me?—transparent, flying wing-ears.
With all my strength I press the hand of I-330. She glances back. “What is it?”
“He is here---It seemed to me…”
“He? Who?”
“S… just a moment ago—in the crowd…”
The coal-black, thin eyebrows rise to the temples: sharp triangle, a smile. I do not understand why she is smiling; how can she smile?
“Don’t you see—don’t you see what it means if he or any of them is here?”
“Silly! Would it occur to anyone there, inside the Wall, that we are here? Try to remember-did you ever think that it was possible? They are hunting for us there—let them! You’re dreaming.”
She smiles lightly, gaily, and I smile. The earth-intoxicated, light, gay—floats…
Twenty-eighth Entry
If your world is like the world of our distant forebears, imagine that you have stumbled upon a sixth, a seventh continent in the ocean—some Atlantis with fantastic labyrinth-cities, people soaring in the air without the aid of wings or aeros, rocks lifted by the power of a glance—in short, things that would never occur to you even if you suffer from dream-sickness. This is how I felt yesterday. Because, you understand—as I have told you before—not one of us has been beyond the Wall since the Two Hundred Years’ War.
I know: it is my duty before you, my unknown friends, to tell in greater detail about the strange and unexpected world that revealed itself to me yesterday. But I am still unable to return to that. There is a constant flood of new and new events, and I cannot collect them alclass="underline" I lift the edges of my unif, I hold out my palms, and yet whole pailfuls spill past, and only drops fall on these pages.
First I heard loud voices behind my door, and recognized the voice of I-330, firm, metallic, and the other—almost inflexible, like a wooden ruler— the voice of U. Then the door flew open with a crash and catapulted both of them into my room. Yes, exactly—catapulted.