The Greatest Catastrophe in History

The Known Is Ended

Before the ceremony, everyone stood still and, like a solemn, slow canopy, the Hymn swayed over our heads—hundreds of trumpets from the Music Plant and millions of human voices—and for a second I forgot everything. I forgot the disquieting hints of I-330 about today’s celebration; I think I forgot even her. I was the boy who had once wept on this day over a tiny spot on his unif, visible to no one but himself. No one around may see the black, indelible spots I am covered with, but I know that I—a criminal—have no right to be among these frank, wide-open faces. If I could only stand up and shout, scream out everything about myself. And let it mean the end—let it!—if only for a moment I can feel myself as pure and thoughtless as this childishly innocent blue sky.

All eyes were raised. In the unblemished morning blue, still moist with night’s tears—a barely visible speck, now dark, now glowing in the sun’s rays. It was He, the new Jehovah, coming down to us from heaven, as wise and loving-cruel as the Jehovah of the ancients. He came nearer and nearer, and millions of hearts rose higher and higher to meet Him. Now He sees us. And, together with Him, I mentally look down from above on the concentric circles of the platforms, marked by the thin blue dotted lines of our unifs, like cobweb circles spangled with microscopic suns (our gleaming badges). And in a moment, He will sit down in the center of the cobweb, the white wise Spider— the white-robed Benefactor, who has wisely bound us hand and foot with the beneficent nets of happiness.

But now His majestic descent from heaven was completed, the brass tones of the Hymn were silent, everyone sat down—and instantly I knew: all of this was indeed the finest cobweb; it was stretched tautly, it quivered—in a moment it would break and something unthinkable would happen…

Rising slightly in my seat, I glanced around, and my eyes met lovingly anxious eyes running from face to face. Now one number raised his hand, and, with a scarcely noticeable movement of his fingers, he signaled to another. And then—an answering signal. And another… I understood: these were the Guardians. I knew they were alarmed by something; the cobweb, stretched, was quivering. And within me—as in a radio receiver set on the same wave length—there was an answering quiver. On the stage, a poet read a pre-election ode, but I did not hear a single word—only the measured swaying of a hexametric pendulum, and every movement brought nearer some unknown appointed hour. I was still feverishly scanning the rows-face after face, like pages—and still failing to find the only one, the one I sought, I had to find it, quickly, for in a moment the pendulum would tick, and then…

He, it was he, of course. Below, past the stage, the rosy wing-ears slid past over the gleaming glass, the running body reflected as a dark, doubly curved S. He hurried somewhere in the tangled passages among the platforms.

S, I-330—there is some thread that links them (all the time I’ve sensed this thread between them; I still don’t know what it is; some day I’ll disentangle it). I fastened my eyes on him; like a ball of cotton he rolled farther and farther, the thread trailing behind him. Now he stopped, now…

Like a lightning-quick, high-voltage discharge: I was pierced, twisted into a knot. In my row, at no more than forty degrees from me, S stopped, bent down. I saw I-330, and next to her—the revoltingly thick-lipped, grinning R-13.

My first impulse was to rush there and cry out, “Why are you with him today? Why didn’t you want me to…?” But the invisible, beneficent cobweb tightly bound my hands and feet; with teeth clenched, I sat as stiff as iron, my eyes fixed on them. As now, I remember the sharp physical pain in my heart. I thought: If nonphysical causes can produce physical pain, then it is clear that…

Unfortunately, I did not bring this to conclusion. I recall only that something flashed about a “soul,” and then the absurd ancient saying, “His heart dropped into his boots.” And I grew numb. The hexameters were silent. Now it will begin… But what?

The customary five-minute pre-election recess. The customary pre-election silence. But now it was not the usual prayerlike, worshipful silence: now it was as with the ancients, when our Accumulator Towers were still unknown, when the untamed sky had raged from time to time with “storms.” This silence was the silence of the ancients before a storm.

The air—transparent cast iron. It seemed one had to open the mouth wide to breathe. The ear, tense to the point of pain, recorded, somewhere behind, anxious whispers, like gnawing mice. With lowered eyes, I saw before me all the time those two, I-330 and R, side by side, shoulder to shoulder—and on my knees, my hateful, alien, shaggy, trembling hands…

In everyone’s hand, the badge with the watch. One. Two. Three… Five minutes… From the stage—the slow, cast-iron voice:

“Those in favor will raise their hands.”

If only I could look into His eyes as in the past—directly and devotedly: “Here I am, all of me. Take me!” But now I did not dare. With a great effort, as though all my joints were rusty, I raised my hand.

The rustle of millions of hands. Someone’s stifled “Ah!” And I felt that something had already begun, was dropping headlong, but I did not know what, and did not have the strength—did not dare-to look…

“Who is against?”

This always has been the most solemn moment of the ceremony: everyone continued sitting motionless, joyously bowing his head to the beneficent yoke of the Number of Numbers. But this time, with horror, I heard a rustling again, light as a sigh—more audible than the brass trumpets of the Hymn, Thus a man will sigh faintly for the last time in his life and all the faces around him turn pale, with cold drops on their foreheads.

I raised my eyes, and…

It took one-hundredth of a second: I saw thousands of hands swing up—“against”—and drop. I saw the pale, cross-marked face of I-330, her raised hand. Darkness fell on my eyes.

Another hair’s breadth. A pause. Silence. My pulse. Then, all at once, as at a signal from some mad conductor, shouts, crashing on all the platforms, the whirl of unifs swept in flight, the figures of the Guardians rushing about helplessly, someone’s heels in the air before my eyes, and near them someone’s mouth wide open in a desperate, unheard scream. For some reason, this etched itself in memory more sharply than anything else: thousands of silently screaming mouths, as on some monstrous movie screen.

And just as on a screen—somewhere far below, for a second—O’s whitened lips. Pressed to the wall of a passage, she stood shielding her stomach with crossed arms. Then she was gone, swept away, or I forgot her because…

This was no longer on a screen—it was within me, in my constricted heart, in my hammering temples. Over my head on the left, R-13 jumped suddenly up on the bench—spluttering, red, frenzied. In his arms—I-330, her unif torn from shoulder to breast, red blood on white… She held him firmly around the neck, and he, repulsive and agile as a gorilla, was carrying her up, away, bounding in huge leaps from bench to bench.

As during a fire in ancient days, everything turned red before me, and only one impulse remained—to jump, to overtake them. I cannot explain to myself where I found such strength, but, like a battering ram, I tore through the crowd, stepping on shoulders, benches—and now I was upon them; I seized R by the collar: “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare, I say. Let her go. This very moment!” (My voice was inaudible—everyone shouted, everyone ran.)

“Who? What is it? What?” R turned, his sputtering lips shaking. He must have thought he had been seized by one of the Guardians.

“What? I won’t have it, I won’t allow it! Put her down—at once!”

He merely slapped his lips shut in anger, tossed his head, and ran on. And at this point—I am terribly ashamed to write about it, but I feel I must, I must record it, so that you, my unknown readers, may learn the story of my sickness to the very end—at this point I swung at his head. You understand—I struck him! I clearly remember this. And I remember, too, the feeling of release, the lightness that spread throughout my body from this blow.

I-330 quickly slipped down from his arms.

“Get away,” she cried to R. “Don’t you see, he’s… Get away, R, go!”

Baring his white, Negroid teeth, R spurted some word into my face, dived down, disappeared. And I lifted I-330 into my arms, pressed her firmly to myself, and carried her away.

My heart was throbbing—enormous—and with each heartbeat, a rush of such a riotous, hot wave of joy. And who cared if something somewhere had been smashed to bits—what did it matter! Only to carry her so, on and on…