Aleksandr Abramov, Sergei Abramov. Horsemen from Nowhere

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     Translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky
     áÌÅËÓÁÎÄÒ áÂÒÁÍÏ×, óÅÒÇÅÊ áÂÒÁÍÏ× "÷óáäîéëé îéïôëõäá" ¡ horsmen1.txt
     MIR PUBLISHERS Moscow 1969
     OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2 ¡ http://home.freeuk.com/russica2
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     "Horsemen From Nowhere" is a science-fiction story about the arrival on
earth of mysterious rose-coloured  "clouds" from deep  space. Members of the
Soviet  Antarctic  expedition are  the  first to  meet them in  a series  of
inexplicable events. The "clouds"  are seen to  be  removing  the  Antarctic
ice-cap and carrying it off into space.  They are capable of reproducing any
kind of atomic structure, and this goes for human beings as well. The heroes
of  the story  meet their "counterparts",  come upon a  duplicated airliner,
journey through a modelled city, and fight Gestapo policemen that  have been
reconstructed  from the past by these same mysterious  "clouds".  Scientists
are not able to explain why terrestrial life is being modelled. All attempts
to contact  the  space beings fail.  In the  end, however, Soviet scientists
penetrate the enigma of the rose clouds and  establish contact with a highly
developed extragalactic civilization.


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         * PART ONE. THE ROSE CLOUD


        Chapter I. A CATASTROPHE



     The snow was fluffy and soft, not at all the compacted, sand-paper-like
crystalline neve of the polar wastes. The Antarctic summer was mild, and the
gay frost that tweaked  the ears ever  so slightly  created an atmosphere of
Sunday  hiking  back home  in  Moscow. Our thirty-five-ton  snow tractor was
gliding along at a marvellous clip, but  in  winter  even the  airplane skis
could hardly tear away from the supercooled ice crystals. Vano was a skilled
driver and didn't bother to put the brakes on even in the case of suspicious
humps and bumps of ice.
     "Take it easy,  there, Vano," Zernov shouted from the navigator's cabin
adjacent to the driver. "There might be crevasses."
     "Where do you  see  cracks?"  was  Vano's mistrustful  response, as  he
peered  through dark glasses into the stream  of  blindingly brilliant light
that flooded the cabin through the front window. "This isn't a road, this is
a  highway, the Rustaveli Boulevard  in Tbilisi.  You  can take it from  me,
that's definite. Really, I mean it."
     I climbed out of the radio-room and pulled down the retracted seat next
to Vano. For  some reason,  I turned  round to look at the desk in the salon
where Tolya Dyachuk was doing some meteorological work. I shouldn't have.
     "We  are  now  witnessing the birth  of a new kind of  chauffeur," said
Tolya with a disgusting giggle. And since I disdained to reply, he added:
     "Vanity is killing you, Yura. Aren't two specialities enough for you?"
     Each  of  us   in  the  expedition  combined   two,   sometimes  three,
professions.  Zernov, for example, was the glaciologist, but he could handle
the work of geophysicist or seismologist as well. Tolya Dyachuk combined the
duties of  meteorologist, doctor and cook. Vano was the  mechanic and driver
of the huge  tractor specially designed  for work in polar regions;  what is
more,  he  could  repair   anything  from  a  broken  tractor   tread  to  a
temperamental electric hotplate. I was  in charge of photography, movies and
also the radio. What attracted me to Vano was not any  desire to increase my
range of specialities  but his  own  love for this gigantic  Kharkov tractor
vehicle.
     When  I first saw it from the airplane as we were  landing, it appeared
to me like a red dragon from a fairy tale; but close up, with its metre-wide
tractor  tread  jutting out and its  enormous square  eyes-windows-gave  the
impression of a  creature  from  another world. I had driven  motor cars and
heavy lorries and, with Vano's  permission, had tried the tractor on the icy
land floe near Mirny, but yesterday was windy and  sombre-I  didn't risk it.
But today was crystal clear.
     "Let  me take a try,  Vano," I  said, and didn't  allow myself to  look
back. "Just for half an hour."
     Vano was getting up when Zernov shouted:
     "Come on now, no experiments in driving. You, Chokheli, are responsible
for  the  running  condition  of the  machine.  You,  Anokhin, put  on  your
goggles."
     There  was  nothing  to  do but comply.  Zernov  was chief  and he  was
demanding  and unyielding. Of  course  it  was  definitely dangerous without
goggles to look into the myriads of scintillations produced by a cold sun on
sheets of snow. Only near the horizon did it darken  somewhat as the plateau
merged with  the smeared-out ultramarine of  the  sky. Nearby even  the  air
sparkled white.
     "Look over  there  to the left, Anokhin," Zernov continued.  "The  side
window gives a better view. Nothing unusual?"
     What I saw off to the left, at a distance of about fifty metres, was an
absolutely vertical wall of ice. It was higher than any buildings I knew of.
Even the New York skyscrapers  would hardly  have come  up to its top fluffy
edge.  Brilliantly shining  with all colours of  the rainbow,  it was like a
ribbon  of diamond dust. It was darker at the bottom  where layers of packed
snow  had already frozen into a darkish  hard neve. Lower still, there was a
break in the enormous thickness of ice,  as if a gargantuan knife had sliced
through it. Here it was bluish  in the sunlight, like the sky reflected in a
giant  mirror. At  the very bottom, however,  the  wind had built up  a long
two-metre  high snowdrift-a nice fluffy fringe to match the  same one way up
at the top of  the wall  of  ice. The wall extended  on  and on without end,
tapering off in the distant snowy  reaches of  space. Only the mighty giants
of fairy tales could, it seemed, have  erected it here in this  icy fastness
to  protect no one  knew what from  no  one  knew whom-a fortress of ice. Of
course, ice  in  the Antarctic-no  matter what  its  shapes  and forms-could
hardly impress anyone.  Which is just what I said  to Zernov, for 1 couldn't
see what was so attractive to the glaciologist.
     "A plateau of ice, Boris Arkadievich. Perhaps a shelf glacier?"
     "Old timer," Zernov  said ironically, hinting at  my second trip to the
South Pole.  "Do  you  know  what  a  shelf  is? You don't?  A  shelf  is  a
continental bar. A shelf glacier slides down into the ocean. Now this is not
a glacial precipice and we are not in the ocean." He was silent for a moment
and then added thoughtfully. "Please, stop, Vano.  Let's take a closer look.
This is an interesting phenomenon. Put something on, boys, it's no place for
light sweaters."
     Close up, the wall was still more beautiful.  An unbelievably blue bar,
a chunk  of  frozen sky cut off near the horizon.  Zernov was silent. Either
the magnificence  of  the spectacle  awed him,  or its  inexplicability.  He
peered for the longest time into the snowy line at the topmost fringe of the
wall,  and  then for some reason looked down at his  feet, stamped the snow,
then kicked it about. We watched him but could not figure it out.
     "Just look at this snow we are standing on," he said suddenly.
     We stamped the snow a bit like he had done, and  found a solid sheet of
ice below the thin layer of snow.
     "A real skating  rink," said Dyachuk. "An ideal  plane, probably Euclid
himself helped to make it."
     But Zernov was serious.
     He continued  thoughtfully, "We are standing on ice. There is  not more
than  two centimetres of snow. Now look at the  wall. Metres thick. Why? The
climate  here  is  the  same,  the  same  winds,  the  same  conditions  for
accumulation of snow. Anyone got any bright ideas?"
     Nobody answered. Zernov continued thinking aloud.
     "The structure of the ice is  apparently the  same.  The surface too. I
get  the  impression  of  an  artificial  cut.  And if. you  brush  off  the
centimetre-thick layer of snow under foot, we get  the  same artificial cut.
Now that doesn't make sense at all."
     "Everything is nonsense in  the realm of the  snow queen," I put in for
what it was worth.
     "Why queen and not king?" Vano queried.
     "You explain it  to  him, Tolya," I said, "you're  the  map specialist.
We've got Queen Mary  Land, Queen Maud Land, and then in the other direction
Queen Victoria Land." "Simply Victoria," Tolya added correcting me.
     "Listen,  you  erudite  of  Weather  Forecasts, she  was the  Queen  of
England.  Incidentally, in this same field of forecasting, wasn't it here on
this wall  that the snow queen played with Caius? And wasn't it here that he
cut his cubes and fashioned them into the word 'eternity'?"
     Dyachuk grew cautious, ready for a trap.
     "Hey, who's this Caius guy?"
     "Oh, for heaven's sake,"  I sighed, "why didn't Hans Christian Andersen
deal in weather forecasts?  Do you know the difference between  you and him?
The colour of the blood. His is blue."
     "The octopus has blue blood if you want to know."
     Zernov was not listening.
     "Are we roughly in the same region?" he asked suddenly.
     "What region, Boris Arkadievich?"
     "Where the Americans observed those clouds."
     "No, quite  a bit to  the west,"  put  in Dyachuk. "I've checked by the
map."
     "I said 'roughly'. Clouds usually move, you know."
     "Ducks too," wisecracked Tolya.
     "You don't believe me, Dyachuk?"
     "Of  course not. It isn't  even funny: clouds that are neither  cumulus
nor cirrus. Actually,  there aren't any at all right  now."  He looked up at
the open sky. "Perhaps orographic. They're lens-like in shape with  an extra
layer on top.
     And  rose-coloured due to the sunlight. But these are  dense, a  greasy
rose colour and something  like raspberry  jelly. A lot  lower than  cumulus
clouds, not exactly bags blown up  by the  wind, but something in the nature
of uncontrolled dirigibles. Nonsense!"
     These were  obviously the  mysterious  rose-coloured  clouds  that  the
Americans at  MacMur-do had radioed  about.  Clouds like rose dirigibles had
passed over the island of Ross, were seen on Adelie Land and in the vicinity
of the shelf  glacier Shackleton, and an American pilot was reported to have
collided with them some three hundred kilometres from Mirny. Kolya  Samoilov
received the radiogram  that the  American  radio operator sent out: "I  saw
them myself, the devil take them. Racing along just like a Disney film."
     At Mirny,  on  the  whole, the men were very sceptical about  the  rose
clouds  and only a few  took the  thing seriously. George Bruk, chief  merry
maker, kept at the phlegmatic old-timer seismologist:
     "Now you've surely heard of the flying saucers, haven't you?"
     "Suppose I have."
     "And about the banquet at MacMurdo?"
     "So what?"
     "Did you see the 'Life' reporter off to New York?"
     "What are you getting at, anyway?"
     "Well,  rose-coloured ducks went along with him and all the sensational
news too."
     "Lay off, will you. You're getting to be a pain you know where."
     George  lay  off with a  smirk and  set  out for  some other victim. He
passed me  up, considering perhaps that the chances of success were small. I
was  having lunch  with glaciologist  Zernov, who  was  only eight years  my
senior but was already a professor. Really, no matter how you look at it, to
be a full doctor of science at thirty-six is something to envy, though these
sciences did  not seem  so  important to me-I'm closer to the humanities.  I
didn't believe they could mean so much to human progress. And I said as much
to Zernov on one occasion.
     His answer was: "You probably don't know how much snow and ice there is
on the earth. Take the Antarctic alone: the ice cap here in winter covers up
to twenty-two  million  square kilometres;  add to  that 11  million  in the
Arctic,  then Greenland, and  the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Then put in all
the snow-topped peaks and glaciers, not counting  all the rivers that freeze
over in winter. How much will that come to? About one third of the land area
of the globe. The continent of ice is twice that  of Africa. Which is not so
insignificant when it comes to human progress."
     I swallowed all that ice and any condescending desire to learn anything
during my  stay here in Antarctica.  But after that, Zernov  took  a  kindly
attitude towards me and on the day of the report of "rose clouds", at lunch,
he invited me on a trip into the interior of the continent.
     "Oh, a distance of three hundred kilometres or so," he added.
     "What for?"
     "We'd like to  make a check  on the American phenomenon. It's  a highly
unlikely  thing;  that's  what everyone thinks. But  still it's something to
look  into. For you in  particular. You will  use  coloured  film  since the
clouds are rose-coloured."
     "That's nothing  at all," I put in. "The most ordinary  kind of optical
effect."
     "I don't know. I wouldn't want to refute it outright. The report states
that the colour  appears  to  be  independent  of any illumination. True, we
could presume an admixture of some aero-sole of terrestrial  origin or, say,
meteoritic dust from  outer  space. If you  want  to  know, my interest lies
elsewhere. "
     "And what's that?"
     "The state of the ice in that area."
     I didn't ask why at the time, but I recalled the matter when Zernov was
thinking  out  loud  near  the mysterious  wall of  ice.  He  was  obviously
connecting the two phenomena.
     In the tractor I moved up to Dyachuk's work desk.
     "It's a  puzzling wall and a definitely strange cut," I mused. "How did
they do it, with a saw of some kind? But then where do the clouds come in?"
     "Why do you insist on linking them up?" Tolya asked in surprise.
     "It's  not  me, it's Zernov. Why did he  recall the  clouds when he was
quite definitely thinking about the glacier?"
     "You're just making things more complicated. The glacier is unusual, to
say the least, but what has  that to do with the clouds? The glacier doesn't
generate them."
     "But suppose it does."
     "There is  no suppose to it. Give me a hand here with the breakfast, if
you have nothing better to do. What do you think, omelette out of egg powder
or one of these tins?"
     I didn't have time to answer. Something struck us  with a terrible blow
and we tumbled to the  floor. "Are we really  flying?  From  the mountain or
into  a crevasse?" was all I could think.  That very second a terrific  blow
from  the front struck the tractor and threw  it backwards.  I was tossed to
the opposite wall. Something cold  and heavy banged against  my head, and  I
went out cold.


