"E.Voiskunsky, I.Lukodyanov. The Crew Of The Mekong (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Opratin fired again and again until all the cartridges were gone.
Breathing heavily, he leaned against the damp wall. Despair swept over him.
Suddenly he heard alarmed voices overhead. He shouted. Choking from the
stench of the passage and the smell of gunpowder, he shouted until he was
hoarse. The faint light from above was blotted out by a head that appeared
in the opening.
"Who fired those shots?" a voice demanded from above.
A few minutes later a rope was lowered through the hole and Opratin was
hauled out.
Opratin had to postpone his departure while he answered questions put
by the local authorities and set forth the whole matter in writing. That was
a nuisance, for Opratin hated to waste time.
Nikolai and Yura sat side by side at a desk, bent over a blueprint of
the pipeline route. They were checking the figures indicating the depths.
Valery Gorbachevsky, a young lab technician, glanced at his watch, then
walked over to the mirror and smoothed down his black sideburns and
moustache, meanwhile singing a song about a lad named Chico who came from
Puerto Rico.
"My dear Valery," said Yura, "do you know where Puerto Rico is?"
The lab technician shrugged a shoulder. "Of course. You don't doubt it,
do you?"
"Not very far from Madagascar, isn't it?"
"Well, yes, you could put it like that," Valery said hesitatingly.
"Now you see, my friend, how disastrous it is-" Just then the telephone
rang, and Yura broke off to pick up the receiver.
"The chief wants you, Nikolai. With the route plan."
Nikolai went up to the next floor, taking the steps two at a time, and
entered Privalov's office. Privalov had a visitor, a man in a green suit,
whom Nikolai had never seen before. The visitor gave Nikolai a keen glance,
nodded and said, "My name's Nikolai Opratin."
Nikolai introduced himself and sat down.
"Nikolai Opratin comes from the Institute of Marine Physics across the
street," Privalov said to Nikolai. "He has given me some interesting
information which we will have to take into account. Yes, indeed." Here
Privalov pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and bent over the plan of
the pipeline route. "Now take this shoal that's to be deepened by blasting."
Opratin crossed his legs. "That won't be necessary," he said with a
glance at Nikolai. "I've just told your chief the level of the Caspian will
rise in three years' time. That means there isn't any need to deepen the
route."
"Is your information reliable?"
Opratin smiled. "The most reliable there is."
Privalov leaned back in his chair. His glasses slid down to the tip of
his hose.
"Well, we'll just have to revise our calculations," he said, rubbing
his forehead. "I'd like you to step over to the Institute of Marine Physics
tomorrow, Nikolai. Will that be all right?" he asked, turning to Opratin.
"Certainly. After lunch, preferably."
"Fine. You can't imagine how much worry this pipeline is causing us.
Doubting Thomases are holding up the work. We visited the site last Sunday