Читать книгу Classics fantasy – 3 - A. Belyaev - Страница 6

Rubtsov is I. Ilya Ilyich. Twenty four years old. It is ruddy, cheerful, mobile. Companions call me the Siskin.

Companions are Pronin Ivan and Dashkevich Kazimir, it Kazya. Pronin is similar to me, he is also young, cheerful and mobile. And Dashkevich is not even always similar to himself. It as spring weather: a rain, snow, the sun, clouds, warmly, it is cold – only little by little. Казя – high, thin, angular. It is healthy, but is hypochondriac and often finds in itself (himself) nonexistent diseases.

The destiny abandoned us very far – on islands of Novaya Zemlya. We worked as radio operators at the meteorological station. For me Novaya Zemlya was the newest. For Dashkevich news of Novaya Zemlya is considerably obsolete. Kaza was bothered by monotonous «film sessions» of the polar lights, frosts, winters without the sun bothered.

– There is enough, three years has on duty – he said – and that will do! With the first steamship I leave from here. And if some hydroplane incidentally visits us, by all means I will depart. I am sick. I am absolutely broken. Me is in a fever. At me all body as though aches…

– As though you «were friendly embraced by a polar bear». Heard. Do not repeat, Kazya! – Pronin told. – You turn sour the third day. Go to professor Wagner, he, likely, will cure you.

– Wagner is not a physician – Kazya answered.

– Professor Wagner is the Encyclopaedist, comprehensive mind. Go to it, and it will very quickly cure your disease. Here the Siskin will see off you.

Dashkevich indecisively looked at me, sighed and told:

– Nurses are not necessary for me. I will reach also… And well as Wagner will banish me! Will tell: I to you not the doctor…

Pronin grabbed Dashkevich’s cap and pulled down to him on the head. At the same time I threw to Kaza shoulders with a fur-coat, Pronin opened a door, and we pushed out our companion on a forty-degree frost. Having finished this philanthropic act, we took seat for devices and went deep into work. I accepted, and Pronin sent meteorological bulletins.

There passed hour, and Dashkevich still did not come back. Professor Wagner lived near us, in only ten minutes of walking. It would be time to return to Dashkevich. I already began to worry. Also Pronin worried.

– A hard case – he told. – Wagner, obviously, finds it difficult to make the diagnosis. It is visible, our Kazya seriously ached…

At this time the frozen door awfully cracked, began to creak and opened. Puffs of vapor for a moment filled all room, and when they dissipated, we saw our friend who left a frosty cloud as Venus from sea foam. We attentively looked at each other: Dashkevich on us – with mysterious humour, we on it – interrogatively.

At last Pronin did not sustain and asked:

– Was?

Dashkevich with the same mysterious smile silently nodded.

– Cured?

Dashkevich did not answer. His face was very red, and he quickly and often breathed. Obviously, his fever amplified. Even it seemed to me that from it radiates with heat, as from our iron oven when it is heated.

– Perelechil me professor Wagner! – with laughter Dashkevich answered and quickly passed to the room.

– Nasty! – Pronin said in low tones. – If Wagner did not help, then Dashkevich not to survive…

We went deep into work. Suddenly the door from Dashkevich’s room opened and it left him, but… in what look! It was in a sports beskostyum. All red as if just took a steam bath in a bath to the seventh sweat, Dashkevich quickly passed through the room, without paying to us any attention, opened a door… and came to a forty-degree frost.

It was ridiculous, unexpected and terrible. Dashkevich’s act was equivalent to suicide. Several minutes it will freeze to itself (himself) hands and legs and will fatally chill lungs. Poor Kazya, he could make it only delirious! However that we sit? It is necessary to run to the aid, while the getting is good! I quickly rose and began to put on the fur-coat. For nervousness could not get a hand to a sleeve in any way. Pronin already put on and helped me.

– Rather, rather!

We ran out for a door.

There was a light moonlight night. From the house the road went down, to the small lake from which we took ourselves water. On this road we saw an extraordinary phenomenon.

On the road the huge sphere from puffs of vapor slowly slid. On a frost of couples turned into hoarfrost which made as if an external mobile cover of a sphere. Moonlight was reflected in the sparkling crystals of hoarfrost and gave iridescent auras. Behind a sphere the tail from snow flakes lasted. It was possible to think that on the road the small planetka who came on a silver platter together with the atmospheric attire slides. But we understood at once what the planetka is: the strange phenomenon left clear and quite deep prints of bare human feet on snow. It was our Kazya shrouded in a cloud of steam who brought down from his body excited with fever.

«Perhaps, this steam – I thought – protects Dashkevich’s body from burning action of cold a little, is perfect the same as the atmosphere protects Earth from action of absolute cold of interstellar depths. But whether for a long time his internal heat can be enough for Kaza? It will disappear from his body before Kazya reaches the lake».

– Казя! Казя! Stop! – we shouted, pursuing the cloud sliding on the road.

We could not consider Kazyu in this cloud of steam.

Dashkevich answered nothing to us, but quickened the pace. Small blizzards began to spin behind it. He already ran up to the coast of the lake, stepped into ice, stopped and suddenly desperately cried. Over the place where it stood, the whole column of steam rose. We ran on shout, entered dairy steam and is careful, blundered about to that place from where Dashkevich’s voice was heard. This voice reached from below.

– Devil take it, ice thawed under legs! – Kazn shouted. – I failed and now I cannot get out. When I grab the edge of ice, ice thaws and turns into water…

I made out a vague spot of the Kaziny head and grabbed at random a hand. Yes, it was the hand if only I did not grab for burning головню: heat of this hand was felt even through my fur mitten. «However what temperature of his body has to be?» – with surprise I thought.

We pulled out our friend on the coast. From an ice bathtub on a forty-degree frost! But unfortunate Kazya delirious and fire of fever did not feel cold and danger. It was stirred up as the bear who got out of water and ran from us along the lake. It was easy for it to run. He ran on the trampled-down road with a speed of a dog, we in our fur suits could not catch up with him. The shining sphere of our «steam» friend sparkled on a hillock soon and disappeared.

What to do? To run after Dashkevich? But we could not leave radio station for a long time. In our work and so there was a break. We decided that one of us has to go to work, and another will be engaged in searches of the run-away patient. But as Dashkevich was stronger than each of us separately, we decided to invite to the help of professor Wagner. Pronin hurried on radio station, and I rushed off to Wagner.

– What did you make with our friend? – I asked Wagner.

Professor looked at me with one eye and answered, without coming off the lamp transmitter:

– I nothing to it made bad. And what our patient? How he feels?

– Ran away! – hasty I answered. – Ran away when it has probably not less than forty degrees temperature. Naked ran away!

Professor Wagner smiled.

– Good feature? – he asked, pointing to the device. – You did not meet such design yet.

The device was really entertaining, but to me had no time for it.

– Korotkovolnovik? – carelessly I asked and, without waiting for the answer, continued: – Listen, professor, leave your experiences and help me to catch and return our escaped friend until he died finally.

– At a usual order of things – Wagner answered, without moving a little – companion Dashkevich had to die long ago. And we would need to search for his dead icy body only. But as companion Dashkevich feels excellently…

– From where you know it?

– From your own words. Dashkevich did not die, even покупавшись in the lake. He breathes in couples as the engine, and walks in shorts behind the Polar circle as though it on the beach in the Crimea. Do not worry about your Kaz, you sit down here here and listen. You asked what I made with Dashkevich.

– But, professor, now not time…

– It is a high time! You sit down. I assure you that with Kazy nothing bad happens. Experience was successful.

– Again experience? – with astonishment I asked.

– Well, certainly.

Wagner unexpectedly squeezed my hand at an elbow. I screamed.

– Painfully? I and thought. You are hurt by joints when you work with the regenerative receiver. You feel temperature increase. Well, opened radio, but still did not study character of this animal at all. The fact that we know about radio, is just baby talk. Our knowledge and scope of radio extend every day. You know that doctors for treatment of some diseases began to use short waves now, artificially lifting radio waves the body temperature of patients. And here the thought came to my mind: and why not to heat artificially human body by means of short radio waves?

– But the human body is naturally heated – I told.