        Chapter II. DUPLICATES



     I came  to, but  in  a way  I did  not  regain consciousness  because I
continued to lie there without moving  and with not even enough  strength to
open  my eyes.  Consciousness crept  back  slowly,  or  was  it  a  sort  of
subconsciousness?  Vague feelings, hazy sensations  took  hold of me, and my
thoughts-which were just  as indeterminate and nebulous-attempted  to define
them.  I was weightless, and I appeared to be floating or sailing or hanging
not  even  in the  air but  in  empty  space,  in a kind of colourless tepid
colloidal  solution,  thick  and yet  imperceptible  at  the same  time.  It
penetrated into my pores, my eyes and mouth and filled my stomach and lungs,
washing through my blood, or perhaps even took its place and began to course
through my body.  A strange impression  grasped me-that  something invisible
was peering intently  at and  through  me,  investigating with  concentrated
curiosity every blood vessel, every nerve  fibre, down to the very cells  of
my brain. I did  not experience either fear or pain, I slept and didn't, and
dreamt incoherently and formlessly, yet at the same time I was positive that
this was no dream at all.
     When I finally regained consciousness, everything about  me was just as
bright and quiet as usual. I opened my eyes with great difficulty and with a
sharp piercing  pain in  my temples. Right  in  front of me I saw  a smooth,
reddish tree-trunk tower upwards. Was this a Eucalyptus tree or a palm tree?
Or perhaps  a pine whose top  I could not see. I could not turn my  head. My
hand hit  upon something  hard and cold, a stone perhaps. I pushed it and it
rolled into  the  grass soundlessly. My eyes sought the green  grass  of the
Moscow Zoo,  but  the  colour was ochre instead. And from  above,  from  the
window or from  the  sky,  came a  brilliant  stream  of  white  light  that
suggested both  a limitless expanse  of snowy wastes and the blue brilliance
of a wall of ice. Everything became clear at once.
     Overcoming the  pain, I  got to my feet and then  sat down to survey my
surroundings.  I recognized  things now: the brownish  lawn  was  simply the
linoleum and the reddish pole was the foot  of the table, and the stone that
I pushed was my camera. It had probably hit me on the head when the  vehicle
plunged downwards. Where was Dyachuk?  I  called him,  but no  answer  came.
Zernov did not respond, neither did Chokheli. The silence  was more complete
than  that of  a  room  in which you are working and where you  can hear all
kinds of  sounds-the  dropping  of  water,  the squeaking of the  floor, the
tick-tock of a clock or the  buzzing of a fly-this was a total silence where
only my own voice could be heard. I  brought my wrist-watch to my ear-it was
going. And the time was twenty minutes after twelve.
     With great effort I rose to my  feet and,  holding onto the wall, found
my way to the navigator's seat. It was empty, even the gloves and binoculars
had  vanished from the desk and Zernov's fur jacket was not  thrown over the
back of  the  chair.  Zernov's  log  book  was  absent.  Vano  had  likewise
disappeared  together with mittens and jacket.  I looked through  the  front
window;  the outside  glass  was  bent  inwards. Beyond I  could  see smooth
diamond-like snow, as if there had not been any accident at all.
     But my memory persisted and the headache I had was definitely real.  In
the mirror I could see caked blood on my forehead. I probed around a bit and
found that the bone was all right, only the skin had been cut by the edge of
the  camera.  This  meant that  something  had  indeed  taken  place.  Maybe
everybody was nearby in the snow?  I looked in  the  drying room for the sky
clamps:  there were no  skis.  Also absent  were  the duraluminum  emergency
sleighs. All the jackets and  caps, except mine, had vanished. I  opened the
door and jumped down onto the ice. It was bluish and bright under the slight
layer of fluffy snow that the wind  was  blowing every which way. Zernov was
right when  he  spoke of the mysteriously  thin  layer  of snow in the  deep
interior of the polar continent.
     Of a sudden, everything became clear. Right next to our "Kharkovchanka"
vehicle  was another  one,  big  and red and all covered  with snow.  It had
obviously caught up with  us from Mirny or was on its way to Mirny.  And  it
had helped us out of our trouble. That was it. Our tractor had fallen into a
crevasse: about ten metres from here I could see the tracks going downwards,
then the dark opening of a well with a firn-like crust covering  the  crack.
The boys  from  the other tractor had  probably  seen our fall,  which  most
likely had been a lucky one in  which we had got caught  in the mouth of the
fissure, and had pulled us and the machine out.
     "Hello, there, anybody in the. tractor?" I yelled  and went  around the
front end.
     There was not a single face in any one of the four windows and no voice
at all. I began to study the other machine and found that our sister vehicle
had exactly the same bent-in glass in the front window. Then I looked at the
left-hand tread.  Our machine had a  clear-cut mark: one of the steel cleats
had  been welded  on and therefore differed definitely from the others.  Now
this tread had the  same tell-tale mark. These were  no  twins from the same
factory but duplicates that repeated every single detail.  Opening the  door
of the other machine, the duplicate, I trembled fearing the worst.
     True enough. The entrance passage was empty, no skis, no sleighs,  only
my fur  jacket  hanging on the hook.  My jacket, that  was it: torn and with
sewn-up left-hand sleeve, the fur worn off the cuffs and two dark oily spots
on the  shoulder-I  had once picked it  up with oily fingers.  I entered the
cabin in haste and fell against the wall so as not to collapse, for my heart
was about to stop.
     On the floor, near the table,  in a  brown shirt and  padded  trousers,
with face  against the leg of the table and dried up  blood  on the forehead
and one hand holding onto the camera was ME.
     Was this a dream? I had not yet  awakened? I was looking at myself by a
second  vision? I pinched the skin on my hand. It hurt. It was  clear that I
was awake  and  not sleeping.  Well, then I must  have gone  crazy. But from
books I had read I knew that mad people never  realize they  have gone  mad.
Then what is this all about? Hallucinations? A mirage? I touched  the  wall;
it was  real  enough. That meant that  I  myself was  not  an apparition,  a
phantom lying  consciousless at my own  feet. Sheer madness. I  recalled the
words of the mysterious snow  maiden. Then maybe, after all, there is a snow
maiden,  and  miracles do  happen,  and  phantom duplicates  of  people, and
science is simply nonsense and self-consolation.
     What was there to do? Should I run to the duplicate tractor and wait to
go out of my  mind completely?  Then I recalled the dictum that if  what you
see contradicts the laws of nature, then you are to blame, you  err and  not
nature. My fear disappeared, only confusion and anger remained. I  even gave
the lying  man a kick. He moaned and opened his eyes.  Then  he rose on  his
elbow just as I had done and looked around with a dull gaze.
     "Where is everybody?" he asked.
     I did not recognize the voice-perhaps mine in  a tape-recording. But he
was really me,  this phantom, if  he thought exactly  the  way I  had when I
regained consciousness!
     "Where are  they?"  he repeated and  then  yelled  "Tolya! Dyachuk!" No
response. It had been the same with me.
     "What's happened?" he asked.
     "I don't know," I answered.
     "It seemed  to  me that the machine  fell into a  crevasse, and we must
have  been knocked  about  against some wall of ice.  I fell... and  then...
everything fell. Or did it?"
     He did not recognize me.
     "Vano!" he cried, rising.
     Then silence again.  Everything  that  had occurred fifteen minutes ago
was strangely being repeated.  Reeling, he reached the navigator's  room and
touched the empty seat of  the driver,  then he  went into the drying  room,
found-like I had-that there  were no skis or sleighs  and then remembered me
and returned.
     "Where are you from?" he asked peering at me more intently and suddenly
leapt  back  covering his  face  with  his  hand.  "This  can't  be!  What's
happening? Am I asleep?"
     "That's exactly what I said... at  first," I answered. I was  no longer
afraid.
     He sat down on the porolone settee.
     "Please excuse me, but you look exactly like me, in the mirror. Are you
a spectre?"
     "No, you can touch me and find out."
     "But then who are you?"
     "I'm Yuri Anokhin, the cameraman and radio operator of the expedition,"
I said firmly.
     He jumped up.
     "No,  I  am Yuri  Anokhin, the  cameraman  and  radio operator  of  the
expedition," he cried out and sat down again.
     Now both  of us were silent, examining one another; one was calmer, for
he  knew a  little  bit more  and  had seen more; the other  with a glint of
madness in his eyes, repeating, perhaps, all my thoughts-those that had come
to mind  when I  had first  seen him. Yes, there were two men in  this cabin
breathing in the same heavy rhythm- two identical human beings.


