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

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