– Yes, but it is not enough. The healthy person possesses automatic change of temperature in only five-seven tenth degrees throughout days. On a disease the human body reacts increase or fall of temperature to two-three degrees against norm. Extreme limits of fluctuations make only six-seven degrees.

– Stability of our temperature – big progress – I told. – Not therefore whether many large animals died out what they were cold blooded – their blood had almost identical temperature with air?

– My thought does not contradict yours. Listen to me up to the end. You know what extreme temperature limits of life of human bodies. The elementary organisms transfer very low temperatures and can be restored to life. Without special error it is possible to tell that even centigrade cold is not quite killing for living beings. Heat as though is transferred more difficultly: at a temperature over fifty five degrees Celsius squirrels curl up. But the dehydrated proteins, for example chicken, can transfer temperature even to hundred sixty – hundred seventy degrees above zero. And so I delivered to myself a task to expand limits of fluctuations of temperature of a human body, to subordinate these fluctuations to will of the person and, of course, to make them harmless to an organism. Each warm-blooded animal has the more or less constant temperature: at the person it is equal 37°, at a monkey – 38°, at a horse – 39°, at a bull – 39,7°, and at pigeons and hens even 42,5°. This constancy has the inconveniences, and the person has to overcome them. Biological progress is not finished. The human body has to develop in the future the ideal regulator of temperature.

We do not know what was the body temperature of the cave person, but it, of course, was higher, than at the modern person. Warm dwellings and suits even more promoted fall of temperature of a body. It is already progress. The person has to possess ideal heating of a body. And then the climate will not have for it any value. Such person – thermo will be able to go in sports shorts to the North Pole, without feeling any cold, and on the equator he will idle in hot sands of the desert. You understand what prospects it will open for mankind! It will not be necessary to build houses. The clothes are not necessary. The housing crisis does not exist. You can sleep on the ice-rink even without shirt…

– But I can kindle «bed» and fail in water as it was with Dashkevich.

Wagner attentively listened to my remark.

– It is necessary – he told – to put shoes on in shoes or galoshes not to fail.

– Means, after all not to do without dress?

– Subsequently it will be possible to regulate temperature of separate parts of a body. And now at us not all parts of a body are warmed equally. The ends of legs can be cold, and a trunk – we heat.

– And here such person – thermo you made Dashkevich?

– Not absolutely. Spontaneous regulation of body temperature is a business of very long-term future. I made Dashkevich artificially the person – thermo, increasing his temperature by means of short radio waves. In it there is nothing unusual yet. Radio waves increase body temperature even then when we do not wish it. My task came down to finding means to expand borders of change of temperature, without doing to a harm organism. You saw Dashkevich. How he feels?

– Apparently, well. But he very strenuously, often and deeply breathes. And from it brings down such steam as if it from a hot bath ran out on frosty air.

Wagner nodded.

– At temperature increase of a body and when cooling a body with effect of external air consumption of oxygen increases. Dashkevich should work strenuously lungs to supply cellular fabrics with oxygen. But one lungs it is difficult to bring to an organism the necessary amount of oxygen, and breath of skin comes to the rescue.

She breathes in all fifteen thousand square centimeters of the surface too. That is why Dashkevich went to walk by naked: the frost is not terrible to it, and the naked body can cope with skin breath better. And, judging by steam emitted by Dashkevich, he breathes skin perfectly. Everything is all right. Would you like to follow Dashkevich’s example? I can and make of you «the warm guy» – the person – thermo, and you will move off in searches of your friend in a swimwear, only in galoshes and with a blanket under the arm. You can not care for food. You should not cook food: your stomach will have sufficient temperature in the best possible way to weld crude and even frozen fish. You will need to care only for one – to go in a radio emission strip. I will act with the directed radio waves. You can take with yourself a compass. I will specify the direction. You wish to do experience? I assure you, you will not undergo any troubles. You will need to prepare the organism only. I will enter to you into blood the solution of salts invented by me. You agree to it?

– Yes, but me it is necessary to replace Pronin soon.

– I will be on duty for you on radio station. Do not worry. We will cope with Pronin, and you go for Dashkevich. It will not be difficult for you to find it as, like you, it will not leave a radio emission strip. I repeat: To Dashkevich the frost is not terrible, and your friend will not catch a cold, but nevertheless I will be quieter if you find it and will bring home. It left without weapon. Bears can attack it, they gad in local places much. So on hands?

In a few minutes I already stood in shorts in the middle of the room.

– How do you feel? – Wagner asked.

– As though my body begins to be poured by fire. Awfully hot!

– You will get used. You breathe more deeply and more often. It at you will become a habit soon. Heart? Let me listen. Pulse? Hundred. Now it is normal. I to you to two hundred will catch up with it. Really hot will become the sky! Well, march! Go!

Wagner widely opened a door, having let in clouds of cold steam. To me it was a little terrible, but I overcame indecision and went outside. And immediately steam shrouded me.

– I see nothing – I told, helplessly turning.

– When you go, steam will not disturb you – Wagner told. – Kind way!

With a blanket under the arm, in rubber galoshes I went on the road, glancing at the compass brought to the eyes. On all my body and on the person hot sweat streamed.

Dogs of our small settlement, увидав a strange show, desperately began a bark and then in panic horror escaped from me. «If animals also are afraid of me, it is quite good» – I thought, going down to the lake.

The moon did not come several days for the horizon, it beat about the bush on the sky, filling with illusive light polar night. Wagner was right: when I went, steam not really prevented me to see. I watched prints of legs of Dashkevich on ice along the coast of the lake. Poor Dashkevich! Without galoshes it is probably hard for it to go. Where it stopped, traces went deep: hot legs melted ice. And Dashkevich had to go, without stopping at least over lakes and the rivers.

Strange thing: I did not pass also hour as felt infernal hunger and thirst. Thanks to high temperature in my organism there was a strengthened combustion, and the organism demanded fuel, that is food. Yes, I could not worry about preparation of hot food: to me was rather crude fish.

I descended on lake ice, spread a blanket, laid down and put a hand on ice. Ice began to thaw soon, and the hand went to ice more and more deeply. I had to lower a hand almost to a shoulder before fingers touched water. To the outlet done by me the great number of fishes came soon. I directly was enough them with hands and ate raw materials. Never in life I ate so much. It is surprising as soon as could sustain my stomach!

And I drank, drank without measure. But it had not to be surprised. I read that the person under tropics, working at the sun, allocates up to twelve liters of water in days and thus the amount of heat, six thousand five hundred liters of water, sufficient for heating, by one degree releases. A certain natural regulator of a body, obviously, by release of water tried to lower temperature to normal thirty seven degrees. The strengthened release of sweat caused the increased thirst.

Having sated and having got drunk, I went further, but again felt hunger and thirst soon, again was accepted to fishing, ate twice more than former and drank nearly half of lakes. I became is gluttonous as the muskrat eating every day so much food how many his body weighs. Interestingly, than Dashkevich who had to have the same terrible appetite, as well as I ate? Dashkevich had no galoshes and a blanket how he could catch fish? However I noticed a hole ashore and the hole which already semi-froze in lake ice soon. Obviously, careful Dashkevich melted snow and ice to the earth and carefully crept up to the region of the coast. Yes, it was difficult for it to get food. It is necessary to hurry to it to the aid.

I quickly went along the lake. Traces of bare feet of Dashkevich were clearly visible. It, as well as I, went on a compass. The moon shone brightly. It slowly moved ahead in the sky, taking a detour over my head as if wished to look from all directions at an extraordinary show – the steam sphere sliding on the ground.

Circle it was desert and it is silent. Only my noisy breath broke silence as heavy sighs of the engine at the lonely abandoned steppe station.

The ice plain extended endlessly, and Dashkevich everything was not visible. I began to be tired, and I wanted to sleep. Judging by position of the moon, there came midnight for a long time. It was necessary to think of a lodging for the night. I went, choosing the suitable town. In the north the horizon darkened. From there was a cloud. And stars at its approach as if fell in a huge black bag and disappeared. Here black бредень clouds collected stars from the half-sky and approached the moon. It is a little more, and the moon was the swallowed dark mouth of a cloud. Darkness came.