        Chapter III. THE ROSE CLOUD



     How long this lasted I do not know. Finally he spoke up.
     "I don't understand anything."
     "Me too."
     "A man cannot split into two men."
     "That's exactly what I figured."
     He gave some thought to that.
     "Maybe there is a snow maiden after all?"
     "You're repeating,"  I  said. "I have  already thought about that.  And
that science is nonsense and self-consolation."
     He smiled slightly embarrassed, as if  rebuked by his senior. Actually,
I was his senior. But then he corrected himself immediately:
     "That's   a  joke.   This   is  some   kind  of  physical  and  psychic
mystification.  What  kind exactly, I cannot  make out  yet. But there is an
illusion.
     There is something not real. You know what?
     Let's go see Zernov."
     He understood me almost without speaking- he was my reflection. And our
thoughts  ran to the same  thing:  did our microscope survive the shock?  It
had, it  turned out, and was in its place in the  cabinet.  The slides  were
also  intact.  My duplicate (or counterpart) took them  out  of the  box. We
compared our hands: even the corns and handnails were the same.
     "We'll check and see," I said.
     Each one of us pricked his finger and smeared the blood on the  slides;
then took turns  looking through  the microscope. The blood was identical in
both cases.
     "The same material," he said with a smirk, "a copy."
     "You're the copy."
     "No, you are."
     "Wait  a  minute,"  I  stopped  him, "Who invited  you  to  go on  this
expedition?"
     "Why, Zernov, of course."
     "And what was the purpose?"
     "You're just asking so that you can later repeat the same thing."
     "No, not at  all. I  can tell you. Because of the rose-coloured clouds,
isn't that so?"
     He squinted, recalling something, and then asked cunningly:
     "What school did you finish?"
     "Institute, not school."
     "No, I'm asking  about school. The number. What number was it, have you
forgotten?"
     "You're the one who has forgotten. I finished School No. 709."
     "Well, okey. But who sat next to you on the left?"
     "Now, listen. Why are you examining me?"
     "Just a check up, that's all. You might have  forgotten Lena,  you see.
Incidentally, she got married shortly afterwards."
     "Yes, she married Fibikh," I said.
     He sighed.
     "Your life coincides with mine."
     "Still, I'm  convinced that  you are the copy,  a  spectre and a bit of
witchcraft." I wound up getting angrier all the time. "Who was first to wake
up? I was. And who first saw two tractors? Me again."
     "Why two?" he asked suddenly.
     That's when I began to laugh triumphantly. My priority was now complete
and confirmed.
     "For the simple reason that there is another one alongside it. The real
one. Take a look."
     He  pressed against the  side window and, perplexed, looked at me. Then
without a word he  put on a copy of my jacket and went out onto the ice. The
identically welded  piece  of  tread and  the  identically bent glass of the
window made him frown. Cautiously, he  looked into the entrance way, went on
into the navigator's room  and then returned to the table with my camera. He
even examined it.
     "A real sister," he said gloomily.
     "As you see, she and I were born a bit earlier."
     "All you did was wake up earlier," he added frowning, "and no one knows
which one of us is the real one. Actually, I do know."
     "Suppose he's right, after all?" I thought to myself. "Just suppose the
duplicate  and  phantom  are  not  he at  all,  but me? After  all, who  can
determine a thing like that if  our fingernails have  the same markings  and
our  schoolmates  are  the  same? Even  our  thoughts  are  duplicated, even
feelings if the stimuli from without are the same."
     We looked  at each other as if into a mirror. Just imagine a thing like
that happening!
     "You know what I'm thinking about right now?" he said suddenly.
     "Yes, I do," I answered. "Let's see."
     I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking about the very same
thing. If there  are  two tractors on the ice and it  is not  known which of
them fell into  the crack in the ice, then why are the  same windows in both
broken? And if both of them fell through, how did they get out?
     We  stopped our conversation  and both ran  to the opening  in the  ice
crust. We stretched out  on the ice and crawled right up to the edge of  the
precipice, and then all  was clear. Only  one  of the machines had fallen in
because there was only one  set of tracks.  It  had  got caught  about three
metres from the edge of the precipice, between the two walls that came close
together at  this point. We could also  see little  steps  made in  the  ice
probably by Vano or Zernov, depending  on who succeeded first  in getting to
the surface.  This obviously meant  that the  second "Kharkovchanka" machine
appeared already after the fall of the  first. But then who pulled the first
one out? It couldn't get out of the crevice by itself definitely.
     I took another  glance into the precipice. It was black, deep, menacing
and  bottomless. I picked up  a  piece of ice that had  broken off the edge-
probably a chunk knocked out by the hack used to cut the steps-and tossed it
down. It straightway  vanished from view but I did not hear any sound of its
hitting  something.  Then  an idea flashed through my  mind: maybe give this
fellow-duplicate  of mine a  push?  Run  up  to  him and trip  him into  the
precipice?...
     "Don't think you'll be able to do it," he said.
     I was dumbfounded at first and only later caught on.
     "You were thinking of the same thing?" "Of course."
     "Let's fight, then. Perhaps one of us will kill the other."
     "And suppose  both are killed?" We stood  opposite one  another, angry,
all  keyed  up,  throwing  absolutely  identical  shadows  on the snow. Then
suddenly all this struck us both as being funny.
     "This  is a farce," I  said. "We'll get back to Moscow and they'll show
us around in a circus. Two-Anokhin-Two."
     "Why a circus? In the  Academy of Sciences. A new phenomenon, something
like the rose clouds."
     "Which don't exist." "Take a look." He pointed to the sky.  In the hazy
blue  in  the  distance  billowed  a  rose-coloured  cloud.  All  alone,  no
companions, no satellites,  just  like a spot of wine on a white tablecloth.
It floated very slowly and low, much below storm clouds, and  did not at all
look  like a cloud. I would sooner have compared it to a  dirigible. It even
resembled more a piece of dark rose-coloured  dough rolled  out on the table
or a  large kite floating  lazily  in  the sky. Jerking along, pulsating, it
moved sideways to the earth as if alive.
     "A jellyfish," my counterpart said, repeating my  own  thoughts on  the
subject, "a live rose jellyfish. Without tentacles."
     "Quit repeating my nonsense. That's a substance and not a creature."
     "You think so?"
     "Just the way you do. Take a better look."
     "But why does it jerk so?"
     "It's billowing  because it's  a gas or  water vapour. Perhaps dust, on
the other hand," I added not very sure of myself.
     The crimson  kite came to halt right overhead  and began to descend. It
was some five hundred metres  distance from us, hardly more. The  shimmering
edges of it turned downwards  and grew dark. The  kite  was  turning into  a
bell.
     "Oh, what a nut!" I exclaimed remembering my camera. "This is just what
ought to be photographed!"
     I rushed to my "Kharkovchanka" vehicle, checked to see  that the camera
was in working order and the colour-film spool in place. All that took but a
minute. I began  to shoot right through the open door, and jumping down onto
the ice I ran around the  two machines and found another angle for some more
shots. Only then did I notice that my alter ego stood without camera and was
watching my movements in a detached, lost sort of fashion.
     "Why aren't you  taking pictures?" I  yelled without taking my eye  off
the viewfinder.
     He did not answer at once and when he did it was strangely slow.
     "I dooon't know. Something is-is-is bothering me."
     "What's all this about?"
     ".. .don't know."
     I looked intently at him and even forgot about the threat from the sky.
This finally was a real difference! We weren't, after all, so completely the
same. He was experiencing something I  did not feel. Something was hampering
his movements, yet I  was free. Without thinking twice I snapped him and the
duplicate tractor as well. For an instant I even forgot about the rose cloud
but he reminded me.
     "It's diving."
     The  crimson  bell  was  no  longer slowly  descending, it was falling,
plunging downwards. I instinctively jumped to the side.
     "Run," I cried.
     My new twin finally moved a bit, but he did not run. Very strangely, he
walked backwards to his own vehicle.
     "Where are you going? Are you crazy?"
     The bell enveloped him and he did  not even answer. I again looked into
the viewfinder and hurried to take these important shots. Fear had even left
me because what I was photographing now was something  truly nonterrestrial.
No cameraman had ever taken pictures like these before.
     The  cloud grew  smaller in  size and darker still. Now  it was like an
upturned saucer  for an enormous  tropical plant. It was no more than six to
seven metres from the ground.
     "Look out!" I cried.
     I had suddenly  forgotten that he too was a phenomenon and not a living
being,  and  in one  gigantic unimaginable  effort  I jumped to  his aid.  I
couldn't  have helped him  anyway,  it turned  out,  but  the  jump cut  the
distance between us by one half. In one more jump I might have  caught  him.
But  something  intervened  and would not let  me;  it  even sent me reeling
backwards, as if by a shock wave or a gust of hurricane wind. I nearly fell,
but still  held on to my camera. The  giant  flower  had already reached the
earth and  its  purple-red petals, pulsating in a wild fashion, covered over
both duplicates,  the vehicle and  me.  Another second and  they touched the
snow-covered ice. Now,  alongside my tractor towered  a  mysterious  crimson
hill. It appeared to steam and boil and bubble, and  was all shrouded in the
rippling colours of  a crimson-like haze.  Golden sparks scintillated  as if
flashes  of electric discharges. I continued to take pictures, all the while
attempting to get as close as possible. Another  step, yet another, . .. and
my feet grew heavy,  still heavier as if tied to the icefield.  An invisible
magnet in them drew me down, as it were -not a step more. And I stopped.
     The hillock  became just the slightest bit brighter, the dull  dark red
brightened to a crimson and then it all  shot straight upwards. The upturned
saucer expanded,  its rosy edges slowly turned upwards. The bell  was  again
transformed into a kite, a rose-coloured cloud, a blob  of  gas billowing in
the wind.  It did not pick anything up from the  earth, no  condensations or
nebulous formations were at all noticeable in its interior.
     But down below stood my "Kharkovchanka" on the icefield, all alone. Its
mysterious double had  vanished  instantaneously, just  as it had  appeared.
Only the snow revealed traces of the wide treads, but the wind blew and they
were soon  covered over with an  even coat  of fluffy snow. The  "cloud" too
disappeared somewhere beyond the  edge of  the wall of  ice. I  looked at my
watch. Thirty-three minutes had passed since, on  coming to my senses, I had
checked the time.
     I experienced  an unusual feeling  of relief  from  the  knowledge that
something terrible indeed, something totally unexplainable had  gone out  of
my  life. More terrible  actually because I had already begun to get used to
the inexplicability, as a mad man  gets used to his  madness.  The  delirium
evaporated together with the rose gas, the  invisible barrier  also vanished
that did not allow me to  approach my duplicate.  Now I was able to go up to
my machine and I  sat down on the iron  step. I did not stop to think that I
would freeze to the metal as the temperature continued to  drop. Now nothing
concerned me except the thought of accounting in some way for that half hour
of nightmare. For  the  second time,  the third  time  and the tenth time  I
dropped my head to my hands and asked aloud:
     "What actually did take place after the accident?"



        Chapter IV. BEING OR SUBSTANCE?



