Ice Trilogy (34 page)

“Ub! Ub! Ub!”

And Fer and I
realized
that Ub was one of our two successors. He could
see
the world just as we did. If he were paired with another
seeing
heart. We would find this heart as well. The war would end, the meat machines would begin to restore the damage and give birth to children. The Brotherhood would strengthen itself even more firmly in this world. Our mortally exhausted bodies would die, our hearts would stop, the Light would leave them. But the hearts of Ub and his partner would beat and search. They would find EVERYONE. And the acquired hearts would form a Large Circle and pronounce the 23 words with their hearts. And the Light would begin to shine. And the Earth would disappear. And Time would stop. And Eternity would arrive.

But we had to continue to
live
in the present.

The brothers unhooked the parts of the iron machine that were empty. Without them the machine was shorter, but the brothers and the newly acquired all fit. The machines traveled faster. We had to get the newly acquired to a secluded place as soon as possible, a place where they could receive treatment. Many of them could not even stand because of constant hunger. But no one died from the blow of the Ice hammer: their woken hearts helped them. Fer and I sat next to Ub. He had lost consciousness and his breathing was shallow. We held his hands. They were almost as thin as ours. We touched his face. We
took care
of his heart.

After the sun went down the iron machine turned north. We had to bring those we found to a prearranged place where the brothers were waiting for them. By morning we had reached this place. It was a place where iron machines that traveled along iron tracks stopped. Many of them stood there. During the trip the newly acquired had been dressed in normal clothes. When our machine began to stop, Fer and I were again put in our boxes. We had a
hard
time letting go of Ub’s hand. The machine stopped. But something was moving over it. High above. In the sky.

Fer and I cried out in our boxes: our hearts
could see
the four flying machines above. The flying machines opened their bellies. And dropped huge iron eggs filled with a fierce substance. Iron eggs flew down from above. There were forty of them. We
saw
them over us. And
realized
that one of us would perish. The iron eggs began to fall. As soon as they struck the ground, the fierce substance tore them apart. And with them — everything else around. The shells of the iron eggs flew forcefully in all directions. The iron eggs exploded near our machine. The shells of the iron eggs pierced the walls of our machine and passed through the bodies of eighteen brothers and twelve sisters. The shells of the iron eggs passed through the head of brother Ub. The shells of the iron eggs passed through Fer’s torso.

It passed all the way through Fer’s body.

Through Fer’s heart.

And Fer’s heart stopped.

The earth’s
Time is many-colored. Each object, each living being, lives in its time. In its color. The time of stones and mountains is dark crimson. The time of sand is purple. The time of the black soil is orange. The time of rivers and lakes is apricot. The time of trees and grasses is gray. The time of insects is brown. The time of fish is emerald. The time of cold-blooded animals is olive. The time of warm-blooded animals is sky-blue. The time of meat machines is violet.

And only we, the brothers of the Light, have no earthly color. We are colorless, as long as the Primordial Light is in our heart. For the Light — is our time. And it is in this time that we live. When our hearts stop and the Light leaves us, we acquire a color. Violet. But not for very long: as soon as the body grows cold, its time becomes dark yellow. The time of corpses of living creatures on Earth is dark yellow.

Seven
years have passed since Fer’s death.

My hands move slowly. My fingers stir with difficulty. They rarely touch things. Things of the Earth. Ephemeral things. Which rot and fall apart. The brothers and sisters love my hands. Because they
know
them. They place them on their faces. And stop stock-still. And I
take care
of my brothers and sisters.

My eyes no longer see the world of things. The darkness of the Earth’s world stands before me. But my heart
sees
. My heart
knows
many things.

The war of the meat machines ended. The countries of Ice and Freedom were victorious. The Country of Order lost. Its meat machines seethed with exhaustion and desperation. They killed and perished. Their leader fulfilled the tormented desire of his life: he heroically lost a great war. Fleeing deep into the Earth, he killed himself with metal from an iron pipe. The victorious meat machines put the leader’s assistants on trial. They were hanged by the neck with ropes so that they couldn’t breathe. And the leader’s assistants suffocated. The victorious meat machines began to rebuild what had been destroyed. In the place of burned cities they erected new ones. The meat machines gave birth to meat machines. Newborn meat machines were growing. And inhabited the new cities.

I
see
this.

New iron machines, even more powerful than the ones that were crushed, are being built. Thousands of new pipes that spit metal are created every day. Millions of iron eggs that destroy cities again await their hour.

I
see
this.

At the end of the war the meat machines created a powerful, fierce substance that had never before existed. When exploded, this substance could destroy entire cities. The most intelligent meat machines created it. This substance was packed into two large iron eggs and dropped on two cities. In exploding, the eggs entirely destroyed both cities. In these cities, 223,418 meat machines perished instantly. But there were none of
ours
among them.
Ours
perished in other places.

And I
saw
this.

In four years of war the Brotherhood lost forty-nine brothers and seventy sisters. They died in different countries. From hot metal, in crashes of iron machines, in burning cities, from illnesses and wounds.

These losses did not deplete us. The foundation of the Brotherhood had been laid before the war. It was
correctly
laid. And remained firm.

After the war the Brotherhood strengthened in six countries. We stood firmly amid the work of meat machines. We owned stone caves, complex machines, expensive objects. We possessed places that produced things that meat machines could not do without: clothes, footwear, objects for stone caves.

The Brotherhood came to have a lot of money. This helped us to search.

But the main difficulty remained: after the death of Fer, the Brotherhood had been deprived of an All-Seeing Eye. Alone I could not differentiate
ours
in the crowd. My heart couldn’t manage it. It
choked
in the drone of the crowd. I could only sense
ours
. I could only guide the search.

