Ocenite etot tekst:


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     © Copyright Victor Pelevin
     Translation into English  © 1996  by  Serge Winitzki  and Sergey
Bratus
     Original etogo teksta raspolozhen po adresu http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/5344/fun/friends.html#translations
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     "Get lost."
     "???"
     "Like I said, get lost. Let me watch."
     "But what is it you are watching?"
     "Oh God, what an idiot... The Sun, OK?"
     Sixfinger looked up from the black turf covered with food, sawdust  and
peatcrumbs. He squinted and stared upward.
     "Well... We live and live -- but what for? A  mystery of  ages. And did
anybody even begin to grasp the thin, thread-like nature of the suns?"
     The stranger turned  his head and stared at  Sixfinger  with disdainful
curiosity.
     "Sixfinger," he immediately introduced himself.
     "I am called Hermit," the stranger  answered. "Do they say that in your
Socium? About the thin, thread-like nature?"
     "It's not `my Socium'  any more," Sixfinger said and suddenly whistled:
"Look at that!"
     "What?" Hermit asked suspiciously.
     "There, look! A new sun just appeared!"
     "So what?"
     "In the center of the world it never happens. Three suns together..."
     Hermit chuckled condescendingly.
     "Once I saw eleven at once. One was in the zenith and five more in each
epicycle. Although it wasn't around here."
     "Where was it then?" Sixfinger asked.
     Hermit kept silence. Turning away, he went aside  and chopped off  with
his foot  a piece of food from the ground, and ate. A gentle warm breeze and
the  reflection  of  the two suns  in grayish-green planes  of  the  distant
horizon made  for such a  serene  and sad  mood that  the  ponderous  Hermit
twitched when he saw Sixfinger again.
     "You are back. What do you want now?"
     "I just... wanted to talk."
     "Well,  but I think you are stupid," Hermit answered. "You'd better  go
back to the Socium. You've wandered too far, really, go back..."
     He waved his hand toward a narrow,  slightly  undulating and trembling,
dirty-yellow stripe  --  amazingly, that  was  what the huge, roaring  crowd
looked like from here.
     "I would go," Sixfinger said, "but they expelled me."
     "Really? And why? Political reasons?"
     Sixfinger  nodded and scratched one foot on the other. Hermit looked at
his feet and shook his head.
     "Are they real?"
     "Of course,  what else... They told me  outright: the  most,  one could
say,  Decisive  Stage  is coming, and  you  have  six  toes on your  feet...
Couldn't I find a better time for that, they said."
     "What is this `decisive stage' about?"
     "I don't know. Everybody is on the edge, especially the Twenty Closest,
but nobody makes any sense. They all just run around screaming."
     "Ah,  I see," Hermit said. "This Stage, is it perhaps getting  more and
more distinct by the hour? And its shape more clearly seen?"
     "Exactly," Sixfinger was surprised. "How do you know that?"
     "Well,  I have seen  about five  or  so of these Decisive Stages.  They
called them differently each time, though."
     "No way," Sixfinger said. "This is going to happen for the first time."
     "Oh sure. I would be curious  to see how it  could happen for a  second
time. But we are talking about somewhat different things."
     Hermit laughed quietly, walked away a bit, then turned  his back toward
the far-away Socium and started scratching the ground energetically with his
feet,  until a  cloud of  garbage  and  dust hung  in  the  air behind  him.
Meanwhile, he was looking back, waving his hands and muttering something.
     "What are you doing?" asked a somewhat frightened Sixfinger when Hermit
returned, breathing heavily.
     "This  is a gesture," Hermit answered. "Kind of an art form. You recite
a poem and make the corresponding action."
     "And which poem did you just recite?"
     "This one:

        At times I feel sad,
        looking at those I abandoned,
        At times I do laugh,
        and between us then rises
        a cloud of yellowish fog."

     "Why, it  isn't a  Poem," Sixfinger  said. "Thank God,  I  know all the
Poems. That is, not by heart, of course, but I have heard all twenty-five of
them. This one is surely not one of the Poems."
     Hermit regarded him in bewilderment but then seemingly understood.
     "Do you remember any of those Poems?" he asked. "Say it."
     "Just a minute.  The twins...  the twins...  Well,  anyway,  we say one
thing,  and we mean  another.  And then we again say  one thing, and we mean
another, but the other way around1. It's very beautiful. Finally, we look up
at the Wall, and there..."
     "Enough," Hermit said.
     There was silence, until Sixfinger broke it:
     "Listen, what about you -- where you also expelled?"
     "No. Actually, it was I, I expelled them all."
     "How could it happen that way?"
     "Things  happen in many  ways,"  Hermit said,  looked  at  one  of  the
celestial bodies,  and  added, as if he meant  to  stop  chatting and  start
talking seriously: "It's going to be dark soon."
     "Stop that," Sixfinger said, "nobody knows when it's going to be dark."
     "Well, I do  know. If you  want a good sleep, do as I do." And he began
to  shove  pieces  of  garbage, turf  and  sawdust  that lay on the  ground.
Gradually he made a wall about his own height that  encircled a  small empty
space.  Hermit  stepped away from the finished  structure,  gave it a loving
look and said:
     "Here. I call it `Refuge of the Soul'".
     "Why?" Sixfinger asked.
     "Just so. Beautiful words. Are you going to build one for yourself?"
     Sixfinger started picking at the garbage, but he couldn't manage it  --
the wall would collapse. Frankly speaking, he  didn't try very hard, because
he didn't believe any of what Hermit  said about the  darkness. But when the
lights in the Heaven flickered  and slowly began to fade  out, and he  heard
the people's terrified sigh from the Socium, like the rustle of wind in hay,
he felt two strong  feelings  form in his heart: the  usual  fear of  sudden
darkness  and a previously  unknown feeling of reverence  toward someone who
knew more about the world.
     "You got lucky," Hermit said. "Jump in. I will build another one."
     "I don't know how to jump," Sixfinger answered quietly.
     "So long, then," Hermit  said and, suddenly pushing the earth away with
all his might, dashed upwards and vanished behind the  wall. It  immediately
collapsed,  covering  him  with  a layer  of  sawdust  and  peatcrumbs.  The
resulting  mound  shivered  for some  time, then a small hole emerged on its
surface. Sixfinger just  managed to catch a glimmer  of  Hermit's eye -- and
all became completely dark.
     Of course Sixfinger  knew all  one needed to know about the night since
he could remember himself. "It's a natural process,"  some people would say.
The majority, though,  judged  that "one  must mind one's  duty." There were
many  shades of  opinion, but the same feeling was  shared  by all: when the
suns, for  no apparent  reason, went out,  everybody  struggled  briefly and
hopelessly with the agony of fear, fell  into  a stupor and  didn't remember
much  until the suns  lighted up  again.  The same thing used  to happen  to
Sixfinger  while he was living in the Socium, but now,  perhaps  because the
fear  of darkness combined with an equally  strong fear of  being alone  and
therefore doubled, he didn't fall into merciful daze. The moan of the people
already died  out, but he still crouched beside the mound  and cried softly.
He couldn't see anything, and  Hermit's voice in the darkness frightened him
so much that he had a bowel movement.
     "Listen, stop this pounding," Hermit said. "I can't fall asleep because
of you."
     "I  can't," Sixfinger answered quietly.  "It's  my heart.  Talk to  me,
please?"
     "What about?" Hermit asked.
     "About anything you want, but talk more."
     "Let's perhaps discuss the nature of fear?"
     "No, not that!" squeaked Sixfinger.
     "Be quiet!" hissed Hermit. "Or all the rats will be here in a moment."
     "What rats? What are they?" Sixfinger asked in a chilled voice.
     "They are creatures of the night. Actually, of the day as well."
     "I have such  a bad luck  in my life," whispered  Sixfinger. "If I only
had the right number of toes, I would be now sleeping with all. My God, what
a fright... Rats..."
     "Listen," Hermit  said after a pause, "why do you keep saying "God" all
the time? Do all of you here believe in God or what?"
     "Nobody knows. There  is  something  of that kind, that's for sure, but
nobody knows what. For example, why does it get dark? Of  course, one  could
explain it  by natural  causes. But if  one thinks  about God, one  won't do
anything in one's life..."
     "I wonder, what is it that one can do in one's life?" Hermit asked.
     "What do you mean? Don't ask such silly questions, as if you don't know
yourself. Everybody wants to get to the Feeder, as close as they can. That's
the law of life."
     "Got it. Then why is there all this?"
     "What `this'"?
     "Well, the Universe, Heaven, the Earth, the suns -- everything."
     "What do you mean, why? That's how the world is."
     "And how is it?" Hermit asked with interest.
     "It's  just like that. We move in space and time. According to the laws
of life."
     "But where do we move?"
     "Who knows where.  It's  a mystery of ages.  You know, one really could
get crazy talking to you."
     "No, it's  you who makes one crazy. Talk to  you about anything,  you'd
say it's the law of life, or a mystery of ages."
     "So don't talk if you don't like it," Sixfinger said, offended.
     "I wouldn't, but you were too afraid of being silent in the darkness."
     Sixfinger  somehow  completely  forgot  about  that.  He  examined  his
feelings  and suddenly noticed that he  didn't feel  any  fear at all.  This
frightened him  so much that he jumped  and ran away blindly into  the dark,
until he bumped headlong into the invisible World-wall.
     He  heard  Hermit's  screeching  laugh  from  far  away and  cautiously
wandered  toward these only sounds in  the  surrounding  total  silence  and
darkness. When  he  reached the  Hermit's  mound, he lay  down silently and,
despite  the  chill, tried to fall  asleep. The  moment  when  he  succeeded
escaped him.