     The answer was:
     "The most  important thing is that  you  are  alive, Anokhin. Really, I
feared for the worst."
     I raised my head-in front  of me stood Zernov and Tolya. Zernov did the
questioning,  while  Tolya stamped his skis and  knocked the snow about with
his sticks. Stout and shaggy with a soft down of hair on his face instead of
our unshaven  bristles,  he  seemed to have  lost  his sceptical mockery and
looked with boyish eyes all excited and happy.
     "Where did you people come from?" I asked.
     I was so tired and worn out that I didn't even  have strength enough to
smile.
     "Oh, right nearby," Tolya chirped, "a couple of kilometres at the most.
We've got a tent there, too."
     "Wait a minute, Dyachuk," Zernov put in, "there's time for that. How do
you feel, Anokhin? How did you get out? How long ago?"
     "So many questions,"  I said. My tongue  was as  unruly  as  that  of a
drunkard. "Let's start in some order, from  the end, say. How long ago did I
get out?  I don't know. How? Don't know again. How do  I feel?  More or less
normal, as far as I can make out. No fractures, no bumps." "Your morale?"
     Finally  I smiled,  but  it came out rather grim  and insincere because
Zernov immediately asked again:
     "Do you really think that we simply left you in the lurch?"
     "No, not for a minute," I said,  "but a series  of  bizarre events took
place that I can't account for."
     "That I see," Zernov said looking over our ill-fated vehicle. "A  tough
machine it  turned out to be. Just bent  in a few  spots.  Who was  it  that
pulled you out?"
     I shrugged.
     "There are no  volcanoes here. No pressure from below  to eject you. So
somebody must have done the job."
     "I  don't know what happened,"  I  said.  "I just found  myself on  the
plateau here."
     "Boris Arkadievich!" Tolya cried. "There's  only one machine. The other
one must have simply left. That's what I said, a Sno-Cat or a  tractor. They
did it with steel cables, that's all."
     "Pulled  it  out and  left,"  said Zernov doubtfully. "And left Anokhin
behind, without giving him any aid. Very strange, very strange indeed."
     "Perhaps they figured he was out for good. That he was dead.  But maybe
they'll be back. They might have a site nearby. And a doctor too."
     I  was  fed up  with those nonsensical  imaginings  of  Tolya.  He  was
hopeless whenever wound up.
     "Shut up for a while, will you!" I put in, making  a wry face. "In this
case, ten tractors wouldn't have been able to do anything. And there weren't
any cables either. And the second vehicle did not go away, it vanished."
     "So there was a second one after all?" Zernov asked.
     "Yes, there was."
     "But what does 'vanished' mean? Did it perish?"
     "To a certain  extent.  That's  a  long  story,  actually. There  was a
duplicate of our 'Kharkovchanka' machine. Not just a copy, but a  duplicate,
a phantom, a spectre. But a real spectre, an actual one."
     Zernov  listened  attentively  and   with  interest  .  without  saying
anything. There was nothing in his eyes that said: crazy, out of your  head,
you need psychiatric treatment.
     But Dyachuk was constantly ready with a term or two, and aloud he said:
     "You're something like Vano. Miracles are  all you two can see. He came
running crazy-like  and yelling. 'There are two  machines and two Anokhins!'
And his teeth were chattering."
     "You would have crawled on all fours if you had seen the wonders that I
did," I  put in cutting him  short, "there was no  imagination in  this case
because there were two vehicles and two Anokhins."
     Tolya moved his  lips but said  nothing and  looked  at  Zernov; Zernov
turned aside for some  reason. And in place of an  answer  he asked, jerking
his head in the direction of the door behind me:
     "Is everything intact there?"
     "I think so, though I didn't check to find out," I replied.
     "Then let's have some breakfast. No objections? We haven't had anything
to eat since then."
     I  understood  Zernov's psychological manoeuvre:  he wanted to calm  me
down  and create a proper  atmosphere for conversation, for I  was obviously
upset. At table, where we greedily devoured Tolya's lousy omelette, the head
of  the  expedition  related  what had taken place immediately following the
accident on the plateau.
     When  the  tractor  had plunged  into the crevice, breaking  through  a
treacherous crust  of frozen  snow  and had got caught  a  relatively  short
distance from the top and  pressed between jags in the icy  ravine, only the
outside glass  of the window was slightly damaged despite the force  of  the
impact. The light did not even go out  in the cabin. Only Dyachuk and I lost
consciousness. Zernov and Chokheli held on with only a couple  of scratches.
They tried to  bring Tolya and me around first. Dyachuk came to immediately.
But his  head was going round in  circles and  his feet felt like cotton. "A
concussion of a sort," he said. "That'll  pass.  Let's see what's wrong with
Anokhin." He was  already getting  into the role  of doctor. They pulled him
over to me and the three of  them tried to  bring me to. But neither ammonia
salts  nor artificial respiration helped. "He seems to be  in  shock, if you
ask me,"  said Tolya.  Vano, meanwhile, had  made his way through  the upper
hatch and from the roof of the "Kharkovchanka" reported that it was possible
to get out of the crevice.  But Tolya was against trying to get me out. "The
main  thing now," he  said, "is to protect him from the cold. I believe that
shock passes into  sleep and sleep will set up a protective  inhibition." At
this point  Tolya  almost  went out  again,  and it was decided to start the
evacuation with Tolya and leave  me in  the  cabin for the  time being. They
took skis, sleighs, the tent, a portable stove and briquettes for heating, a
lantern  and part of the food  supply. Though  the machine was in  a  stable
position  and there  was no more danger of it falling farther,  they did not
want to stay any longer hanging over the precipice. Zernov recalled the cave
in the ice wall  a short distance  from  the  site of the  accident. So they
decided to transfer  all the equipment there and Tolya too  and then  set up
the  tent and stove and return for me. In half an hour they had  reached the
cave. Zernov  and Tolya,  who had meanwhile regained some strength, remained
to set up the tent, while Vano  returned with  empty sleigh  to fetch me. It
was then  that  the event took  place  which  made  them think  that  he had
momentarily lost  his mind.  Hardly an hour had passed when he  came running
back with  mad eyes,  in a state of strange feverish excitement. The machine
he said was not in the crevice  but on  an icefield, and what is more, there
was  another one just like  it alongside,  with the  same dent in  the front
glass.  And in  each one  of the two cabins he found me  lying  on the floor
unconscious.  At this  point he cried out in terror,  figuring that he  must
have gone mad, and ran back. there  he drank down  a whole glass of  spirits
and refused  point blank to go after me, saying  that he was used to dealing
with human  beings and not snow maidens. Then Zernov  and Tolya set out  for
me.
     In response, I told them  my version of the story, which was still more
remarkable than  Vano's ravings.  They listened avidly, credulously, the way
children  listen to a  fairy story, not a  single  sceptical  snicker,  only
Dyachuk hurried me on now and then with "and then what". Their eyes shone so
that I  felt they both ought to repeat Vano's  experiment with  the glass of
vodka. But when I  finished they both were silent for a long time, hoping, I
imagine, for an explanation from me.
     But I was silent too.
     "Don't  be angry,  Yuri,"  Dyachuk finally mumbled. "Scott's diary,  or
something   like   that.  Well,   what   I   mean  is   self-hypnosis.  Snow
hallucinations. White dreams."
     "And how about Vano?" Zernov asked.
     "Well, of course, as a doctor I-"
     "You're a hell of a doctor,"  put in Zernov, "so let's forget it. There
are too many unknowns  to  try  and solve the  equation straight  off. Let's
begin   from   the   beginning.   Who  pulled   out  the  machine?   From  a
three-metre-deep well,  and  wedged into a vice that  no factory  could have
made. Yes, and weighing thirty-five tons. Even a whole tractor  train  would
probably not be strong enough. And what did they use to pull it out? Cables?
Nonsense.  Steel cables would definitely leave traces  on  the body  of  the
machine. But there aren't any, as you can see."
     He got up without saying a word and went into the navigator's room.
     "But that's  sheer nonsense,  madness, Boris Arkadievich!" Tolya yelled
after him.
     Zernov turned round.
     "What do you mean?"
     "Why  all  these adventures of  Anokhin, the new  Munchausen, all these
duplicates, clouds, vampire flowers and mysterious vanishing."
     "Anokhin,  didn't  you have a  camera  in  your  hand when we came up?"
Zernov asked. "You must have been taking some pictures."
     "Yes, I photographed everything I could, the clouds, the double machine
and my counterpart. I shot for about ten minutes."
     Tolya blinked his eyes, but was still ready to  argue, not at all about
to give in.
     "It's still a question what we'll see when he develops it."
     "You'll see in  just a minute," came Zernov's  voice from his quarters.
"Look out the window."
     Coming towards us at  half a kilometre altitude was a tightly  wound up
crimson pancake. The sky was already covered over with white fleecy wisps of
cloud, and on their background it appeared to be less of a cloud. As before,
it resembled a coloured sail or an enormous  kite. Dyachuk cried out and ran
to the doorway,  we  followed.  The  "cloud" passed over us without changing
course, heading for the north to the turning of the ice wall.  "Towards  our
tent," Tolya murmured and stepped towards me.
     "I'm sorry, Yuri,"  he said and extended his hand, "I'm the  poor  fool
this time."
     I was in no mood to celebrate my victory.
     "That's  not  even  a cloud,"  he continued  thoughtfully,  summarizing
certain ideas that had been worrying  him. "What I mean is the ordinary kind
of condensation of water  vapour. These  are not droplets  and  they're  not
crystal either. At first glance, at any  rate. And  why does it hug so close
to the ground, and that  strange colour? A gas, it can hardly be a gas. It's
not dust either. If we had an aircraft I'd take a sample."
     "They'd  be eager  to  let  you have  some," I  remarked recalling  the
invisible  barrier and  my attempts  to  get  through it with my camera. "It
presses down to the ground mighty hard, I thought the soles of my shoes were
magnetic."
     "Do you think it's something living?"
     "Might be."
     "A creature of some kind?"
     "That's hard to  say,  it might even be  a substance."  I  recalled  my
conversation with my double and added: "Probably controllable."
     "How?"
     "You ought to know, you're a meteorologist,"
     "But are you sure it has some connection with meteorology?"
     I  said  nothing.  And  when we  returned to the cabin, Tolya  suddenly
expressed a really crazy idea.
     "Suppose those  are  some kind  of  inhabitants  of  the ice  continent
unknown to science?"
     "Brilliant,"  I  said.  "In  the  spirit  of  Conan  Doyle.  Courageous
explorers discover lost world on Antarctic plateau. And you're Lord Roxton?"
     "There's  nothing funny in  that. What's  your hypothesis if you've got
one?"
     Stung, I said the first thing that came to mind.
     "Cybernetic robots most likely."
     "Where from?"
     "Oh, from Europe or from the United States. Just tests that's all."
     "But for what purpose?"
     "Oh,  say, for  excavation purposes and the hoisting of  big loads. The
'Kharkovchanka' machine was  an ideal  item  for experimentation. That's why
they hauled it up."
     "But what sense is there in duplicating it?"
     "It  might  be  that  these are  some  kind of  ingenious  devices  for
reproduction of atomic structures, whether protein or crystalline."
     "Yes, but the purpose. What's the idea? I don't get it."
     "According to the  findings  of  Bodwin,  an underdeveloped  cerebellum
reduces one's ability to  comprehend by 14  to 23 per  cent.  Give that some
thought and I'll be waiting. There's another element of the hypothesis and a
significant one."
     Tolya  was so eager to figure this out that he swallowed Bodwin and the
percentage without a word.
     "I give up," he said. "What element?"
     "The counterparts or doubles," I  pointed  out.  "You were on the right
track when you spoke of self-hypnosis. But only on the track. The truth lies
in  a different direction and  on another route. It's not self-hypnosis, but
intervention  in  the processing  of  information. Actually,  there were  no
duplicates at  all, no  second  vehicle, no  second  Anokhin,  no  duplicate
clothing and things, like say  my jacket or  camera. The 'cloud' reorganized
my psychic state and created a dichotomous perception of the world. And as a
result, a splitting of the personality, a twilight state of the soul."
     "Still and all, your hypothesis lacks the most important thing: it does
not account  for the physico-chemical  nature  of these devices, nor does it
explain  the  technical workings or  the  purpose in  making them and  using
them."
     To  call my ravings  a  hypothesis was of course sheer nonsense, to say
the  least. I  concocted  it  on  the  spur of the moment and  persisted  in
developing  it only out of stubbornness. It was perfectly clear to me myself
that  it  accounted for nothing,  and, what  is most  important, it  did not
answer the question of why  it was  necessary  to eliminate the doubles that
had existed only in my imagination  or why I was not allowed to approach the
mysterious laboratory. Of course everything depended on the developed  film.
If the cine eye caught what I saw, then my hypothesis was hardly more than a
Joke.
     "Boris Arkadievich, we need help," Tolya implored.
     "In  what?" Zernov  said. He obviously hadn't been listening.  "Anokhin
has  a  fine  imagination,  it's  a  wonderful  quality   for  painters  and
scientists."
     "He's got a hypothesis."
     "Every hypothesis requires verification."
     "But every hypothesis has a limiting probability."
     "The limit of Anokhin's," Zernov agreed, "is in the state of the ice of
this region. It cannot  explain why  and for whom all these tens and perhaps
hundreds of cubic kilometres of ice are."
     We didn't grasp the meaning and so Zernov patiently and condescendingly
explained.
     "Before the accident I called your attention to the flawless profile of
the  wall of ice that starts god knows where and stretches for I  don't know
how long.  To me it  seemed to be an artificial cut. And  under foot the cut
was  just  as artificial. Even at that time  I noticed how insignificant the
density  and thickness  of the snow cover was.  I can't help but feel that a
few kilometres from here  we might find a similar wall parallel to this one.
It's  sheer conjecture of course. But if it's right, then what kind of force
could have extracted and transported such a layer  of ice? A cloud? Perhaps.
After  all,  we  do  not know its  capabilities. But of European or American
origin?" He  shrugged his shoulders. "Then  you tell me,  Anokhin, what were
these millions of tons of ice for and where have they disappeared to?"
     "But  was  this an excavation, Boris Arkadievich? You say there are two
borders to an extracted layer. Why?" I exclaimed, "Where are  the transverse
cuts? Besides it is  more natural to perform the excavation in the form of a
crater."
     "That is, if you are not concerned about movements  over the continent.
Apparently, they did not want to interfere in such  movements. Why? The time
has not yet come for conclusions, but I think that they are not  hostile; on
the contrary, they appear to be friendly. Then look at it this way: for whom
is  it  more  natural to excavate  ice  precisely  in  that fashion and  not
otherwise? For us? We  would  have put up a fence around the site, nailed up
directions and instructions,  announced  the  business  over the radio.  But
suppose they couldn't or didn't want to?"
     "Who are these 'they'?"
     "I am not making any hypotheses," Zernov answered dryly.


