Translated by Richard Sheldon, 1975; from Snake Train, 1976 :
...
Ka was my friend; I came to love him for his birdlike disposition, his lightheartedness, his wit. He was as comfortable as a raincoat. He taught that there are words for seeing -- eye words -- and words for making -- hand words. Here are some of his deeds.
2.
Once we came across a peole who fastened themselves with buttons. Truly, their insides were covered with a fold of skin and the skin was fastened with horny nodules reminiscent of buttons. At dinnertime, beneath that fold, a thinking stove would burn. That's the way it was. Standing on a big iron bridge, I flung into the river a two-kopek piece, saying: one must be concerned about the science of the future.
Once we came across a peole who fastened themselves with buttons. Truly, their insides were covered with a fold of skin and the skin was fastened with horny nodules reminiscent of buttons. At dinnertime, beneath that fold, a thinking stove would burn. That's the way it was. Standing on a big iron bridge, I flung into the river a two-kopek piece, saying: one must be concerned about the science of the future.
Where is the scholarly riverdelver who will find the sacrifice to the river?
And Ka introduced me to a scholar of the year 2222.
A! One year after the first, but infantile cry of the supergovernment ASTSU. "Astsu!" intoned the scholar, as he peered at the year inscribed on the coin. People still believed in space then and thought little about time.He commissioned me to draw up a description of man.I filled in all the questions and presented a brief account: "Number of eyes -- two," he read; "number of hands -- two; number of feet -- two; number of fingers and toes -- twenty." He rested his thin gleaming skull on a spectral finger. We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of that number. "Do these numbers ever change?" he asked, giving me a piercing look with his big, intelligent eyes.
"These are the maximum numbers," I replied. "The fact is, that there are people with one hand or foot. The number of such people will increase noticeably in 317 years.
...
Translated by Gary Kern, 1975; from Snake Train, 1976 :
* To breed edible creatures in the lakes which are invisible to the naked eye, so that every lake will be a pot of soup -- already made, even if uncooked.
Crowds of diners will swim and loll about on the banks -- the food of the future.
* To base the exchange of labor on an exchange of heartbeats. To calculate each form of labor by the number of heartbeats -- the monetary unit of the future, according to which every living person will be equally rich. To consider the median number of beats equal to 365,317 per 24 hours.
* To calculate the international exchange of trade by this unit.
* To conclude the great war with the first flight to the moon.
. . .
* Let sailing through the air be one leg and the gift of spark-speech be the other leg of mankind. What comes next -- we'll wait and see.
* To construct the art of waking up easily from dreams.
* To see the dust in the capitals pile up into bundles of standing waves, according to the law of a sounding plate (the diagrams of Kundt).
* To calculate the international exchange of trade by this unit.
* To conclude the great war with the first flight to the moon.
. . .
* Let sailing through the air be one leg and the gift of spark-speech be the other leg of mankind. What comes next -- we'll wait and see.
* To construct the art of waking up easily from dreams.
* To see the dust in the capitals pile up into bundles of standing waves, according to the law of a sounding plate (the diagrams of Kundt).
