Aleksandr Abramov, Sergei Abramov. Horsemen from Nowhere

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     Translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky
     Александр Абрамов, Сергей Абрамов "ВСАДНИКИ НИОТКУДА" │ horsmen1.txt
     MIR PUBLISHERS Moscow 1969
     OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2 │ http://home.freeuk.com/russica2
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     "Horsemen From Nowhere" is a science-fiction story about the arrival on
earth of mysterious rose-coloured  "clouds" from deep  space. Members of the
Soviet  Antarctic  expedition are  the  first to  meet them in  a series  of
inexplicable events. The "clouds"  are seen to  be  removing  the  Antarctic
ice-cap and carrying it off into space.  They are capable of reproducing any
kind of atomic structure, and this goes for human beings as well. The heroes
of  the story  meet their "counterparts",  come upon a  duplicated airliner,
journey through a modelled city, and fight Gestapo policemen that  have been
reconstructed  from the past by these same mysterious  "clouds".  Scientists
are not able to explain why terrestrial life is being modelled. All attempts
to contact  the  space beings fail.  In the  end, however, Soviet scientists
penetrate the enigma of the rose clouds and  establish contact with a highly
developed extragalactic civilization.


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         * PART ONE. THE ROSE CLOUD


        Chapter I. A CATASTROPHE



     The snow was fluffy and soft, not at all the compacted, sand-paper-like
crystalline neve of the polar wastes. The Antarctic summer was mild, and the
gay frost that tweaked  the ears ever  so slightly  created an atmosphere of
Sunday  hiking  back home  in  Moscow. Our thirty-five-ton  snow tractor was
gliding along at a marvellous clip, but  in  winter  even the  airplane skis
could hardly tear away from the supercooled ice crystals. Vano was a skilled
driver and didn't bother to put the brakes on even in the case of suspicious
humps and bumps of ice.
     "Take it easy,  there, Vano," Zernov shouted from the navigator's cabin
adjacent to the driver. "There might be crevasses."
     "Where do you  see  cracks?"  was  Vano's mistrustful  response, as  he
peered  through dark glasses into the stream  of  blindingly brilliant light
that flooded the cabin through the front window. "This isn't a road, this is
a  highway, the Rustaveli Boulevard  in Tbilisi.  You  can take it from  me,
that's definite. Really, I mean it."
     I climbed out of the radio-room and pulled down the retracted seat next
to Vano. For  some reason,  I turned  round to look at the desk in the salon
where Tolya Dyachuk was doing some meteorological work. I shouldn't have.
     "We  are  now  witnessing the birth  of a new kind of  chauffeur," said
Tolya with a disgusting giggle. And since I disdained to reply, he added:
     "Vanity is killing you, Yura. Aren't two specialities enough for you?"
     Each  of  us   in  the  expedition  combined   two,   sometimes  three,
professions.  Zernov, for example, was the glaciologist, but he could handle
the work of geophysicist or seismologist as well. Tolya Dyachuk combined the
duties of  meteorologist, doctor and cook. Vano was the  mechanic and driver
of the huge  tractor specially designed  for work in polar regions;  what is
more,  he  could  repair   anything  from  a  broken  tractor   tread  to  a
temperamental electric hotplate. I was  in charge of photography, movies and
also the radio. What attracted me to Vano was not any  desire to increase my
range of specialities  but his  own  love for this gigantic  Kharkov tractor
vehicle.
     When  I first saw it from the airplane as we were  landing, it appeared
to me like a red dragon from a fairy tale; but close up, with its metre-wide
tractor  tread  jutting out and its  enormous square  eyes-windows-gave  the
impression of a  creature  from  another world. I had driven  motor cars and
heavy lorries and, with Vano's  permission, had tried the tractor on the icy
land floe near Mirny, but yesterday was windy and  sombre-I  didn't risk it.
But today was crystal clear.
     "Let  me take a try,  Vano," I  said, and didn't  allow myself to  look
back. "Just for half an hour."
     Vano was getting up when Zernov shouted:
     "Come on now, no experiments in driving. You, Chokheli, are responsible
for  the  running  condition  of the  machine.  You,  Anokhin, put  on  your
goggles."