        Chapter V. SLEEP WITHOUT DREAMS



     I took along my cine camera on our  journey to the  tent but no "cloud"
put in an appearance. At our little council we decided to move to the  cabin
of the  tractor, make  the necessary repairs and then move  on. We  received
permission  to  continue the search  for  the  rose clouds.  Just before our
discussion, I connected Zernov with Mirny. He reported the accident briefly,
mentioned  the "clouds" we had seen and also the first movies I had taken of
them. He did  not say  anything- about duplicates  and the  other mysteries.
"Too early," he said to me.
     They selected a nice site at a distance of a quarter of an hour on skis
with a wind at our back. The tent  was up  in the  cave, which was protected
from the wind  from three sides. However, the cave itself produced a strange
impression: a cube of ice had been carefully cut out  and had left perfectly
smooth walls, as if they had been  planed by hand. No icicles, no accretions
of ice. Zernov, without saying a word, punched the tip of his ski stick into
a geometrically regular cut of ice, as  if to say that nature had nothing to
do with that.
     We didn't find Vano  in  the  tent,  but everything  was in disorder-an
upturned stove  and  the box  with briquettes, skis thrown  about,  and  the
leather  coat of the  driver at the  entrance way. This  was  surprising and
suggested danger. Without taking off our  skis we went in search of Chokheli
and found him right near the ice wall. He was lying in the snow with  only a
sweater on. His unshaven face and black cap of hair were covered with a thin
fluffy layer of snow. In one hand, thrown to the side, he clenched  a  knife
with traces  of  caked frozen blood.  On the  snow near his shoulder  was  a
spread-out rose-coloured spot.  The  snow about had been stamped on, and  as
far as  we  could make  out,  the  tracks were  those of  Vano, for he  wore
enormous-size boots.
     He was alive.  When we raised him, he moaned but did not open his eyes.
Being- the strongest,  I lifted  him onto my back. Tolya  supported him from
behind. In the tent  we carefully removed the sweater and found the wound to
be quite superficial.  There was  little loss of blood  and the blood on the
knife was most likely  that  of  his opponent. We were not so much afraid of
the loss of blood as of overcooling. We did not know how long he had lain on
the ice. But luckily it wasn't very cold and he was tough. We rubbed the boy
with alcohol  and, pulling  open his  clenched teeth, we poured some inside.
Vano coughed, opened his eyes and muttered something-in his native Georgian.
     "Don't move," we  cried,  bundling him  up in the sleeping bag  like  a
mummy.
     "Where  is  he?" Vano asked suddenly,  coming to.  This  time he  spoke
Russian.
     "Who? Who are you talking about?"
     He did not  respond, his strength  was giving out and he began to rave.
It was impossible to make anything out of the gibberish of mixed Russian and
Georgian words.
     "The snow maiden," was what I heard, at least that is what  I thought I
heard.
     "He's delirious," Dyachuk said grieved.
     Only Zernov was calm.
     "That guy's cast iron,"  it  was said  of Vano, but it could have  been
said of Zernov himself.
     We decided to wait till evening before starting on our journey, all the
more so since both day and evening were just as light.  And Vano needed some
sleep too: the  alcohol  was beginning  to take action.  A strange torpitude
took  hold of us as well.  Tolya grunted, climbed into his sleeping  bag and
was  soon  asleep. Zernov  and  I  tried our best to  stay  awake,  smoke  a
cigarette, but finally gave  up. We spread out  our sponge mat and slithered
into our sleeping bags.
     "We'll take an hour off and then start on the trip."
     "Okay, boss, one hour of sleep."
     There was silence.
     For  some reason, neither he nor I  expressed any ideas about what  had
happened to  Vano.  As  if in conspiracy we  refrained  from any commentary,
though I am sure we were  both thinking about the same thing. Who was Vano's
enemy  and  where  did he come  from  in this  polar  desert? Why  was  Vano
undressed and  outside  the cave,  he  had not  even had  time to put on his
leather coat. This means the fight began in the tent. What came before that?
And  why  the  blood-covered  knife  in  Vano's  hand?  This  was surprising
especially since Chokheli never used weapons, despite his  excitable nature,
unless truly forced to it. What made  him do it-did he try to defend someone
or  was it simply a marauding attack?  But that is certainly funny,  robbers
beyond the Antarctic circle where friendship is the law of every  encounter.
But perhaps he was a  criminal  escaping justice. Again obvious nonsense. No
government would exile anyone to the Antarctic and to try to  escape to this
icy continent by one's self would be practically impossible. But it might be
that  Vano's  opponent was a  shipwrecked  sailor  who  had  gone  mad  from
unbearable  aloneness.  But we  had not  heard of  any  shipwrecks  near the
Antarctic coasts. And of course  how could he have found his way so far into
the interior  of  the icy continent? Zernov was most probably asking himself
those very same questions. But he kept silent and so did I.
     It was not cold  in the tent, for  the stove  was still giving off some
warmth, and  it was not dark. The light coming through  the mica windows did
not  really illuminate the objects within, but it was  enough to distinguish
them in the dim twilight. However, gradually or at once-I did not notice how
or when-the twilight did not exactly get denser or darker but somehow turned
violetish, as if someone had  dissolved a few  grains of manganate. I wanted
to  get up,  and  push  Zernov  and call  him, but I couldn't-something  was
pressing on my  throat, something pressed me  to  the  ground, just  as  had
happened in the "Kharkovchanka" when  I regained consciousness.  But at that
time it seemed to me that somebody  was looking through me, filling me  full
and merging with every cell of my  body. Now, if to use the same picturesque
code, somebody had looked into my brain and then let go, enveloping me  in a
violet cocoon. I could look but I didn't see anything.  I could think  about
what was occurring but I could not understand it at all. I could breathe and
move  but only within my cocoon. The slightest penetration into  the  violet
gloom called forth a response like that of an electric shock.
     I  do not  know how long that continued, for I didn't look at my watch.
But the  cocoon suddenly opened  up and I saw the walls  of the tent and  my
comrades asleep  in the same dim, but no longer violet, twilight.  Something
hit me and I climbed out of the sleeping bag, picked up my camera and rushed
out. Snow was coming down,  the sky was covered over with  turbulent cumulus
clouds.  Only somewhere  in the zenith did the  familiar rose-coloured  spot
fleet by. It flashed across and vanished. But perhaps that was all a dream.
     When I returned,  Tolya, yawning  broadly, was seated on the sleigh and
Zernov was slowly climbing out of his  sleeping bag. He glanced at me, at my
cine camera and, as is  usual with him,  said nothing. Dyachuk said  through
his yawn:
     "What  an  awful dream I  had, comrades! As  if I  was asleep, and  not
asleep. I wanted  to sleep, yet I couldn't fall asleep for  anything.  I was
just  lying  there  in  forgetfulness  and  couldn't see anything,  no tent,
nobody. Then something  sticky, dense and thick like  jelly plumped onto me.
It wasn't warm, it wasn't cold, I  just couldn't feel. It filled me up right
to  the  ears,  complete,  as  if  I  were dissolved,  like  in  a state  of
weightlessness, you float or hang in space. And I didn't see myself  or feel
anything. I was there and yet I wasn't at all. Boy, that's funny, isn't it?"
     "Curious it certainly is," said Zernov and turned away.
     "Didn't you see anything?" I asked.
     "And you?"
     "Not now, but in the cabin, just before  I woke  up  I felt exactly the
way Dyachuk did. Weightlessness, no sensations, no dream, no reality."
     "Mysteries,  all  of  them,"  Zernov  muttered.  "Whom have  you found,
Anokhin?"
     I  turned round. Throwing  back the canvas door of  the tent, obviously
right behind me, came  a robust man  in a cap with high standing  artificial
fur  and  in  a nylon fur  jacket with a zipper.  He was tall, broad  in the
shoulders and unshaven  and appeared  to be terribly frightened.  What could
have frightened this athlete is hard to imagine.
     "Anyone speak English here?" he asked, chewing and stretching the words
as he spoke.
     "Not  one of  my  teachers  ever  had  a  pronunciation  like  that.  A
southerner, probably from Alabama or Tennessee," I thought.
     Zernov spoke the best English among us and so he answered:
     "Who are you and  what do you want?" "Donald Martin!" he yelled. "Flier
from MacMurdo. Got anything to drink? As strong as you've got." He  drew the
edge of his palm across his throat. "Very necessary."
     "Give him some spirits, Anokhin," said Zernov.
     I  poured out  a  glass and  gave it to him. Though very  unshaven,  he
couldn't have been older  than  me.  He took  the  whole almost at  a single
swallow, coughed, his throat constricted and his eyes filled with blood.
     "Thank you, sir," he said finally  when he could catch his breath. Then
he started to tremble. "I had to make a forced landing, sir."
     "Skip  the  'sir'," said Zernov, "I'm  not your  superior. My  name  is
Zernov. Zernov," he repeated each syllable. "Where did you land?"
     "Not far from here. Almost alongside."
     "Without mishap?"
     "No fuel, and the radio's on the bum."
     "Then you can stay here. And you can help us move over to the tractor."
Zernov stopped, trying to get the  proper English pronunciation, and, seeing
that the American wasn't  sure, he added:  "Oh, there's place enough and  we
have a radio set."
     The American continued to hesitate, as if not decided yet that he would
speak, then he pulled himself up and in military fashion said:
     "Please arrest me, sir. I have committed a crime."
     Zernov and I exchanged glances. Perhaps the thought of Vano occurred to
us at the same time.
     "What kind of a crime?" Zernov asked guardedly.
     "I think that I have killed a man."


