Essential Science Fiction Novels - Volume 4. Griffith George Chetwynd
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I saw right beside him somebody’s face—a sharp, black triangle—and instantly I lost it; my eyes, thousands of eyes, were directed upward toward the Machine. Then—again the superhuman, cast-iron, gesture of the hand.
Swayed by an unknown wind the criminal moved; one step ... one more, ... then the last step in his life. His face was turned to the sky, his head thrown backward—he was on his last.— ... Heavy, stony like fate, the Well-Doer went around the machine, put his enormous hand on the lever.... Not a whisper, not a breath around; all eyes were upon that hand.... What crushing, scorching power one must feel to be the tool, to be the resultant of hundreds of thousands of wills! How great his lot!
Another second. The hand moved down, switching in the current. The lightning-sharp blade of the electric ray.... A faint crack like a shiver, in the tubes of the Machine.... The prone body, covered with a light phosphorescent smoke; then suddenly, under the eyes of all, it began to melt,—to melt, to dissolve with terrible speed. And then nothing; just a pool of chemically pure water which only a moment ago was so red and pulsated in his heart....
All this was simple; all of us were familiar with the phenomenon, dissociation of matter,—yes, the splitting of the atoms of the human body! Yet every time we witnessed it, it seemed a miracle; it was a symbol of the superhuman power of the Well-Doer.
Above, in front of Him, the burning faces of the female numbers, mouths half open from emotion, flowers swaying in the wind.[2] According to custom, ten women were covering with flowers the unif of the Well-Doer, which was still wet with spray. With the magnificent step of a supreme priest He slowly descended, slowly passed between the rows of stands; and like tender white branches there rose toward Him the arms of the women; and, millions like one, our tempestuous cheers! Then cheers in honor of the Guardians, who all unseen, were present among us.... Who knows, perhaps the fancy of the ancient man foresaw them centuries ahead, when he created the gentle and formidable “guardian-angels” assigned to each one from the day of his birth?
[2] These flowers naturally were brought from the Botanical Museum. I, personally, am unable to see anything beautiful in flowers, or in anything else that belongs to the lower kingdom which now exists only beyond the Green Wall. Only rational and useful things are beautiful: machines, boots, formulae, food, etc.
Yes, there was in our celebration something of the ancient religions, something purifying like a storm.... You whose lot it may be to read this, are you familiar with such emotions? I am sorry for you if you are not.
Record Ten
A Letter
A Manhunt
Hairy I
Yesterday was for me a kind of filter-paper which chemists use for filtering their solutions (all suspended and superfluous particles remain on the paper). This morning I went downstairs all purified and distilled, transparent.
Downstairs in the hall the controller sat at a small table, constantly looking at her watch and recording the Numbers who were leaving. Her name is U- ... well, I prefer not to give her Number, for I fear I may not write kindly about her. Although, as a matter of fact, she is a very respectable, mature woman. The only thing I do not like in her is that her cheeks fold down a little like gills of a fish (although I do not see anything wrong in this appearance). She scratched with her pen and I saw on the page “D-503”—and suddenly, splash! an ink-blot. No sooner did I open my mouth to call her attention to that, than she raised her head and blotted me with an inky smile. “There is a letter for you. You will receive it, dear. Yes, yes, you will.”
I knew a letter, after she had read it, must go through the Bureau of the Guardians (I think it is unnecessary to explain in detail this natural order of things); I would receive it not later than twelve o’clock. But that tiny smile confused me; the drop of ink clouded the transparency of the distilled solution. At the dock of the Integral I could not concentrate; I even made a mistake in my calculations,—that never happened to me before.
At twelve o’clock, again the rosy-brown fish-gills’ smile, and at last the letter was in my hands. I cannot say why I did not read it right there, but I put it in my pocket and ran into my room. I opened it and glanced it over and ... and sat down. It was the official notification advising me that Number I-330 had had me assigned to her and that today at twenty-one o’clock, I was to go to her. Her address was given.
“No! After all that happened! After I showed her frankly my attitude toward her! Besides, how could she know that I did not go to the Bureau of the Guardians? She had no way of knowing that I was ill and could not.... And despite all this....”
A dynamo was whirling and buzzing in my head. Buddha ... yellow ... lilies-of-the-valley ... rosy crescent.... Besides,—besides, O- wanted to come to see me today! I am sure she would not believe (how could one believe), that I had absolutely nothing to do with the matter, that ... I am sure also that we (O- and I) will have a difficult, foolish and absolutely illogical conversation. No, anything but that! Let the situation solve itself mechanically; I shall send her a copy of this official communication.
While I was hastily putting the paper in my pocket, I noticed my terrible ape-like hand. I remembered how that day during our walk, she took my hand and looked at it. Is it possible that she really ... that she....
A quarter to twenty-one. A white northern night. Everything was glass,—greenish. But it was a different kind of glass, not like ours, not genuine but very breakable,—a thin glass shell and within that shell things were flying, whirling, buzzing. I should not have been surprised if suddenly the cupola of the auditorium had risen in slow, rolling clouds of smoke; or if the ripe moon had sent an inky smile,—like that one at the little table this morning; or if in all the houses suddenly all the curtains had been lowered and behind the curtains....
I felt something peculiar; my ribs were like iron bars that interfered, decidedly interfered, with my heart, giving it too little space. I stood at a glass door on which were the golden letters I-330; I-330 sat at the table with her back to me; she was writing something. I stepped in.
“Here....” I held out the pink check, “... I received the notification this noon and here I am!”
“How punctual you are! Just a minute please, may I? Sit down. I shall finish in a minute.”
She lowered her eyes to the letter. What had she there, behind her lowered curtains? What would she say? What would she do in a second? How to learn it? How to calculate it, since she comes from beyond, from the wild ancient land of dreams? I looked at her in silence. My ribs were iron bars. The space for the heart was too small.... When she speaks her face is like a swiftly revolving, glittering wheel; you cannot see the separate bars. But at that moment the wheel was motionless. I saw a strange combination: dark eyebrows running right to the temples—a sharp, mocking triangle; and still another dark triangle with its apex upward—two deep wrinkles from the nose to the angles of the mouth. And these two triangles somehow contradicted each other. They gave the whole face that disagreeable, irritating X, or cross; a face obliquely marked by a cross.
The wheel started to turn; its bars blurred.
“So you did not go to the Bureau of Guardians after all?”
“I did ... I did not feel well ... I could not.”
“Yes? I thought so; something must have prevented you, matters little what (sharp teeth—a smile). But now you are in my hands. You remember: ‘Any Number who within forty-eight hours fails to report to the Bureau is considered....’”
My heart banged so forcibly that the iron bars bent. If I were not sitting ... like a little boy, how stupid! I was caught like a little boy and stupidly I kept silent. I felt I was in a net; neither my legs nor my arms....
She stood up and stretched herself lazily. She pressed the button and the curtains on all four walls fell with a slight rustle. I was cut off from the rest of the world, alone with her.
She was somewhere behind me, near the closet door. The unif was rustling, falling. I was listening, all