--------


     "Today we are going to climb  over  the  World-wall,  you  understand?"
Hermit said.
     Sixfinger was just about to jump into the "Refuge of the Soul". Now his
Refuges  were about as  well-built  as Hermit's,  but the jump itself  still
required a long running  start, which he  was practicing  at the moment. The
meaning of Hermit's words  struck him  right when it was time  to jump; as a
result, he  rammed  into the  flimsy  edifice  so hard  that peatcrumbs  and
sawdust, instead of covering  his body by an  even  and soft  layer, got all
piled up over  his head,  while  his feet  lost ground  and hung in the air.
Hermit helped him out and repeated:
     "Today we shall climb over the World-wall."
     During the last  few days  Sixfinger has  heard so many strange  things
from  Hermit  that something  in  his  soul  was  continually  creaking  and
thumping.  His former life in  the  Socium now appeared  to  him  as a naive
fantasy or as  a nightmarish farce -- he  hasn't quite made up his mind yet.
But this was still too much.
     The Hermit went on, though:
     "The Decisive Stage comes after seventy eclipses, and yesterday was the
sixty-ninth. Numbers rule the universe."
     He pointed to a long chain  of straws stuck into the  turf right  under
the World-wall.
     "But how? You  cannot climb the World-wall  -- it  is a World-wall! The
name itself... There's  nothing  beyond  it,  nothing..."  Sixfinger  was so
flabbergasted that he missed  the dark mysticism  of Hermit's  explanations,
which otherwise would have certainly upset him.
     "Well, so what that there's nothing  there? We should actually be quite
happy about it."
     "But what are we going to do there?"
     "Live there."
     "Why, what is so bad about this place?"
     "Just that very soon there will be no `this place', you fool."
     "What will remain here then?"
     "Stay here and you shall find out. Nothing."
     Sixfinger felt that he had no certainty whatsoever left in him.
     "Why do you have to scare me like that all the time?"
     "Stop  whining, will you?" muttered Hermit,  anxiously eyeing something
in  the  sky. "It's not that bad  there, over  the World-wall. Suits me much
better than here, anyway.
     He  walked over to the  ruins of Sixfinger's  `Refuge  of the Soul' and
started leveling them out with his feet.
     "Why are you doing this?" Sixfinger asked him.
     "Before  one  leaves  a world, one  has to  generalize  the  experience
acquired in it and then destroy all traces  of ever having lived there. It's
a tradition."
     "Who invented it? "
     "What  does it matter?  Well, I did.  You see, there aren't  any others
around here. That'll do..."
     Hermit  surveyed his work -- the place where  the  ruins have  been was
presently as smooth as the rest of the desert around them.
     "That's  all," he  said. "Now we've  got to generalize the  experience.
Your turn, climb this hummock and get to it."
     Sixfinger thought he was short-changed: he was  given  the  harder and,
moreover, a completely  unclear task.  However,  after  the first eclipse he
knew better than  to argue with Hermit. He shrugged,  looked around (in case
somebody from the Socium has wandered here) and climbed the hummock.
     "What should I say?"
     "Everything you know about the world."
     Sixfinger whistled.
     "Going to take us quite a while."
     "I don't think so," Hermit dryly replied.
     "All right. So, our world... That's one idiotic ritual, by the way..."
     "Don't get distracted."
     "Our  world  is  a  regular  octagon  moving  in  space  uniformly  and
rectilinearly.  Here  we  prepare ourselves  for  the  Decisive  Stage,  the
crowning  moment  of  our happy  lives. At  any rate, this is  the  official
formula. Around the  perimeter of the world stands the so-called World-wall,
which  has objectively appeared  as a  result of  the Laws  of Life. In  the
center of the world is the two-tiered Feeder, around which  our civilization
has been living since ancient times. The place of an individual with respect
to the Feeder is determined by his social worth and services..."
     "Haven't  heard   this  before,"  Hermit  interrupted  him.  "What  are
services? And social worth?"
     "Well... How should I say... It's when someone gets really close to the
Feeder."
     "And who gets there?"
     "Like I  said, those  with  most  services.  Or  social worth.  I,  for
example, had very few services before, and  now none at  all. Are you saying
you don't know the People's Model of the Universe?"
     "No, I don't," Hermit said.
     "Are  you nuts?..  But  then how were  you preparing  for  the Decisive
Stage?"
     "I'll tell you later. Go on."
     "Well, that's almost all. Outside the zone of the Socium lies the Great
Waste, bordered by  the the  World-wall. Near it is  the place for renegades
like us."
     "Clear enough. And where did the log come from?  Meaning, all the other
things?"
     "Hey, relax. Even the Twenty Closest wouldn't know  that.  A mystery of
ages."
     "So. And what is this mystery of ages?"
     "The  Law  of  Life,"  Sixfinger  said,  trying  to  speak  soothingly.
Something about the tone of Hermit's question worried him.
     "OK. And what is the Law of Life?"
     "That is a mystery of ages."
     "A mystery of  ages?!" Hermit  asked  with a strangely shrill voice and
started slowly edging towards Sixfinger.
     "Hey,  what's  wrong  with  you?  Stop  that!" Sixfinger  was genuinely
scared. "It's your ritual after all, not mine!"
     But Hermit already came back to his senses.
     "All right, I got it. Get down."
     Sixfinger climbed  down  from the hummock, and  Hermit  took his place.
Serious and concentrated, he kept silent for a some time, as if listening to
something. Then he raised his head and spoke.
     "I came here from another world, in the days when you were  very young.
To that world I came  from yet another one and so on. Altogether I have been
to  five  worlds.  They  are much  the  same as this one and  can  hardly be
distinguished from  each other.  The universe where  we all live is  a  huge
closed space.  In the language  of  the Gods it  is called the `V.  I. Lenin
Broiler Factory',2 but the meaning of this name is unknown."
     "You know the language of the Gods?" Sixfinger asked in bewilderment.
     "A little. Don't interrupt. There  are seventy  worlds in the universe,
and we  are  now in  one  of  them.  The  worlds  are  all  attached  to  an
unfathomable black band which is slowly moving in a circle. Above it, on the
visible surface of the sky, are hundreds of identical suns. Thus they do not
move over us, but we are moving under them. Try to picture this."
     Sixfinger closed his eyes. His face showed signs of strain.
     "No, I can't," he said at last.
     "All right, listen  on. All seventy worlds in this  universe are called
the Chain of the Worlds. At any rate they may be called that. Life exists in
each world, but not  at all times.  It emerges  and  vanishes.  The Decisive
Stage  occurs in the middle  of  the universe,  through which all the worlds
pass one by one. In the language of the Gods it is called `Shop Number One'.
Our world is just about to enter it. When the Decisive Stage is finished and
the renewed world leaves the Shop Number One, everything  begins anew.  Life
appears, goes  through the cycle and in due time is again  thrown  into  the
Shop Number One."
     "How do you know all this?" the awed Sixfinger asked in a quiet voice.
     "I  traveled  much,"  Hermit  replied,  "and collected  bits  of secret
knowledge. In one world one thing was known, in another something else."
     "Then maybe you know where we come from?"
     "I do. What do they say in your world?"
     "That it is a given objective reality; such is the Law of Life."
     "I see. You are asking about one of the deepest  mysteries of the order
of things, and I  even doubt I can  entrust it to  you. But since there's no
one else to share it with anyway, I'll  tell you. We come to this world from
white  spheres. Actually, those  are not  quite spheres,  they  are somewhat
oblong, and larger at one end, but this is not important now.
     "Spheres. White spheres," repeated Sixfinger, and fell to the ground as
he  stood.  The weight of what he has just  learned  was so great that for a
moment Sixfinger  thought he would die. Hermit sprang to his side and  shook
him violently. Presently Sixfinger came to his senses.
     "What happened to you?" Hermit asked, a bit frightened.
     "I.. I remembered! Just like that. We were those  white spheres and lay
on long shelves. That  place was moist  and  very warm.  Then we started  to
break  the spheres, and... From  somewhere below  our world was brought  and
then we were inside it... But how come nobody remembers it?"
     "There are worlds where it is remembered," said Hermit. "Fifth or sixth
prenatal matrix, big deal. Not  so deep, and  it's only a part of the truth.
But  anyway,  they  hide away  those  who do  remember,  so that they  don't
interfere  with  getting ready  for the Decisive Stage, or  whatever  it  is
called. In my world they used to  call it `Completion of the  Construction',
although no one was building anything."
     Obviously, memories of his own world upset Hermit. He fell silent.
     "Listen," Sixfinger asked after a while, "where do those white  spheres
come from?"
     Hermit glanced at him approvingly.
     "I needed much more time before  I could ask  this question.  But it is
very complicated. In one ancient legend it is said that these eggs come from
us, but this may well be only a metaphor."
     "From us? It's not clear. Where did you hear it?"
     "I  made  it up, of  course.  As if you can  hear anything around these
parts," Hermit said with unexpected melancholy.
     "But you said it was an ancient legend."
     "Yes. I simply made it up as an ancient legend."
     "How? And why?"
     "You see, one ancient philosopher, or one can even  say a prophet (this
time  Sixfinger  realized  who  that  was) remarked  that  it is  not always
important what is said, but who says  it. Some of the meaning of what I said
was that  my words were to play the role of an ancient legend. But you won't
understand anyway..."
     Hermit looked at the sky and interrupted himself.
     "Enough of this. We must go."
     "Where?"
     "To the Socium."
     Sixfinger stared.
     "I though you said we were  going  to  climb the World-wall. What do we
need the Socium for?"
     "But do you know what a  Socium really is?" Hermit asked in return. "It
is actually a means of climbing the World-wall."

