The bell—The mirror-like sea—I am to burn eternally.
I was walking upon the dock where the Integral is being built, when the Second Builder came to meet me. His face as usual was round and white—a porcelain plate. When he speaks it seems as though he serves you a plate of something unbearably tasty.
“You chose to be ill, and without the Chief we had an accident, as it were, yesterday.”
“An accident?”
“Yes, sir. We finished the bell and started to let it down, and imagine! the men caught a male without a number. How he got in, I cannot make out. They took him to the Operation Department. Oh, they’ll draw the mystery out of the fellow there; ‘why’ and ‘how,’ etc. …” He smiled delightedly.
Our best and most experienced physicians work in the Operation Department under the direct supervision of the Well-Doer himself. They have all kinds of instruments, but the best of all is the Gas Bell. The procedure is taken from an ancient experiment of elementary physics: they used to put a rat under a gas bell and gradually pump out the air; the air becomes more and more rarified, and … you know the rest.
But our Gas Bell is certainly a more perfect apparatus and it is used in combination with different gasses. Furthermore, we don’t torture a defenseless animal as the ancients did; we use it for a higher purpose: to guard the security of the United State, in other words, the happiness of millions. About five centuries ago when the work of the Operation