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

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,