Snow went. But, getting on the hot steam cover surrounding me flakes of snow turned into rain drops, and they fell on my naked shoulders and a back as on the heated plate, and evaporated, and from legs flew down on the earth hot then. Yes, as it is strange, being behind the Polar circle in ice cold winter night, I got under damp tropical heavy rain. But this heavy rain existed only for me. Around the blizzard stormed.

And as it happens in the north when the sky becomes covered by clouds, air became warmer. Temperature from forty degrees below zero rose probably up to five below zero. I experienced the real heat. I could not regulate the temperature still. Short radio waves heated me so that I felt, as at burning noon under the equator. Drops of a rain heated up before reached my body, and could not cool awful heat. I several times rushed on the earth to be cooled, and felt how I plunge into snow which literally melted from my excited body.

At last the snow snow-storm stopped. Black бредень clouds began to shake out stars back. The moon looked out soon. I looked back and saw the ice strip sparkling on fluffy snow which was left by the rain freezing behind me which is flowing down from my body.

It is time to have a rest. I spread out a blanket on snow – it was damp from a rain – and stretched on it. But I did not risk to catch a cold, the blanket began to dry quickly, only my body touched it; from a blanket steam, as from damp clothes which are ironed too hot iron went.

I strong fell asleep. Having opened eyes, I saw nothing: obviously, clouds tightened the sky again. However I never before saw such black, impenetrable darkness. Attentively looking round, I, at last, noticed a star over my most-headed. That for strangeness! As though clouds covered all sky, except for a small circle in a zenith. I quickly rose and went forward, but then hit against an ice wall. Turned aside, took several steps – again a wall. It was unclear. I well remembered that I fell asleep on absolutely flat and open place, and now I was in some ice cave.

I went back and fell in a hole which was in the middle of a cave. Having reached walls, I bypassed around. Walls were smooth, ice and had no exit anywhere. The ice floor of a cave had a slope to the center and in the center – a big hollow. All cave had a hemisphere appearance with a small opening in a ceiling. Perhaps, this dwelling of some locals who found me on ice and brought to themselves in a yurta. But this yurta had neither doors, nor windows, and besides in it was nobody, except me.

How I got here? Only only through an opening in a ceiling. It was over my head at the height of four meters. It is surprising how I not расшибся if I was dumped from there! Yes, I in a trap. In this mousetrap I will starve to death if I do not get out from here. But how? To a hole in a ceiling not долезть. Walls? I knocked in walls. They, probably, were very fat. Unclear history! I sat down on the earth and the forehead began to rub to itself. Under me there was no blanket, and I felt how my body slowly plunges into the snow thawing under me. Suddenly I slapped myself on the head and burst out laughing.

Well, of course! Everything is very simple. I set myself in this prison. When I fell asleep, my hot body kindled snow around me. Despite a blanket, I slowly plunged into snow, it was not lying on the stony soil, as if in the center of a funnel yet. Steam which is coming out my body froze together and fell around me hoarfrost, forming an ice ring. It gradually accrued, turned into a wall which became isolated from above the arch. Hot breath punched in this arch a hole absolutely the same as in a den of the bear who is filled up with snow. I appeared in the center of an ice dome. From warmth of my body of a wall of this hemisphere melted inside and were increased outside by hoarfrost into which the warmth leaving an opening turned.

It, however, is surprising! I quietly fell asleep on the naked ice plain, and woke up in own ice house, such strong that any bear will not get into it. The house which grew self-building. It is very convenient. Unfortunately, the architect did not provide the door device. However, this business reparable.

I approached an ice wall of the self-harmonious house and, having bent the head, pressed a cinciput to ice. From a wall steam tumbled down, and on the earth water began to flow. Ice quickly thawed. I felt soon that my head passed through a wall. The window was ready. I twisted the head, expanding a hole, then pulled in the head back and looked outside.

Before me there was a same snow infinite plain which is filled in with moonlight. I turned the head on the left, to the right. Suddenly saw a polar bear not far. No, it is a she-bear with two bear cubs.

She-bear raised the head and expanded nostrils involved steam which was coming out the window made by me. Warm fur and a thick skin, obviously, did not protect bears from action of the directed short radio wave. From a she-bear and bear cubs brought down thick steam. Animals felt Unusual and, probably, unpleasant feeling of heat. They wound the head, were rubbed the nose during snow, rose by hinder legs and waved lobbies, as if blowing in themselves, then suddenly fell on the earth and began to ride in snow. Bear cubs roared such dense bass what could not be expected from babies them age, at least and a bear origin.

All respectable family, probably, was very hungry. And I was hungry not less them. We with big appetite looked at each other. I wanted to have dinner bear’s flesh, they – human flesh. The ice wall divided us, and we could only lick lips, looking at each other. Steam proceeding from my body probably was extraordinary pleasant for sense of smell of a she-bear. It rose by hinder legs and put a muzzle in a window. I seized her by a nose. The she-bear began to roar, started back from a window, but did not escape. So tactless address irritated a she-bear, and it is known that any irritation at simple natures only stimulates appetite. Carnivorously glancing at me, the she-bear thrust a paw into a window and began to break a wall. Ice was quite thick, the wall not easily gave in, however the piece behind a piece flew away under mighty blows, and the hole extended.

Business took for me a nasty turn. The she-bear had much more chances to have dinner me, than at me – to regale on bear’s flesh. It was necessary to think of flight. I approached an opposite wall and began to protaivat the second hole. My work progressed quite successfully, but also the she-bear did not linger. It worked already two paws. It is a little more, and the hole will extend so that the she-bear will be able to get into a lodge. And then end…

Came up one more effort, and my head for a wall. Now it is necessary to expand a hole. I was put by shoulders to an ice wall. It is ready. It is possible to get out.

But I was not in time and to promote half as involuntarily screamed and was involved back: I was faced by a she-bear. The cunning animal understood my maneuver. She-bear, seeing that I get out of a lodge, ran all over around and met me by oskalenny teeth.

When the tidbit leaves from under a nose, the nose, naturally, follows a tidbit. The she-bear tried to follow me. But the hole for it was narrow, and a she-bear, having thrust in a hole with running start the head and the right paw, stuck in a window. Temporarily she was imprisoned. It should be used. I got out through the first window expanded with a she-bear and ran.

No, I did not run, I flew with a speed of gale of ten points. The moon well lit to me a way. I ran on the smooth ice path left the rain which was flowing down from my body during a blizzard. However this path came to an end soon, and I ran a virgin soil.

I looked back. Far behind the black point moved, and behind it – two it is less. Medveditsa was released from the trap and caught up with me with the bear cubs. Now there was a competition on speed, and life was a rate. Whether I will manage to reach to the house?. From time to time I looked back and with horror noticed that преследовавшие_меня points all increased. I could already distinguish figures of a white she-bear and her cubs soon. I winded by bystry running. Besides I did not eat long ago and weakened for hunger. But the fear gave me force. I already approached the lake which was near our house.

If to cross the small gulf, then it is possible to reduce a way. But on a trouble during this mad run I lost galoshes. It was very dangerous to run without galoshes through the lake on ice: I could fail as Dashkevich. And I decided to turn aside. But I did not manage to run off also ten meters as I felt burning right hand pain. Pain and burn. I could not understand in what I business, and continued to run. Some more steps to the right, and me were captured by ice cold. Involuntarily I curtailed to the left, and again beneficial heat spread on all body.

Several times this feeling repeated. When I run out from a radio wave beam, temperature of my body goes down to normal, and I begin to experience surrounding cold. Air temperature, has to be, not less than thirty degrees below zero. For the naked person – not a joke!

I am forced to run in the direct direction. But this direct direction conducts me through lake ice. I looked back. Until I stopped and reflected, the she-bear managed to overtake for me considerably. She ran the equal rolling-over amble as though slow, but very spory.

I started running again. Here and ice. If to run very quickly, it will not manage to melt. I run. Solid ice under mine of a stupnyama turns into soft treacle. The leg goes to swill, complicating run. Several times my legs coordinated up to an ankle. It is good still that ice thick… And the she-bear comes nearer.

