– Coils of Tests and Grinev ask to lift them higher, are roasted and choke. They hang over the fire now – explained Gritsay.
“Dragon” began to rise slowly.
The deck was cleared in time. On it sparks and golovn even more often flew. But work could not be given up for one minute: continuously new fragments, boughs, cones from the trees falling on arches and which are rolling down down collected.
Ignat approached the captain’s cabin.
– How are you doing? – he asked Simakov. – Until the end of the wood far?
– Not less than ten kilometers – the captain answered.
From a heat it was already difficult to stand on a nose. Behind “Taiga” on trunks and stubs of mowed trees sparks zmeitsya. One dry tree flared. The fire ran high absolutely close from the all-terrain vehicle. Its case more and more heated up. Was to pant. Heat amplified every minute. But any person from all crew, not excepting girls, did not show panic. Ignat joked:
– And you still were afraid, Jim that you will stiffen from cold in the north. Perhaps, here is warmer, than in your Florida.
Jim smiled, sparkling teeth.
On the deck the heap of needles, another, the third flashed… Dudin ran, filling in a flame with the fire extinguisher.
The fire cracked, hooted, howled, whistled. