Classics fantasy – 12

Chapter 7

TYPHOON

As it was pleasant to wander in novel tracks of an underwater taiga, Makar Ivanovich had to constrain the hunting passions and to set to work. And works was more than enough.

The Japanese fishers and poachers who were darting about at our coast with surprise and displeasure glanced at a big white tent which appeared in one night on the bank of the small river flowing into the ocean. It was “general staff” where there lived Vanyushka and Volkov. Soon near this tent others appeared; in several days on the coast there were navezeno many boards, logs, bricks. Saws began to squeal, began to knock axes. Temporary barracks began to grow.

Among the invited workers was many Japanese and Chinese who had to prepare cabbage as it prepares at them in the homeland. And the Russian workers studied at Japanese and Chinese. Volkov cared for that the export goods met all requirements of foreign consumers of a sea cabbage. The seaweed taken from water washed out in special tubs, cleared of sand and silt, sorted manually, once again cleared, small izrezyvat and put even layers of a certain size on the bamboo mats outspread in the open air in inclined situation. From these layers of seaweed dry plates turned out. The dried-up plates which stuck together in zhelatinoobrazny weight were torn off from mats and pressed for giving of uniform thickness to them. Tiles in 25x30 centimeters developed on ten pieces and accurately communicated. Volkov drew great attention to that tiles were prepared accurately and equally as chocolate bars.

Thoughtful Guzik, having stood once ashore where these works were performed, told:

– Human hands are well arranged, but they could be arranged even better. – And, having sat several evenings over drawings and calculations, he constructed the simple, but very expediently arranged machines for sorting and cutting of seaweed. After that work went even quicker and more accurately.

Volkov and Guzik’s efforts were crowned with success. The Japanese and Chinese buyers wholesalers estimated quality of the Soviet preparation soon and began to show the increased demand. Old Japanese merchants, having received samples, long rumpled in hands flexible, thin as writing paper, plates, looking narrowly to purple brown I blossom with light specks and slightly brilliant surface, weighed on a hand, smelled, tried on tooth, admired accurate processing and packing – and declared:

– Yes, it is good!

It was necessary to double, treble, decuple number of workers soon. Work was humming. The seaweed cast by storms and waves ashore also did not vanish. They were burned through in ashes, extracting alkalis, or brought to the small plant for iodine getting. For the first half a year the plant gave more than two thousand kilograms of an exit of iodine.

However it was necessary to get seaweed so far in almost exclusively old Japanese way on rather small places: workers by boats slid along coast with poles in hands. On the end of poles were крючья by which seaweed were hooked and taken on a surface and kept within on the boat while it was not filled up to the top. Production was brought to the coast and again sailed “to pinch a grass” as Vanyushka spoke. He could not wait to transfer rather work to a bottom and to start underwater farm vehicles: tractors, mowers…

Volkov, Vanyushka, Guzik and Konobeev daily fell in diving suits by an ocean floor and went on the future underwater plantations, performing nivelirovochny and geodetic works.

From the first steps it became clear what huge prospects are opened by diving processing. While Japanese could process in the usual way plantations at a small depth in three-five meters, the underwater farmers supplied with guzikovsky diving suits had an opportunity to work at depth of several tens meters. And it expanded the area of an underwater agrikultura on many thousands of hectares. At a depth of twenty – fifty meters it was not necessary and to sow huge spaces: they were already covered with dense thickets of the seaweed rich with iodine.

In the summer, at the end of June, the strongest typhoon burst. Konobeev the first predicted his approach on mysterious, to one to it to the known signs. The day before he long looked at a clear sky, at a blue quiet smooth surface of the ocean, smelled air, inflating nostrils of a nose fleshy, overgrown with hair, swung the head and grumbled:

– There will be a storm, however. The typhoon goes. It is advisable to remove a tent.

– We will strengthen it – Vanyushka carelessly told. Konobeev waved hopelessly a hand:

– Than you will strengthen, however? The typhoon turns out trees with a root and not that zakrepa. It is necessary to leave. To go to a cave.

Guzik was disturbed for the tools – in his tent there was a marching laboratory and many valuable precision instruments and devices. Near the coast there was a mountain with a big cave where Guzik also transferred the treasures. The skeptic Volkov did not wish to move a little though Konobeeva managed to be insisted on that put away diving suits in a cave nevertheless.

Night was silent, stuffy, damp. Any leaf did not shiver on a tree. The nature as if stood waiting. Volkov sat in the tent and by the light of the electric lamp fed by the same accumulator worked, having inclined over a simple pine table. Vanyushka on other table clicked on accounts, at the same time listening to a broadcast. Suddenly he raised the head and a finger which considered, and looked at Volkov.

