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

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.