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

His answer was: "You probably don't know how much snow and ice there is
on the earth. Take the Antarctic alone: the ice cap here in winter covers up
to twenty-two million square kilometres; add to that 11 million in the
Arctic, then Greenland, and the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Then put in all
the snow-topped peaks and glaciers, not counting all the rivers that freeze
over in winter. How much will that come to? About one third of the land area
of the globe. The continent of ice is twice that of Africa. Which is not so
insignificant when it comes to human progress."
I swallowed all that ice and any condescending desire to learn anything
during my stay here in Antarctica. But after that, Zernov took a kindly
attitude towards me and on the day of the report of "rose clouds", at lunch,
he invited me on a trip into the interior of the continent.
"Oh, a distance of three hundred kilometres or so," he added.
"What for?"
"We'd like to make a check on the American phenomenon. It's a highly
unlikely thing; that's what everyone thinks. But still it's something to
look into. For you in particular. You will use coloured film since the
clouds are rose-coloured."
"That's nothing at all," I put in. "The most ordinary kind of optical
effect."
"I don't know. I wouldn't want to refute it outright. The report states
that the colour appears to be independent of any illumination. True, we
could presume an admixture of some aero-sole of terrestrial origin or, say,
meteoritic dust from outer space. If you want to know, my interest lies
elsewhere. "
"And what's that?"
"The state of the ice in that area."
I didn't ask why at the time, but I recalled the matter when Zernov was
thinking out loud near the mysterious wall of ice. He was obviously
connecting the two phenomena.
In the tractor I moved up to Dyachuk's work desk.
"It's a puzzling wall and a definitely strange cut," I mused. "How did
they do it, with a saw of some kind? But then where do the clouds come in?"
"Why do you insist on linking them up?" Tolya asked in surprise.
"It's not me, it's Zernov. Why did he recall the clouds when he was
quite definitely thinking about the glacier?"
"You're just making things more complicated. The glacier is unusual, to
say the least, but what has that to do with the clouds? The glacier doesn't
generate them."
"But suppose it does."
"There is no suppose to it. Give me a hand here with the breakfast, if
you have nothing better to do. What do you think, omelette out of egg powder
or one of these tins?"
I didn't have time to answer. Something struck us with a terrible blow
and we tumbled to the floor. "Are we really flying? From the mountain or
into a crevasse?" was all I could think. That very second a terrific blow
from the front struck the tractor and threw it backwards. I was tossed to
the opposite wall. Something cold and heavy banged against my head, and I
went out cold.