"Well, do you feel better now?"
"Yes, thank you. I think I am getting normal again."
He let me go. He lifted his eyes, looked upward, and I noticed his
Adam's apple for the first time; it resembles a broken spring,
sticking out from beneath the upholstery of a divan.
Above us, not very high (about 50 meters) aeros were buzzing. By
their low, slow flight and by the observation tubes which hung down,
I recognized them. They were the aeros of the Guardians. But there
were not two or three, as usual, there were about ten or twelve (I
regret to have to confine myself to an approximate figure).
"Why are there so many today?" I dared to ask S-.
"Why? Hm.... A real physician begins to treat a patient when
he is still well but on the way to becoming sick tomorrow,
day-after-tomorrow or within a week. Prophylaxis! Yes!"
He nodded and went splashing over the stones of the yard. Then he
turned his head and said over his shoulder, "Be careful!"
Again I was alone. Silence. Emptiness. Far beyond the Green Wall the
birds and the wind. What did he mean? My aero ran very fast with the
wind. Light and heavy shadows from the clouds. Below blue cupolas,
cubes of glass-ice were becoming leaden and swelling....
_The Same Evening_
I took up my pen just now in order to write upon these pages a
few thoughts which, it seems to me, will prove useful for you,
my readers. These thoughts are concerned with the great Day of
Unanimity which is now not far away. But as I sat down, I discovered
that I cannot write at present; instead I sit and listen to the wind
beating the glass with its dark wings; all the while I am busy
looking about and I am waiting, expecting.... What? I do not know.
So I was very glad when I saw the brownish-pink gills enter my room,
heartily glad I may say. She sat down and innocently smoothed a fold
of her unif that fell between her knees, and very soon she pasted
upon me, all over me, a host of smiles,--a bit of a smile on each
crack of my face and this gave me pleasant sensations, as if I were
tightly bound like an infant of the ancients in a swaddling-cloth.
"Imagine! Today, when I entered the classroom" (she works in the
Child-Educational Refinery), "I suddenly noticed a caricature upon
the blackboard. Indeed! I assure you! They had pictured me in the
form of a fish! Perhaps I really--"
"No, no! Why do you say that?" I hastily exclaimed. When one was
near her, it was clear indeed that she had nothing resembling
gills. No. When I referred to gills in these pages I was certainly
irreverent.
"Oh, after all it does not matter. But the act as such, think of
it! Of course I called the Guardians at once. I love children very
much and I think that the most difficult and the most exalted love
is--cruelty. You understand me, of course."
"Certainly!" Her sentence so closely resembled my thoughts! I could
not refrain from reading to her a passage from my Record No. 20,
beginning "Quietly, metallically, distinctly, do the thoughts" ...
etc. I felt her brownish-pink cheeks twitching and coming closer
and closer to me. Suddenly I felt in my hands her firm, dry, even
slightly prickling fingers.
"Give, give this to me please. I shall have it phonographed and make
the children learn it by heart. Not only your Venerians need all
this, but we ourselves right now, tomorrow, day-after-tomorrow."
She glanced around and said in a very low voice:
"Have you heard, they say that on the Day of Unanimity--"