The weather favored the Brotherhood: in Hong Kong it was a gentle, warm autumn, the evening sun illuminated high fluffy clouds; the breeze, which changed directions in the evening, blew softly over the sea. The ship gave four farewell signals and sailed out of the bay on a southwest course. The Brothers and Sisters of the Light preserved their calm on this enormous vessel. The entire crew of the ship consisted of Brothers and Sisters of the Light.
In a spacious stateroom twenty-nine of the Mighty gathered, those who had been protecting the Brotherhood in the Country of Ice. Among them were Uf, Odo, Stam, Efep, Tse, Ma, Bork, No, Amii, and others. All of them sat in comfortable armchairs arranged in squares. The formation of Circles and conversations of the heart were strictly forbidden on the ship: the Brotherhood was preserving heart energy for the Great Transformation. And only two of the twenty-nine — Khram and Gorn — did not sit in chairs but rested in baths made of thick glass. Their weakened, aged bodies were immersed in the milk of high-mountain yaks, mixed with the sperm of young meat machines. Only their faces, emaciated from their Great Labor and lined with countless wrinkles, could be seen above the white surface.
Absolute silence reigned in the stateroom. Each of those present was preparing himself, understanding that less than nine hours remained until the Great Transformation.
When the ship reached the open sea and the shore lights disappeared, Khram’s eyelids twitched. Immediately two of Khram’s devoted assistants — Tbo and Mef — went to her and carefully raised her eyelids. Khram’s eyes opened. Tbo pressed a button at the head of the bath — and a tiny, semitransparent microphone slid out. Khram’s pale-blue eyes looked around the gathering. Her lips began to move with difficulty, but they parted. Khram sighed deeply. Air came out of her lips. And she said, “Thanks to the Light.”
Her weak, barely audible whisper, amplified by the speakers, floated around the stateroom.
“Thanks to the Light!” everyone replied.
No one dared answer the great sister with his heart. Each understood the importance of what was happening. Each was sparing himself and her. Khram was also preserving her powerful heart for the Last Conversation. For that reason the brothers now spoke in the language of meat machines.
“Is everyone here?”
“Everyone, Khram,” Tse confirmed.
“I forbid you to know yourselves, therefore I am asking you in an alien language.”
“We understand you, Khram,” Odo answered.
“I want to live until it happens,” Khram whispered.
“You will live until then,” Uf said with certainty. “And we will all live until then.”
“How much longer do we have to wait?”
“A third of the meat’s day,” answered Genyakhno, who commanded the ship.
“Are there many weak ones?”
“One hundred and forty-six,” Bork answered. “On our ship — sixteen.”
“Are there any extremely weak ones?”
“There are, Khram. Brothers Oriip, Dlu, and Yuts, and sister San.”
“Has everything been done to support them?”
“Everything, Khram.”
Khram fell silent, moving her lips. Her eyes were half open. A few long minutes passed. Khram again drew air into her body, and whispered, “How many very young ones?”
“Two.”
“Who are they? “
“Brother Khozheti — two months old; brother Moohn — four weeks.”
“They need outside support.”
“We’ve taken care of that.”
“Who will hold them in the Circle?”
“Two of the part-hammered.”
Khram grew thoughtful. She licked her lips carefully.
“Where are they?” she asked in a whistling whisper.
“Here, on the ship,” Uf answered.
“I want to see them.”
Uf nodded to four of the brothers, who entered the elevator, went down, and after a little while returned, carrying the sleeping bodies of Bjorn and Olga. They were placed on the rug in the center of the stateroom.
Khram set her gaze on them.
“When will they wake up?”
“In four hours,” Brother Ev replied.
“Are you certain that they will help us?”
“We are certain, Khram,” Uf answered for all of them.
“Will there be others in the Circle besides these?”
“No, only these two.”
Khram grew pensive. Then she spoke: “Wake Gorn. We want to look at these two.”
Tbo and Mef placed their hands on Gorn’s head. And soon he opened his eyes. Khram waited for Gorn to wake completely and come to himself. And she cautiously touched his heart. Gorn’s heart replied. His small body, submerged in the bath, shuddered. His slightly bulging eyes stared at the two sleeping bodies.
Khram and Gorn began to speak with the heart.
