"Stand still, Ed! Let them take us!"
I clung to Alan. A crowd of strangely garbed figures rushed at us. But they did not approach too close; a ring of them, milling about; shouting—but too fearful to seize us.
We stood confused. Out of a million new impressions, my mind grasped so few! Mechanisms everywhere; gleaming mirrors with moving images; traffic lights and signals; clanking, clattering mechanisms; movement everywhere.
I saw fifty feet up the tiers of sidewalks, a street of open-faced shops with merchandise on display. The narrow viaducts were a lacework of metal overhead. The city roof above them glowed with light—I think it was daytime.
Alan said: "There ought to be an official."
The milling crowd was mostly men. All garbed in sober colors—black and grays. Hatless, with close-clipped bullet heads. Close-fitting trousers with legs like jointed stove-pipes; short black jackets. Women with dark skirts like inverted funnels; hair close-clipped.
An official in white appeared. A roaring electrical megaphone on his chest magnified his voice. The crowd scattered obediently. He waded through it. He stood near us and roared at the congesting traffic. A halted swinging train above us, moved along. Signal lights flashed. The tangle of vehicles began struggling to sort itself out. Other officials—all in white uniforms—showed on the bridges, and in small rostrums on the different levels. A magnetic crane swung out into the air. It seized an offending vehicle—lifted it clear of the jam.
The officer gripped us. "Come with me."
English, readily understandable, yet wholly strange. I cannot set it down here. I cannot approximate its swift brevity—its suggestion of eliminated syllables; its close-clipped intonations. Compared with it, our own speech was ancient, flowing and flowery.
"Come—"