     There  was  nothing  to  do but comply.  Zernov  was chief  and he  was
demanding  and unyielding. Of  course  it  was  definitely dangerous without
goggles to look into the myriads of scintillations produced by a cold sun on
sheets of snow. Only near the horizon did it darken  somewhat as the plateau
merged with  the smeared-out ultramarine of  the  sky. Nearby even  the  air
sparkled white.
     "Look over  there  to the left, Anokhin," Zernov continued.  "The  side
window gives a better view. Nothing unusual?"
     What I saw off to the left, at a distance of about fifty metres, was an
absolutely vertical wall of ice. It was higher than any buildings I knew of.
Even the New York skyscrapers  would hardly  have come  up to its top fluffy
edge.  Brilliantly shining  with all colours of  the rainbow,  it was like a
ribbon  of diamond dust. It was darker at the bottom  where layers of packed
snow  had already frozen into a darkish  hard neve. Lower still, there was a
break in the enormous thickness of ice,  as if a gargantuan knife had sliced
through it. Here it was bluish  in the sunlight, like the sky reflected in a
giant  mirror. At  the very bottom, however,  the  wind had built up  a long
two-metre  high snowdrift-a nice fluffy fringe to match the  same one way up
at the top of  the wall  of  ice. The wall extended  on  and on without end,
tapering off in the distant snowy  reaches of  space. Only the mighty giants
of fairy tales could, it seemed, have  erected it here in this  icy fastness
to  protect no one  knew what from  no  one  knew whom-a fortress of ice. Of
course, ice  in  the Antarctic-no  matter what  its  shapes  and forms-could
hardly impress anyone.  Which is just what I said  to Zernov, for 1 couldn't
see what was so attractive to the glaciologist.
     "A plateau of ice, Boris Arkadievich. Perhaps a shelf glacier?"
     "Old timer," Zernov  said ironically, hinting at  my second trip to the
South Pole.  "Do  you  know  what  a  shelf  is? You don't?  A  shelf  is  a
continental bar. A shelf glacier slides down into the ocean. Now this is not
a glacial precipice and we are not in the ocean." He was silent for a moment
and then added thoughtfully. "Please, stop, Vano.  Let's take a closer look.
This is an interesting phenomenon. Put something on, boys, it's no place for
light sweaters."
     Close up, the wall was still more beautiful.  An unbelievably blue bar,
a chunk  of  frozen sky cut off near the horizon.  Zernov was silent. Either
the magnificence  of  the spectacle  awed him,  or its  inexplicability.  He
peered for the longest time into the snowy line at the topmost fringe of the
wall,  and  then for some reason looked down at his  feet, stamped the snow,
then kicked it about. We watched him but could not figure it out.
     "Just look at this snow we are standing on," he said suddenly.
     We stamped the snow a bit like he had done, and  found a solid sheet of
ice below the thin layer of snow.
     "A real skating  rink," said Dyachuk. "An ideal  plane, probably Euclid
himself helped to make it."
     But Zernov was serious.
     He continued  thoughtfully, "We are standing on ice. There is  not more
than  two centimetres of snow. Now look at the  wall. Metres thick. Why? The
climate  here  is  the  same,  the  same  winds,  the  same  conditions  for
accumulation of snow. Anyone got any bright ideas?"
     Nobody answered. Zernov continued thinking aloud.
     "The structure of the ice is  apparently the  same.  The surface too. I
get  the  impression  of  an  artificial  cut.  And if. you  brush  off  the
centimetre-thick layer of snow under foot, we get  the  same artificial cut.
Now that doesn't make sense at all."
     "Everything is nonsense in  the realm of the  snow queen," I put in for
what it was worth.
     "Why queen and not king?" Vano queried.
     "You explain it  to  him, Tolya," I said, "you're  the  map specialist.
We've got Queen Mary  Land, Queen Maud Land, and then in the other direction
Queen Victoria Land." "Simply Victoria," Tolya added correcting me.
     "Listen,  you  erudite  of  Weather  Forecasts, she  was the  Queen  of
England.  Incidentally, in this same field of forecasting, wasn't it here on
this wall  that the snow queen played with Caius? And wasn't it here that he
cut his cubes and fashioned them into the word 'eternity'?"
     Dyachuk grew cautious, ready for a trap.
     "Hey, who's this Caius guy?"
     "Oh, for heaven's sake,"  I sighed, "why didn't Hans Christian Andersen
deal in weather forecasts?  Do you know the difference between  you and him?
The colour of the blood. His is blue."
     "The octopus has blue blood if you want to know."
     Zernov was not listening.
