A. Belyaev - Classics fantasy – 3

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…