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

questions, I am beginning to doubt the axiomatic nature of that proposition.
How can the water level in the ocean increase if there is no increase in
water? That's school geography, and the same goes for the climate question
too."
"What, in your opinion, is the presumed structure of the 'cloud'? To me
it seemed to be
a gas."
"A thinking gas," someone giggled. "From what textbook is that?"
"Are you a physicist?" Zernov asked.
"Well, assuming that I am."
"Suppose you write a textbook."
"Unfortunately, I have no experience in the show business. But my
question is serious."
"And I'm serious in my answer. I do not know the structure of the
'cloud'. It might even be that the physico-chemical structure is totally
unknown to our science. I think that it is more of a colloidal structure
than gaseous."
"Where do you think it came from?"
The correspondent of "Izvestia" I knew got
"P-, "In some kind of a science fiction novel I read
about visitors from Pluto. Incidentally, in the Antarctic too. Do you
really take that as a serious possibility?"
"I don't know. While I'm on the subject, I never said anything about
Pluto."
"It may not be Pluto, what I meant was from outer space as such. From
some kind of stellar system. Why should they be coming to the earth for ice?
To the outskirts of our Galaxy. There is certainly enough ice in the
Universe, one could try some place a bit closer."
"Closer to what?" Zernov asked and smiled.
I admired him. He still retained some humour and calm even under this
veritable barrage of questions. He had not made a scientific discovery, but
was only an accidental witness to a unique, unexplained phenomenon, about
which he hardly knew more than those who had seen the film. For some reason
they kept forgetting that and he patiently responded to every remark.
"Ice is water," he said in the tone of a tired teacher winding up a
lesson. "It is a compound that is not so often met with even in our own
stellar system. We do not know whether there is water on Venus, there is
very little on Mars and none whatsoever on Jupiter or Uranus. And of course
there is not so very much terrestrial ice in the Universe. If I err, the
astronomers will correct me, but it seems to me that cosmic ice is merely
frozen gases: ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide, nitrogen."
"Why doesn't anyone ask about duplicates, doubles?" I whispered and
immediately got myself into a lot of work.
Professor Kedrin recalled me:
"I have a question for Anokhin. Did you converse with your duplicate?
And I wonder what
about?" "Yes, we did, we talked about a variety of things," I said.
"Did you notice any difference, purely external, say, in fine points,
in hardly noticeable details? I refer to differences between the two of
you."