--------


     In  spite of a complete  lack  of any  objects  behind which  to  hide,
Sixfinger walked through the  desert  furtively, and the closer they  got to
the Socium, the more criminal his  gait became. Gradually  the  huge  crowd,
which  seemed an immense  stirring  beast  from  afar,  split  into separate
bodies, and one could even see  the surprised faces of those  who saw Hermit
and Sixfinger approach.
     "The main thing," Hermit was whispering his  last instructions, "is  to
be arrogant. But not too arrogant. We must infuriate them -- but not so that
they tear us apart. Just keep looking at what I will be doing."
     "Look,  Sixfinger's  back!"  someone   shouted  cheerfully.  "Hey,  you
bastard! Who is it with you?"
     This stupid shout brought  on Sixfinger  a nostalgic wave  of childhood
memories, unexpectedly and  for no  reason. Hermit, who  walked  behind him,
seemed to feel it and prodded Sixfinger's back.
     At the outer edge of the Socium they had no trouble getting through, it
was easy  to  walk around the crowd-avoiding  Observers and the disabled who
lived there. But further on the crowd was thicker, and  very soon Hermit and
Sixfinger found it unbearable. They could  barely move forward by constantly
barking at the  people around them. When they  spotted the vibrating roof of
the  Feeder over people's heads,  they were  unable  to  make a  single step
forward.
     "It  always  amazed  me,"  Hermit was quietly  telling  Sixfinger, "how
wisely  it  is all organized. Those who  are  close to the Feeder are  happy
because they remember the others who want to take their place. And those who
spend their lives waiting for  a space between the  ones ahead  of them, are
happy because  they have hope in their life. This  is indeed the harmony and
the unity."
     "So you don't like it?" asked a voice from their side.
     "No, I don't," Hermit answered.
     "And what exactly don't you like?"
     "Well, everything," Hermit made  a wide  gesture toward the  crowd, the
grand dome of the Feeder, the yellow glimmering lights in the Heaven and the
distant, barely visible World-wall.
     "I see. And where do you think it's better?"
     "Nowhere, that's the  tragedy of it  all!  That's  the point!"  shouted
Hermit  passionately.  "If  it  were  better  someplace  else,  would  I  be
discussing this with you here?"
     "And your buddy --  is he also  of the same opinion?" the voice  asked,
"Why is he looking at the ground?"
     Sixfinger raised his head (he was trying to minimize his involvement by
staring at his feet) and saw the owner of the voice. His face was obese from
overeating, and one could distinctly see the  anatomy of his throat  when he
spoke. Sixfinger understood  at once that the voice belonged to one  of  the
Twenty Closest, the very and utmost Conscience of the Epoch3. It seemed that
he was leading a clarification meeting there, as it was done sometimes, just
before Hermit and Sixfinger arrived.
     "You are upset,  buddies,"  he said  in an  unexpectedly friendly tone,
"because you don't participate, with  all others, in our preparation for the
Decisive Step.  If  you did, you'd have no time for such thoughts. Once in a
while even I get such crazy stuff in my head  that... And, you know, my work
helps me  at  those times."  And in the same tone of voice he  added:  "Take
them."
     There was  a  movement in the crowd, and at  once Hermit  and Sixfinger
were held tightly from all four sides.
     "Oh, we couldn't care less  about you," Hermit said, his voice just  as
friendly. "Where are you going to take us?  There's nowhere  to take us  to.
Well, you could expel  us again. As they  say, one can't  throw it over  the
World-wall..."
     Then Hermit's face expressed astonishment, and the fat-faced one lifted
his eyes to meet Hermit's stare.
     "Hm, an interesting suggestion. We haven't done this before. Of course,
there is this saying, but the will of the people is stronger."
     This thought seemed to excite him. He turned and ordered:
     "Attention! Line up! We are going to have an unplanned event."
     Very soon  after  that the procession  that  lead Hermit and  Sixfinger
approached the World-wall.
     The procession  was impressive.  The fat-faced one marched  first, then
the two  assigned to be Old Mothers (nobody,  including the  fat-faced  one,
knew what that meant, it was just a tradition). The tearful  Mothers shouted
invectives to Hermit and Sixfinger, weeping over them and condemning them at
the same  time.  After them  the criminals themselves  were guided,  finally
followed by the mob of the People.
     "So,"  the  fat-faced  one  said  when  the  procession  stopped,  "the
frightening  moment of  retaliation has come. I think, my brothers,  that we
will all squint when these two renegades  dissolve in the void of non-being,
won't we? And let this touching event serve as a beautiful lesson to us all,
to the People. Weep louder, Mothers!"
     The Old Mothers fell onto the ground and wept so inconsolably that many
of those present had to look away and swallow hard; but once in a while they
would stand up  from the tear-strewn dust and, with gleaming eyes, assaulted
Hermit and Sixfinger with  terrible and irrevocable accusations,  whereafter
they would fall back exhausted.
     "So," the fat-faced one said in a short while, "have you repented? Have
the tears of the Mothers put you to shame?"
     "You bet," said a worried Hermit, who was watching the ceremony as well
as some celestial bodies, "but how are you going to throw us over it?"
     The fat-faced one  pondered. The Old Mothers fell silent, too, then one
of them stood up, from the dust, cleaned himself up and said:
     "A ridge?"
     "A ridge," Hermit said,  "would take about five  solstices, and we  are
rather impatient to hide our exposed shame in the void."
     The  fat-faced  one  squinted  slyly,  looked  at  Hermit   and  nodded
approvingly.
     "They understand," he said to one  of his  men,  "they just  put  up  a
pretense. Ask them, maybe they will suggest a way themselves?"
     In a few minutes, a  live pyramid rose  up  almost to the very brink of
the World-wall. Those standing at  top closed their eyes and hid their faces
lest they, God forbid, catch a glimpse of the place where everything ends.
     "Up," was the  order,  and Hermit and Sixfinger, supporting each other,
walked up the shaky ladder of shoulders and backs to the brink of the Wall.
     From above they could see the whole of the quietly observing Socium and
discern some previously unknown details of the Heaven. The thick pipe  which
went from the infinity  down to the Feeder did  not seem as grand as  it did
from the earth. Hermit  easily jumped on the brink of the World-wall, helped
Sixfinger to sit beside him and shouted:
     "All done!"
     From  his shouting, someone  in  the living pyramid  lost balance;  the
pyramid faltered and collapsed -- but nobody, thank God, was hurt.
     Sixfinger clutched the  cold  metal  of the Wall and stared at the tiny
upturned faces, at the  grayish-brown expanses  of his Motherland; he looked
at the large green spot on the  World-wall where he spent his  childhood. "I
will never see this  again," he thought, and  although  he  didn't have much
desire  to  see  it  again,  he felt a  lump in his throat all  the same. He
clasped  a small piece of turf with a straw glued to it, and mused about the
swift and irreversible changes in his life.
     "Farewell, our dear sons!" the Old  Mothers cried from below, bowed low
and, still weeping, started throwing heavy peatcrumbs up in the air.
     Hermit stood on his tiptoes and cried loudly:

