Page:Evgenii Zamyatin - We (Zilboorg translation).pdf/199

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 minutes, tens of minutes passed in silence. My pulse was audible; the hand of the clock before my eyes came closer and closer to twelve. It was clear to me that 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 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. Now 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 devoured 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 backs—they, black, white, and dark . . .