They watched Bjorn and Olga sleeping on the floor. This continued for twenty-seven minutes. Then their hearts grew silent. Gorn yawned and shuddered, rippling on the milky surface around his head, and again fell into a deep sleep.
Khram exhaled and inhaled carefully.
“Some water!” she requested.
Tbo held a porcelain drinking vessel with warm spring water, sweetened with the honey of wild Altai bees. Khram took two small sips, then breathed deeply. She swallowed some more. Tbo carefully wet her ancient lips.
“We saw these two,” Khram declared. “They will help the Circle. Leave them here.”
Everyone stirred in relief.
“Brother Ev didn’t collect the part-hammered in vain,” Stam spoke up. “He knew.”
“They are a layer between us and the meat machines,” sounded Khram’s whisper, amplified by the speakers. “Only they are capable of providing the last outside assistance.”
“Because there is a longing for the Light in them,” Tse nodded.
“Even though they don’t know it!” Odo shook his thick beard.
“That’s right, they don’t know it,” Khram said. “Therefore they will help us.”
“These two were the best of all the part-hammered that brother Ev gathered,” Uf told them. “When they were given the opportunity to escape, they themselves came upward, to the Throne.”
“I know,” Khram whispered quietly, and closed her eyes.
Toward the Light
Olga came to from someone’s awkward touch. Only one person could caress her face and head so clumsily. She opened her eyes. Bjorn, leaning over her, was stroking her with his enormous hands. Because of Bjorn’s wide, shovel-like palms, she could barely see the ceiling of light wood with its opaque light fixtures.
“How are you?” Bjorn asked.
She moved a bit, pulled up her legs, sat up, and said, “Okay...”
Bjorn held her by her shoulders. Olga looked around: she was in a wide room with a low ceiling and round dark windows. Blond men and women sat in armchairs all around. There were two transparent bathtubs, filled with something white. Milk? Above the milk the faces of two people who were sleeping — or dead — could be seen: an old woman and some kind of Lilliputian. The blonds looked silently at Olga. She remembered everything. And understood.
“Brothers of the Light,” her lips spoke.
“Brothers of the Light.” Bjorn nodded.
“Brothers of the Light!” Sister Tse spoke up.
“I thought they killed us,” Olga muttered.
Bjorn was tense and silent as he looked around.
Suddenly sister Tse stood up, walked over, kneeled, and took Bjorn’s and Olga’s hands into her small but powerful hands.
“Don’t be afraid of us,” she said calmly.
Olga and Bjorn stared straight at Tse.
“We are with you. And you are with us,” Tse said.
Her eyes, dark blue with a barely noticeable dark brown halo, shone in anticipation of something very important, something that would not fit inside her. Bjorn was the first to feel this. He grew
uncomfortable.
“Where are we?” Olga asked.
“On a ship.”
“Which...one?” said Bjorn, losing his composure.
“The one sailing to Happiness.”
Olga had already come to: she remembered the Ham, the dead bitches, the escape, and the trap set at the top of the skyscraper. Freeing her hand, she returned Tse’s gaze, planning to say something lamely ironic, but in the same instant she suddenly felt that Tse was telling the truth. And stopped, surprised at herself.
“To what...happiness?” Bjorn muttered tensely.
“To yours?” Olga managed to squeeze out the question as she began to shake.
“There is no such thing as ‘ours’ and ‘yours’: Happiness is always one! One for everyone.”
And suddenly all the people sitting in the armchairs rose, approached, kneeled, stretched out their arms, and touched Bjorn and Olga.
“Happiness is always one!” Tse repeated and added: “Happiness — is the Light!”
“Happiness — is the Light!” they all said at once.
Bjorn and Olga began to tremble.
“We were all moving toward the Light,” Tse continued. “We, and you. But we knew where and toward what we were heading; you didn’t know this. But you felt it. Unconsciously, you reached for the Light for thousands of years. You wanted it. You invented gods for yourselves. Prayed to the Creator. Hoped that he would resurrect you from the dead. But you didn’t know that the Creator was close by you. You didn’t know the Way. We show you the Way. And now we — and you — are on the Way. There is no road back. And only a very small bit remains...”
