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Translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky
Александр Абрамов, Сергей Абрамов "ВСАДНИКИ НИОТКУДА"
MIR PUBLISHERS Moscow 1969
OCR: 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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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.
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.
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?"
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 understood Zernov's psychological manoeuvre: he wanted to calm me
down and create a proper atmosphere for conversation, for I was obviously
upset. At table, where we greedily devoured Tolya's lousy omelette, the head
of the expedition related what had taken place immediately following the
accident on the plateau.
When the tractor had plunged into the crevice, breaking through a
treacherous crust of frozen snow and had got caught a relatively short
distance from the top and pressed between jags in the icy ravine, only the
outside glass of the window was slightly damaged despite the force of the
impact. The light did not even go out in the cabin. Only Dyachuk and I lost
consciousness. Zernov and Chokheli held on with only a couple of scratches.
They tried to bring Tolya and me around first. Dyachuk came to immediately.
But his head was going round in circles and his feet felt like cotton. "A
concussion of a sort," he said. "That'll pass. Let's see what's wrong with
Anokhin." He was already getting into the role of doctor. They pulled him
over to me and the three of them tried to bring me to. But neither ammonia
salts nor artificial respiration helped. "He seems to be in shock, if you
ask me," said Tolya. Vano, meanwhile, had made his way through the upper
hatch and from the roof of the "Kharkovchanka" reported that it was possible
to get out of the crevice. But Tolya was against trying to get me out. "The
main thing now," he said, "is to protect him from the cold. I believe that
shock passes into sleep and sleep will set up a protective inhibition." At
this point Tolya almost went out again, and it was decided to start the
evacuation with Tolya and leave me in the cabin for the time being. They
took skis, sleighs, the tent, a portable stove and briquettes for heating, a
lantern and part of the food supply. Though the machine was in a stable
position and there was no more danger of it falling farther, they did not
want to stay any longer hanging over the precipice. Zernov recalled the cave
in the ice wall a short distance from the site of the accident. So they
decided to transfer all the equipment there and Tolya too and then set up
the tent and stove and return for me. In half an hour they had reached the
cave. Zernov and Tolya, who had meanwhile regained some strength, remained
to set up the tent, while Vano returned with empty sleigh to fetch me. It
was then that the event took place which made them think that he had
momentarily lost his mind. Hardly an hour had passed when he came running
back with mad eyes, in a state of strange feverish excitement. The machine
he said was not in the crevice but on an icefield, and what is more, there
was another one just like it alongside, with the same dent in the front
glass. And in each one of the two cabins he found me lying on the floor
unconscious. At this point he cried out in terror, figuring that he must
have gone mad, and ran back. there he drank down a whole glass of spirits
and refused point blank to go after me, saying that he was used to dealing
with human beings and not snow maidens. Then Zernov and Tolya set out for
me.
In response, I told them my version of the story, which was still more
remarkable than Vano's ravings. They listened avidly, credulously, the way
children listen to a fairy story, not a single sceptical snicker, only
Dyachuk hurried me on now and then with "and then what". Their eyes shone so
that I felt they both ought to repeat Vano's experiment with the glass of
vodka. But when I finished they both were silent for a long time, hoping, I
imagine, for an explanation from me.
But I was silent too.
"Don't be angry, Yuri," Dyachuk finally mumbled. "Scott's diary, or
something like that. Well, what I mean is self-hypnosis. Snow
hallucinations. White dreams."
"And how about Vano?" Zernov asked.
"Well, of course, as a doctor I-"
"You're a hell of a doctor," put in Zernov, "so let's forget it. There
are too many unknowns to try and solve the equation straight off. Let's
begin from the beginning. Who pulled out the machine? From a
three-metre-deep well, and wedged into a vice that no factory could have
made. Yes, and weighing thirty-five tons. Even a whole tractor train would
probably not be strong enough. And what did they use to pull it out? Cables?
Nonsense. Steel cables would definitely leave traces on the body of the
machine. But there aren't any, as you can see."
He got up without saying a word and went into the navigator's room.
"But that's sheer nonsense, madness, Boris Arkadievich!" Tolya yelled
after him.
Zernov turned round.
"What do you mean?"
"Why all these adventures of Anokhin, the new Munchausen, all these
duplicates, clouds, vampire flowers and mysterious vanishing."
"Anokhin, didn't you have a camera in your hand when we came up?"
Translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky
Александр Абрамов, Сергей Абрамов "ВСАДНИКИ НИОТКУДА"
MIR PUBLISHERS Moscow 1969
OCR: http://home.freeuk.com/russica2
---------------------------------------------------------------
"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.
___________________________________________________
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.
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.
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?"
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 understood Zernov's psychological manoeuvre: he wanted to calm me
down and create a proper atmosphere for conversation, for I was obviously
upset. At table, where we greedily devoured Tolya's lousy omelette, the head
of the expedition related what had taken place immediately following the
accident on the plateau.
When the tractor had plunged into the crevice, breaking through a
treacherous crust of frozen snow and had got caught a relatively short
distance from the top and pressed between jags in the icy ravine, only the
outside glass of the window was slightly damaged despite the force of the
impact. The light did not even go out in the cabin. Only Dyachuk and I lost
consciousness. Zernov and Chokheli held on with only a couple of scratches.
They tried to bring Tolya and me around first. Dyachuk came to immediately.
But his head was going round in circles and his feet felt like cotton. "A
concussion of a sort," he said. "That'll pass. Let's see what's wrong with
Anokhin." He was already getting into the role of doctor. They pulled him
over to me and the three of them tried to bring me to. But neither ammonia
salts nor artificial respiration helped. "He seems to be in shock, if you
ask me," said Tolya. Vano, meanwhile, had made his way through the upper
hatch and from the roof of the "Kharkovchanka" reported that it was possible
to get out of the crevice. But Tolya was against trying to get me out. "The
main thing now," he said, "is to protect him from the cold. I believe that
shock passes into sleep and sleep will set up a protective inhibition." At
this point Tolya almost went out again, and it was decided to start the
evacuation with Tolya and leave me in the cabin for the time being. They
took skis, sleighs, the tent, a portable stove and briquettes for heating, a
lantern and part of the food supply. Though the machine was in a stable
position and there was no more danger of it falling farther, they did not
want to stay any longer hanging over the precipice. Zernov recalled the cave
in the ice wall a short distance from the site of the accident. So they
decided to transfer all the equipment there and Tolya too and then set up
the tent and stove and return for me. In half an hour they had reached the
cave. Zernov and Tolya, who had meanwhile regained some strength, remained
to set up the tent, while Vano returned with empty sleigh to fetch me. It
was then that the event took place which made them think that he had
momentarily lost his mind. Hardly an hour had passed when he came running
back with mad eyes, in a state of strange feverish excitement. The machine
he said was not in the crevice but on an icefield, and what is more, there
was another one just like it alongside, with the same dent in the front
glass. And in each one of the two cabins he found me lying on the floor
unconscious. At this point he cried out in terror, figuring that he must
have gone mad, and ran back. there he drank down a whole glass of spirits
and refused point blank to go after me, saying that he was used to dealing
with human beings and not snow maidens. Then Zernov and Tolya set out for
me.
In response, I told them my version of the story, which was still more
remarkable than Vano's ravings. They listened avidly, credulously, the way
children listen to a fairy story, not a single sceptical snicker, only
Dyachuk hurried me on now and then with "and then what". Their eyes shone so
that I felt they both ought to repeat Vano's experiment with the glass of
vodka. But when I finished they both were silent for a long time, hoping, I
imagine, for an explanation from me.
But I was silent too.
"Don't be angry, Yuri," Dyachuk finally mumbled. "Scott's diary, or
something like that. Well, what I mean is self-hypnosis. Snow
hallucinations. White dreams."
"And how about Vano?" Zernov asked.
"Well, of course, as a doctor I-"
"You're a hell of a doctor," put in Zernov, "so let's forget it. There
are too many unknowns to try and solve the equation straight off. Let's
begin from the beginning. Who pulled out the machine? From a
three-metre-deep well, and wedged into a vice that no factory could have
made. Yes, and weighing thirty-five tons. Even a whole tractor train would
probably not be strong enough. And what did they use to pull it out? Cables?
Nonsense. Steel cables would definitely leave traces on the body of the
machine. But there aren't any, as you can see."
He got up without saying a word and went into the navigator's room.
"But that's sheer nonsense, madness, Boris Arkadievich!" Tolya yelled
after him.
Zernov turned round.
"What do you mean?"
"Why all these adventures of Anokhin, the new Munchausen, all these
duplicates, clouds, vampire flowers and mysterious vanishing."
"Anokhin, didn't you have a camera in your hand when we came up?"