     "Are we roughly in the same region?" he asked suddenly.
     "What region, Boris Arkadievich?"
     "Where the Americans observed those clouds."
     "No, quite  a bit to  the west,"  put  in Dyachuk. "I've checked by the
map."
     "I said 'roughly'. Clouds usually move, you know."
     "Ducks too," wisecracked Tolya.
     "You don't believe me, Dyachuk?"
     "Of  course not. It isn't  even funny: clouds that are neither  cumulus
nor cirrus. Actually,  there aren't any at all right  now."  He looked up at
the open sky. "Perhaps orographic. They're lens-like in shape with  an extra
layer on top.
     And  rose-coloured due to the sunlight. But these are  dense, a  greasy
rose colour and something  like raspberry  jelly. A lot  lower than  cumulus
clouds, not exactly bags blown up  by the  wind, but something in the nature
of uncontrolled dirigibles. Nonsense!"
     These were  obviously the  mysterious  rose-coloured  clouds  that  the
Americans at  MacMur-do had radioed  about.  Clouds like rose dirigibles had
passed over the island of Ross, were seen on Adelie Land and in the vicinity
of the shelf  glacier Shackleton, and an American pilot was reported to have
collided with them some three hundred kilometres from Mirny. Kolya  Samoilov
received the radiogram  that the  American  radio operator sent out: "I  saw
them myself, the devil take them. Racing along just like a Disney film."
     At Mirny,  on  the  whole, the men were very sceptical about  the  rose
clouds  and only a few  took the  thing seriously. George Bruk, chief  merry
maker, kept at the phlegmatic old-timer seismologist:
     "Now you've surely heard of the flying saucers, haven't you?"
     "Suppose I have."
     "And about the banquet at MacMurdo?"
     "So what?"
     "Did you see the 'Life' reporter off to New York?"
     "What are you getting at, anyway?"
     "Well,  rose-coloured ducks went along with him and all the sensational
news too."
     "Lay off, will you. You're getting to be a pain you know where."
     George  lay  off with a  smirk and  set  out for  some other victim. He
passed me  up, considering perhaps that the chances of success were small. I
was  having lunch  with glaciologist  Zernov, who  was  only eight years  my
senior but was already a professor. Really, no matter how you look at it, to
be a full doctor of science at thirty-six is something to envy, though these
sciences did  not seem  so  important to me-I'm closer to the humanities.  I
didn't believe they could mean so much to human progress. And I said as much
to Zernov on one occasion.
     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.


        Chapter II. DUPLICATES



     I came  to, but  in  a way  I did  not  regain consciousness  because I
continued to lie there without moving  and with not even enough  strength to
open  my eyes.  Consciousness crept  back  slowly,  or  was  it  a  sort  of
subconsciousness?  Vague feelings, hazy sensations  took  hold of me, and my
thoughts-which were just  as indeterminate and nebulous-attempted  to define
them.  I was weightless, and I appeared to be floating or sailing or hanging
not  even  in the  air but  in  empty  space,  in a kind of colourless tepid
colloidal  solution,  thick  and yet  imperceptible  at  the same  time.  It
penetrated into my pores, my eyes and mouth and filled my stomach and lungs,
washing through my blood, or perhaps even took its place and began to course
through my body.  A strange impression  grasped me-that  something invisible
was peering intently  at and  through  me,  investigating with  concentrated
curiosity every blood vessel, every nerve  fibre, down to the very cells  of
my brain. I did  not experience either fear or pain, I slept and didn't, and
dreamt incoherently and formlessly, yet at the same time I was positive that
this was no dream at all.
     When I finally regained consciousness, everything about  me was just as
bright and quiet as usual. I opened my eyes with great difficulty and with a
sharp piercing  pain in  my temples. Right  in  front of me I saw  a smooth,
reddish tree-trunk tower upwards. Was this a Eucalyptus tree or a palm tree?
Or perhaps  a pine whose top  I could not see. I could not turn my  head. My
hand hit  upon something  hard and cold, a stone perhaps. I pushed it and it
rolled into  the  grass soundlessly. My eyes sought the green  grass  of the
Moscow Zoo,  but  the  colour was ochre instead. And from  above,  from  the
window or from  the  sky,  came a  brilliant  stream  of  white  light  that
suggested both  a limitless expanse  of snowy wastes and the blue brilliance
of a wall of ice. Everything became clear at once.