        "I always knew
        that I will leave
        this merciless world..."

     Then  a big piece of  turf hit him, and  he  fell  down,  arms and legs
asunder. Sixfinger looked around  for the last time and saw someone from the
distant crowd below waving him farewell -- and he waved back. Then he closed
his eyes and stepped back.
     He tumbled in the air  for  a  few  seconds, and  then  suddenly bumped
painfully into something solid and opened his eyes. He lay on a black, shiny
surface of unknown material next to the World-wall which  looked exactly the
same as from  the other side. Hermit stood beside him,  his arm  extended to
the Wall, and finished reciting his poem:

        "But little I thought
        the parting happens thus..."

     Then he turned to Sixfinger and curtly motioned him to stand up.

--------


     Now, marching alongside the huge black band, Sixfinger finally believed
in the truth of  Hermit's words. The  world they had left was indeed carried
by this band which was  slowly  moving with respect to other cosmic  objects
whose  nature was  quite  unfathomable for  Sixfinger;  and  the  suns  were
stationary.  It became quite  clear once  they left the  band.  Their former
world  was   approaching  the  green  steel  gates   under  which  the  band
disappeared. Hermit  told him that  this was the very entrance  to  the Shop
Number One. Curiously, Sixfinger hardly felt any awe in the face of the many
mysterious  objects  that  filled the  Universe;  quite  on the contrary,  a
disappointment  and  even a  slight annoyance were rising in his  soul. "And
that is all...?"  he thought disgustedly. Afar Sixfinger saw two more worlds
moving with the band, looking rather shabby from his vantage point. At first
Sixfinger  thought  that one of these  was their goal, but  halfway  through
Hermit ordered him to  jump from the stationary border of  the band on which
they were now strolling into the bottomless black chasm below.
     "It's soft there," he  said, but Sixfinger  took a  step back and shook
his head. Then,  without  a word, Hermit jumped  down, and Sixfinger  had to
follow him into the blackness.
     This time he almost  hurt  himself,  smashing  against  the cold  stone
surface  paved  with  large  brown slabs.  The pavement stretched  as far as
Sixfinger could see, and it was beautiful.
     "What is it?" he breathed.
     "Ceramic  Tile," Hermit  replied  with a  strange word and changed  the
topic. "It will  be dark soon," he said, "and we have to  reach  those parts
over there. We will have to walk in the dark.
     Hermit looked seriously worried. Far away Sixfinger glimpsed many cubic
cliffs of  a tender yellow  hue  (`crates', as Hermit called them);  between
them were  valleys with hills of golden wood  shavings.  From here it looked
like a happy childhood dream-land.
     "Let's go," Hermit said and briskly trotted forward.
     "Listen," Sixfinger asked, trying  to keep  his  pace  on the  slippery
tiles, "how do you know when the night comes?"
     "By  the clock," Hermit  answered. "It is  one of the celestial bodies.
Now it's to the right, up there -- that disk with black zigzags."
     Sixfinger  looked at the fairly  familiar detail of the firmament which
he never paid much attention to.
     "When  some of  these black  lines  take a specific position,  sometime
later  I'll tell  you about  it, the lights will go out. It will happen very
soon now. Count to ten."
     "One, two," Sixfinger started, and suddenly it was dark.
     "Don't fall behind," Hermit warned, "or you'll get lost."
     He could have spared his warning -- Sixfinger  was right at his  heels.
The only  light left in the Universe  was a  yellow  ray  slanting down from
under the green gates of the Shop Number One. The place where they  were now
heading  lay not far from those gates, but, according to Hermit, it was  the
safest one.
     Only the glowing  crack  beneath the gates far away and a  few adjacent
tiles were visible now. Sixfinger was lost in weird feelings. It  seemed  to
him that the darkness around them was squeezing them, just as  the crowd did
not  long  ago. Danger was  everywhere, he felt it with  all his skin  as  a
chilling draught from  all directions  at  once. When fear was about to take
the better of him, he raised his eyes from  the advancing floor tiles to the
yellow band of light ahead, and  was  reminded of  the  Socium, which looked
almost  the same from the  distance. He imagined that they were going to the
realm  of fire spirits, and he was  going to  tell that  to Hermit, when the
latter stopped abruptly and raised his hand.
     "Quiet," he whispered. "Rats, to the right."
     There  was  nowhere to run -- all around them stretched the  tiles, and
the band of light was too far away. Hermit turned to the right and assumed a
strange posture,  motioning Sixfinger to hide behind his back. Sixfinger did
just that, with surprising willingness and alacrity.
     At first he didn't notice much, but soon he felt, rather  than saw, the
movement of  a huge, powerful body in the  darkness. It stopped right on the
brink of visibility.
     "She waits," Hermit said  quietly, "for our next step. If  we move, she
will attack."
     "Yeah,  right," the rat  emerged from the darkness,  "with the rage  of
evil incarnate. As a true creature of Night."
     "Oomph," Hermit sighed in relief. "One-Eye! I thought we were really in
trouble. Meet my friend."
     Sixfinger apprehensively looked at the  clever conical snout with large
whiskers and two black beady eyes.
     "One-Eye," the rat said and wagged her obscenely nude tail.
     "Sixfinger," he  introduced himself and  asked,  "Why  are  you  called
One-Eye?
     "My third eye is open,"  she  replied, "and  there's only  one. In some
sense all those with the third eye open are one-eyed."
     "But  what  is the..."  Sixfinger  started  but he  was  interrupted by
Hermit.
     "Shall we enjoy  a stroll together," he gallantly proposed,  "to  those
crates? Night road is dull without a conversation."
     Sixfinger felt deeply insulted.
     "My pleasure," agreed One-Eye, and, turning her side to Sixfinger (only
now  he  realized  how  huge and  muscular  her  body  really was),  trotted
alongside  Hermit. He  had  to quicken his step considerably to keep up with
her.  Sixfinger ran in the  rear, glancing at  the  rat's  hind legs and the
movements  of  her powerful  muscles  and  thinking  about  what could  have
happened to them, had not One-Eye been Hermit's chum. He tried very hard not
to step on her tail. Judging by how fast  their conversation began  to sound
like a continuation of some old dispute, they knew each other long indeed.
     "Freedom? My God, what is it?" One-Eye was asking sarcastically. "Is it
when, alone and  afraid, you run around the entire factory and for the tenth
or umpteenth time avoid the knife? Is that freedom?"
     "You are  again confusing everything," Hermit answered. "This  is  only
search  for  freedom.  I will never  agree with the infernal picture  of the
world you are painting. Perhaps it's because you feel alien in this Universe
created for us."
     "But the rats believe  that it was created for them.  It's  not  that I
agree with  them; you are right, of course, but not  entirely right, and not
where  it really matters.  You say  that  this Universe was created for your
folk?  In reality it was created  because  of you,  but not  for you. Do you
understand?"
     Hermit hung his head and strolled silently for some time.
     "Alright," said One-Eye. "I only wanted to say goodbye. I thought you'd
show up a bit later, but we met anyway. I am leaving tomorrow."
     "Where to?"
     "Beyond the borders of  everything  one can talk about. An  old  burrow
brought me into a hollow concrete pipe that leads so far away that I find it
hard to think  about it.  I met  a couple of other rats there -- they say it
goes  deeper  and  deeper,  and  there,  far below, opens  into  a different
Universe. Only male gods in identical green clothes live there. They perform
complex rites around huge idols standing in deep shafts.
     The rat slowed down.
     "Here I  must  turn right," she said. "And the food in there  is beyond
any  description.  This Universe could fit into  just one  of those  shafts.
Listen, why don't you come with me?"
     "No," Hermit said. "Down is not our way."
     It seemed that he remembered Si1xfinger for the first time during  this
talk.
     "Well," said One-Eye, "then  I wish you luck on your  way, whatever  it
turns out to be. You know how much I love you."
     "I too love you a lot, One-Eye, and hope that the thought  of  you will
sustain me. I wish you luck."
     "Farewell!" said the rat,  nodded to  Sixfinger, and vanished  into the
darkness as quickly as she appeared.
     Hermit  and Sixfinger made the rest of the way in silence. They reached
the crates, crossed a few hills of wood shavings and finally came to the end
of their journey. Waiting  for them was a little  depression in the shavings
filled with many long and soft rags, dimly illuminated by the light from the
Shop Number One. Close by  at the wall stood a  vast  many-edged  structure;
Hermit said that once it was radiating so  much  heat  that it could not  be
approached. Hermit  was definitely  in  bad spirits. He kept turning in  the
rags preparing to sleep, and  Sixfinger decided not to bother  him  with any
more talk, the more  so that  he was sleepy himself. He quickly wrapped some
rags around him and sank into oblivion.
     He was awakened by the sounds of screeching steel, of  pounding against
wood, and cries filled  with such unspeakable  despair  that  he immediately
rushed to Hermit's side.
     "What's that?!"
     "Your world is passing through the Decisive Stage," Hermit replied.
     "???"
     "Death has  come,"  Hermit said simply, turned away, pulled  a rag over
himself and slept.

