Conducting the imagined conversations with Martians, Zoya sometimes forgot about the earth. But the earth itself reminded of itself.
* * *
The fall, bad, rainy came. Already at the height of two hundred meters the speed of wind reached eight-nine meters per second. Below, on the earth, bent a poplar, dropping the last leaves. Zoya shivered, looked at quickly rushing clouds and thought of winter.
Levka! What will we do when winter blizzards come? “When there will come cold zimn”? The same, as now. Let’s put on more warmly, exclusively. And if “Condor” fills up with snow? Will not fill up. The rotor covers from above. It rotates, on it will not settle snow. Well, and if a little also plans for the deck, we will clear. It will only be necessary to make rather the device which automatically would regulate flight altitude depending on wind force. Then we should not come so often to an icy cold to look at indications of the anemometer.
This evening they early got into a cabin. Here was light-, warmly, comfortably. Zoya read, Levka processed records of automatic devices, drew schedules. Behind a wall the motor gradually grumbled. “Condor” shivered an easy shiver, but air inhabitants got used to it as railroad workers to jolting of the car.
– Hallo! Hallo! Hallo! – unexpectedly the disturbing voice was distributed. – The earth speaks. Miller, you accept?
– Kirsanov? I listen to you!
– Listen carefully! – continued a voice. And the black disk of a loud-hailer began to report a dead news: – From general staff the radiotelegram is received. Romania and Poland without declaration of war began military operations. The squadron of enemy airplanes flew over border. Airplanes are supplied with the cutting devices for a wire to which high-rise vetrosilovy installations are tied. To Litka and “Star” are cut and broken. Establish observation. If you see the enemy, immediately give signals to lower “Condor” on the earth. For its protection to us there will come the battery of antiaircraft guns.
With mute horror, as hypnotized, Zoya looked at a brilliant circle in the center of a black disk. Also Levka was excited.
– We pass to the martial law, Zoyk? – he told with nervous cheerfulness.
– Put on more warmly. We should keep watch all night long.
Putting on a leather helmet and a coat on fur, it continued:
– And the machine gun, perhaps, would also be useful now to us. To admit, I refused it: excess weight. Well and to go down on the earth and to take aboard a machine gun not for long. We go! Billeting! It is necessary to switch a loudspeaker to the deck. So. We go!
Wind struck in a face. Tyazhi whistled and shivered. All “Condor” as if napruzhitsya. Suddenly from two sides of the deck the darkness of night was cut through by bright sheaves of light. Miller lit searchlights.
With field glasses in hands Levka and Zoya stood on both sides of the deck. Clouds quickly rushed on the sky, curled, faced, piled up. Zoya’s hand grew dumb with the heavy field-glass and cold wind.
From time to time Zoya darted a glance at the anemometer.
“Thirteen meters per second… fourteen… fifteen… Six points! Really enemy airplanes will decide to fly to such wind? Ah, though the storm would burst!. The barometer falls…”
Sometimes among the curling clouds the brilliant asterisk seemed to Zoya. Whether not enemy it is the airplane lit with a searchlight of “Condor”? . But the asterisk disappeared and did not appear. Deception of the tired sight!. “Seventeen meters… eighteen…”
– Hallo! Hallo! – muffling wind whistle, the loudspeaker attached to an external wall of a cabin cried. – Hallo! Our military cars arrived to the station for accumulator charging. Give all power of “Condor”!
“Nineteen… twenty meters per second. Eight points! It is already a storm!” – Zoya with relief thought. The wind, the less veroyatiya on an enemy raid is stronger. The air storm will protect them from a storm of military bad weather. And “Condor”? “Condor” will sustain. He got used to meet by a breast of the rotors a wind impact. And Zoya almost with tenderness looked at the vingrotor cylinder. It rustled and hooted as Niagara. “Condor” did not shiver any more, and shivered as if in the strongest paroxysm of fever. Tyazh ringed and whistled. The tail stood horizontally, extended by wind in a string. Wind plowed up floors of a leather coat of Zoya, froze legs. From light of a searchlight eyes hurt. The head was turned. The heavy field-glass delayed a hand down.
“Twenty three… twenty six… twenty eight… if so goes further…”
Suddenly Zoya felt a push, and “Condor” began to decrease. Really the cable tore? It is all about a cable! Zoya in vain admired “Condor”. The thin leash will tear, and all this large object will become a defenseless toy of wind. “Condor” will break and will depart head over heels, “walking” as the children’s broken dragon… Zoya’s life hung if not on a hair, then on a thin wire…
“Condor” decreases evenly. Probably Levka looks for a strip where wind is more silent…
– Hallo! Hallo! – again the loudspeaker began to roar. – The order is received: “Condor” has to keep at height to the utmost until all accumulators are charged. Give a signal of descent only in two cases: if you see the enemy airplane or if wind force obviously threatens failure of “Condor”.
“Condor” fell a little, but below wind was even stronger this time. Then Miller decided to rise in the top layers. Searches of “the smooth air water” began. “Condor” rose above clouds, and over Zoya then indifferent stars shone, plunged into chaos of the curling clouds. In searchlight beams they seemed the frenzied monsters snatching on “Condor”. Despite a long tail and the side planes, “Condor” began to throw here and there. Zoya put the field-glass in a case and strong grabbed a rod of an iron fencing. It shivered, as well as all on “Condor”, and was cold as ice.