"Aleksandr Abramov, Sergei Abramov. Horsemen from Nowhere ("ВСАДНИКИ НИОТКУДА", англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

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