Now I run almost on an equal basis with a she-bear. Here it overtakes me. Crosses a straight line between me and the house. I am cut off… Medveditsa approaches me. I rush aside and I shout, I shout with all the might lungs. I run on snow zigzags, climbing a slope of the hill on which there is our house. The she-bear runs for me. I am forced to deviate a direct way. Burning cold grabs with the heated nippers my body. But I run, I run, choking, knocking teeth and trembling all over. I hear for myself stumps of a she-bear. One more effort… Бр!. As it is cold! Few steps away from the house I get to a hot stream of a radio wave… Door. If only it was not closed from within!. She-bear near me. She rises by hinder legs and wants to embrace strong me as dear friend. I open a door and I run in the room. I fall on a floor and I faint…

She-bear, obviously, did not touch me because I hear as if in the sleep, voices of professor Wagner and Dashkevich who, likely, returned before me.

– Such disease, of course, cannot be caused by action of short radio waves – professor says. – Companion Rubtsov caught a cold. Wow! Forty and three tenth.

«How I could catch a cold? – I think. – Of course, having only left the sector of the directed radio wave. In it the main inconvenience of artificial heating of a human body. When people learn to regulate randomly the temperature without external influences, then really it will be possible to walk safely in Adam’s suit along the Polar circle».

(The story is written down according to t. I. I. R., recently arrived from Novaya Zemlya. The answer concerning this story is not received from professor Wagner yet.)

Flying carpet

For the first time I learned about professor Wagner many years ago. In one magazine for which it is difficult to find now I read an amusing story – «A case on jumps».

On the Moscow hippodrome there was a big day. Posters notified on «the grandiose program», on high monetary prizes and precious prize-winning cups, on participation in jumps of the best horses, equestrians, Russian and foreign, on a meeting of world champions. The congestion of public was extraordinary. Frequenters of races and races pointed to beginners to the famous equestrians and prize-winning horses, beautiful, vykholenny to gloss, told their sonorous names, remembered their family tree, victories, records, playfulness, names of owners and the plants – the word, everything that can interest the inveterate admirer of the totalizator.

And suddenly among representatives of the horse aristocracy brilliant, proud of the beauty someone noticed an old jade. It was so extraordinary thin that it was possible to count easily at it all edges. The injured legs swelled up in knee joints and are bent. The head is sadly hung, the lower drooped lip moved as if the jade whispered, complaining of the destiny. On a jade the famous boy jockey, barefoot, in a red print shirt sat to nobody. Someone’s sharp-sighted eyes were noticed that the boy is attached to a horse.

Soon an awful jade as if run away from a knackery, also other audience uvidat. People laughed, surprised, asked, were indignant. How this horse could get here? Who allowed such unprecedented mockery? What madman possesses it? You look: it it becomes impudent in the first row with the best racers of morning… The person in the cylinder waves a tag. Copper pipes of regimental orchestra glint in the sun and rend the air march sounds. The start is given, and… the most extraordinary begins here, fantastic…

The boy jockey in a red print shirt low bends to a back of a horse and strong squeezes a rychazhok on saddle onions. At the same moment the jade begins to move legs with such speed that it seems the fantastic centipede rushing a whirlwind on a hippodrome. The best prize-winning horses did not manage to depart from the starting line on three-four cases as the strakhovidny jade ran all over a circle, broke off a breast a tape at the finish, without stopping, rushed around two more times and, at last, stopped as driven, having low hung the head with the drooped lip; at the same time something several times slapped as a cracker. The jade won, and its owner had to take a dizzy prize.

Minute thousands of the viewers were in catalepsy, and in following the hippodrome turned into the bubbling volcano. People went mad, shouted, swung hands, hysterical squealed. Around a jade the bawling crowd quickly gathered. The indignant shouts were heard:

– Deception! Fraud! Down with!

– You watch, under a belly the motor…

– Size about a cigar box…

– And thin levers are attached to legs.

– Who owner of this jade?

– To kill! To tear to pieces it! Where it?

– Here it, in a hat… the inventor Wagner…

– Though physicist, and swindler. Beat him!.

– Misters! – tried to outvoice crowd of people in a hat. – Calm down. I did not put on the jade. I was not going to beat you… Also wanted only…

Shouts of indignation muffled its voice. Over a hat fists, umbrellas, canes rose. It is unknown, than it would come to an end if Wagner did not lift the sphere which brightly sparkled in the sun size about billiard.

– Bomb! – he screamed. The crowd in horror jumped aside. The inventor disappeared.

Such is there was an event described in the magazine. I became interested in Wagner, found for him and, having got acquainted, started talking about a case on a hippodrome. The young inventor hopelessly waved a hand.

– My next nonsense. Nonsense. How many times I promised «to go not that street» – not to rasshibat a forehead a wall. And here the next cone … – And it rubbed a forehead on which really there was a cone. – Donkikhotstvo.

– It could be worse – having burst out laughing, I told. – You were saved by resourcefulness. But about what wall and about what donkikhotstvo you speak?

– About a wall of stagnancy, dullness, conservatism of our government and our public. We hopelessly lagged behind in the technician from Europe and America. We still did not leave a plow. Fundamentals of our power still are natural horse backs. From all this it is possible to come to a despair. I cannot reconcile with it, well and still donkikhotstvy. I take each convenient and inconvenient opportunity to convince these people that the small motor can be stronger than a big horse that the self-moving crew will overtake any trotter. – Wagner’s eyes derisively blinked the eyes. – This jade whom you saw, not live is the automatic machine, a mechanical toy. They did not even notice it. Saw only a motor and levers. Isn’t that so, it is well made? – cheerfully he asked, having seen the amazement mixed with admiration on my face. After this he sighed. – I did not manage even to explain. They are mad about money, about the totalizator… Villains! They suspected even that I just wanted to beat them. However we will turn this sad page and somewhat quicker we will forget about it – Wagner already with usual good nature told. – I am occupied now by one fascinating idea… one invention … – And it rubbed the cone on a forehead again.

– It you on a hippodrome was so decorated? – I asked.

– Yes… is not present, it I itself. One idea holds apart the head, and here cones. On a forehead and on a nape. You come more often, a guest you will be.

I used this invitation, became constant visitor at Wagner and every time found it with the new cone on the head and grazes on hands. «Idea» as a disease, came to light. Wagner laughed away and did not open the true reason of these wounds. Once he met me with the bandaged head and the tied-up right hand. Cheerfully smiling, he offered to me the left hand and told:

– The idea ripened. Yes, it seems to me, it is time to reap the harvest.

– Whether not to wait until it is possible to remove bandage? – it is sympathizing I asked.

– Trifles. If you help me… Perfectly. I also did not doubt you. And so, come to me on the dacha tomorrow, and you will see… Yes you will see that you will see … – And Wagner cunning blinked the right eye – left was bandaged.

The next day early in the morning I descended from the train on the thrown substation and walked on the desert country road. Around neither dachas, nor wood. Quite sad, desert town. On the horizon gray country huts – the village Kolodezi – the purpose of my travel. In the village many wells with high cranes were valid. Sign: near the highest crane, in a «pure» half of a country hut, Wagner lodged. He met me already without bandage, treated with strong tea with cream and rye flat cakes with oil and told:

– Well – with if you were not tired, an idemta.

The inventor took a small suitcase from a table, in an outer entrance hall took an oar, two rods and came to the dusty street.

– And rods and an oar what for? – I with astonishment asked.

– Masking – Wagner winked at me. – That for us were not coordinated curious, увидав that people with suitcases go not to the station, and in the field. And so all will decide that we go to fishing.

I about this masking had a dissenting opinion: if as could excite curiosity of natives, so it is rods. I knew well that on three tens kilometers there was around neither river, nor the lake where fish would be found. Fortunately, the village as if became extinct – all were at field works. To us only one ancient old woman who crept out met to get warm in the sun. Having seen rods, she long saw off us the surprised eyes, having slightly opened a toothless mouth.

