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

water, came to a halt over the three crimson poppies and then hurtled off
into the depths of cosmic space. The "boomerangs" slithered out of the water
in a jet of steam and turned towards the continent in regular order. The
route lay through the foam of cumulus clouds. Like horsemen they galloped.
Horsemen!
The simile came later, and it was not concocted by me but right now I
heard it from Tolya strumming on his guitar.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
"Like what?"
"The song, naturally," he explained.
"What song," I still couldn't get it all straight.
"So you weren't listening," he sighed. "Exactly what I thought. I'll
have to sing it again."
He started up in his long drawn out talk-sing voice, like a chansonnier
without a voice that hangs onto the microphone for dear life. I didn't know
then what an envious fate awaited this composition of accidental celebrity.
"Horsemen from nowhere, what's that? A dream? A myth? All of a sudden,
while awaiting a wonder ... the world froze silently still. And over the
rhythmical drone and pulse of the world, horsemen from nowhere pranced by
... True, the idea is not new and the theme of the tragedy is simple. Hamlet
again solving the eternal problem. Who are they? Human beings? Gods? The
snow melts slowly, and again the Earth is anxious, there is no breathing
spell-"
He paused for a moment and then continued in a major key.
"Who will recognize them? And will we be able to grasp them? It is
late, my friend, it is late, and there is no one we can blame. Only the
difficult thing to grasp, my friend, is that there they are again-the
horsemen from nowhere prancing by in ordered array."
He sighed and glanced in my direction waiting for some sign of
appreciation.
"Not so bad," I said, "As a song goes, but-"
"But what?" he queried guardedly.
"Where does the Spanish sadness come from? Why the pessimism?" And I
started, 'It is late, my friend, it is late,' "Why late? And what is late?
And what's this about blame? Are you sorry about the ice, or the doubles?
Better take off this mustard plaster, it's not burning any more."
Tolya peeled it off my suffering back and said:
"Incidentally, they've been seen in the Arctic too."
"That must be terrifying, those horsemen from nowhere."
"You said it. In Greenland they've been cutting up ice too. Telegrams
have come in."
"So what, it might get warmer, that's all."
"But what if they take all the ice there is on the Earth? In the
Arctic, the Antarctic, in the mountains and the oceans?"
"You ought to know, you're the climatologist. I guess we'll be able to
fish for sardines in the White Sea and plant oranges in Greenland."
"In theory," Tolya sighed. "Who can predict what will really happen?
Nobody. It's not the ice that worries me. You read what Thompson has to say.
TASS has given it in full." He pointed to a bunch of papers.
"Getting panicky?"