As the flames rose, a thing happened which no eyes saw but ours, else
we would not be living today. Perhaps it had only seemed to us. But it
seemed to us that the eyes of the Transgressor had chosen us from the
crowd and were looking straight upon us. There was no pain in their eyes
and no knowledge of the agony of their body. There was only joy in them,
and pride, a pride holier than it is fit for human pride to be. And it
seemed as if these eyes were trying to tell us something through the
flames, to send into our eyes some word without sound. And it seemed as
if these eyes were begging us to gather that word and not to let it go
from us and from the earth. But the flames rose and we could not guess
the word....

What--even if we have to burn for it like the Saint of the pyre--what
is the Unspeakable Word?

Chapter Three

We, Equality 7-2521, have discovered a new power of nature. And we have
discovered it alone, and we are to know it.

It is said. Now let us be lashed for it, if we must. The Council of
Scholars has said that we all know the things which exist and therefore
all the things which are not known by all do not exist. But we think
that the Council of Scholars is blind. The secrets of this earth are not
for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them. We know, for
we have found a secret unknown to all our brothers.

We know not what this power is nor whence it comes. But we know its
nature, we have watched it and worked with it. We saw it first two years
ago. One night, we were cutting open the body of a dead frog when we saw
its leg jerking. It was dead, yet it moved. Some power unknown to men
was making it move. We could not understand it. Then, after many tests,
we found the answer. The frog had been hanging on a wire of copper; and
it had been the metal of our knife which had sent a strange power to the
copper through the brine of the frog's body. We put a piece of copper
and a piece of zinc into a jar of brine, we touched a wire to them, and
there, under our fingers, was a miracle which had never occurred before,
a new miracle and a new power.

This discovery haunted us. We followed it in preference to all our
studies. We worked with it, we tested in more ways than we can describe,
and each step was another miracle unveiling before us. We came to know
that we had found the greatest power on earth. For it defies all the
laws known to men. It makes the needle move and turn on the comp