--------


     Hermit  woke  up, glanced at  a  shivering, sobbing  Sixfinger  in  his
corner, chuckled  and searched through his rags.  He soon produced  about  a
dozen  identical  iron  objects  which resembled pieces  cut  from  a  thick
hexagonal pipe.
     "Look at this," he said to Sixfinger.
     "What is it?" Sixfinger asked.
     "The gods call them `nuts'".
     Sixfinger wanted to ask something else, but suddenly waved his hand and
started weeping again.
     "Say, what is it with you?" Hermit asked.
     "They all died," muttered Sixfinger, "all of them..."
     "So what," Hermit said. "You shall die  too. I can even assure you that
both you and they will remain dead for an equal duration of time."
     "It's a pity, all the same."
     "Whom do  you pity? Maybe, the Old Mothers? Or maybe that one, from the
Twenty Closest?"
     "Do you remember when  they  threw us off the  Wall?" Sixfinger  asked,
"Everybody  was  ordered  to close  their  eyes. But  I  waved  to them, and
somebody  waved back  to me.  When I think that he is also  dead... And what
made him wave is dead, too..."
     "Yes," said a smiling Hermit, "this is in fact very sad."
     The silence was broken only by mechanical sounds behind the green gates
into which Sixfinger's home world had disappeared.
     "Listen," Sixfinger said  after he was done crying. "What happens after
death?"
     "It's  hard to say," Hermit  answered. "I had many  visions about that,
but I don't know how reliable they are."
     "Would you tell me, please?"
     "After death we are, as a rule, thrown into Hell. I have found at least
fifty varieties of  what happens to us there. Sometimes, our dead bodies are
dissected and  fried on  huge  pans. Sometimes  we are  baked  whole in iron
chambers with glass doors, by a burning blue fire or by white-hot metal rods
that radiate searing heat. Sometimes we are boiled in monstrous pots painted
in  many colors. At other  times, we are frozen in blocks of  ice. In  other
words, nothing too comforting."
     "But who is doing that to us?"
     "What do you mean, who? The gods."
     "Why do they need it?"
     "Well, you see, we are their food."
     Sixfinger shuddered and carefully regarded his trembling knees.
     "They  like legs the best,"  remarked Hermit. "Well, and hands,  too. I
was actually going to talk to you about our hands. Lift them up."
     Sixfinger stretched out his  hands --  thin and powerless,  they looked
rather pitiful.
     "A  long time ago we used our hands for flying," Hermit said, "but then
everything changed."
     "And what is `flying'"?
     "Nobody knows exactly. The only known fact is that one must have strong
arms. Much stronger than yours  or even mine. That's why I want to teach you
an exercise. Take two of these nuts."
     With great effort Sixfinger  dragged two enormous  weights  to Hermit's
feet.
     "Good. Now put your hands through the holes."
     Sixfinger complied.
     "Move your hands up and down... Like this."
     In a minute Sixfinger was so tired that he couldn't raise his  hands no
matter how he tried.
     "That's  it," he  said,  lowering his hands,  and the nuts fell  on the
floor.
     "Now  look at me doing  it," Hermit said and loaded each hand with five
nuts. After holding out both hands for a  couple of minutes, he did not seem
tired in the least.
     "What do you think?"
     "Outstanding," mouthed Sixfinger. "But why do you hold them still?"
     "Otherwise, a difficulty  appears  at some point in this exercise.  You
will later understand what I mean," Hermit answered.
     "But are you sure that one can learn to fly that way?"
     "No. I am not  sure. On the  contrary,  I suspect that it is a  useless
activity."
     "Then why do you need it? If you know that it is useless?"
     "How should I say... Because I know many other things, and one of  them
is: if you are in the dark and notice even  a weakest ray of light, you must
follow it  instead of pondering whether or not it might make sense. Perhaps,
it  doesn't in fact make  sense. But sitting in  the dark and  doing nothing
doesn't make sense anyway. Do you understand the difference?"
     Sixfinger was silent.
     "We are alive while  we have hope," Hermit said. "And if you lose hope,
you should never let yourself realize that. Then something might change. But
one shouldn't seriously hope for that."
     Sixfinger felt somewhat annoyed.
     "All this is great," he said, "but what does it really mean for us?"
     "For you it  really means  that you shall  do exercises  with  the nuts
every  day, until you  can do the same  as I. For me it means that  I  shall
watch your progress as if it is indeed important for me."
     "Isn't there anything else for us to do?" Sixfinger asked.
     "There  is," Hermit answered. "We could be preparing ourselves  for the
Decisive Stage. But in that case you'd be on your own."