     Overcoming the  pain, I  got to my feet and then  sat down to survey my
surroundings.  I recognized  things now: the brownish  lawn  was  simply the
linoleum and the reddish pole was the foot  of the table, and the stone that
I pushed was my camera. It had probably hit me on the head when the  vehicle
plunged downwards. Where was Dyachuk?  I  called him,  but no  answer  came.
Zernov did not respond, neither did Chokheli. The silence  was more complete
than  that of  a  room  in which you are working and where you  can hear all
kinds of  sounds-the  dropping  of  water,  the squeaking of the  floor, the
tick-tock of a clock or the  buzzing of a fly-this was a total silence where
only my own voice could be heard. I  brought my wrist-watch to my ear-it was
going. And the time was twenty minutes after twelve.
     With great effort I rose to my  feet and,  holding onto the wall, found
my way to the navigator's seat. It was empty, even the gloves and binoculars
had  vanished from the desk and Zernov's fur jacket was not  thrown over the
back of  the  chair.  Zernov's  log  book  was  absent.  Vano  had  likewise
disappeared  together with mittens and jacket.  I looked through  the  front
window;  the outside  glass  was  bent  inwards. Beyond I  could  see smooth
diamond-like snow, as if there had not been any accident at all.
     But my memory persisted and the headache I had was definitely real.  In
the mirror I could see caked blood on my forehead. I probed around a bit and
found that the bone was all right, only the skin had been cut by the edge of
the  camera.  This  meant that  something  had  indeed  taken  place.  Maybe
everybody was nearby in the snow?  I looked in  the  drying room for the sky
clamps:  there were no  skis.  Also absent  were  the duraluminum  emergency
sleighs. All the jackets and  caps, except mine, had vanished. I  opened the
door and jumped down onto the ice. It was bluish and bright under the slight
layer of fluffy snow that the wind  was  blowing every which way. Zernov was
right when  he  spoke of the mysteriously  thin  layer  of snow in the  deep
interior of the polar continent.
     Of a sudden, everything became clear. Right next to our "Kharkovchanka"
vehicle  was another  one,  big  and red and all covered  with snow.  It had
obviously caught up with  us from Mirny or was on its way to Mirny.  And  it
had helped us out of our trouble. That was it. Our tractor had fallen into a
crevasse: about ten metres from here I could see the tracks going downwards,
then the dark opening of a well with a firn-like crust covering  the  crack.
The boys  from  the other tractor had  probably  seen our fall,  which  most
likely had been a lucky one in  which we had got caught  in the mouth of the
fissure, and had pulled us and the machine out.
     "Hello, there, anybody in the. tractor?" I yelled  and went  around the
front end.
     There was not a single face in any one of the four windows and no voice
at all. I began to study the other machine and found that our sister vehicle
had exactly the same bent-in glass in the front window. Then I looked at the
left-hand tread.  Our machine had a  clear-cut mark: one of the steel cleats
had  been welded  on and therefore differed definitely from the others.  Now
this tread had the  same tell-tale mark. These were  no  twins from the same
factory but duplicates that repeated every single detail.  Opening the  door
of the other machine, the duplicate, I trembled fearing the worst.
     True enough. The entrance passage was empty, no skis, no sleighs,  only
my fur  jacket  hanging on the hook.  My jacket, that  was it: torn and with
sewn-up left-hand sleeve, the fur worn off the cuffs and two dark oily spots
on the  shoulder-I  had once picked it  up with oily fingers.  I entered the
cabin in haste and fell against the wall so as not to collapse, for my heart
was about to stop.
     On the floor, near the table,  in a  brown shirt and  padded  trousers,
with face  against the leg of the table and dried up  blood  on the forehead
and one hand holding onto the camera was ME.
     Was this a dream? I had not yet  awakened? I was looking at myself by a
second  vision? I pinched the skin on my hand. It hurt. It was  clear that I
was awake  and  not sleeping.  Well, then I must  have gone  crazy. But from
books I had read I knew that mad people never  realize they  have gone  mad.
Then what is this all about? Hallucinations? A mirage? I touched  the  wall;
it was  real  enough. That meant that  I  myself was  not  an apparition,  a
phantom lying  consciousless at my own  feet. Sheer madness. I  recalled the
words of the mysterious snow  maiden. Then maybe, after all, there is a snow
maiden,  and  miracles do  happen,  and  phantom duplicates  of  people, and
science is simply nonsense and self-consolation.