We went beyond a village fence and vigorously walked to the so-called old ground remote of kilometer on four from a small village. Here once there were military of the camp. The huge field overgrown with weeds, on the one hand was fenced with the lop-sided old fence, with another – became isolated an earth shaft. Near a fence and behind it huge heaps of dry horse manure towered. Wagner stopped near these «Augean stables», threw rods and took seat on a suitcase. He all road kept silence. I was burned with curiosity, but did not ask, knowing that Wagner himself will reveal to me the secret soon. And this moment came… The beginning was unexpected.

– How it seems to you whether the person is well made? It seems to me, badly. Worse than a flea. You laugh? In vain. A flea – an insignificant insect. So. And she jumps in tens and hundreds of times are higher than the growth. The person – a universe wreath – jumps in height on two meters and in length at three-four meters, the most bigger. Unless it is not offensive for human dignity?

– And you decided to correct this injustice of the nature? – I asked Wagner, beginning to guess.

– Yes, I dare to think that I will manage to correct this subquality work. The person learned to cross oceans, to rise in air, to skate, ski, get on smooth cable columns. Why don’t it learn to jump in a flea way if not in hundreds then is tens times higher also further the growth? How? Using the muscular force of hands and legs and small adaptation.

Wagner opened a suitcase and took out four springs resembling matratsny from there. Springs were attached to plates, on plates there were belts. Two springs were big – for hands – the inventor explained – and two it is less – foot. Wagner quickly tied plate belts with springs to legs and asked me that I helped to bind springs on hands.

– All this is still primitive. Test of the principle. The main difficulty – to calculate balance – he said while I tightened to it belts. – I thank you. Now you will help me to get on a fence. Here we and an oar need.

The newborn person flea got on a fence. To be more exact, I with own hand raised and seated him as with the springs it was absolutely helpless.

– Well – with, so, we begin. Attention! Time, two, three!. – Wagner jumped. The spring on a leg was hooked for the acting fence board, and the inventor fell sideways.

– Better luck next time – he good-natured told.

– Judging by your cones and scratches, it is not the first pancake – I noticed.

– On these springs – the first. Latest model. Help me to rise, please, and again to climb up a fence.

It became tiresome.

– So, we begin.

– We continue – I corrected.

– All question in successfully to jump on all fours. It is easier for flea to jump, she has six legs – Wagner told. – And well, hop!

Already how it fell – the head down, I guessed that the jump will be unsuccessful again. And it is valid, the first blow – all weight of a body – fell on hands. Threw Wagner up and back. Having described an arch, he disappeared behind a fence.

I found the unlucky inventor on a heap of horse manure. Wagner lay on a back and pottered about as a bug who vainly tried to turn over on legs. To my astonishment, Wagner’s face brightened with pleasure.

– Springs, springs what, and? As threw! This time there will be a sense.

And, when Wagner jumped for the third time, there was a sense. Even, perhaps, bigger, than the inventor expected. «Flea» managed to fall by all four legs and to make a jump. Wagner, apparently, used muscles of legs as the second jump was higher and farther. The third, fourth is even better. And suddenly I heard uneasy shout:

– Hold me! I cannot stop!

Unfortunate! He also did not think of it. I rushed behind it, but where there! Wagner as a huge flea, huge jumps quickly moved away from me. The high earth shaft blocked it a way. The jumper could not turn aside. Some more jumps – and Wagner hit the head against an earth shaft, turned over head over heels and fell.

– I did not punch a hole in earth to a shaft? – slowly, hardly moving language, Wagner when recovered asked me. He still could joke.

* * *

I did not see Wagner several years. Unexpectedly he reminded of himself, having called by phone. He invited me to himself to the dacha so simply as if we left it only yesterday.

«There are news. If you allow, I will come for you on the car».

Did not pass also hour as I already went with Wagner by his car on the magnificent highway Moscow – Minsk. Externally Wagner changed a little, only his beard became as though is longer and more dense. He drove the covered car of the extended, well streamline shape. The car flew with such speed that I could hardly distinguish counter bridges, beautiful hotels standing at the road in picturesque corners – on woody hills or on the river bank. After an hour of such mad driving Wagner reduced speed, turned from the highway to the good highway, about half an hour flew with a speed of fifty kilometers per hour and, at last, stopped near a lonely cottage.

– Here we and houses.

We have hastily breakfast in the cozy dining room with a wide Venetian window. Wagner unexpectedly took out from where from under a table the massive glass and stretched to me:

– Hold!

I accepted a glass and was very surprised, without having felt its weight. Put on a table, but did not manage to unclench fingers as a glass flew up to a ceiling and there remained. Has to be, I had a comic because Wagner burst out laughing look and told:

– Well and a look at you! Though on the screen. However from what you will drink apple cider? Are guilty. I have no other glasses.

– You, maybe, after all explain to me, professor, this focus? – I asked.

– I am not a conjurer and not the wizard – he as though having a little taken offense answered.

– The glass was, apparently, metal. In a ceiling there was probably a hidden magnet. I guessed or not?

– Everything will speak in due time. Weather is excellent, to an idemta to breathe clean air. But before I want to weigh you on scales. – He weighed me, for some reason suggested to put 800 grams in a pocket of the weight weighing 1 kilogram and told: Punktum.

We left the house and went to a big field which was seen behind a birchwood. It seemed to me that among the field there is a lake: between white trunks of birches I saw a brilliant surface, and, having only approached closer, I was convinced of the mistake: the most part of the field was covered as if with brilliant felt, equal and smooth. Published this «carpet» with opaque gloss of light gray color it was similar to a water surface.

Wagner safely walked on «lake», I is absolutely timid – behind it. In the middle of «carpet» the area several honeycombs of square meters I saw a small cross as it seemed to me. When we approached it closer, it turned out that one «crosspiece» represented a crack in a carpet, and another – the bolt turned across a crack sitting on a core. From this central cross the brackets resembling door handles dispersed extensively.

Wagner turned a bolt so that it became against an opening. At the same moment I felt that we rise, as on the flying carpet.

– Hold brackets! – Wagner shouted to me. I grasped the handle, and in time as strongly rocked our «plane». Fortunately, wind gusts did not repeat any more, and we so smoothly rose that I could not get off impression as if not we go up, and the earth, the field, a birchwood, Wagner’s dacha slowly fall.

– Our flying carpet would rise quicker if not the resistance of air – Wagner told. He sat against me, holding the bracket similar to the door handle. We were divided by a crack through which when the flying carpet was on the earth, the bolt holding the plane from rise as an anchor was passed.

– Yes, our aircraft of not too streamline shape; at least, when flying down – I responded, hardly forcing itself to speak: to such an extent this extraordinary adventure stunned me.

– Now you will not tell that over us a magnet which attracts us? – Wagner asked, having cunning blinked blue eyes.

– Alas, it is higher than my understanding – I answered. Wagner loudly laughed loudly.

– A difficult task – at last he told. – You can imagine that I invented some kevorit-screen protecting bodies from terrestrial inclination. But kevorit – the most blank and impracticable imagination. You could imagine that I loaded our flying carpet with electricity, of the same name with a terrestrial charge, and the flying carpet jumped aside from the earth as a buzinny ball…

– I imagine nothing – I objected. – Now interests me as highly we will rise. We are dressed as in summer, and we have no oxygen devices.

– You can be absolutely quiet – Wagner answered. – Carrying power of our flying carpet is very small. Its ceiling has only two-three hundred meters. You see, our rise is already slowed down. And when there will come evening, temperature will go down, humidity of air will increase, and our flying carpet will begin to descend. My calculation is absolutely exact. Punktum. Not without reason I verified your weight. There now. For now… we have a lot more time, and I can explain you a secret of our flying carpet… You watch how many boys ran together to look at us. And from where only they undertake?. Shout, wave caps…

Slowly carried us for a grove. The river and crowd of children passed out of sight ashore soon.