Tse pronounced the last words with a tremor, restraining her heart. Everyone else gathered there also shuddered. An attack of trembling seized Bjorn and Olga. They began to shake so strongly that their teeth clattered. The arms of the Brothers and Sisters of the Light embraced their bodies.
“You will be with us at the Last Hour,” said Tse, squeezing Bjorn’s and Olga’s fingers.
“You will help us. So that Happiness will arrive!” the others said.
Tears flowed from Bjorn’s and Olga’s eyes. They began to sob. And for the first time during the ordeal of these months they suddenly felt very good. So good, the kind of good that happens only in childhood, when your family, who loves, protects, and cares for you, is nearby. Soaked with tears, they began to kiss the hands of the Brother and Sisters of the Light, forgetting their past, forgetting their torment and fears, forgetting the suffering and waiting, forgetting the horrifying life of the last months. The brothers’ and sisters’ hands were nearby. The brothers and sisters who led them to Happiness, to the Light.
“We are with you,” Tse repeated. “You are with us...”
Olga and Bjorn cried: The brothers and sisters were with them! Loneliness was over. Over once and for all! And it all turned out to be so simple! Simple, like the Light. After all, it shines for all! And nothing else is needed. Only to make it together with everyone to Happiness. To the Light...
An hour passed.
Bjorn and Olga sat in the center of the stateroom surrounded by Brothers and Sisters of the Light. Their tears gradually diminished, and the trembling left their bodies. Calm settled in. A feeling of kinship and belonging to the Great EVENT came over them. Bjorn and Olga felt so good and peaceful that they were afraid to scare off the new feeling that had suddenly descended on them like a star.
They waited along with everyone.
Soon everyone felt the vessel shudder slightly. The huge ship had slowed down, and after a number of smooth maneuvers, it stopped.
“It’s time!” said Uf.
And everyone began to stir. And the Great Event toward which the Brotherhood had striven all these seventy-seven years, from the moment when brother Bro found the Ice, resounded in each of the Brothers and Sisters of the Light. Khram and Gorn came to and stirred in their baths. They were taken out, dried off, wrapped in warm blankets, and carried. The Mighty of heart began to leave the stateroom. Khram and Gorn were sent below on the elevator; the rest began to descend the staircase. Bjorn and Olga followed them. The lower deck was filled to the brim. Brothers and sisters stood in expectation, letting the old and young go first. Olga and Bjorn were in the crowd. But sister Tse was nearby, and her hands touched Bjorn’s and Olga’s bodies encouragingly.
The exodus from the ship onto the shore took nearly an hour and a half. The time had come, and Olga’s and Bjorn’s bare feet walked across a wide gangway and stepped onto a concrete pier. It stretched from the island into the sea, a long strip illuminated by spotlights. Eight identical piers branched off like concrete rays from the circle-shaped island that the Brotherhood had purchased eight years earlier and outfitted for the Great Transformation. Holding hands, Bjorn and Olga walked in the stream of Brothers and Sisters of the Light, maintaining absolute silence. The only noise was the rustling of clothes and the gentle slapping of the night tide against the piers. The sparkling stars of the night sky spread out above them. A warm night breeze blew around them. Olga glanced to the left — there, in the distance, an identical large, illuminated white ship was moored to an identical pier. Illuminated by spotlights, an unending flow of Brothers and Sisters of the Light also proceeded along that pier. They were moving toward the island. Bjorn glanced to the right — there, in the distance, another white ship was moored; there was also a pier and also a stream of brothers and sisters. A sweet shiver passed through Bjorn’s and Olga’s bodies. They felt that very soon the most Secret, Great, and Joyous Event would occur. And that they would have to wait only a very short time. A shiver of anticipation possessed them. And as though sensing this, sister Tse, who walked behind them, placed her palms on their backs. Peace radiated from these palms. Her palms calmed and directed them.
“There is no longer any hurry!” Tse whispered.
Bjorn and Olga understood.
