"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
had even gotten across the continent. A Frenchman and two Australians and a
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