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

"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