     What was there to do? Should I run to the duplicate tractor and wait to
go out of my  mind completely?  Then I recalled the dictum that if  what you
see contradicts the laws of nature, then you are to blame, you  err and  not
nature. My fear disappeared, only confusion and anger remained. I  even gave
the lying  man a kick. He moaned and opened his eyes.  Then  he rose on  his
elbow just as I had done and looked around with a dull gaze.
     "Where is everybody?" he asked.
     I did not recognize the voice-perhaps mine in  a tape-recording. But he
was really me,  this phantom, if  he thought exactly  the  way I  had when I
regained consciousness!
     "Where are  they?"  he repeated and  then  yelled  "Tolya! Dyachuk!" No
response. It had been the same with me.
     "What's happened?" he asked.
     "I don't know," I answered.
     "It seemed  to  me that the machine  fell into a  crevasse, and we must
have  been knocked  about  against some wall of ice.  I fell... and  then...
everything fell. Or did it?"
     He did not recognize me.
     "Vano!" he cried, rising.
     Then silence again.  Everything  that  had occurred fifteen minutes ago
was strangely being repeated.  Reeling, he reached the navigator's  room and
touched the empty seat of  the driver,  then he  went into the drying  room,
found-like I had-that there  were no skis or sleighs  and then remembered me
and returned.
     "Where are you from?" he asked peering at me more intently and suddenly
leapt  back  covering his  face  with  his  hand.  "This  can't  be!  What's
happening? Am I asleep?"
     "That's exactly what I said... at  first," I answered. I was  no longer
afraid.
     He sat down on the porolone settee.
     "Please excuse me, but you look exactly like me, in the mirror. Are you
a spectre?"
     "No, you can touch me and find out."
     "But then who are you?"
     "I'm Yuri Anokhin, the cameraman and radio operator of the expedition,"
I said firmly.
     He jumped up.
     "No,  I  am Yuri  Anokhin, the  cameraman  and  radio operator  of  the
expedition," he cried out and sat down again.
     Now both  of us were silent, examining one another; one was calmer, for
he  knew a  little  bit more  and  had seen more; the other  with a glint of
madness in his eyes, repeating, perhaps, all my thoughts-those that had come
to mind  when I  had first  seen him. Yes, there were two men in  this cabin
breathing in the same heavy rhythm- two identical human beings.


        Chapter III. THE ROSE CLOUD



     How long this lasted I do not know. Finally he spoke up.
     "I don't understand anything."
     "Me too."
     "A man cannot split into two men."
     "That's exactly what I figured."
     He gave some thought to that.
     "Maybe there is a snow maiden after all?"
     "You're repeating,"  I  said. "I have  already thought about that.  And
that science is nonsense and self-consolation."
     He smiled slightly embarrassed, as if  rebuked by his senior. Actually,
I was his senior. But then he corrected himself immediately:
     "That's   a  joke.   This   is  some   kind  of  physical  and  psychic
mystification.  What  kind exactly, I cannot  make out  yet. But there is an
illusion.
     There is something not real. You know what?
     Let's go see Zernov."
     He understood me almost without speaking- he was my reflection. And our
thoughts  ran to the same  thing:  did our microscope survive the shock?  It
had, it  turned out, and was in its place in the  cabinet.  The slides  were
also  intact.  My duplicate (or counterpart) took them  out  of the  box. We
compared our hands: even the corns and handnails were the same.
     "We'll check and see," I said.
     Each one of us pricked his finger and smeared the blood on the  slides;
then took turns  looking through  the microscope. The blood was identical in
both cases.
     "The same material," he said with a smirk, "a copy."
     "You're the copy."
     "No, you are."
     "Wait  a  minute,"  I  stopped  him, "Who invited  you  to  go on  this
expedition?"
     "Why, Zernov, of course."
     "And what was the purpose?"
     "You're just asking so that you can later repeat the same thing."
     "No, not at  all. I  can tell you. Because of the rose-coloured clouds,
isn't that so?"
     He squinted, recalling something, and then asked cunningly:
     "What school did you finish?"
     "Institute, not school."
     "No, I'm asking  about school. The number. What number was it, have you
forgotten?"
     "You're the one who has forgotten. I finished School No. 709."
     "Well, okey. But who sat next to you on the left?"
     "Now, listen. Why are you examining me?"