My heart needed Fer’s heart. Fer and Ub, our hope, perished together. My box was no longer needed by the Brotherhood. It was burned.

I am
alive
.

And as long as
I am alive
, I
know
where to search.

I guide the brothers as well as I can. But all the same, for the moment they are searching blind. Kidnapping blue-eyed, light-haired people, they strike each with the Ice hammer. This is complicated and laborious. But there’s no other way. And so we search.

After the war, a great deal of Ice was needed for striking.

The Ice lay in the Country of Ice.

It needed to be brought to countries where the Brotherhood had based itself. Where the search was being carried on. The brothers took on the procurement and delivery of the Ice. They were able to arrange things so that the meat machines began to mine the Ice. Near the place where the Ice lay, settlements of meat machines that had committed offenses in the eyes of the law of the Country of Ice had been established. For this they were usually forced to cut down trees and mine rare metals from the earth. But the brothers were able to persuade the authorities of the Country of Ice that the Ice was crucial to strengthening the might of that country. Intelligent meat machines helped us in this. The Ice began to be extracted and shipped to the main city of this country. From there the Brotherhood secretly transported it to the necessary countries. The brothers sawed it into hundreds of pieces. And manufactured hundreds of Ice hammers.

The search continued.

In the course of another year we found no more than fifty of
ours
. Many hundreds of blue-eyed and light-haired meat machines died under the blows of the Ice hammers. The brothers had to strike everyone kidnapped. This was
extremely
slow in comparison to earlier times when Fer and I found dozens of brothers in one day. When we
parted
the whirling crowd. When we passed through its drone. When we immediately
saw
199 of
ours
in that ravine. When the brothers, having trouble keeping up with the newly acquired, gave them their own clothes. When Fer and I fell from exhaustion of the
heart
, and bile ran from our mouths and blood from our ears. But we
moaned
from happiness.

Gathering in the mountains in a Large Circle, we
asked
our hearts, we asked the Light: Is there any hope at all of returning to the previous search? Is there any hope of
quickly
obtaining all 23,000? Is there any hope that in a few dozen Earth years all of us will stand in the Grand Circle? That we will pronounce the 23 heart words and once again become the Primordial Light?

There was hope.

Rather — there was half of a hope.

The brothers carried her in to me one winter night.

This happened at the end of the war, six months after Fer died. They had found her among the meat machines taken prisoner and driven from the Country of Ice into the Country of Order. They were intended to be used as workers. The brothers searched in such places. Her heart called her name: “Khram!”

And I
heard
. Although I was in the mountains, far from her. Her name
resounded
in me. I sensed a
seeing
heart. Khram was
half
. The other
half
was Ub, who died along with Fer. If a piece of the iron egg’s shell had not passed through Ub’s head, he and Khram would have become a pair of
seers
. They would have become the Eye of the Brotherhood. The same kind of Eye that Fer and I had been. And the search would have continued rapidly. And we would have found EVERYONE.

But the Earth took Fer and Ub away from us.

And the Light brought us Khram as a gift.

They carried her into our stone cave. Khram was still weak. Her heart had just awoken. Khram looked at us only with her eyes. But I could
see
her with my heart. I knew just
who
it was they were bringing into the cave. Many in the cave knew this. Khram was placed on a large stone in the middle of the cave. And all of us, brothers and sisters,
gently
welcomed her heart.
Her seeing
heart. So she would understand
who
she was in the Brotherhood.

Then she went through the
heart crying
.

Her heart was ready for everything. The Wisdom and the Power of the Light sang in it.

And I
was at rest
. For the first time since the deaths of Fer and Ub.

If the Light had sent us Khram, it meant that it would send us yet another
seeing
heart. It would come. We simply had to wait. To search and prepare Khram for the Last Search.

She settled in with us in the mountains. I
protected
her young heart. I spoke with it carefully. I gently
touched
it. In a Lesser Circle we
supported
Khram. Her heart strengthened each day. And for ninety-four nights in the Lesser Circle we
spoke
the 23 words. She stood with us on the snow. With twenty-two who were wise of heart. We
spoke
the words. And the words of the Light
shone
in our hearts. And Khram’s heart
shone
along with ours. It was powerful. It could accomplish many things.

We
supported
Khram.

She was walking in Fer’s footsteps. I made her path simpler. Because I
knew
Fer, I
helped
Khram.

The time came when we stood in a Great Circle. On a hill one moonlit night, 230 of us, brothers and sisters, stood holding hands. And Khram stood with us. The world of the Earth slept. But our hearts were not sleeping. Much was
revealed
to the Great Circle. We
understood
that which had been hidden. What could not be revealed to each of us separately.

We
understood
which direction to take. Where the Brotherhood should focus its labors.

An important day arrived for Khram.

It was July 6, 1950, in the time of meat machines. In a little northern country where the Brotherhood had based itself. On that day Khram awoke, like the other brothers and sisters, with the rising of the sun. She spoke to all of us with her heart. And that was my last heart talk with her. The brothers carried me to her. With my weak hands I held her young, strong hands. The Brotherhood of the Light surrounded us.

I
began to speak
.

“Khram, today you will be leaving our Brotherhood. You have mastered the language of the heart. You have learned all 23 heart words. You are ready for great deeds in the name of the Light. You will travel east, to the country where the Ice lies. And you will search for brothers and sisters. You will awaken their hearts. And take them away from meat machines. In the Country of Ice only three of
ours
remain: sister Yus, and brothers Kha and Adr. They are awaiting our help. And yours.”

I did not
speak
with her about the most important thing. She knew it without me. She
knew
what had been revealed to everyone during the Great Circle: she would have to find her other half. The one who would help her to complete the search.