        Chapter VI. THE SECOND FLOWER



     Zernov walked over to  Vano who was all covered up. He threw  back  the
fur from his face and sharply asked the American:
     "Is this the man?"
     Martin cautiously  and, what  appeared  to me to  be  in  a  frightened
manner, approached and said rather unconvincingly:
     "Nnnoo."
     "Take a better look," said Zernov still more sharply.
     The flier shook his head uncomprehendingly.
     "Not at all like him, sir.  Mine is in the plane, and what is more," he
added with care, "I still don't know whether he's a human being or not."
     At  that  moment Vano  opened his eyes. He glanced  at the American who
stood near him, his head rose above the pillow and then he fell back again.
     "That's ... not me," he said and closed his eyes.
     "He's still delirious," Tolya signed.
     "Our  comrade is wounded. Somebody attacked him. We  do not know who it
was,"  Zernov explained to the  American.  "And so  when you  said  ..."  he
delicately dropped the subject.
     Martin pulled over Tolya's sleigh and sat down, covering  his face with
his hands and teetered back and forth as if in unbearable pain.
     "I don't know whether you'll believe me or not, it's all so unusual and
unlike the truth," he started to relate. "I was flying a oneseater, a little
Lockheed, a former  fighter plane, you know  the kind. It even has a  double
machine-gun for circular fire. One doesn't need it here, naturally,  but the
rules state that you have to keep the gun in order, just  in case. And there
was a case  only it didn't work  out.  Have you  people ever heard  of  rose
clouds?"  he asked suddenly, and without waiting for an answer he continued,
a cramp deforming his  mouth for  a moment. "I caught up with them about  an
hour and a half after take-off."
     "Them?" I asked incredulously. "There were several?"
     "A  whole  squadron. They  were flying low,  about two miles below  me,
large rose jellyfish.  Maybe  a dark red, crimson,  say. I counted  seven of
different shapes and hues from the pale rose of not-yet-ripe raspberry to  a
flaming  garnet. Now the colour was changing all the time, getting darker or
thinning out as  if diluted with water. I cut speed and plunged, calculating
on getting a sample. I have a special container under the undercarriage. But
it didn't work, the medusas  escaped. I caught up with them but they escaped
again, without any effort, as if they were playing hide and seek. And when I
increased my  speed they  rose and  scudded away above  me. Light large  and
flat,  like a kid's  balloon.  But  are they  fast,  why they'd  outstrip  a
four-engine Boeing. They led me on as if  they were  living  beings. Only  a
living  being can act that way  when  it feels danger. And  so I thought, if
that's the case, they themselves may become dangerous. I figured  I ought to
get away. But they appeared to guess  my  manoeuvre. Three crimson jellyfish
rushed out at a terrific speed and swinging round without cutting speed they
plunged for  me. I didn't even have time to yell, the plane was enveloped in
a fog, not even a fog, something slime like, thick and slippery. That's when
I  lost  control completely-speed, control  and visibility.  I couldn't even
move my foot or hand. I figured that's the end. The plane wasn't falling, it
was sliding downwards like a glider. Then it landed and I didn't even notice
how it landed. The sensation was like sinking into  a reddish  slime, choked
but not dead. I looked around; snow everywhere  and  a plane next to mine, a
copy of my  little Lockheed. I got out and went up  to it, and coming out of
the cabin  was  another  great big guy like  me.  I  don't know,  he  looked
familiar.  Couldn't figure  it out. So I asked him: "Who  are  you?" "Donald
Martin," he says. Looking at him was like  looking  in a mirror.  "And you?"
"No, I said, I'm Donald  Martin." He  struck out at me, I  ducked and sent a
left to  the jaw. He  fell and hit his head against the door, an awful bang!
There he  was lying  still.  I gave him a  kick, but he didn't move.  Then I
shook him. His head just dangled. I dragged him over to my plane and thought
I'd get him to the base for help, but when I checked the gas, there wasn't a
drop. So I went to radio the  news but the  set  wouldn't work. I must  have
gone out of  my head then, because I just jumped out and  ran for all  I was
worth, no direction, no aim, I just ran, because I couldn't  stand the crazy
house  any longer.  I even  forgot  how to pray,  all I  could say was Jesus
Christ. Then I saw your tent and here I am."
     Listening  to  him I recalled my  own trials  and tribulations and  now
began to realize  what had  happened  to Vano. What Tolya was thinking, with
his eyes bulging out, was hard to say;  he was probably  doubting and double
checking every word Martin uttered. He was about  to start with questions in
his school English, but Zernov got in ahead of him:
     "You remain here with Vano, Dyachuk,  and Anokhin and I'll go  with the
American. Let's go, Martin," he added in English.
     Instinct  or premonition-I don't  know  what  psychologists would  call
it-told me to take my cine camera,  and I was thankful for that subconscious
idea.  Even  Tolya  looked  surprised-the  body  for  the inspector  or  the
behaviour of the murderer at the sight of the body? The pictures I took were
different,  however,  and I  began  to  shoot  as we approached the  site of
Martin's  accident. There were no longer  two planes,  but one-Martin's  own
silver canary, his polar veteran with swept wings. But right next  to it the
familiar  (to me) bubbling  crimson  hillock.  It smoked,  changed shades of
colour  and pulsated in a  strange manner, as  if  it were indeed breathing.
White elongated flashes broke out from time to time like sparks in welding.
     "Don't go near," I warned Martin and Zernov as they ran past me.
     But the upturned  flower  had already  extended its  invisible  shield.
Martin  who  was in the  lead strangely  slowed down, and Zernov simply went
down on his knees. But both of them pushed forward overcoming the force that
pulled them groundwards.
     "Jesus!" yelled Martin turning to me, and he fell to the ground.
     Zernov retreated, wiping the sweat from his forehead.
     Meanwhile I was shooting all of this; I moved round the crimson hillock
and  bumped  into the murdered man, or perhaps Martin's double who  was only
wounded. He was lying  in  the same nylon jacket with  synthetic fur covered
over with a fluff of snow some three to four metres from the airplane  where
Martin had dragged him.
     "Come on  over here, here he is!"  I cried. Zernov and  Martin ran over
towards me,  rather they seemed to  skate over to me,  balancing  with their
hands, as  one  does  when walking on ice without skates. Here too, the  big
flakes of snow had powdered the smooth thickness of ice.
     Then something utterly new happened that neither  I nor  my camera  had
ever recorded. A crimson petal separated itself  from  the vibrating flower,
darkened,  curled   up   in  the  air  and  stretching  out  into  a  living
four-metre-long snake with open jaws covered the body lying before us. For a
moment or two this snake-like tentacle sparkled and boiled and then tore off
the ground and  in its enormous  two-metre maw  we saw nothing-only a violet
emptiness  of  an unnaturally stretched-out bell that  before our very  eyes
changed shape from cone  to rippling petal. Then it  merged with the cupola.
The only thing left on the snow was a trace-a formless silhouette of the man
that had just lain here.
     I  continued  filming  all  this  in  a  hurry  to  catch  the   latest
transformations. It had begun. The whole flower had now detached itself from
the ground, and as  it rose  the rim curved upwards. The bell, spread out in
the air,  was likewise  empty: we  could clearly  see that there was nothing
whatsoever  inside,  we saw  the  rose coloured interior  and  the  delicate
expanding edges. It would now turn into a rose "cloud" and vanish beyond the
other real clouds.  And  on the ground there would be only  one airplane and
one pilot. That is exactly what took place.
     Zernov and Martin stood silent, stunned, just like I was the first time
that morning.  I  think Zernov  had  already  come close  to deciphering the
puzzle which  to me  was still only a faint glimmer of a possibility. It did
not shine, it only suggested the outlines of a fantastic but still logically
admissible picture. Martin was simply crushed  not so much by  the horror of
what had occurred but by the  single thought that this was only the fruit of
a  disturbed  imagination.  He  obviously wanted to ask about something, his
terrified  look restlessly flitted from me  to Zernov until, finally, Zernov
smiled as if to say, go ahead. And Martin put the question.
     "Who was it I killed?"
     "We can take it that it wasn't anybody," Zernov smiled again.
     "But that was a real live man," Martin repeated.
     "Are you sure?" Zernov asked.
     Martin was confused.
     "I don't know."
     "That's just it. I would say temporarily alive. The same force  created
it and wiped it out."
     "But why?" I asked cautiously.
     He answered with exasperation-not like him at all.
     "You think I know more than you do? Let's develop the film and see."
     "And you  think we'll understand then?" I  no longer tried  to hide the
irony.
     "It might be," he said deep in thought.
     Then  he went  out ahead without  even inviting  us to  come along.  We
exchanged glances and followed together.
     "What's your name?" Martin asked familiarly  taking me by  the  arm. He
must have seen we were of the same age.
     "Yuri."
     "Yuri, Yuri. Mine's Don. Do you think that thing was alive?"
     "Yes, I have an inkling it was."
     "Something local?"
     "Don't think so. No expedition has ever encountered anything like it."
     "Then where did it come from?"
     "You'll have to ask somebody smarter than me, I don't know."
     He was already getting under my skin. But he didn't seem offended.
     "What do you think it is, jelly or gas?"
     "You tried to take a sample, you should know."
     He laughed.
     "I wouldn't advise anyone to try. I wonder why it didn't just gobble me
up there in the air? It swallowed me and then spit me out."
     "I suppose it didn't find you very tasty."
     "Did he swallow him up?"
     "I don't know."
     "But you saw what happened."
     "I saw it  cover him  up, but I didn't see  it  swallow  him. Rather it
dissolved or evaporated the thing."
     "What kind of temperature is needed?"
     "Did you try to measure it?"
     Martin even stopped, struck by the enigma.
     "To melt a plane like that? In three minutes? Ultradurable duraluminum,
by the way."
     "Are you sure it was duraluminum and not a hole of a doughnut?"
     He didn't  understand and  I didn't  try to  explain; from there  on we
didn't  exchange  a  word till  we got to the  tent.  Here  too things  were
happening. I was struck by the strange pose Tolya  had taken,  doubled up on
the box of briquettes  and clicking his teeth from horror or  from the cold.
The stove had already cooled off, but it  didn't seem to be very cold in the
tent.
     "What's  the  trouble, Dyachuk?"  Zernov asked. "Heat up the  stove  if
you're cold."
     Tolya did not answer; like one hypnotized, he Sat down near the stove.
     "Going nuts a little bit," said Vano from  under his fur protection. He
seemed to be gay enough.
     "We had some  visitors too," he added  and  nodded in the  direction of
Tolya.
     "There  wasn't anyone here. Speak for yourself!" he shrieked and turned
to us. His face was twisted, distorted, almost about to cry.
     Vano put his finger to his head as if to say we're all crazy.  "We're a
bit upset. Okay, tell  your own story," he said to Tolya and turned away. "I
myself was damn upset, Yuri, when I saw two copies  of you. I couldn't stand
it and ran  like hell.  Jesus it  was awful,  terrifying. I  took a gulp  of
spirits and covered up with the coat. Wanted to go to sleep, but I couldn't.
I don't know, I was asleep, maybe I wasn't, but I had an awful dream. A long
one, mixed up, terrible and funny. It seems I was eating  a jelly, dark, not
red, but violet. An awful lot of it, so much in fact that it filled me right
up to  the ears. I  don't  remember how  long that  lasted. But as soon as I
opened my eyes, I saw that everything was empty, cold, and you weren't here.
Then suddenly he entered. My own self, like in a mirror, only without jacket
and in socks."
     Martin  listened  attentively.  Though   he  did  not  understand   the
conversation in  Russian,  he guessed that the talk was about something that
definitely interested him as  well. I took  pity  on him and  translated the
gist. He was at me all the while Vano related his story, asking for a faster
translation. But I  couldn't go that fast and only later did  I  relate  the
whole  of Vano's story. Unlike us,  Vano immediately  detected  a difference
between himself and  the guest. The drunken state had long since passed, and
fear as well, only his  head continued  to throb; the man who entered looked
at him with bull-like eyes, dull dazed eyes. "Quit this nonsense," he yelled
in  Georgian,  "I'm not  afraid of  snow maidens, I make mince meat  out  of
them!" The funniest thing was that Vano  himself had  thought  about that in
the same terms when  Zernov and Tolya had left. If  someone  were about,  he
would definitely have got into a fight. That one started to, but Vano, sober
now, grabbed his jacket and ran out of the tent, realizing  at  once that it
was better to stay as far  away as possible from such visitors. But Vano did
not stop to  think  that his very appearance  contradicted  all the familiar
laws  of  nature. What  he  needed  was an open  space to manoeuvre  in  the
impending battle. His  double had  already  whipped  out  the famous hunting
knife Vano always carried  with him to the envy of all drivers in Mirny. The
original knife was in Vano's pocket, but he did not give any thought to that
bit of strangeness either, he simply whipped it out when the drunken phantom
struck the  first  blow. Vano barely escaped a wound-the knife  went through
the  jacket. Vano threw it at  his pursuer and got as far as the wall, where
it turned to the  north.  The second blow reached him, but luckily  it was a
glancing stroke  that his  sweater softened. The third one Vano was  able to
repulse  by knocking  the  man down. What  followed he did  not remember.  A
bloody blackness fell over him and some  kind of  force, like  a shock wave,
threw  him to  the  side. When he woke up he was  in the  tent on a  cot bed
wrapped up in furs and absolutely sound in body. But the miracles continued.
This time it was Dyachuk who had a duplicate.
     Vano did  not  succeed in  finishing  the  sentence  -Tolya  threw  the
briquette (he was stoking the stove) and jumped up with a hysterical cry:
     "Stop this craziness! Do you hear?"
     "You're nuts," Vano said.
     "Well,  damn  it, I'm not alone in this.  You're crazy too. You're  all
mad. There  wasn't  anybody here except me. And nobody was split  up either.
You people are out of your minds!"
     "That's enough, Dyachuk,"  Zernov cut him short. "Behave  yourself. You
are a scientist and not a circus performer. If you can't control your
     nerves, you shouldn't have come here in the first place."
     "So  I'll  leave," Tolya  growled,  in  a much  lower  tone  this time:
Zernov's words  had  sobered him  up a bit. "I'm not Scott or Amundsen. I've
had enough of  these  white dreams, and I'm  not  heading for any nut  house
either."
     "What's the trouble with him?" Martin whispered.
     I explained:
     "If it weren't for the fuel, I'd quit too," he said. "Too many miracles
happening around here."


