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

"I have a question," it was Admiral Thompson.
"I would like to ask Mr. Zernov in the green sweater. Do you remember
our meeting at MacMurdo?"
"Of course," said Zernov the Second in English.
"And the souvenir that you liked so much?"
"Of course," Zernov Two answered. "You presented me with a fountain pen
with your initials in gold. I have it in my room, in the pocket of my summer
jacket."
"My summer jacket," Zernov corrected him sardonically.
"You would not have convinced me of it if I had not seen your film. Now
I know: I did not return with you on the tractor, I did not meet the
American pilot, and the death of his double I only saw in the film. I expect
the same end for myself, I foresee it."
"Perhaps you are an exception," said Zernov, "it may be that you will
be granted existence."
Now I saw the difference between them. One spoke calmly without losing
any of his composure, the other was all wound up inside and tense. Even his
lips trembled, as if it were difficult for him to say what his mind was
thinking.
"You yourself do not believe in it," he said, "we are created as an
experiment and are eliminated as a product of the experiment. Why, is not
known to anyone, you or me. I remember Anokhin's story via your memory, via
our combined memory, that is how and why I remember it." He looked at me and
inside I shuddered as I met the so familiar look. "When the cloud started to
descend, Anokhin told his double to run. The double refused, he could not,
he said, for something was ordering him to remain. And he returned to the
cabin to die: we all saw that. The difference is that you can stand up and
leave, whereas I cannot do that. Something has already ordered me not to
move."
Zernov extended his hand and it came up against an invisible barrier.
"Nothing can be done," sadly smiled Zernov the Double. "It's a field,
I'm using your terminology, since like you I know no other. The field has
already been set up. I'm in it like in a spacesuit."
Somebody sitting nearby also tried to touch the synthesized man but
couldn't because his hand encountered compressed air as hard as wood.
"It is terrible to know of your own end and not to have any way of
putting it off," said Zernov's counterpart. "After all, I am a man and not
just a biological mass. I so terribly want to live-"
The horrible silence pressed down on the hall. Someone was breathing
heavily like an asthmatic. Somebody else had covered his eyes with his hand.
Admiral Thompson had taken off his glasses. I screwed up my eyes.
Martin's hand that had been on my knee trembled.
"Look up!" he cried.
I looked up and froze stiff: there was a violet pulsating trunk-like
affair dropping down the ceiling to the Zernov sitting perfectly still in
the green sweater. Its funnel widened and frothed, unhurriedly but firmly,
like an empty hood, and covered up the man beneath it. A minute later we saw
something like a jelly stalactite violet in colour that merged with a
similar stalagmite. The base of the stalagmite rested on the stage near the
table, the stalactite flowed out of the ceiling through the roof and the