--------


     "Listen, Hermit, you know everything. So tell me, what is love?"
     "I wonder where you picked up that word," Hermit asked.
     "When they drove me away from the Socium, someone  asked if I loved the
right things. I said I didn't know. And then One-Eye said that she loved you
very much, and you said that you loved her."
     "I see. It's actually hard to explain. Let's take an example -- imagine
you fell into a water barrel and are drowning."
     "OK."
     "Then imagine that for a second your head came above the water, you saw
the  light,  gulped in some air and something touched your  hands.  And  you
grabbed it and held on to it. Now if your whole life is like drowning -- and
it is -- then love is what helps you to keep your head above the water."
     "You mean the love of the right things?"
     "What you  love  is not really  important. Of course, one  can love the
right things even under water.  Whatever it is you love and  hold on  to, it
must hold  you. The worst is when you love someone else -- you see,  he  can
always withdraw his hand.  To make  a long story  short,  love  is what puts
everyone where he is. Except maybe the dead. Well, actually..."
     "I think I never loved anything," interrupted Sixfinger.
     "Oh yes, you've been there too. Remember how you cried all day thinking
about the  guy who waved you back when they threw us over the wall? That was
love. You don't know why he did it,  do you? Maybe he thought he was mocking
you in a much subtler fashion than others. And I personally think he was. So
your crying  for  him was  pretty foolish, but absolutely  right. Love gives
meaning to what we do, although it isn't really there. "
     "So is love cheating us? Is it something like a dream?"
     "No, love is something like  love, while a  dream is  a dream.  All the
things you do, you do them because of love. Otherwise you'd just sit  on the
ground and howl in horror. Or in disgust."
     "But many people do what they do not at all because of love."
     "Come on. They do nothing."
     "And do you love something, Hermit?"
     "I do."
     "What is it?"
     "I don't know. It comes to me sometimes. Sometimes it's a thought, or a
nut, or the wind. The important thing is, I  know it when it comes to me, in
whatever disguise, and I meet it with the best I have in me."
     "How?"
     "I grow calm."
     "Do you mean you worry the rest of the time?"
     "No. I am always calm. It's just the best I can be, so when what I love
shows itself to me, I meet it with my calmness."
     "What you you think is best in me?"
     "In you? I think it's when you sit silently somewhere out of sight."
     "Really?"
     "I don't  know. Seriously, you  can find out  yourself what is  best in
you, because this is how you meet what you are in  love  with.  What did you
feel thinking about that guy who waved? "
     "Sadness."
     "Well  then,  sadness  it is.  That's the  best you have, and  you will
always meet the things you love with sadness.
     Hermit looked around and stood for a moment, listening.
     "Want to have a look at the gods?" he asked unexpectedly.
     "Please, not now," Sixfinger was visibly frightened.
     "Don't be afraid, they are stupid. Look, there they are."
     Two huge creatures walked quickly beside the conveyor  belt.  They were
so huge that their heads were hardly visible in the dusk under the  ceiling.
They were  followed by another similar creature, somewhat lower and  fatter,
carrying a conical  vessel  with the narrow end down.  The first two stopped
not far from the place  where Hermit and Sixfinger sat, and started emitting
low rumbling sounds  ("They  speak",  guessed Sixfinger),  while  the  third
creature reached the wall, put its vessel on the ground, dipped in it a long
pole  with bristles on its end, and  drew a fresh line of dirty gray on  the
dirty gray wall. The smell was funny.
     "Listen," whispered  Sixfinger as  quietly  as he could, "you  said you
understood their language. What are they saying?"
     "Those  two?  Wait. The first is saying  `I wanna slug', and the other,
'Don't you ever come close to Dun'ka!'"
     "What's Dun'ka?"
     "A region of the world."
     "Uh, and what does the first one want to slug?"
     "Dun'ka, of course," Hermit said after giving it some thought.
     "How can he slug in a whole region of the world?"
     "Well, they are gods, aren't they?"
     "And this fat one, what does she say?"
     "She  is not  speaking but singing.  About how after death she wants to
become a willow. My favorite divine song, by the way. Some day  I'll sing it
to you. Unfortunately, I don't know what a willow is."
     "Do gods die?"
     "Of course. That is their main business."
     The  two gods moved  on,  their heavy footfall  and low rumbling voices
receded,  and it  was quiet. "What greatness!"  thought  a shaken Sixfinger.
Small particles of  dust were  stirred up  by a draught and swirled over the
tiled  floor. Sixfinger  suddenly  felt  as if  he was  looking down from an
incredibly  high  mountain  peak  at a  strange  stony  wasteland below, the
wasteland where nothing changes in  a million years: the same wind blows and
carries  remnants  of  people's lives, which  from afar  look like pieces of
straw,  shreds of paper and chips  of  wood. "Some day,"  thought Sixfinger,
"someone else  would look  from  this place  down  and think  about  me, not
knowing  that he is thinking about me. Just as I  am now thinking of someone
who felt what  I am feeling,  God  knows when. Every  day  there is a moment
connecting it to both the past and the future. Why is this world filled with
so much sadness?..."
     "And yet there is something in it  that justifies even the saddest kind
of life," Hermit said suddenly.
     "When I  die,  I  want to become a wee-ee-llow,"  quietly sang  the fat
goddess near  the bucket of paint. Sixfinger, his  head rested on his elbow,
was submerged in  sadness,  while Hermit was perfectly calm and  looked into
the void, as if above thousands and thousands of invisible heads.

--------


     While  Sixfinger  was  busy exercising  with  the nuts, as many as  ten
worlds passed into the Shop Number One. Something creaked and pounded behind
the green gates, something was being done there. A mere thought of that made
Sixfinger shiver in cold sweat, but it also gave him strength. His arms were
noticeably longer  and stronger now, like  Hermit's. Yet nothing came out of
their  exercises. The only thing Hermit  knew was that flying  was done with
one's arms, but it was unclear what exactly it  was. Hermit thought that  it
was a way of  instantaneous transport  in space:  one needs  to imagine  the
place  one  wants  to  be,  and  then give  one's hands  a  thought order to
transport one's  whole  body there. Hermit spent  days on  end in meditation
trying to transport himself even a few steps away, to no avail.
     "Perhaps," he would  tell  Sixfinger,  "our  arms  are  not yet  strong
enough. We must continue."
     Once, as Hermit and Sixfinger  were sitting on  a  pile of rags between
the crates trying to discern the essence of  things, an extremely unpleasant
event happened. The light darkened a bit, and when Sixfinger opened his eyes
he saw a huge unshaven face of a god looming before him.
     "Look at them here," said the face. Enormous dirty hands grabbed Hermit
and  Sixfinger from  between the crates,  transported them  with  incredible
speed over a  vast  expanse and dropped them into one of the worlds not  too
far from  the Shop Number One. At first, Hermit and Sixfinger took it calmly
and even with  a bit of irony. They settled near the World-wall and began to
build Refuges  of the  Soul for themselves. But suddenly  the  god returned,
took Sixfinger out  and, after examining him, whistled in surprise. Then the
god wound a  strip of blue adhesive  tape around his leg and threw him back.
In a few minutes, several gods came  by, took Sixfinger out and examined him
one by one, making excited exclamations.
     "I don't like this  at  all," Hermit  said  when  the  gods finally put
Sixfinger down and left. "We are in trouble."
     "I  think  so,  too," answered  a frightened Sixfinger. "Maybe I should
take off this piece of junk?"
     He pointed to the blue tape around his leg.
     "No, don't take it off yet," Hermit said.
     They sat in gloomy silence for a while. Then Sixfinger said:
     "It's all because of my  six toes. Even if we escape  from  this place,
they will  be looking for us  again.  They already know about the crates. Is
there any other place to hide?"
     Hermit became  even  more dejected and, instead of answering, suggested
visiting the local Socium to improve spirits.
     But it appeared that a delegation from the  far-away Feeder was already
approaching  them. About twenty steps away  from  Hermit and  Sixfinger, the
delegates  prostrated  themselves on  the ground and continued on all fours;
judging by that, they clearly had serious  intentions. Hermit told Sixfinger
to move back,  while he  stepped forward to  straighten up matters.  When he
returned, he said:
     "I  haven't  seen  anything  like  this  before. They  seem to  have  a
religious sect  here. At any  rate, they have seen  you communicate with the
gods,  and now  they  think you are a  prophet  and  I am your  disciple  or
something of that sort."
     "So what is happening now? What do they want?"
     "They  are  asking us  to  join  them.  They said  that a  `pathway was
straightened',  that  something was  `braided  out'  and  so  on.  I  didn't
understand a thing but it seems we should go."
     "Let's  go,"  Sixfinger  shrugged  indifferently.  Gloomy  premonitions
filled his mind.
     On their  way, the  people insistently tried  to carry Hermit on  their
shoulders,  and this was  avoided with much effort. As for Sixfinger, nobody
dared to look at him, much less come near him, so he walked at the center of
an empty circle.
     After they arrived,  Sixfinger was put on  a high knoll of  hay,  while
Hermit remained below and engaged in a conversation with about twenty of the
local high priests  --  one could  easily  recognize them by  their paunchy,
obese faces. Then he blessed them  and  climbed the knoll to join Sixfinger,
who  was so  ill-spirited that he ignored Hermit's  ritual bow;  although it
must have looked quite natural for the congregation.
     It  turned  out  that everybody  was  long expecting the  advent  of  a
Messiah. The impending Decisive Stage, which they called the Great Judgment,
was  on everyone's mind, but  the  high priests became so  fat and lazy that
they merely nodded toward the sky in answer to all questions. The appearance
of Sixfinger with his disciple was well timed.
     "They are waiting for a sermon," Hermit said.
     "So  make  up something for them,"  grunted Sixfinger.  "Don't you know
that I am just a stupid fool."
     His voice trembled at the word "fool", and he seemed close to crying.
     "They will eat me, these gods," he sobbed. "I feel it."
     "There, there. Calm down," Hermit said. He turned to the crowd  beneath
the knoll  and  assumed  a prayerful posture by raising  his head and  hands
high.
     "Hey you!" he shouted. "Soon, all of  you will be thrown into Hell. You
will be roasted, and  the most sinful of you  will  be marinated in  vinegar
first."
     A terrified sigh swept over the Socium.
     "But, by the will of the gods and their messenger, my master, I wish to
teach you  how to be saved. For that, you must overcome sin. But do you even
know what sin is?"
     Silence was the answer.
     "Sin is excess weight. Your  flesh is sinful, for it is for your  flesh
that the gods afflict you. Think, all of  you: what draws the Deci...  Great
Judgment nearer? Nothing but the fact that you grow  fat on your bodies. For
the skinny ones shall  be saved, but the  fat  ones shall perish. Truly  so:
none of the blue-skinned and scrawny  will be  thrown into the fire, but the
fat and the pink-skinned will all  be there. Anyone  who  fasts from  now on
until the Great Judgment will receive new life. Aye, oh Lord God! Now arise,
go forth and sin no more."
     But nobody stood up: they all lay silently on the ground and gazed into
the abyss of the sky or stared at Hermit who was waving his hands. Many were
crying. It appeared that only the high priests did not like Hermit's speech.
     "Why  did you  tell them  all  that," Sixfinger  whispered when  Hermit
returned and sat on the straw. "They believed you, after all."
     "Well, I hadn't lied to them, had I?" Hermit answered. "If  they lose a
lot of weight, they will  be  given  a second feeding cycle. Then,  perhaps,
even a third. Forget about them, we'd better take care of our business."