        Chapter VII. THE ICE SYMPHONY



     We  never found  out what happened to  Tolya, but  it was  most  likely
comical. Vano brushed the matter aside with:
     "If  he  doesn't  want  to  speak,  leave  him alone. Both  of  us were
frightened  out of our wits. I don't go in for gossip." He did not make  fun
of Tolya, though the latter was ready for a quarrel any time.
     Martin and I, under  Vano's supervision, replaced the dented plastic of
the window. He couldn't do it  himself because of the wound on his hand.  It
was  also decided that  Martin  and I would  take turns helping out with the
driving. Now nothing else kept us there. Zernov considered the expedition at
an end and was in a hurry to get back to Mirny. I had a feeling he wanted to
get away from his double, he was the only one  who hadn't ' experienced this
unpleasant duplication.  In direct  : violation  of  the cast iron regime of
work  and  rest that he  himself had  set up, Zernov did not sleep all night
after  we had switched over  to  the cabin of the  tractor. I woke up a  few
times in the night and saw his night-light  on: he was obviously reading and
trembled at every suspicious noise.
     We  didn't speak  any  more  about  doubles, but  in the morning  after
breakfast, when  we  finally got under way, his face seemed to brighten  up.
Martin  was  driving,  Vano sat next to  him  on the drop-down seat and gave
instructions in  sign  language. I  knocked  out a  radiogram to  Mirny  and
exchanged jokes  with Kolya Samoilov who  was on duty at the  radio station,
and I took down the weather report. It was just right for our return: clear,
slight wind, a tiny frost of only two or three degrees below zero Celsius.
     But  the  silence  in the  cabin  hung  heavy, like the aftermath of  a
quarrel, so I began:
     "I  have  a  question,  Boris Arkadievich;  Why  don't  we  radio a few
details."
     "What would you like to add?"
     "Why,  everything that happened to me and Vano. What we found out about
the rose clouds, and what we discovered when we developed the film."
     "And how  do you suppose a story like that  should  be  written?" asked
Zernov.  "With  psychological  nuances,  an  analysis  of  sensations,  with
insinuations and so  forth? Unfortunately,  I'm  no good at  that, I'm not a
writer. I don't think you  could do it even with your imagination  and  your
weird hypotheses. Now to put all that into telegraph code would be more like
'notes from an insane asylum'."
     "We could add a scientific commentary," I persisted.
     "On  the  basis of what kind  of  experimental data?  What have we  got
except visual observations? Your film? But it hasn't even been developed."
     "What could it be, really?"
     "Well,  what  would  you  suggest?  What,  in  your  opinion is  a rose
'cloud'?"
     "An organism."
     "Living?"
     "Undoubtedly.  A  living   thinking  organism  of   a  physico-chemical
structure unknown to  us. A kind of  bio-suspension  or bio-gas. Academician
Kolmogorov postulated the possibility  of  the  existence of thinking mould.
One could imagine, with the same degree  of  probability, a  thinking gas, a
thinking colloid, or a thinking plasma. Change  of  colour  is  a protective
reaction or the colouring of emotions: surprise, interest, anger. Changes in
shape suggest motor reactions, the  ability  to  manoeuvre in aerial  space.
When a  person walks, he  moves  his  hands,  bends his feet and so  on. The
'cloud' stretches out, bends its edges, folds up into a bell."
     "What are you talking about?" asked Martin.
     I translated for him.
     "It bubbles when it breathes and throws out tentacles when it attacks,"
he added.
     "That makes it a beast, doesn't it?" asked Zernov.
     "A beast," Martin confirmed.
     Zernov was not asking idle questions.  Each one of them was directed at
a specific target, one that was not clear to me. He seemed to be checking us
and himself and was not hurrying with any conclusions.
     "All right," he said, "then answer this: How does that beast  duplicate
human beings and machines? And why does he want to do it?  Also, why does it
destroy the models after running them in a bit with human beings?"
     "I don't know," I answered honestly. "The 'cloud' synthesizes all kinds
of atomic structures, that is  clear. But the mystery is why  it does so and
why it destroys them."
     Tolya,  who  had not been  communicative  for  some  time  and for some
unknown reason, put in a word at this point:
     "I  think the  question  is not posed in the proper form. How  does  it
duplicate?  Why?  It doesn't duplicate  anything. It is  simply  an involved
illusion dealing- with sensory perceptions. It is not the  subject matter of
physics but of psychiatry."
     "And my wound is also an illusion?" Vano asked offended.
     "You hurt yourself, the  rest is  illusions. Actually, I don't  see why
Anokhin has given up his original hypothesis. Of course, this is a weapon. I
wouldn't take it upon myself to say whose-he threw a glance at Martin-but it
is undoubtedly  a weapon. A  sophisticated  and, what  is most  important, a
purposeful weapon. Psychiatric waves that split the consciousness."
     "And ice," I said.
     "Why ice?"
     "Because  the  ice  had  to  be   broken  up  in   order  to  get   the
'Kharkovchanka' machine out."
     "Look over there to the right!" Vano cried out.
     What   we   saw  through   the  port  window   stopped   the   argument
instantaneously. Martin put the brakes on. We hurriedly got into our jackets
and jumped out of the machine. I  began taking  pictures on the  run because
this promised to be one of the most remarkable of all my film strips.
     This  was  a  miracle  indeed,   a  picture   from  another  world   of
extraterrestrial life.  There were  no clouds, no snow. Nothing  interfered.
The sun hung just above  the horizon giving all the strength of its light to
the emerald-blue chunk of ice that towered  above us. An  ideally smooth cut
through the multi-metre tower  seemed to be pure  glass. No human  being, no
machine could be seen anywhere. Only gigantic  rose-coloured disks-I counted
ten or more-that delicately and soundlessly cut the ice like butter. Imagine
cutting butter with a hot knife. This was it. No friction, a  smooth, smooth
cut  with a slight fringe melting round the walls. That was exactly what was
happening  here, as the  rose knife produced the hundred-metre walls of ice.
It was in the shape of  an  irregular oval or trapezium with rounded angles;
in area it must have been over a hundred square metres. At least that was my
rough  guess.  But  very  thin,  only about  two  or three  centimetres. The
familiar  "cloud"  had obviously flattened out, elongated and converted into
an enormous cutting instrument operating with amazing speed and precision.
     Separated  by  a  distance  of  half a kilometre, two such  knives were
cutting the ice wall perpendicular to the base. Two others were cutting from
below in regular  coincident  movements of  a pendulum.  Another set of four
were  engaged close by, and a third group, that I couldn't see any more, was
operating deep inside  the ice. Soon the  second one and the one next  to us
disappeared in  the ice-like a Gulliver Travels  circus. All of a sudden, it
pushed up into  the air a perfectly blue parallelepiped of ice, a  glass bar
nearly a  kilometre  in length, geometrically flawless. It  rose  slowly and
floated upwards lightly and without a thought, like a  toy balloon. Only two
"clouds" participated in this  operation. They  contracted  and turned dark,
converting into  the familiar saucers, turned  skywards  not earth-wards-two
incredible red  giant  flowers  on invisible  expanding stems. They did  not
appear to be supporting the floating bar, for it rose above them at a decent
distance and was in no way connected or fastened.
     "How does it hold up?" Martin asked in surprise. "On a shock wave? What
force must the wind have?"
     "That's  not  the  wind," said  Tolya  picking  out his  English  words
carefully.  "That's a  field. Antigravitation." He threw an imploring glance
at Zernov.
     "A field of force," Zernov  explained. "Remember the G-loading, Martin,
when you  and  I tried  to  approach  the  airplane?  Then  it  strengthened
gravitation, now it is obviously neutralizing it."
     At  that moment  yet  another  kilometre-long bar  of ice rose from the
surface of the ice plateau, thrown into space by an invisible titan. It rose
much faster  than  its  predecessor  and  soon  caught  up with them  at the
altitude of  ordinary polar flights. One  could clearly see how the ice bars
approached  in the air, docked alongside one another,  and  merged  into one
broad bar that hung motionless in the air. This  was immediately followed by
a third, that lay down on top, then a fourth, to balance the plate.  It grew
thicker with every fresh bar: the "clouds" required three to four minutes to
cut it out of the thick continental ice  and raise it into the  sky.  As new
bars came off, the ice wall receded into the distance, and with it the  rose
clouds  too, which appeared to dissolve and vanish in the snowy distance. As
before,  two red  roses hung in the sky and above them the enormous  crystal
cube with bright sunlight filtering through.
     We  stood speechless, enchanted by this picture that was almost musical
in  its  tones.  A  peculiar  kind of  gracefulness  and plasticity  of  the
rose-coloured disc-knives, their coordinated rhythmical motions,  the upward
flight of the blue ice bars that formed a gigantic cube in the sky-all  this
was music to our ears,  a soundless music  of the mysterious spheres. We did
not  even notice -only  my cine camera recorded it-how the  diamond cube  of
sunlight began to diminish in size as it rose higher and higher, and finally
vanished way up beyond  the cirrus cloudlets. The two command "flowers" also
vanished.
     "A thousand million cubic metres of ice," groaned Tolya.
     I looked at Zernov. Our eyes met.
     "That's your answer to the main question, Anokhin," he said. "Where did
the ice wall come from and why there is so little snow under foot. They  are
removing the ice shield of the Antarctic."




