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

"That makes it a beast, doesn't it?" asked Zernov.
"A beast," Martin confirmed.
Zernov was not asking idle questions. Each one of them was directed at
a specific target, one that was not clear to me. He seemed to be checking us
and himself and was not hurrying with any conclusions.
"All right," he said, "then answer this: How does that beast duplicate
human beings and machines? And why does he want to do it? Also, why does it
destroy the models after running them in a bit with human beings?"
"I don't know," I answered honestly. "The 'cloud' synthesizes all kinds
of atomic structures, that is clear. But the mystery is why it does so and
why it destroys them."
Tolya, who had not been communicative for some time and for some
unknown reason, put in a word at this point:
"I think the question is not posed in the proper form. How does it
duplicate? Why? It doesn't duplicate anything. It is simply an involved
illusion dealing- with sensory perceptions. It is not the subject matter of
physics but of psychiatry."
"And my wound is also an illusion?" Vano asked offended.
"You hurt yourself, the rest is illusions. Actually, I don't see why
Anokhin has given up his original hypothesis. Of course, this is a weapon. I
wouldn't take it upon myself to say whose-he threw a glance at Martin-but it
is undoubtedly a weapon. A sophisticated and, what is most important, a
purposeful weapon. Psychiatric waves that split the consciousness."
"And ice," I said.
"Why ice?"
"Because the ice had to be broken up in order to get the
'Kharkovchanka' machine out."
"Look over there to the right!" Vano cried out.
What we saw through the port window stopped the argument
instantaneously. Martin put the brakes on. We hurriedly got into our jackets
and jumped out of the machine. I began taking pictures on the run because
this promised to be one of the most remarkable of all my film strips.
This was a miracle indeed, a picture from another world of
extraterrestrial life. There were no clouds, no snow. Nothing interfered.
The sun hung just above the horizon giving all the strength of its light to
the emerald-blue chunk of ice that towered above us. An ideally smooth cut
through the multi-metre tower seemed to be pure glass. No human being, no
machine could be seen anywhere. Only gigantic rose-coloured disks-I counted
ten or more-that delicately and soundlessly cut the ice like butter. Imagine
cutting butter with a hot knife. This was it. No friction, a smooth, smooth
cut with a slight fringe melting round the walls. That was exactly what was
happening here, as the rose knife produced the hundred-metre walls of ice.
It was in the shape of an irregular oval or trapezium with rounded angles;
in area it must have been over a hundred square metres. At least that was my
rough guess. But very thin, only about two or three centimetres. The
familiar "cloud" had obviously flattened out, elongated and converted into
an enormous cutting instrument operating with amazing speed and precision.
Separated by a distance of half a kilometre, two such knives were
cutting the ice wall perpendicular to the base. Two others were cutting from
below in regular coincident movements of a pendulum. Another set of four