I remember I muttered in confusion, “Absolute minus? Minus 273°…”
“Precisely—minus 273°. Somewhat chilly, but wouldn’t that in itself prove that we’re at the summit?”
As once, a long time ago, she somehow spoke for me, through me, unfolding my ideas to the very end. But there was something sharply frightening in it—I could not bear it, and with an effort I forced a “no” out of sayself.
“No,” I said. “You… you are mocking me…”
She laughed, loudly—too loudly. Quickly, in a second, she laughed herself to some unseen edge, stumbled, fell… A silence.
She rose and placed her hands upon my shoulders, and looked at me slowly and long. Then pulled me to herself—and there was nothing, only her hot, sharp lips.
“Farewell!”
It came from far, from above, and took a long time to reach me—a minute, perhaps, or two.
“What do you mean, ‘Farewell’?”
“Well, you are sick, you have committed crimes because of me—has it not been a torment to you? And now, the Operation—and you will cure yourself of me. And that means—farewell.”
“No,” I cried out.
A pitilessly sharp, dark triangle on white: “What? You don’t want happiness?”
My head was splitting; two logical trains collided, climbing upon each other, crashing, splintering…
“Well, I am waiting. Make your choice: the Operation and one hundred per cent happiness— or…”
“I cannot… without you. I want nothing without you,” I said, or merely thought—I am not sure—but she heard.
“Yes, I know,” she answered. And, her hands still on my shoulders, her eyes still holding mine, “Until tomorrow, then. Tomorrow, at twelve. You remember?”
“No, it’s been postponed for a day… The day after tomorrow…”
“All the better for us. At twelve, the day after tomorrow…”
I walked alone through the twilit street. The wind was whirling, driving, carrying me like a slip of paper. Fragments of cast-iron sky flew and flew-they had another day, two days to hurtle through infinity… The unifs of passersby brushed against me, but I walked alone. I saw it clearly: everyone was saved, but there was no salvation for me. I did not want salvation…
Thirty-second Entry
Do you believe that you will die? Yes, man is mortal, I am a man: hence… No, this is not what I mean. I know you know this. I am asking: have you ever really believed it; believed it totally, not with your mind, but with your body; have you ever felt that one day the fingers holding this very page will be icy, yellow…
No, of course you don’t believe it—and this is why you have not jumped from the tenth floor down to the pavement; this is why you are still eating, turning the page, shaving, smiling, writing…
The same—yes, exactly the same—is true of me today. I know that this little black arrow on the dock will crawl down here, below, to midnight, will slowly rise again, will step across some final line—and the incredible tomorrow will be here. I know this, but somehow I also don’t believe it. Or, perhaps, it seems to me that twenty- four hours are twenty-four years. And this is why I can still do something, hurry somewhere, answer questions, climb the ladder to the Integral. I still feel it rocking on the water; I know I must grasp the handrail and feel the cold glass under my hand. I see the transparent, living cranes bend their long, birdlike necks, stretch their beaks, and tenderly, solicitously feed the Integral with the terrible explosive food for its motors. And below, on the river, I clearly see the blue, watery veins and nodes, swollen with the wind. But all of this is quite apart from me, extraneous, flat—like a scheme on a sheet of paper. And it is strange that the flat, paper face of the Second Builder is suddenly speaking.
“Well, then? How much fuel shall we take for the motors? If we think of three… or three and a half hours…”
Before me—projected on the blueprint—my hand with the calculator, the logarithmic dial at fifteen.
“Fifteen tons. No, better load… yes—load a hundred…”
Because, after all, I do know that tomorrow…
And I see, from somewhere at the side: my hand with the dial starts to tremble faintly.
“A hundred? Why so much? That would be for a week. A week? Much longer!”
“Anything might happen… Who knows…”
I know…
The wind howls; the air is tightly filled with something invisible, to the very top. I find it hard to breathe, hard to walk. And slowly, with an effort, without stopping for a second, the arrow crawls upon the face of the clock on the Accumulator Tower at the end of the avenue. The spire is in the clouds—dim, blue, howling in muted tones, sucking electricity. The trumpets of the Music Plant howl.
As ever, in rows, four abreast But the rows are somehow unsolid; perhaps it is the wind that makes them waver, bend—more and more. Now they have collided with something on the corner, they flow back, and there is a dense, congealed, immobile cluster, breathing rapidly. Suddenly everyone is craning his neck.
“Look! No, look—that way, quick!”
“It’s they! It’s they!”
“… I’ll never… Better put my head straight into the Machine…”
“Sh-sh! You’re mad…”
In the auditorium at the corner the door is gaping wide, and a slow, heavy column of some fifty people emerges. “People?” No, that does not describe them. These are not feet—they are stiff, heavy wheels, moved by some invisible transmission belt These are not people—they are humanoid tractors. Over their heads a white banner is flapping in the wind, a golden sun embroidered on it; between the sun’s rays, the words: “We are the first! We have already undergone the Operation! Everybody, follow us!”
Slowly, irresistibly, they plow through the crowd. And it is clear that if there were a wall, a tree, a house in their way, they would without halting plow through the wall, the tree, the house. Now they are in the middle of the avenue. Hands locked, they spread out into a chain, facing us. And we—a tense knot, necks stretched, heads bristling forward—wait. Clouds. Whistling wind.
Suddenly the flanks of the chain, on the right and the left, bend quickly and rush upon us, faster, faster, like a heavy machine speeding downhill. They lock us in the ring—and toward the gaping doors, into the doors, inside…
Someone’s piercing scream: “They’re driving us in! Run!”
And everybody rushes. Just near the wall there is still a narrow living gateway, and everyone streams there, head forward—heads instantly sharp as wedges, sharp elbows, shoulders, sides. Like a jet of water, compressed inside a fire hose, they spread fanlike, and all around—stamping feet, swinging arms, unifs. From somewhere for an instant—a glimpse of a double curved, S-like body, translucent wing-ears—and he is gone, as though swallowed by the earth, and I am alone, in the midst of flashing arms and feet—I run…
I dive into a doorway for a moment’s breath, my back pressed to the door—and instantly, a tiny human splinter—as if driven to me by the wind.
“I was… following you… all the time… I do not want to—you understand—I do not want to. I agree…”
Round, tiny hands upon my sleeve, round blue eyes: it is O. She seems to slide down along the wall and slump onto the ground. Shrunk into a little ball below, on the cold stair, and I bend over her, stroking her head, her face—my hands are wet. As though I were very big, and she—altogether tiny—a tiny part of my own self. This is very different from die feeling for I-330. It seems to me that something like it may have existed among the ancients
