At the corner a group of Joshuas, sons of Nuns, were standing with their foreheads pasted to the glass of the wall. Inside, on a dazzling white table already a Number lay. One could see two naked soles diverging from under the sheet in a yellow angle.... White medics bent over his head,—a white hand, a stretched-out hand holding a syringe filled with something....
“And you, what are you waiting for?” I asked nobody in particular, or rather all of them.
“And you?” Someone’s round head turned to me.
“I? Oh, afterward! I must first....” Somewhat confused, I left the place. I really had to see I-330 first. But why first? I could not explain to myself....
The docks. The Integral, bluish like ice, was glistening and sparkling. The engine was caressingly grumbling, repeating some one word, as if it were my word, a familiar one. I bent down and stroked the long, cold tube of the motor. “Dear! What a dear tube! Tomorrow it will come to life, tomorrow for the first time it will tremble with burning, flaming streams in its bowels.”
With what eyes would I have looked at the glass monster had everything remained as it was yesterday? If I knew that tomorrow at twelve I should betray it, yes, betray.... Someone behind cautiously touched my elbow. I turned
around. The plate-like, flat face of the Second Builder.
“Do you know already?” he asked.
“What? About the Operation? Yes. How everything, everything ... suddenly....”
“No, not that. The trial flight is put off until day-after-tomorrow,—on account of that Operation. They rushed us for nothing; we hurried....”