        Chapter VIII. THE LAST DUPLICATE



     The official report of our  expedition  was:  Zernov's statement on the
phenomenon of the rose "clouds", my story about doubles (or duplicates)  and
a preview of the film I  had  taken. But Zernov had different plans from the
very beginning of the meeting. No materials for the scientific report except
personal impressions and the film taken  by the expedition, he explained; he
added that  the astronomical observations  that he  had familiarized himself
with  at  Mirny  do  not  yield any  grounds for  definite conclusions.  The
appearance  of enormous accumulations of ice in the  atmosphere at a variety
of  altitudes  was  registered,  it turns  out,  both by  Soviet and foreign
observatories in Antarctica. However, neither visual observations or special
photographs permit establishing either the quantity of these quasi-celestial
bodies  or the  direction of their flight. One  can therefore speak  only of
impressions and conjectures that sometimes go by the name of hypotheses. But
since  the  expedition  returned  three  days  ago and people are  by  habit
garrulous and curious, everything seen by the members of  the  expedition is
now known far beyond the limits of  Mirny.  It  would  naturally  be best to
engage in conjectures after viewing the film, since there will  be more than
enough material for such guesswork.
     I do not know  whom Zernov had in view when he mentioned talkativeness,
but Vano and Tolya  and I did much to excite the men and  rumours of my film
had even gotten across  the continent. A Frenchman and two Australians and a
whole group of Americans together with the retired Admiral Thompson, who has
long since  exchanged  his admiral's  galloons and shoulder straps for a fur
jacket and  polar  sweater arrived to see the film. They  had already  heard
about  the  film   and  eagerly   awaited  it,  expressing  all   manner  of
suppositions. The film,  even if I do say so, turned out to be exciting. Our
second cinema  operator, Zhenya Lazebnikov, looked at the developed film and
howled  out with envy: "That's the end. You're  famous now.  Not  even Evans
ever dreamt of a piece  like this.  You've  got both hands on  the Lomonosov
Prize right  now." Zernov did  not comment, but  leaving the  laboratory, he
asked:
     "Aren't  you a  little  bit  afraid,  Anokhin?" "Why  should  I be?"  I
countered  in surprise. "You  can't  image  the sensation  this is  going to
create."
     I  had  felt something like that when  we viewed the film at the  base.
Everybody was there who could make it, they sat and stood  till there wasn't
any more room to sit or stand. The silence was that of an empty church. Once
in a while a rumble of amazement and almost terror, when even the old-timers
of  polar  exploration  used to  quite  a bit gave  in. The  scepticism  and
disbelief that some had received our stories with disappeared on the instant
after pictures of two "Kharkovchanka" vehicles with identically dented front
windows  and  the rose cloud floating above them  in the pale  blue sky. The
frames were excellent and precisely conveyed the colour:
     the "cloud" on the screen went red, violet, changed shape, turned up in
the form of a flower, boiled and  gobbled up the  huge  machine with all its
contents. The picture of my double did not cause excitement at first and was
not convincing, for they simply took it for me myself,  though I pointed out
straightway  that to film myself and in motion too and from different angles
was simply impossible even for a Grand Master documentalist. But what really
compelled them to  believe in duplicate human  beings  were the  pictures of
Martin's double on the snow-I succeeded in getting him close up-and then the
real Martin  and Zernov approaching  the  site of the  catastrophe. The hall
buzzed  with excitement and when the crimson flower threw  out  a snake-like
tentacle and  the dead Martin vanished into its  flared  maw, somebody  even
cried  out  in the  darkness.  But  the most  striking effect,  the  deepest
impression was made  by the  concluding part of the film, its ice  symphony.
Zernov was right, 1 greatly underestimated the sensation.
     But  the  viewers gave  it its  due. The showing  was hardly over  when
voices  were  heard demanding a second showing.  This  time the  silence was
total: not a  single  exclamation resounded in the hall, nobody  coughed, no
one exchanged a single word with his neighbour, even whispering could not be
heard. The silence continued even  when the lights  went on. The people were
still in  the grip  of  events  and were released only  by the voice  of the
oldest  of  the old-timers,  the  doyen of the corps of  wintering-over men,
Professor Kedrin, who said:
     "All right, now  tell us, Boris, what you think about it. That will  be
better because we still have to think things over."
     "I've already said that we have no material witnesses," Zernov replied.
"Martin was  not  able  to get a sample: the 'cloud' did  not  allow him  to
approach. On the ground, too, we could not get close enough and were pressed
to the ground as  if our  bodies were filled with  lead. This means that the
'cloud' can set up a gravitational field. Added confirmation is the ice cube
in the air that we saw. Martin's  plane was probably landed and our  tractor
pulled out of the crevice in the same fashion. The following  inferences may
be  classed as beyond question: the 'cloud' readily  changes  its  shape and
colour.  This  you have  seen.  It  creates  any temperature  regime needed:
hundred-metre-thick ice can be cut only  by using very high temperatures. It
floats in the  air like a fish  in water  and can change direction and speed
instantaneously. Martin claims that the 'cloud'  he saw escaped from  him at
hypersonic speed. His 'colleagues' obviously went  slow simply  to create  a
gravitational barrier around the airplane.  The ultimate conclusion can only
be that the  rose 'clouds' have nothing whatsoever to do with meteorological
phenomena. This 'cloud' is either a living thinking organism or a bio system
with  a specific  programme. Its principal tasks are to remove and transport
into space enormous masses of  continental  ice. And  incidentally  for some
unknown reason and in some unknown way  it synthesizes  (I would  rather say
duplicates or models)  any  thing it encounters (atomic structures  such  as
human beings, machines and other things) and then destroys them.
     The American Admiral Thompson asked Zernov the first question:
     "There is one thing that is not clear to me from your report,  and that
is, whether these creatures are hostile or not towards human beings."
     "I do not think so. They destroy  only the copies they  themselves have
created."
     "Are you positive?"
     "But you've just seen that yourself," Zernov replied in surprise.
     "I would like to know whether you are sure that the destroyed creatures
are  definitely  copies and not the  people  themselves?  If the  copies are
identical  with the human  beings, then  who will prove  to me that my pilot
Martin is indeed my pilot Martin and not his atomic model?"
     The  exchange  was  in English but  many  in  the  hall  understood  or
translated  for  their  neighbours.  Nobody smiled, the  question was indeed
terrifying. Even Zernov seemed at a loss as he searched for an answer.
     I pulled down Martin who had jumped up and said:
     "I can assure  you, Admiral, that I am indeed I, the photography man of
the expedition, Yuri Anokhin, and not a cloud-created model. When I shot the
film, my  double retreated  to the Sno-Cat  as if  hypnotized. You could see
that on the screen. He told me that somebody or something was forcing him to
return to the cabin. Apparently he  was already prepared for elimination." I
watched  the glistening  spectacles  of the  Admiral and  almost burst  with
anger.
     "That is possible," he  said, "though it is not very convincing. I have
a question for Martin. Please stand up, Martin."
     The  pilot rose to his full  two-metre height of a  veteran  basketball
player.
     "Yes, sir. I wiped out the copy with my own two hands."
     The Admiral smiled.
     "Now suppose the copy finished you off?" He moved his lips a bit before
adding:  "You  attempted to  shoot  when  you  thought  about the aggressive
intentions of the 'cloud', right?"
     "Yes, I did, sir. Two bursts with tracer bullets."
     "Any results?"
     "No, sir, no results. Like a shot gun against an avalanche of snow."
     "Now  suppose  you  had  a  different  weapon? Say  a flame thrower  or
napalm?"
     "I do not know, sir."
     "Would it have refused to clash?"
     "I do not think so, sir."
     "Sit  down, Martin. Don't be offended, I am only trying to clarify some
of the  details of Mr. Zernov's  report  that  worry me.  Thank you for your
explanations, gentlemen."
     The persistence of  the Admiral untied all tongues.  Questions followed
one another as fast as they could be  answered, like at  a press conference.
"You said that ice masses are being transported into space. Do you  mean the
atmosphere or outer space?"
     "If  it  is into atmospheric space, I don't  see the purpose.  What  is
there to do with ice in the atmosphere?"
     "Will humanity allow for this mass-scale plundering of ice?"
     "Does anyone need glaciers here on the earth?"
     "What will happen to a continent  freed from ice? Will the level of the
ocean rise?"
     "Will the climate change?"
     "Not all at once, comrades," Zernov implored rising his arms. "One at a
time. Into what space? I assume it is cosmic space. Glaciers are only needed
in  the  terrestrial  atmosphere for  glaciologists.  Generally  speaking, I
thought scientists were people with higher education.  But judging  from the
questions, I am beginning to doubt the axiomatic nature of that proposition.
How can  the water level  in the ocean  increase if there  is no increase in
water?  That's school geography, and the  same goes for the climate question
too."
     "What, in your opinion, is the presumed structure of the 'cloud'? To me
it seemed to be
     a gas."
     "A thinking gas," someone giggled. "From what textbook is that?"
     "Are you a physicist?" Zernov asked.
     "Well, assuming that I am."
     "Suppose you write a textbook."
     "Unfortunately, I have  no  experience in  the  show business.  But  my
question is serious."
     "And I'm serious  in my  answer.  I  do not know the structure  of  the
'cloud'.  It might  even be  that the physico-chemical  structure is totally
unknown to  our science.  I think that it  is more  of a colloidal structure
than gaseous."
     "Where do you think it came from?"
     The correspondent of "Izvestia" I knew got
     "P-, "In some kind of a science fiction novel I read
     about visitors  from Pluto. Incidentally, in the Antarctic  too. Do you
really take that as a serious possibility?"
     "I  don't know. While I'm on the subject, I never said  anything  about
Pluto."
     "It may not be Pluto, what  I  meant was from outer space as such. From
some kind of stellar system. Why should they be coming to the earth for ice?
To  the  outskirts of  our  Galaxy.  There is certainly  enough  ice  in the
Universe, one could try some place a bit closer."
     "Closer to what?" Zernov asked and smiled.
     I admired him. He still retained  some humour and calm even  under this
veritable barrage of questions. He had not  made a scientific discovery, but
was only an accidental witness to a  unique,  unexplained phenomenon,  about
which  he hardly knew more than those who had seen the film. For some reason
they kept forgetting that and he patiently responded to every remark.
     "Ice is  water,"  he said in the tone of  a tired teacher  winding up a
lesson. "It  is a compound that  is not  so often met with even  in our  own
stellar  system.  We do not know whether there  is water on  Venus, there is
very little on Mars and none whatsoever on Jupiter or Uranus. And  of c