[Healthmonitor-tester] Lected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do. We have

[Anderson <sem...@se...>]

Hide in our tunnel, we would be found and our light with us. So we
walked to the Home of the Street Sweepers. When the Council of the Home
questioned us, we looked upon the faces of the Council, but there was no
curiosity in those faces, and no anger, and no mercy. So when the oldest
of them asked us: "Where have you been?" we thought of our glass box and
of our light, and we forgot all else. And we answered: "We will not tell
you." The oldest did not question us further. They turned to the two
youngest, and said, and their voice was bored: "Take our brother
Equality 7-2521 to the Palace of Corrective Detention. Lash them until
they tell." So we were taken to the Stone Room under the Palace of
Corrective Detention. This room has no windows and it is empty save for
an iron post. Two men stood by the post, naked but for leather aprons
and leather hoods over their faces. Those who had brought us departed,
leaving us to the two Judges who stood in a corner of the room. The
Judges were small, thin men, grey and bent. They gave the signal to the
two strong hooded ones. They tore our clothes from our body, they threw
us down upon our knees and they tied our hands to the iron post. The
first blow of the lash felt as if our spine had been cut in two. The
second blow stopped the first, and for a second we felt nothing, then
pain struck us in our throat and fire ran in our lungs without air. But
we did not cry out. The lash whistled like a singing wind. We tried to
count the blows, but we lost count. We knew that the blows were falling
upon our back. Only we felt nothing upon our back any longer. A flaming
grill kept dancing before our eyes, and we thought of nothing save that
grill, a grill, a grill of red squares, and then we knew that we were
looking at the squares of the iron grill in the door, and there were
also the squares of stone on the walls, and the squares which the lash
was cutti