The lock of a fine reddish hair went down on Volkov’s forehead, blue eyes by the light of a bulb seemed almost blue. The shadow deepened a scar on a cheek. Lips were densely compressed, the forehead is furrowed with the easy folds speaking about the big tension of a thought. Vanyushka sat without having stirred, with the raised middle finger of the right hand. Then suddenly came off a chair and rushed to Volkov, having forgotten to remove earphones from the head. It pulled for itself (himself) the radio receiver and nearly broke a lamp.

– Semyon Alekseevich! Makar Ivanych told the truth! – Vanyushka by uneasy and a little solemn voice exclaimed.

– Do not disturb, Johann – Volkov responded and began to move lips, collecting scattered thoughts.

– Semyon Alekseevich! – Vanyushka did not lag behind. – Put belongings and let’s go in a cave to Guzik! The typhoon all right! Now arose to the east of the Philippine Islands on the seventeenth of June. The first days it went quite slowly and by June twenty second reached only coast of China. Here it changed the northwest direction and, having turned on the northeast, moved already with very high speed. The twenty third it blew over Korea, having caused very heavy rains, and tomorrow, the twenty fourth, wait for it at our coast. Here, take foot! Makar Ivanych? Also radio is not necessary to it! A scent feels, the hairy nose. – Vanyushka kept silent, and when he started talking again, his voice sounded is even more disturbing more solemnly: – Semyon Alekseevich! There is a typhoon. Slyfite? And? Fumit the wood? Here, take foot as hoots!

Volkov listened. The tent had no wind yet, but the strange rumble as though somewhere nearby there passed the gradovy cloud came nearer. Konobeev entered. It was quiet, as always. How many typhoons he saw on the century, both on the coast and in the high sea, in a fragile fishing small boat! Eyebrows of the old man moved severely, and more than ordinary moustaches puffed up.

– However gather, Semyon Alekseevich! – just he told. And, without expecting the answer, began to get quickly huge ruchishcha of a thing and to carry away them. Volkov grunted and began to help.

The rumble increased. The ocean heavy sighed and made new unusual sounds – “aa! aa!” – as if became angry that it, the old man, eccentrical wind awakes. More and more deeply and above his breast which overgrew foamy waves fluctuated. But the old man ocean was not fated to fall asleep this night. The sky still sparkled stars and the new moon which as though is washed up – such it was pure and transparent. And Konobeev hurried.

– Perhaps, will pass by? – Volkov asked. He did not want to ruin a tent.

– However hurry up! – instead of the answer Konobeev grumbled, loading himself with two tables, four chairs and a folding bed.

When Volkov carried things in a cave and came back to a tent behind others, month did not seem purely washed up any more. It became dim and as though turned yellow. Jerked the first wind gust.

And the old man ocean already grumbled: “Aha! Aha!” At last you were, a typhoon!

Yes, it was. Waited for it, and still its emergence was unexpected. He during a moment of an eye brushed away stars, poured on the sky as the octopus sepia, lead clouds, threw the grown dull month somewhere, pressed an air paw the earth, flattened the woods, lashed water flows, mixed borders of the sky and the earth in circulation of water and air columns, twisted hundreds of thousands of tons of water, the sky and ocean in plaits, connected by a small knot, several minutes cast the nature into primitive chaos… The barometer fell to seven hundred forty – “lay in a faint”.

Volkov stood at an entrance to a cave when by it rushed as quickly flashed wing of a seagull extended a panel of a tent which was not managed to be removed in all length. Together with it the coat, a blanket and geodetic tools of Volkov were carried away. The tripod was found many days later zakinuty on top of a high fir-tree, in ten kilometers from the parking lot. But careful Guzik triumphed: it kept all tools.

Konobeev comfortably settled in a corner of a big cave and strong fell asleep under howl of wind and noise of a rain. And Vanyushka could not sleep. The typhoon affected it excitingly as a thunder-storm, as the fire as all outstanding. To it it was terrible and cheerful. There was a wish to sing, shout, move. It was necessary to think up something, to allow to be discharged to nervous tension. Outside you will not look out – will carry away as a tent. And what if to go to examine a cave? Vanyushka offered Guzik. But that already plunged into the contemplate nirvana, long answered inattentively, yet did not understand what from it is demanded, and rather intelligibly answered:

– Do not disturb, I consider!

Volkov also refused. Konobeev slept. Vanyushka discontentedly grunted.

– In that case I will go one.

He put on a back a satchel with the accumulator and tied a lamp to the head. Having thought a little, also the nanosnik with points put on.

The lamp brightly flashed, having lit the dark greenish arches of a cave.

– Farewell, I go! – Vanyushka told and walked in depth.