– And so – Wagner continued – all these miracles were born from scientific works on physics of thin films, little-known to general public. I advise you to get acquainted with this subject. In sum, our flying carpet is made of a so-called firm chain. This body consisting of a set of cells bubbles. Alloy of magnesium and beryllium. The size of cells is less than one millimeter, and thickness of walls – one ten-thousand millimeter. Emptiness of cells are filled with hydrogen. At a thickness of walls – thin films – in one thousand millimeter weightless material already turns out, and at a thickness of one ten-thousand as at us, metal becomes flying. At the known size of the flying carpet from such metal it, as you can see, can lift not only itself (himself), but also additional freight. Forgive, but I will take off boots – got used to go at the dacha barefoot – he interrupted the explanations, took off boots and put near himself. – So – he told…

But at this moment it is unknown from where flew a wind gust, rocked our flying carpet, boots departed on the earth, the facilitated plane rushed up. Wagner screamed, and this shout resembled groan more. I understood: alas, now we will not be helped by neither night dampness, nor fall of temperature. We could not produce gas to decrease as aeronauts. Gas of our flying carpet was deeply hided in artificial «foamy» structure. We could not operate the movement of the plane neither down, nor across. We were helpless. We had no radio station. We had no stocks of food and water. This Wagner is a quite good inventor, but very impractical person. I was angry on it especially as to me thirst already having felt hungry and tormented.

– Whether our situation reminds you an old story of the person who took in head to jump in a flea way? – Wagner angrily breathed heavily, but kept silent. – There is nothing to tell, we got into pretty situation – I continued to saw it. – There can come the storm at night, our flying carpet will turn, and we will break. Or we will eat each other for hunger as castaway. Or we will die from thirst, and our bodies will be rasklevana birds…

Wagner loudly burst out laughing.

– I did not know that you such cheerful person also are able to joke in the most difficult circumstances! – sincerely he told, and it became a shame to me. – But our situation not so tragic as it seems to you. Fortunately, my flying carpet is welded from solid foam which is pretty fragile. We can break off pieces from our carpet, it will decrease in sizes and will fall as the raft under excessive weight falls. It is rather for work!

Wagner began to break off pieces of porous foam, since edges of a crack in the center of a carpet. I followed its example. We threw the broken-off pieces aside and down, but they steadily emerged upward and vanished somewhere in blue of the sky.

– Alloy expensive, is a pity to lose these pieces, but my familiar pilots will catch them in network. All these pieces will fly at one height, it is not higher than ten kilometers. You see, we already decrease. Some more pieces… Wait to throw, under us, apparently, the lake. Indeed. It is necessary to drop the ballast. Take off boots!

We safely landed in thickets of a hazel grove and bound braces and belts the spoiled flying carpet that it did not depart. Came back home barefoot, hungry and excited…

Devil’s mill

– Directly from the station it is passed through all settlement the big street – Soviet. On it you also go. Dachas will terminate, the field road will begin, go on it by the sports ground down, to the small river. The small river will also have a village of Stryabtsy. Go down the street on the left all the way villages. The second house at the left – pay attention to huge oak gate – it is and there will be my giving. The hostess, Anna Tarasovna Tulikova, lives on a mill in the summer. And to a mill no distance. Just in case you descend to the hostess on bow – she is a woman strict. Tell that you came to visit me, you will spend the night and that I will arrive later.

With such parting words Ivan Stepanovich Wagner supplied me, inviting to himself to the dacha situated near Moscow. This year professor Wagner lived in Moscow as the trust of exact mechanics by its order finished a construction of some difficult device and Wagner’s presence it was necessary. Wagner spent nearly all free time in trust workshops, seldom coming out to the dacha. But this day – Saturday – works in workshops terminated early, and Wagner promised me to arrive and spend with me Sunday.

I without effort found Wagner’s dacha and went to get acquainted with Tarasovna. Despite evening, was very hot. The summer and fall that year were exclusively hot. The small rivulet Ilevka on which there was Tarasovna’s mill absolutely dried up. Without reaching a mill yet, I heard a female voice of force and height extraordinary. The voice is this, belonging to the widow Tulikova, it was remembered to me well – it directly contused eardrums. Besides Tarasovna had ability to issue so many words in a minute that even the awarded stenographer would not be able to write down and half. This time Tarasovna brought down all the machine-gun eloquence on the head of the peasant who brought rye for a grinding. The peasant scratched a shaggy beard, and Tarasovna, упершись fists in wide hips, shouted:

– You do not see, perhaps? Chicken fords the small river, and it – to grind! Here frogs took rest from the land, and you – to grind! A samovar to put waters you will not gather, and it – to grind! Yesterday the Bug drank up the last water, and you – to grind!.

«And it – to grind», «and you – to grind» – sounded as a refrain. The peasant listened long and attentively, then grunted and began to gather in a way back.

Tarasovna paid attention to me. Having learned that I am a guest of her summer resident, she lowered a voice on several tones why its shrillness did not decrease, and with forced affability invited me «to be as at home».

– Really really will not even be enough for a samovar? – I asked, cautiously glancing at the small river and feeling what in a throat at me dried up.

– Will be enough, will be enough, do not worry. We have a well. Vaska! Deliver a samovar to the guest.

I turned back and saw the guy of years of eighteen lying on a grass; it was Tarasovna’s son and her assistant – adding on a mill. Vaska it is lazy rose, stegnut a rod a grass and started wandering to the house, and Tarasovna tormented to me ears with a shrill voice for a long time, complaining of a drought, of the dried-up Ilevka, of god, of the whole world. Its mill stood, and the mill feeds it with children, feeds all year.

– And that for the people irresponsible! See: to a mosquito to get drunk will not be enough, and they – to grind. As though I refuse bread!.

– The samovar began to boil! – Vasily from the yard shouted.

– Welcome.

I did not manage to drink tea in a garden among mean apple-trees yet as I heard a familiar voice of Wagner:

The village where Evgeny missed,

There was a charming corner…

– You miss? – Wagner took seat for a little table near me. He told me that he becomes in the city, I to it – about the impressions.

– Yes, Tarasovna should help. Go after tea to it to a mill – professor offered.

And we went. Wagner was in the most cheerful mood.

– It is possible to look at the device of your mill? – he asked.

Tarasovna graciously resolved, and we with professor entered the twilight of a mill. Wagner examined its simple mechanics.

– For one and a half thousand years mills were under construction B.C., it is not enough what differing from this – Wagner told. – How many it at you in day of a namalyval?

– How many will bring, it is so much and namalyvat – Tarasovna answered. – Fifty centners, and even it is more when there is a lot of water.

– So, so. – Wagner thoughtfully nodded. – I do not promise fifty centners, but ten can be ground. For a start. And then we will look.

– Hundred! If at least hundred! – Tarasovna sighed. Wagner stood some more minutes over millstones, tried a shaft, thought and told:

– Here that, Anna Tarasovna. I will deliver you the small engine. It will only be necessary to rearrange millstones – these will be great for my engine. I will fit your old, it will be possible to make small of them. Vasily will help me. But only a promise is a promise. My engine will be in a box. Do not open this box and you do not watch what is in it, otherwise you will damage the engine, and then I will help nothing to you. Goes?

– Really! Yes of course! Yes unless I?. Be mercy!

Wagner turned to work. Vasily and I helped him.

I decided that, most likely, Wagner wants to put the small kerosene or oil engine. But why such mystery?

We worked almost till midnight. When we with Vasily fell down for fatigue and strong fell asleep, Wagner continued to work: it did not need rest.

Having woken up in the morning, I went to a mill. Wagner was there. He established quite voluminous box over millstones and now was busy with the fact that removed an iron pipe through a ceiling.

– Help me – he told.

– Chimney? – I asked.

Wagner lowed in reply something uncertain, but eyes so derisively and cheerfully glanced at me that I solved: Wagner starts something curious. It is not similar to the gazolinovy engine.

– What is in this box? – I asked.

– Engine.

– What?

– Crippled.

– Eternal? – I asked again, thinking that I misheard. But Wagner answered nothing. It strongly began to knock the axe, cutting through a hole in a ceiling. Through this hole it removed a pipe. Then Wagner asked us to leave and, having remained one, was engaged in the last preparations. In a few minutes I heard as millstones zavorochatsya slowly. I looked at the pipe rising meters by five over a roof, but did not notice over it the slightest sign of smoke or steam.

Wagner opened doors of a mill and invited us to enter.

– The mill works – he told, addressing Tarasovna. – You see this handle on a box? When want to stop a mill, turn the handle.