     "Just a check up, that's all. You might have  forgotten Lena,  you see.
Incidentally, she got married shortly afterwards."
     "Yes, she married Fibikh," I said.
     He sighed.
     "Your life coincides with mine."
     "Still, I'm  convinced that  you are the copy,  a  spectre and a bit of
witchcraft." I wound up getting angrier all the time. "Who was first to wake
up? I was. And who first saw two tractors? Me again."
     "Why two?" he asked suddenly.
     That's when I began to laugh triumphantly. My priority was now complete
and confirmed.
     "For the simple reason that there is another one alongside it. The real
one. Take a look."
     He  pressed against the  side window and, perplexed, looked at me. Then
without a word he  put on a copy of my jacket and went out onto the ice. The
identically welded  piece  of  tread and  the  identically bent glass of the
window made him frown. Cautiously, he  looked into the entrance way, went on
into the navigator's room  and then returned to the table with my camera. He
even examined it.
     "A real sister," he said gloomily.
     "As you see, she and I were born a bit earlier."
     "All you did was wake up earlier," he added frowning, "and no one knows
which one of us is the real one. Actually, I do know."
     "Suppose he's right, after all?" I thought to myself. "Just suppose the
duplicate  and  phantom  are  not  he at  all,  but me? After  all, who  can
determine a thing like that if  our fingernails have  the same markings  and
our  schoolmates  are  the  same? Even  our  thoughts  are  duplicated, even
feelings if the stimuli from without are the same."
     We looked  at each other as if into a mirror. Just imagine a thing like
that happening!
     "You know what I'm thinking about right now?" he said suddenly.
     "Yes, I do," I answered. "Let's see."
     I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking about the very same
thing. If there  are  two tractors on the ice and it  is not  known which of
them fell into  the crack in the ice, then why are the  same windows in both
broken? And if both of them fell through, how did they get out?
     We  stopped our conversation  and both ran  to the opening  in the  ice
crust. We stretched out  on the ice and crawled right up to the edge of  the
precipice, and then all  was clear. Only  one  of the machines had fallen in
because there was only one  set of tracks.  It  had  got caught  about three
metres from the edge of the precipice, between the two walls that came close
together at  this point. We could also  see little  steps  made in  the  ice
probably by Vano or Zernov, depending  on who succeeded first  in getting to
the surface.  This obviously meant  that the  second "Kharkovchanka" machine
appeared already after the fall of the  first. But then who pulled the first
one out? It couldn't get out of the crevice by itself definitely.
     I took another  glance into the precipice. It was black, deep, menacing
and  bottomless. I picked up  a  piece of ice that had  broken off the edge-
probably a chunk knocked out by the hack used to cut the steps-and tossed it
down. It straightway  vanished from view but I did not hear any sound of its
hitting  something.  Then  an idea flashed through my  mind: maybe give this
fellow-duplicate  of mine a  push?  Run  up  to  him and trip  him into  the
precipice?...
     "Don't think you'll be able to do it," he said.
     I was dumbfounded at first and only later caught on.
     "You were thinking of the same thing?" "Of course."
     "Let's fight, then. Perhaps one of us will kill the other."
     "And suppose  both are killed?" We stood  opposite one  another, angry,
all  keyed  up,  throwing  absolutely  identical  shadows  on the snow. Then
suddenly all this struck us both as being funny.
     "This  is a farce," I  said. "We'll get back to Moscow and they'll show
us around in a circus. Two-Anokhin-Two."
     "Why a circus? In the  Academy of Sciences. A new phenomenon, something
like the rose clouds."
     "Which don't exist." "Take a look." He pointed to the sky.  In the hazy
blue  in  the  distance  billowed  a  rose-coloured  cloud.  All  alone,  no
companions, no satellites,  just  like a spot of wine on a white tablecloth.
It floated very slowly and low, much below storm clouds, and  did not at all
look  like a cloud. I would sooner have compared it to a  dirigible. It even
resembled more a piece of dark rose-coloured  dough rolled  out on the table
or a  large kite floating  lazily  in  the sky. Jerking along, pulsating, it
moved sideways to the earth as if alive.
     "A jellyfish," my counterpart said, repeating my  own  thoughts on  the
subject, "a live rose jellyfish. Without tentacles."
     "Quit repeating my nonsense. That's a substance and not a creature."
     "You think so?"
     "Just the way you do. Take a better look."