Chapter 8

CAVE ECHO

Under the arches the silence reigned. Ears were free from earphones, and Vanyushka heard how the echo threw noise of steps from a wall to a wall. Strange echo! As though it not one went in a cave, and several people walked ahead, behind, from sides… Here in such situation legends of spirits, doubles, ghosts arose. Vanyushka did not trust all this and still felt a chill in a back when, having shouted, heard a many-voiced echo: the cave played sounds, throwing them as a ball.

– Oh! – Vanyushka shouted.

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” – the cave moaned.

Vanyushka forcedly laughed, the cave picked up his laughter, carrying away peals it is farther and farther until they stood somewhere away…

It is good that Vanyushka has such strong lamp! At bright light it is not terrible.

The further Vanyushk moved forward, the cave walls became more elegant, richer, more beautiful. Fantastic laces stalactites went down from a ceiling. From a cave bottom towards to them edges of stalagmites rose. Here and there stalactites met stalagmites, forming the elaborate columns reminding the Chinese carving on ivory.

The cave was narrowed, extended. Its arches sometimes hung so low that Vanyushke was necessary to bend the head, and then unexpectedly rose highly up, as in the Gothic temple. In extensive and high halls the dark entrance failures dispersing in different directions corridors gaped. Vanyushka, not to get lost, decided to turn always in extreme left pass. Several times he came into deadlocks, got out of them and again turned to the left. At last reached a big cave which walls were covered with greenish, pink and red crystals. Here and there these crystals burned as blood drops, in other places shone an emerald of a young grass. Vanyushka admired an unprecedented show.

“Perhaps, they are gemstones. Here take wealth, foot!” – Vanyushka thought, slowly directing light of a lamp to one, to other party. Having lit the soil under legs, it uvidat stony descent, otly running down. In depth, in a wall there was a dark opening. “Underpass!” – Vanyushka thought. He safely moved down and suddenly screamed from surprise. Legs touched absolutely invisible cold water or something like that cold as water. Cold gas? Vanyushka kicked – and the fountain the sparkling splashes flew up. Yes, it is water! Never before in Vanyushke’s life it was necessary to see such pure, transparent water. It was more transparent than the best glass. The bottom of the underground lake was visible throughout to the slightest pebble. From this cave there was only one exit – back, except for a dark opening under water, the leader under the earth somewhere. And what if to go forward, to this dark opening?

Vanyushka once again tried water. It is cold! But he got used to bathing. It is necessary to plunge only at once!

Vanyushka attached a nanosnik, connected tubes to the device producing oxygen and plunged into the water. Water immediately filled the tank in a satchel, and the device began to emit oxygen.

Water was so cold that Vanyushka nearly ran out on the coast, but constrained effort of will itself and forced to move ahead.

The entrance to the underground tunnel was quite low. Vanyushke was necessary to be bent. The lamp lit granite walls which contracted more and more closely. Vanyushka floated, grabbled. In one place there was fear that it will not be possible to creep further. But when this bottleneck was overcome, the tunnel began to extend quickly. Walls were moved apart, the arch rose above water level. Vanyushka emerged on a surface and uvidat that he is in the huge cave filled with water. The stalactites which were hanging down from a ceiling of a cave reminded strange monsters. Monsters reached for water and were reflected in it; the bottom from a gray-green stone was visible absolutely distinctly. The great number of fishes swam in this underground lake where there was no vegetation. What these fishes, besides a consuming similar ate? Vanyushka hooked a hand one fish of a strange look – prickly, dry, nonflexible – and was convinced that it was absolutely blind. Instead of eyes it had only small deepenings. All fishes of this lake never seeing light were blind! Vanyushka surveyed cave walls under water and was convinced that they have several side channels through which fishes incessantly swam in and came up. Perhaps, in the neighbourhood there were reservoirs which contained all necessary for maintenance of life of this blind kingdom.

Having crossed the lake, Vanyushka came to the coast and went on huge, all to the narrowed tunnel. And suddenly he shuddered and stopped, to something attentively listening. No, everything is silent. Seemed to it. These are probably echo whims. Unless there can be people here? Vanyushka took some more steps forward and again stopped. This time the human voices muffled by distance – as though men’s and women’s – about something arguing rather distinctly reached it. Who are they, these people and where they are? How could make the way here? Vanyushki’s curiosity was excited excessively. He decided to creep with unnoticed and to observe unknown. Closed a palm lamp light, having left only a small ray, and, carefully going, went aside from where voices reached.

Voices were distributed more and more clearly, closer and closer, and before Vanyushka there were only fruitless, dead arches of a cave. Ahead the stone ridge which was not reaching cave top was seen. Behind cover of this ridge of Vanyushk could approach unnoticed on a short distance. It was now possible to sort separate words.

– Look, Boris Grigoryevich what strange whitish reflected light on the cave arch! – told a female voice.

