"Aleksandr Abramov, Sergei Abramov. Horsemen from Nowhere ("ВСАДНИКИ НИОТКУДА", англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора Chapter VIII. THE LAST DUPLICATE
The official report of our expedition was: Zernov's statement on the phenomenon of the rose "clouds", my story about doubles (or duplicates) and a preview of the film I had taken. But Zernov had different plans from the very beginning of the meeting. No materials for the scientific report except personal impressions and the film taken by the expedition, he explained; he added that the astronomical observations that he had familiarized himself with at Mirny do not yield any grounds for definite conclusions. The appearance of enormous accumulations of ice in the atmosphere at a variety of altitudes was registered, it turns out, both by Soviet and foreign observatories in Antarctica. However, neither visual observations or special photographs permit establishing either the quantity of these quasi-celestial bodies or the direction of their flight. One can therefore speak only of impressions and conjectures that sometimes go by the name of hypotheses. But since the expedition returned three days ago and people are by habit garrulous and curious, everything seen by the members of the expedition is now known far beyond the limits of Mirny. It would naturally be best to engage in conjectures after viewing the film, since there will be more than enough material for such guesswork. I do not know whom Zernov had in view when he mentioned talkativeness, but Vano and Tolya and I did much to excite the men and rumours of my film whole group of Americans together with the retired Admiral Thompson, who has long since exchanged his admiral's galloons and shoulder straps for a fur jacket and polar sweater arrived to see the film. They had already heard about the film and eagerly awaited it, expressing all manner of suppositions. The film, even if I do say so, turned out to be exciting. Our second cinema operator, Zhenya Lazebnikov, looked at the developed film and howled out with envy: "That's the end. You're famous now. Not even Evans ever dreamt of a piece like this. You've got both hands on the Lomonosov Prize right now." Zernov did not comment, but leaving the laboratory, he asked: "Aren't you a little bit afraid, Anokhin?" "Why should I be?" I countered in surprise. "You can't image the sensation this is going to create." I had felt something like that when we viewed the film at the base. Everybody was there who could make it, they sat and stood till there wasn't any more room to sit or stand. The silence was that of an empty church. Once in a while a rumble of amazement and almost terror, when even the old-timers of polar exploration used to quite a bit gave in. The scepticism and disbelief that some had received our stories with disappeared on the instant after pictures of two "Kharkovchanka" vehicles with identically dented front windows and the rose cloud floating above them in the pale blue sky. The frames were excellent and precisely conveyed the colour: the "cloud" on the screen went red, violet, changed shape, turned up in the form of a flower, boiled and gobbled up the huge machine with all its |
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