     "But why does it jerk so?"
     "It's billowing  because it's  a gas or  water vapour. Perhaps dust, on
the other hand," I added not very sure of myself.
     The crimson  kite came to halt right overhead  and began to descend. It
was some five hundred metres  distance from us, hardly more. The  shimmering
edges of it turned downwards  and grew dark. The  kite  was  turning into  a
bell.
     "Oh, what a nut!" I exclaimed remembering my camera. "This is just what
ought to be photographed!"
     I rushed to my "Kharkovchanka" vehicle, checked to see  that the camera
was in working order and the colour-film spool in place. All that took but a
minute. I began  to shoot right through the open door, and jumping down onto
the ice I ran around the  two machines and found another angle for some more
shots. Only then did I notice that my alter ego stood without camera and was
watching my movements in a detached, lost sort of fashion.
     "Why aren't you  taking pictures?" I  yelled without taking my eye  off
the viewfinder.
     He did not answer at once and when he did it was strangely slow.
     "I dooon't know. Something is-is-is bothering me."
     "What's all this about?"
     ".. .don't know."
     I looked intently at him and even forgot about the threat from the sky.
This finally was a real difference! We weren't, after all, so completely the
same. He was experiencing something I  did not feel. Something was hampering
his movements, yet I  was free. Without thinking twice I snapped him and the
duplicate tractor as well. For an instant I even forgot about the rose cloud
but he reminded me.
     "It's diving."
     The  crimson  bell  was  no  longer slowly  descending, it was falling,
plunging downwards. I instinctively jumped to the side.
     "Run," I cried.
     My new twin finally moved a bit, but he did not run. Very strangely, he
walked backwards to his own vehicle.
     "Where are you going? Are you crazy?"
     The bell enveloped him and he did  not even answer. I again looked into
the viewfinder and hurried to take these important shots. Fear had even left
me because what I was photographing now was something  truly nonterrestrial.
No cameraman had ever taken pictures like these before.
     The  cloud grew  smaller in  size and darker still. Now  it was like an
upturned saucer  for an enormous  tropical plant. It was no more than six to
seven metres from the ground.
     "Look out!" I cried.
     I had suddenly  forgotten that he too was a phenomenon and not a living
being,  and  in one  gigantic unimaginable  effort  I jumped to  his aid.  I
couldn't  have helped him  anyway,  it turned  out,  but  the  jump cut  the
distance between us by one half. In one more jump I might have  caught  him.
But  something  intervened  and would not let  me;  it  even sent me reeling
backwards, as if by a shock wave or a gust of hurricane wind. I nearly fell,
but still  held on to my camera. The  giant  flower  had already reached the
earth and  its  purple-red petals, pulsating in a wild fashion, covered over
both duplicates,  the vehicle and  me.  Another second and  they touched the
snow-covered ice. Now,  alongside my tractor towered  a  mysterious  crimson
hill. It appeared to steam and boil and bubble, and  was all shrouded in the
rippling colours of  a crimson-like haze.  Golden sparks scintillated  as if
flashes  of electric discharges. I continued to take pictures, all the while
attempting to get as close as possible. Another  step, yet another, . .. and
my feet grew heavy,  still heavier as if tied to the icefield.  An invisible
magnet in them drew me down, as it were -not a step more. And I stopped.
     The hillock  became just the slightest bit brighter, the dull  dark red
brightened to a crimson and then it all  shot straight upwards. The upturned
saucer expanded,  its rosy edges slowly turned upwards. The bell  was  again
transformed into a kite, a rose-coloured cloud, a blob  of  gas billowing in
the wind.  It did not pick anything up from the  earth, no  condensations or
nebulous formations were at all noticeable in its interior.
     But down below stood my "Kharkovchanka" on the icefield, all alone. Its
mysterious double had  vanished  instantaneously, just  as it had  appeared.
Only the snow revealed traces of the wide treads, but the wind blew and they
were soon  covered over with an  even coat  of fluffy snow. The  "cloud" too
disappeared somewhere beyond the  edge of  the wall of  ice. I  looked at my
watch. Thirty-three minutes had passed since, on  coming to my senses, I had
checked the time.