Vanyushka involuntarily raised the head up and uvidat that one beam of the lamp covered with a hand gives a small reflection On the cave arch. This reflection was also noticed by someone, being on other side of a stone ridge. Vanyushka hurried to extinguish a lamp. At the same time he noticed the fluctuating, amplifying, growing dim reddish light on the cave arches. Such light could proceed only from a fire.

– It seemed to you – the male deep voice answered. – Shadow play… Yes, so I also speak – continued a male voice after a small pause. – Me as Chekhovian Epikhodov, twenty two misfortunes pursue…

Vanyushka heard not only human voices, but also reaching from where a buzzing, wind noise, storm howl… Everything spoke simply; Vanyushka, having made an arch, wrapped all the time on the left, had to leave to edge of a mountain chain in which there were caves. In mountains, obviously, was available several caves connected with each other by internal transitions. People also came into one of these caves, taking cover from a storm as well as Vanyushkina friends. But what people are?! Vanyushka crept to the edge of a rocky ridge and glanced, taking cover between stones.

It uvidat a big cave. Through a narrow entrance opening wind rushed and shook a fire flame. Closer to an exit, at a fire, the person covered with a fragmentary tulupchik lay; judging by legs in blue trousers and the Chinese footwear, it was the Chinese. On other side of a fire the tall broad-shouldered person – bald, with shortly cut moustaches and black eyebrows sat. This person held on a stick over a fire a teapot.

“The odd fellow – Vanyushka thought. – And tea plainly is not able to boil, and too, on caves gads”.

And even closer to Vanyushka against the background of a flame of a fire the figure of the woman or girl, average height who is well put in a short skirt and a kepi on the head was accurately allocated. Vanyushka saw only a black silhouette. With arms akimbo and having raised the head up, the girl looked at the cave arch, obviously expecting whether the strange light thing will repeat.

“Young and, probably, beautiful” – Vanyushka solved.

Without hanging the raised head, the girl took several steps forward and suddenly screamed: her legs touched water, cold, transparent to invisibility.

– There is water! Who could think? – the girl with astonishment told, drawing aside a leg.

“And you came across this focus, my dear” – Vanyushka thought and, without having restrained, quietly laughed.

– Ah! – scaredly the girl screamed. – Here someone is! I heard laughter.

– Everything seems to you, Alenka. I did not think that you are such coward – the man with a teapot told. – You would help me to hold a teapot better. The hand was tired. This echo here it. You shouted, the echo repeated.

– But I shouted “ah”, and the echo repeated “ha-ha-ha” – on the contrary moreover cubed. So does not happen.

– And well, shout! – the man offered. The girl shouted shortly and abruptly again: “Ah!” Vanyushke came to have fun a thought. He suddenly answered, lowering tone: “Ah-ah!”

The girl raised hands to the head, and the man dropped a teapot in a fire. The Chinese under a fragmentary short fur coat zavorochatsya, rose and began to listen.

– Strange echo! – the man told, trying to pick up a stick a teapot for the handle. – What misfortune! Alenka! Because of your echo I dropped a teapot.

– It not an echo – the girl answered. – The echo cannot change tone height. There is a person. – And, having taken several steps forward, she asked: – Who there?

Vanyushka quietly moaned, then suddenly thumbed the big black nose and round glasses of points because of stones. The girl shouted and moved back. The Chinese with lamentations ran out from a cave; the man at a fire sat, having widely opened eyes and having even slightly opened a mouth. Then felt at himself in a hip-pocket, took out the revolver, grabbed burning головню and rushed to a stone ridge behind which Vanyushka was.

What to do? To shout “do not shoot” or to run away? Vanyushka decided to play up to the end a role of “cave spirit”. He suddenly ran to the lake and plunged into the water.

Having fallen by a bottom, turned back to the coast and watched that will be. The man ran up to water, aimed and shot. Thanks to refraction of beams in water the bullet did not hit the mark. Vanyushka waved hands, turned and disappeared in the tunnel.

“Tomorrow I will see these people and I will tell them everything – he thought. – For now let poudivlyatsya”.

Vanyushka returned to a cave where there were Volkov, Guzik and Konobeev.

Makar Ivanovich continued to snore; Guzik as Buddha’s statue, sat with the drawn-in legs and with the stone look turned in space depths. Volkov dozed off near Konobeev, but woke up at Vanyushki’s entrance.

– Where you were unsteady? – he asked.

Vanyushka significantly waved a hand:

– Such affairs, Semyon Alekseevich! I now not the person, and pefferny echo. Tomorrow I will tell everything, and now to sleep!. – And, having quickly removed from itself the diving device, Vanyushka settled.

His snore joined Makar Ivanovich’s snore soon.