“Oh, tomorrow – some fool will start the Machine again, tomorrow.”
“Never,” said Kuno, “never. Humanity has learnt its lesson.”
As he spoke, the whole city was broken like a honeycomb. An air-ship had sailed in through the vomitory into a ruined wharf. It crashed downwards, exploding as it went, rending gallery after gallery with its wings of steel. For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky.
The Machine Stops, E.M. Forster, 1909