– Why to stop? It is more than enough of grain, I will grind day and night.

– Well also grind on health. Only you remember an arrangement: not to open a box.

Tarasovna began to thank Wagner.

– For the present there is nothing. When you collect flour for a grinding, then thank. We go – he addressed me. We went outside. – Now I go to Moscow – Wagner told. I will arrive back by a lunch by very interesting car.

– Car?

– D-d-yes – Wagner stretched. – Autofugue. Samobezhka, so to speak. Yes here you will see.

Having waved me at parting a hand, Wagner went to the station, vigorous, fresh in spite of the fact that worked all night long. I went to a garden, found for the town in a shadow of a shed and went deep into reading. However this day I was not fated to enjoy rest.

Bloodcurdling women’s scream sounded from a mill. As if two corkscrews made white-hot bored through to me eardrums, and at the same time and a brain. The violent cry which broke off silence sleepy Stryabtsov could be made only by vocal chords of the respectable widow Tulikova. Possibly, the bishop Gatton alive eaten by rats did not shout so before death as cried out Tarasovn. But what could frighten her so? On a mill was many rats and mice, but Tarasovna got used to them. I did not manage to rise from the earth as shout unexpectedly stopped on the choking note as though to Tarasovna someone squeezed a throat. I ran to a mill.

After a bright sun in the twilight of a mill at the first moment I could sort nothing. Everything was silent. Millstones continued the work. I took several steps and was hooked by a leg for something soft. My eyes already got used to the twilight a little. Having bent, I saw the heavy body of the widow Tulikova lying prone on a floor. Her one hand was rejected aside, fingers are convulsively compressed in a fist, other hand was pressed by a body… Murder?. Sudden death?. I turned Tarasovna’s body, took a hand and groped pulse. It was hardly notable. Tarasovna, probably, was in a deep faint.

I took a ladle and ran to the small river to gather waters and to sprinkle a little on Tarasovna. It seemed to me that I returned very quickly. But during this time Tarasovna already recovered. I did not manage to approach to the wide doors of a mill as from there ran out with the same violent shout of Tarasovn. As the enraged cow, she flew on me, brought down from legs, and the water from a ladle intended for its reduction in feeling poured over me. My side was decently hurt by the heavy foot which ran on my plunged Tarasovna’s body, the nape strongly hurt. I lay on the earth probably for about a minute while, at last, had an opportunity to think. At the end of the village, about the Village Council, Tarasovna’s shout interrupted by abrupt exclamations was heard. I hardly raised the head and took seat on the dusty road. On the occasion of a holiday peasants were at home, and members of the Village Council, sitting on a zavalinka at the chairman’s log hut, peacefully discussed public affairs when Tarasovna’s shout blew up before them as a bomb. The chairman поковырял in ears as if taking the got stuck Tarasovna’s squeals from there, and something told her. She began to chatter loudly again. Then all rose. The chairman called to the militiaman, and all moved to a mill. I noticed that Tarasovna, the woman not of shy ten, went in the thick of crowd, probably, being afraid to act forward. I rose, shook off and welcomed authorities.

– Well, show where it? – the chairman asked, shortening a stride.

– Yes here a box over a millstone, you see? – Tarasovna told, without entering a mill.

The chairman, probably, was afraid, but «noblesse oblige». It carefully approached a box.

– Here it piece what. How this box opens? Well, maybe, you understand better? – he addressed the militiaman.

The militiaman, the young guy in freckles, approached a box and bravely lifted a cover. At the same moment of Tarasovn shouted and ran out on the street. After it also the crowd of curious which jammed into a mill took to the heels. Only authorities remained on a mill. But also they involuntarily started back, having glanced in a box. I approached closer and when uvidat that is in a box, was struck not less the others.

In a box the end of horizontally rotating shaft was concluded. The wheel with the handle is attached to a shaft. A human hand – a live hand! – strong held this handle, and, probably, it rotated a wheel, and together with it and the shaft setting in motion through millstone gear wheels. In an elbow joint the hand was attached to the metal cylinder. This cylinder was connected to the pipe coming to light. Besides, two glass tubules and, apparently, the electric wires leaving a box were inserted into the cylinder it is less. On the same small box the galvanometer and the manometer were established.

Yes, with an ulterior motive Tarasovna so shouted. A strange and terrible impression was made by this working live human hand. Tarasovna, as well as her legendary progenitress Eve, curiosity ruined. Wagner was the same bad expert on female psychology, as well as bible god. Do not tell Wagner Tarasovne what in a box cannot be looked, she would not take an interest in the mechanism setting millstones in motion, quite satisfied with the fact that they spin. But Wagner forbade it to look and it excited insuperable curiosity. And now she learned the terrible truth: its millstones spin with a hand of the dead person!

Authorities were stunned. They did not know how to react to such case which is not provided by the law.

– Citizen! Get out from a box! – the militiaman shouted, assuming that if the hand moves, then she belongs to the living person who, obviously, is hidden in a box. But the hand continued to twirl a wheel, and no citizen appeared.

– There is no place to hide to the person here – the chairman told. – You see, the shoulder in bank is moved, and it is higher than one small box.

– Violation of the code about work – was thoughtfully told by the chairman’s son-in-law, the weigher of the railway station. – Without labor exchange uninsured is employed and, probably. Violation of days of rest and working hours. It is possible to appeal against the resolution.

– Whose hand? – the militiaman asked, having quickened.

– The summer resident my Wagner attached to me. His hand! – Tarasovna answered. – «I – say – to you I will use a mill, only do not look in a box». Unless I knew? Fie! That hands to earn bread by mortuaries? I do not want to work at a devil’s mill!

– And than badly? – the old man with the cunning blinked eyes asked. – It is not necessary to feed, it is not necessary to pay, and works day and night. And to a braid such piece to fit it or, say, to thresh. You lie on the furnace yes you eat kalatches, and it…

– And you be silent! – angrily the militiaman told. – Do not force down. I ask, a hand whose? Perhaps, here the smertoubiystvo occurred. Perhaps to the person the hand was cut off, and he without hand goes now and looks for where a hand.

– Good gracious! – Tarasovna began to wail. – Well, as will come yes here will shout: «Give my hand!»

– Here that and it. It, citizens, not a joke, but a crime under the article of the Criminal code. Where your summer resident Wagner?

– In Moscow. Today has to be.

– Here we will arrest him and we will remove interrogation from it. From where it got a human hand and on what code operates it? To stop a grinding! Illegally.

– Ah, fathers! – again Tarasovna screamed. Now she bitterly regretted the curiosity, and it is even more in what in a temper stirred up about the hand which frightened her. – Unless you will stop it? Shout at it do not shout – will not hear, there are no ears. Twists and twists.

– Well and let twists, and do not fill up grain.

Talking loudly, all left a mill. I remained to look what will be done by Tarasovna. She did not dare to disobey an administration order did not fill up grain in a funnel any more. But she regretted a hand which now in vain a millstone spit or maybe it was a pity for millstones, and Tarasovna stopped work of a hand, having turned a rychazhok on a box.

– You did affairs! – I told Tarasovna, becoming angry about her for the fact that her curiosity and garrulity will give now a lot of trouble to Wagner. I for a minute did not doubt that Wagner did not commit any crime.

– You did! – she answered with irritation. – All mill was befouled! Here and people speak: devil’s mill.

The chairman of the Village Council and the militiaman returned with the press and sealing wax. The militiaman remembered that measures to protection of traces of crime are not taken.

– Ceased to grind? – the militiaman asked.

– Poshabashila – Tarasovna answered.

The chairman set the seal to doors of a box in which there was a hand, and Tarasovna awfully was afraid that the chairman did not burn a mill. But everything was safely. The second seal was set to a mill door.

I met halfway on Wagner Road, intending to warn him about events of day. However my maneuver was not successful. The militiaman called to me and suggested to return. Anything else did not remain to me how to go to a garden and to continue the interrupted reading.

The village worried and hooted as an alarmed beehive. All with impatience expected Wagner’s arrival, and he forced itself to expect long enough. Already began to get dark when the boys guarding on the road cried:

– Goes! Goes!

