On and around the hill something strange was happening, some kind of grandiose ebbing and flowing. Out of the forest, with a dense, deep droning, suddenly erupted enormous swarms of flies, which headed into the lilac fog on the hill and were hidden from view. The slopes were alive with columns of ants and spiders, hundreds of slug-amoebas were pouring out of the bushes, huge swarms of bees and wasps, clouds of multi-colored beetles flew over, under the rain. It sounded like a typhoon. This wave reached the heights and was sucked in, disappeared, and there came a sudden silence. The hill was dead once more and bare; some time passed and the noise and roar rose again and it all erupted again from the mist and headed for the forest. Only the slugs remained on the hilltop. In their place came spilling down the slopes the most incredible animals - hairies came rolling, clumsy arm-chewers came lurching down on frail legs, and there were plenty of others unknown as yet, speckled, multi-eyed, naked, shining half-beast, half-insects. Then the silence again, then the process started up once more, and again, and again, in a frightening, urgent rhythm, an inexorable energy. It seemed as though this rhythm and this energy had always been and would always be... Once a young hippocete emerged from the mist with a frightful roar, deadlings came running out from time to time and at once rushed into the forest, leaving white trails of cooling steam in their wake. And the motionless lilac cloud kept swallowing and spitting out, swallowing and spitting out, tireless and regular as a machine.
Hopalong used to say that the City stood on a hill, that thing is the City, perhaps, that's what they call the City. Yes, probably that's the City. But what's the meaning of it? Why is it like this? And the strange activity... I expected something like this... Rubbish, I never expected anything like it. I thought only about the masters, and where are the masters here? Kandid looked at the deadlings. These were standing in their former postures, their mouths open as before. Perhaps I'm wrong, thought Kandid. Perhaps they are the masters. Probably I'm mistaken all the time. I've completely forgotten how to think here. If ideas come to me, I can't fit them together. Not a single slug has come out of the fog yet. Question: why hasn't a single slug come out of the fog yet? ... No, that's not it. Get it straight. I am searching for the source of intelligent activity... Not true, again not true. I'm not interested in intelligent activity at all. I'm simply looking for someone to help me get home. Help me to get through six hundred miles of forest. Tell me which direction to go at least... The deadlings must have masters, I'm looking for these masters, I'm looking for the source of intelligent activity. He was quite pleased with himself; it was quite coherent. Let's start from the beginning, we'll think it all through - calmly and slowly. No need to hurry, now's just the time to think everything through slowly and calmly. Start from the very beginning. The deadlings must have masters - because deadlings aren't people - because they aren't animals. Therefore they are manufactured. If they aren't people... But why aren't they people? He rubbed his forehead. I've already worked that out. Long ago, in the village, I worked it out twice even, because the first time I forgot the answer, and now I've forgotten the proofs...
He shook his head as hard as he could and Nava quietly whispered at him. He was quiet and for a while lay with his face pressed into the wet grass.
Why they aren't animals - I worked that out before sometime... High temperature... No, no rubbish... Suddenly, he realized with horror that he'd forgotten what deadlings looked like. He remembered only their red-hot bodies and a sharp pain in his palms. He turned his head to look at them. Yes, I ought not to think. Thinking's out for me, right now, when I have to think more intensively than ever before.
