We

by Yevgeny Zamyatin

Breakfast was over. The Hymn of the One State had been sung harmoniously. In fours, we went to the elevators, harmoniously. The rustling of the motors was almost audible—and rapidly down, down, down—with a slight sinking of the heart . . . And, just then, for no reason, that ridiculous dream surfaced again—or some sort of implicit function of the dream. Ah, of course, only yesterday I had that same sinking feeling in the aero— on our descent. But all that is over with: period. And it’s a very good thing, too, that I was so decisive and harsh with her. I rushed along in a wagon of the subterranean rail to the location of the Integral, where its elegant body stood on stocks, still immobile, not yet animated by fire, glistening under the sun. Closing my eyes, I fantasized in formulas: in my head I calculated again the escape velocity that would be needed to launch the Integral from the Earth. With each fraction of a second, the mass of the Integral would change (consuming combustion fuel). This equation turned out to be very complicated, with transcendental quantities.