--------


     Hermit often  talked  to the people, teaching  them how to acquire  the
least appetizing looks, while Sixfinger  spent most of his time on his knoll
of straw pondering the  nature  of flight.  He rarely took  part in Hermit's
sermons other than absent-mindedly blessing laymen who  crawled up to him on
their knees. the former high priests clearly didn't  plan  on  losing weight
and hated him, but their hands were  tied: more and more gods paid visits to
the world, took Sixfinger out and showed him to one another. Once there came
a senile and  flabby gray-haired  sage accompanied  by a large and extremely
respectful  retinue. While being held, Sixfinger spitefully moved his bowels
into  the  sage's cold, shaking palm, and was immediately and rather roughly
returned to his usual place.
     Everyone in  the Socium  fasted  and by now  looked almost transparent.
Hermit  took the Feeder  apart. Every night, while all others slept, he  and
Sixfinger  desperately continued to train their arms. The less they believed
that their exercises  would lead  to anything,  the harder they tried. Their
arms grew so much that even practicing with  the metal pieces  of the Feeder
became impossible. One sweeping movement of  the arms  made  their feet lose
the ground, so they had to stop the exercise. That was the difficulty Hermit
had warned  Sixfinger  about,  but  they  circumvented it  --  Hermit taught
Sixfinger  how to develop the muscles with static exercises. The green gates
were  already  looming beyond the World-wall,  and,  according  to  Hermit's
calculations, the Great Judgment was only a  dozen eclipses  away.  Gods did
not scare Sixfinger much  -- he got used to their attention  and accepted it
with a  squeamish submissiveness.  He  reconciled  himself with his position
and, mainly to entertain himself, delivered  dark and  obscure sermons.  His
speeches  literally  stunned the flock. Once he remembered One-Eye's tale of
the underground universe and described the cooking of a soup for one hundred
and  sixty  green-clothed  demons  with such  inspiration and blood-curdling
detail  that by the end he not only  got  himself scared to death, but  also
freaked out Hermit, who at the beginning of the speech  would  only chuckle.
Many in the congregation learned this sermon by  heart,  and it became known
as the  "Revelation of the Blue  Band"  (such was Sixfinger's sacral  name).
After that  even the priests  stopped eating and ran around the disassembled
Feeder for hours on end to burn their fat.
     Since both Hermit and Sixfinger always ate with great  appetite, Hermit
had to introduce  a  special dogma of infallibility,  which  quickly stopped
various whisperings.
     But while Sixfinger has fully recovered from their ordeals, with Hermit
something was amiss. It seemed that Sixfinger's depression passed on to him;
he grew more reclusive with every hour.
     Finally he told Sixfinger:
     "You know,  if  we don't succeed, I will go to the Shop Number One with
the rest."
     Sixfinger opened his mouth to object, but Hermit continued:
     "And since  it seems clear  that we won't succeed, you may  consider it
decided."
     Sixfinger realized  that what he was going to say  was  irrelevant.  He
could not change the other's decision, only express his fondness for Hermit.
Whatever he could say would  have mattered little beyond that. Some time ago
Sixfinger  would have  said  many unnecessary  words,  but  now  he too  has
changed. He just  nodded  and went away to meditate. After a little while he
returned and said:
     "I will go with you."
     "No," Hermit said, "you should not do that.  You know almost everything
I have  known.  And  you should go  on  and  find a disciple. Maybe, he will
master the art of flying."
     "You want  me  to  remain alone?"  Sixfinger was  annoyed. "With  those
blockheads?"
     He  gestured towards the  congregation  lying on their faces  since the
beginning  of their prophet's conversation. Trembling, emaciated bodies, all
alike, covered almost all visible space.
     "They are not blockheads," Hermit said. "They are more like children."
     "Retarded children," Sixfinger pointed out. "With many inborn vices."
     Hermit glanced at Sixfinger's feet with a grin.
     "I wonder if you remember what you were like before we met?"
     Sixfinger thought about it, embarrassed.
     "No," he said finally, "I don't. Honestly, I don't remember."
     "All right," said Hermit. "Do what you will."
     They did not return to this conversation.
     The days left before the Judgment  went fast, and one morning, when the
flock  was  still  half asleep, Sixfinger  and Hermit noticed that the green
gates  that had seemed so far  away  yesterday, were already right above the
World-wall. They looked at each other, and Hermit said:
     "Today we'll make our  last  attempt. It will  be the last  one because
tomorrow no one will be left to try. Our arms are so big that we cannot even
wave them in the  air, they sweep us  from our  feet. We will  now go to the
Wall to get away from all this  racket, and from there will try to transport
ourselves to the  roof of the  Feeder. If we fail, we will say our farewells
to the world."
     "How does one do that?" asked Sixfinger out of habit.
     Hermit looked at him, surprised.
     "How do I know?" he replied.
     The flock was told that they are going to talk to the gods. Soon Hermit
and Sixfinger stood at the World-wall, their backs against it.
     "Remember," said Hermit, "you must imagine that you  are already there,
and then..."
     Sixfinger closed his eyes, concentrated on his hands and thought of the
rubber tube connected to  the top of the Feeder. Presently he was in trance,
and felt that the tube was very close, within his reach. Before, when he had
achieved  that feeling of being  where he wanted  to fly, Sixfinger  used to
hurry and  open his  eyes, only to find  himself back where he started. This
time he decided to try something new. "If I bring my arms together slowly so
that the  tube  is  between  them,  what  will happen  then?",  he  thought.
Carefully, trying not to spill the achieved awareness that the tube is near,
he moved his hands. And when they came together and felt the tube where only
emptiness has been, he couldn't bear it any  longer  and yelled with all his
might: "I'm there!", and opened his eyes.
     "Quiet, you fool!" said Hermit whose leg he was clutching. "Look!"
     Sixfinger scrambled  to his feet and looked  up. The gates  of the Shop
Number One were open and their world was slowly sailing through.
     "We are there," Hermit said. "Let's go back."
     On their way  back both  were silent. The conveyor belt was moving with
about the same speed in the opposite direction, and the Gates remained right
over them  all  the time while they  walked. As they  reached their honorary
places near the Feeder, the entrance swallowed them and moved on.
     Hermit motioned a member of the flock to him.
     "Listen," he said,  "keep  calm. Go and  tell the rest that  the  Great
Judgment has come. Do you see how the sky is darkened?"
     "What are we to do now?" the latter asked with hope.
     "Tell all to sit on the ground and do this," Hermit  covered  his eyes.
"And don't look, or we cannot vouch for anything. And keep quiet."
     At  first,  there was  commotion and  noise,  but  it  quickly  ceased.
Everyone sat on the ground and did what Hermit had told them.
     "Well," Sixfinger said, "should we now say goodbye to the world?"
     "Yes," said Hermit. "You go first."
     Sixfinger stood up, looked around, sighed and sat down again.
     "Are you done?" Hermit asked, and Sixfinger nodded.
     "My turn," Hermit said. He rose, threw his head up and yelled as loudly
as he could: "Farewell, world!"