All hurried on the road. Wagner really drove up to us. But on what crew! Imagine the long office table covered with the cloth which is going down to the earth. Above at the edges «table» is fenced with a board or iron wall of centimeters fifty height. It, obviously, was also that «samobezhka» about which Wagner spoke to me.

Because of the mountain the gray cloud rose. Wind twisted small tornadoes of dust on the road. The rain, long ago zhdanny Tarasovna came.

– Sit down! – Wagner shouted, having seen me. It stopped the extraordinary cart, I jumped and took seat near it. At this time the crowd, predvoditelstvuyemy the chairman of the Village Council, already approached a samobezhka.

– The citizen, climb up, you are arrested! – the chairman told.

Unexpectedly the wind gust lifted the edge of cloth which veiled a samobezhka. Shout of horror swept on crowd, and she started back as if not a light breeze, but the strongest hurricane suddenly struck it. Shrill squeal of Tarasovna covered all voices. Several minutes proceeded this confusion which reason I did not understand.

Wagner quietly looked at crowd, undertook a wheel of management, and… the crowd screamed even more loudly than former again. Samobezhka rose by racks as a horse whom the skilled equestrian forces to turn all the case on hind legs. Then Wagner directed the crew uphill, without paying attention to shouts of crowd, the chairman and the militiaman. The militiaman rushed after, but Wagner translated the speed lever, and the samobezhka with extraordinary ease began to take rise.

The militiaman remained behind, but he did not want to be reconciled with the defeat. He ran after us. To the station was nearby. We went not at a full speed yet. In a few minutes after we passed the station and came out to the highway conducting to Moscow, we heard for ourselves a motorcycle crash. Obviously, the militiaman who got from where the car, decided to continue a pursuit. Wagner smiled.

– Here I will show you all qualities of my samobezhka now.

He continued to drive at the same speed, without paying attention to the approaching persecutor. And when the militiaman already almost overtook for us, Wagner turned… is not present, did not turn, and such bend who is absolutely impossible for the ordinary car made. It suddenly stopped a samobezhka and then somehow moved it all case to the right to the roadside as if the samobezhka could run not only forward, but also sideways. It was made so unexpectedly that the militiaman did not manage to constrain the motorcycle and slipped forward.

But Wagner was not satisfied with this effect. It started up a samobezhka forward again and it appeared ahead of the militiaman soon, as if setting on him. At this time the rain went. On the highway the big pools which were flowing down in quite deep ditches on both sides of the highway were formed. Wagner admitted the persecutor even closer and suddenly, having abruptly turned, sent a samobezhka across the highway, to a ditch. I involuntarily grasped overboard. But my fears were vain. Samobezhka as the small tank, safely crept through a ditch and ran on the pitted, kochkovaty field. The militiaman with the motorcycle, of course, could not follow us. He would break the car in the first ditch.

– Here you see! – Wagner himself, probably, delighted with the invention told.

– Perfectly! – I exclaimed. – But how this samobezhka is arranged and what frightened crowd when it uvidat your crew?

– The pursuit lagged behind, we can have a talk – Wagner told. – Bend and raise cloth.

I raised cloth and screamed from surprise. Cloth covered… three pairs of naked human legs!

– Have fun, and there is enough – Wagner told, laughing. – It is necessary to comply also companion militiaman, he honestly fulfilled the duty. We go back and we will give up in hands of the authority. We will return on the dacha and we will explain all incident. I have documents that all hands and legs are taken by me for scientific experiences from dissecting room; it is clear, that I did not commit any murder.

– But what image these legs and the hand rotating millstones…

– And here wait – professor interrupted me – now we will do a ceremony of surrender, and then I will tell you.

And when this ceremony was done, Wagner, continuing to go on the samobezhka under escort of the militiaman accompanying us on the motorcycle began the explanations:

– I will be short. They say, life is burning. However the last observations over vital processes showed that it absolutely not so. Life is not burning, but without burning life cannot last long. Found special substance in muscles a glycogen which from the chemical point of view represents almost the same, as sugar. And so, at muscle work in it lactic acid and warmth, that is free energy are formed of this sugar. It is calculated that upon transition of sugar to one gram of lactic acid hundred seventy calories are released. Thus, muscle work, or if you want, her life, happens without oxidation or combustion. But when in the working muscle heat (energy) was generated and the glycogen appeared, without oxygen this lactic acid cannot disappear, and the muscle not in forces farther to work. But transfer you such tired muscle to the atmosphere of oxygen, and lactic acid immediately will disappear, oxygen will be absorbed, and carbonic acid and heat, as are emitted at any burning.

Where lactic acid disappears? It turns into sugar again. Only the fifth part it disappears completely. Thus, one may say, that a muscle – the car working due to chemical energy which arises upon transition of bodies with more complex structure in bodies simpler due to falling of potential of chemical energy. Means in order that energy of a muscle was restored, it is necessary to supply it with oxygen only. In the atmosphere of pure oxygen under the known experimental conditions the muscle becomes tireless.

Here on it I also built the invention with the hands and legs which are cut off at corpses. Why to them to vanish if they can bring useful work? You know that members of the body can live, separated from a body, vaguely long time if only to feed them properly. They can function, that is perform the usual work. Human muscles are the perfectly constructed cars. Why them not to force to work after the death of the owner, exciting reduction by electric current?

You know that my muscles also do not know were tired. But I went in fight against fatigue of the muscles in a bit different way. I invented fatigue anti-toxins. With a hand on a mill and legs under this crew I arrived differently. First of all I provided them with food. The special physiological solution very close to composition of blood (notice: strenuously saturated with oxygen), feeds hand muscles on a mill and these legs. Plentiful supply with oxygen does muscles tireless. Electric current causes their reduction.

– And why you suited a pipe on a mill?

– I was afraid that flour dust can get to a vessel with nutritious liquid and will condense it, having made unusable for «feeding» of a hand. On a pipe oxygen directly from air turns out. This my invention which considerably is reducing the price of operation of muscular strength of the person. You only think what prospects are opened by my invention! Over time all people, as well as I now, will not know muscular exhaustion. Productivity of human work will increase extraordinary. But it is not enough: we will force to work also the dead. Just imagine: millions of years it was required to the nature to create such perfect mechanism as a human body, and here death forever destroys this magnificent car! Unless it is not ridiculous? If we are not able to win against death absolutely, then we will prolong, at least, muscle work. Imagine factory which cars are set in motion by the human hands which are cut off from a body.

– Terrible picture!

– Anything. The advantage would force people to look other eyes at this picture soon. Here I put a hand on a mill. Tarasovna was frightened. But benefit is clear for it. And eventually she would probably not refuse that her late husband continued to give her help the hands… Arrived.

Rain expected to fall. At our entry into the village from all log huts the people who surrounded us began to run out. «Court» terminated quickly. Wagner showed pieces of paper from Moscow, and they were convincing. Tarasovna asked it to take away somewhat quicker from a mill a dead hand. She was afraid that this hand sometime will strangle her at night. However, in a hand there was no need also. The heavy rain lifted rechonka water, and it was ready to replace a hand of the dead person. And this hand, despite Wagner’s protest, was carried at the cemetery and dug. (It is told P.E. Yakimenko.)

Concerning this story Wagner wrote:

«The scientific explanation of the fact is offered quite correctly. The muscle of an animal or the person, even cut out from a body, really possesses some stock of potential chemical energy thanks to the fact that in it there are materials capable for disintegration. If such muscle to irritate with electric current, it can perform the known work. After work in a muscle there is a lactic acid. But at oxygen food lactic acid disappears, and the muscle becomes capable to work again. Thus, in the atmosphere of pure oxygen the muscle can become tireless. I really conducted such experiment with a tireless muscle at the dacha. By means of electricity I forced to move a hand of the person which even performed some work. Experience continued only several minutes and was repetition of the experiences which are already done in some scientific laboratories. But such «posthumously working muscle» cannot have practical value. Game will not cost candles – oxygen costs much. Of its direct getting from air how it is done by lungs, I only think. Perhaps, I will use the mechanism of lungs and hearts motors. You will understand now that in the story from science and that from the imagination.

Wagner».