“‘Nobility’ of character! But my dear professor, even a superficial etymological analysis of the word shows that it is a superstition, a remnant of the ancient feudal epoch. We....”
I felt I was growing pale,—and that they
would soon notice it. But the phonograph within me performed the prescribed fifty chewing movements for every bite. I locked myself into myself as though into an opaque house; I threw up a heap of rocks before my door and lowered the window-blinds....
Afterward, again the telephone of the commander was in my hands and again we made the flight with icy, supreme anxiety through the clouds into the icy, starry, sunny night. Minutes, hours passed.... Apparently all that time the logical motor within me was working feverishly at full speed. For suddenly somewhere at a distant point of the dark blue space I saw my desk, and the gill-like cheeks of U- over it and the forgotten pages of my records! It became clear to me; nobody but she ... everything was clear to me!
If only I could reach the radio-room soon ... wing-like helmets, the odor of blue lightnings ... I remember telling her something in a low voice and I remember how she looked through me and how her voice seemed to come from a distance:
“I am busy. I am receiving a message from below. You may dictate yours to her.”
The small, box-like little cabin.... I thought for a second and then dictated in a firm voice:
“Time 14:40. Going down. Motors stopped. The end of all.”
The commander’s bridge. The machine-heart of the Integral stopped; we were falling; my
heart could not catch up and would remain behind and rise higher and higher into my throat.... Clouds.... And then a distant green spot—everything green, more and more distinct, running like a storm towards us. “Soon the end.”