--------


     "Look at that one  cackling away," a thunderous voice said.  "Which one
was that again? The one cackling?"
     "Nope," another voice answered. "The one next."
     Two enormous faces loomed over the World-wall. They were gods.
     "What crap," the first face remarked ruefully. "No idea what to do with
them. They are half-dead, all of them."
     A huge hand in a  white, blood-stained  and fluff-covered sleeve rushed
over the world and touched the Feeder.
     "Semyon, you bastard, where were you looking? Their feeder is broken!"
     "It was  all  right," a bass answered.  "I checked  it the beginning of
this month. So, are we going to do them?"
     "No. Get the transporter going, take another crate, and fix this feeder
by tomorrow. They could all have starved..."
     "Fine."
     "And that one, with six toes: shall I cut both feet for you?"
     "Both."
     "I wanted one for myself."
     Hermit turned to Sixfinger  who  was listening carefully but understood
almost nothing.
     "Listen," he whispered, "it looks like they are going to..."
     But at  that  moment a huge white hand  dashed across the sky again and
grabbed Sixfinger.
     Sixfinger  could not make out Hermit's words. The palm  grasped him and
took  him up, then  he saw a  huge chest with  a  pocket pen, a  collar, and
finally two large bulging eyes which stared squarely at him.
     "Look at its  wings.  Like an eagle's!" said an  incredibly large mouth
with yellow uneven teeth.
     Sixfinger was long used to being held  by gods. But this time the palms
holding him  vibrated strangely and frighteningly. He barely understood that
the gods were talking about his arms  or his feet when he heard Hermit shout
madly from below:
     "Sixfinger! Flee! Peck him right in the mug!"
     For the first time of  their acquaintance, a real desperation was heard
in  Hermit's  voice.  This frightened Sixfinger to  such an extent  that his
actions acquired a somnambulistic precision. He struck the bulging,  staring
eye with  all his might  and started hitting both sides of  the god's sweaty
face with his hands.
     The roar was  so strong that  Sixfinger  felt it not as a sound  but as
pressure  on his  whole  body.  The god loosened his grasp, and in the  next
moment Sixfinger found himself  hanging in the  air just  below the ceiling,
unsupported. At first he could not understand it, but  then he realized that
he  was still waving his  hands -- that  supported him in the void. He could
now oversee the Shop Number One:  it was a separated area of the transporter
with  a  long  wooden  table  covered  by  red  and  brown stains, fluff and
feathers, and  piles  of clear  bags. The world he had left was simply a big
octagonal container filled by a multitude of tiny unmoving bodies. Sixfinger
could not see Hermit but he was sure that Hermit saw him.
     "Hey!"  he  shouted, making circles around the ceiling. "Hermit! Get up
here! Wave your hands as fast as you can!"
     Something flashed  in the  crate  below and  grew  in  size as  it  was
approaching,  and then Hermit appeared.  He followed  Sixfinger and shouted,
"Get down over there!"
     When Sixfinger flew close to a square  spot of muddy whitish  light, he
saw Hermit already sitting on the windowsill.
     "A wall,"  he  said when Sixfinger sat  down next to  him. "A  luminous
wall."
     He  appeared calm but Sixfinger knew him well and could see that Hermit
was dazzled by all the events, as was Sixfinger himself. And suddenly he saw
it.
     "Listen," he shouted, "this really is flight! We were flying!"
     Hermit regarded him for a while and nodded.
     "Yes, perhaps," he said. "Even though it is too primitive..."
     In  the  meanwhile,  the  commotion  below settled  down  somewhat; two
figures  in white gowns held the third who was clutching his face  with  his
hand.
     "A bitch! He killed my eye! A bitch!" the third one was bellowing.
     "What is a bitch?" Sixfinger asked.
     "It is a supplication  to one of the elements," Hermit  answered. "This
word does not have a separate meaning. But it seems we are in deep trouble."
     "And which element is he trying to address?" Sixfinger asked.
     "We shall see."
     As Hermit was saying these words, the god freed himself from the  hands
that were  holding him, ran  to  the  wall, snatched a red fire extinguisher
tank and hurled it toward the windowsill.  He did it so quickly  that nobody
could stop him, and Hermit and Sixfinger barely managed to fly away.
     The fire  extinguisher broke through the  window  with a loud crash and
disappeared,  letting in a stream of fresh air. Only  then the heady  stench
that filled the room became apparent. It was unbelievably bright.
     "Come on, fly!" Hermit  shouted, suddenly shedding  all his  composure.
"Get going! Off!"
     And then he flew away from the window to  take a running start,  folded
his wings and  disappeared  in  the ray of hot yellow light that gushed from
the hole in the painted glass.  A wind blew from it, and new, unknown sounds
could be heard.
     Sixfinger  sped up  his circling. He  caught the  last  glimpse  of the
octagonal container below, the blood-stained table and the gods waving their
hands, as he rushed through the hole with folded wings.
     For a moment, he was blinded  by the brightness of light. When his eyes
got  used to  it, he saw above and ahead of  him a disk  of  such  a furious
yellow  glare  that  he could not look at it even with a side glance. Higher
above  he saw a black dot  --  it was Hermit who  was turning around  to let
Sixfinger catch up. Soon they were flying side by side.
     Sixfinger looked back,  at the large and  ugly gray building far below.
It had  only a  few oil-painted windows, one  of them broken.  The clean and
bright colors of everything around them were driving Sixfinger crazy, and he
decided to look up.
     Flying was amazingly easy,  not any more  strenuous than  walking. They
soared higher and higher, until everything below became colorful squares and
spots.
     Sixfinger turned to Hermit.
     "Where to?" he shouted.
     "Southward," was the short reply.
     "What is that?" Sixfinger asked.
     "I don't know," answered Hermit, "but it is that way."
     And  he  waved  toward  the  huge  blazing disk, which  only  in  color
resembled what they used to call suns.

--------


     1  A  reference  to a  widely  known  stanza from V.  Mayakovsky's poem
"Vladimir Ilyich Lenin":

        Lenin and the Party are twin brothers.
        Who is more valuable for Mother History?
        We say "Lenin", and we mean the Party,
        We say "The Party", and we mean Lenin.

     V.  I. Lenin (1870 -- 1924) -- the founder of  the  USSR and  of  its
Communist Party.

     2 In the USSR, many government-operated organizations such as factories
or schools were named after prominent political leaders.

     3 An allusion to an often-quoted formula: "The <Communist> party is the
mind, the dignity and the conscience of our epoch" (V. I. Lenin).


Last-modified: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 16:26:02 GMT
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