The pier stretched toward the island. The night island swam up, came closer. The pier gradually turned into a bridge that slowly rose and widened. The nearly ten-kilometer-round island had been a small mountain rising from the sea. The Brotherhood had cut off the mountain peak, leaving only its base. A sturdy bridge, supported by concrete piers, led to the leveled base. Nine such bridges led the Brotherhood to the island, to the Last Mooring. The 23,000 silently walked toward the last goal. Searchlights illuminated the bridges. But the island itself lay in darkness ahead of them. Olga and Bjorn moved along with the crowd, counting the steps to themselves. Adults and children, old people and adolescents, men and women walked nearby. They pushed carriages with the very old and the sick, they carried small children. Everyone walked in silence. The rustling of clothes and the noise of the steps merged in a single unbroken sound that intoxicated Bjorn and Olga. As before, they felt very good. They were walking with their kin. And they had so many kinsmen!
Finally the bridge touched the island. Bjorn and Olga set foot on the earth of the island, which was covered in white marble. The entire island was a perfectly even plaza, covered with the whitest, finest marble on Earth. As soon as the Brothers and Sisters of the Light stepped onto this marble, sensors hidden in it came to life, and around the giant Circle 23,000 small marble lamps lit up in a dim blue light. Each lamp was a place in the Circle. There were 23,000 places in the Last, Most Important Circle of the Brotherhood. A stir went through the crowd of arrivals from the Country of Ice; everyone began undressing, throwing aside the unnecessary clothes of meat machines. Having undressed to their bare skin, each of them walked to the Circle and stood on the spot shown by the lamp. Bjorn and Olga began to undress. They felt so good and calm that they didn’t want to speak at all: words were powerless to express what had filled their hearts over the last few hours. They had hardly finished undressing when familiar small palms touched their backs. They turned. Tse stood nearby, naked; with her, also naked, were the twin sisters Ak and Skeye. Each of them pressed an infant to her breast. These were the smallest brothers of the 23,000 — two-mont
h-old Khozheti and four-week-old Moohn. Wordlessly, the sisters handed the infants to Olga and Bjorn. And without a single word they took the defenseless and helpless bodies of the brothers. The infants’ chests had been hammered; the Brotherhood had acquired them very recently — the Light of old brothers and sisters had resettled in them: ninety-year-old brother Ezhor and eighty-three-year-old sister Mart. The infants slept, breathing heavily, wheezing in their sleep.
“You must hold them in the Circle,” Tse whispered. “None of ours can do this, because each must be in his place. This will be your Great Assistance to the Brotherhood.”
“We’ll do everything!” Olga’s lips whispered.
“We will help!” Bjorn whispered, tenderly holding Khozheti on his chest.
Tse turned and vanished into the crowd, each searching for the right place. Although no one had any numbers or personal places, in the Last Circle each stood wherever his bare feet took him. Across nine bridges from nine ships arriving from nine ports of the world, Brothers and Sisters of the Light hurried to the Circle. The crowd of naked bodies swelled, spreading out around the Circle. More and more brothers and sisters took their places. Each one who stood on a lamp was instantly illuminated by its dim bluish light. More and more of these glowing figures appeared in the dark of the Circle. And the Great Circle gradually took shape.
Bjorn and Olga moved toward the Circle, holding the heavily breathing infants to their chests. The honor of the Great Assistance had fallen to them. They understood this with each cell of their bodies. They had to help the Brotherhood, support the tiniest brothers in the Great Circle, not let them leave life until the Circle began to speak in the language of the Light. With the greatest caution, Bjorn and Olga moved among the sea of undressed bodies. The warm infants snuffled, breathing with difficulty in their arms. The Circle was being built.
Under the southern night sky faint stars and a slim sickle moon appeared; the glowing, naked figures arose and united, assuming the shape, forming the Great Last Circle of the Brotherhood. The old sat down or kneeled, stretching their trembling arms to those standing nearby. The young and strong immediately held their hands, giving them strength and hope. Naked young children stood, illuminated by the bluish light, stretching their slim hands to the adults standing nearby. Khram was placed between Uf and Shua; Gorn between Stam and Atrii. The hands of the Mighty took the emaciated, flaccid skin of the hands of those who had once seen the entire Brotherhood and helped to gather it together. Strong, gray-bearded Odo squeezed the hand of five-year-old Samsp and Fow, wise Stsefog held twelve-year-old Bti and eighty-year-old Shma, thundering Lavu took the hands of the twins Ak and Skeye, Merog stood next to Obu, Bork with Rim, Mokho with Ural, Diar with Irei and Rom, Mir with Kharo and Ip, Eko with Ar.
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