     I experienced  an unusual feeling  of relief  from  the  knowledge that
something terrible indeed, something totally unexplainable had  gone out  of
my  life. More terrible  actually because I had already begun to get used to
the inexplicability, as a mad man  gets used to his  madness.  The  delirium
evaporated together with the rose gas, the  invisible barrier  also vanished
that did not allow me to  approach my duplicate.  Now I was able to go up to
my machine and I  sat down on the iron  step. I did not stop to think that I
would freeze to the metal as the temperature continued to  drop. Now nothing
concerned me except the thought of accounting in some way for that half hour
of nightmare. For  the  second time,  the third  time  and the tenth time  I
dropped my head to my hands and asked aloud:
     "What actually did take place after the accident?"



        Chapter IV. BEING OR SUBSTANCE?



     The answer was:
     "The most  important thing is that  you  are  alive, Anokhin. Really, I
feared for the worst."
     I raised my head-in front  of me stood Zernov and Tolya. Zernov did the
questioning,  while  Tolya stamped his skis and  knocked the snow about with
his sticks. Stout and shaggy with a soft down of hair on his face instead of
our unshaven  bristles,  he  seemed to have  lost  his sceptical mockery and
looked with boyish eyes all excited and happy.
     "Where did you people come from?" I asked.
     I was so tired and worn out that I didn't even  have strength enough to
smile.
     "Oh, right nearby," Tolya chirped, "a couple of kilometres at the most.
We've got a tent there, too."
     "Wait a minute, Dyachuk," Zernov put in, "there's time for that. How do
you feel, Anokhin? How did you get out? How long ago?"
     "So many questions,"  I said. My tongue  was as  unruly  as  that  of a
drunkard. "Let's start in some order, from  the end, say. How long ago did I
get out?  I don't know. How? Don't know again. How do  I feel?  More or less
normal, as far as I can make out. No fractures, no bumps." "Your morale?"
     Finally  I smiled,  but  it came out rather grim  and insincere because
Zernov immediately asked again:
     "Do you really think that we simply left you in the lurch?"
     "No, not for a minute," I said,  "but a series  of  bizarre events took
place that I can't account for."
     "That I see," Zernov said looking over our ill-fated vehicle. "A  tough
machine it  turned out to be. Just bent  in a few  spots.  Who was  it  that
pulled you out?"
     I shrugged.
     "There are no  volcanoes here. No pressure from below  to eject you. So
somebody must have done the job."
     "I  don't know what happened,"  I  said.  "I just found  myself on  the
plateau here."
     "Boris Arkadievich!" Tolya cried. "There's  only one machine. The other
one must have simply left. That's what I said, a Sno-Cat or a  tractor. They
did it with steel cables, that's all."
     "Pulled  it  out and  left,"  said Zernov doubtfully. "And left Anokhin
behind, without giving him any aid. Very strange, very strange indeed."
     "Perhaps they figured he was out for good. That he was dead.  But maybe
they'll be back. They might have a site nearby. And a doctor too."
     I  was  fed up  with those nonsensical  imaginings  of  Tolya.  He  was
hopeless whenever wound up.
     "Shut up for a while, will you!" I put in, making  a wry face. "In this
case, ten tractors wouldn't have been able to do anything. And there weren't
any cables either. And the second vehicle did not go away, it vanished."
     "So there was a second one after all?" Zernov asked.
     "Yes, there was."
     "But what does 'vanished' mean? Did it perish?"
     "To a certain  extent.  That's  a  long  story,  actually. There  was a
duplicate of our 'Kharkovchanka' machine. Not just a copy, but a  duplicate,
a phantom, a spectre. But a real spectre, an actual one."
     Zernov  listened  attentively  and   with  interest  .  without  saying
anything. There was nothing in his eyes that said: crazy, out of your  head,
you need psychiatric treatment.
     But Dyachuk was constantly ready with a term or two, and aloud he said:
     "You're something like Vano. Miracles are  all you two can see. He came
running crazy-like  and yelling. 'There are two  machines and two Anokhins!'
And his teeth were chattering."
     "You would have crawled on all fours if you had seen the wonders that I
did," I  put in cutting him  short, "there was no  imagination in  this case
because there were two vehicles and two Anokhins."
     Tolya moved his  lips but said  nothing and  looked  at  Zernov; Zernov
turned aside for some  reason. And in place of an  answer  he asked, jerking
his head in the direction of the door behind me:
     "Is everything intact there?"
     "I think so, though I didn't check to find out," I replied.
     "Then let's have some breakfast. No objections? We haven't had anything
to eat since then."
     I  under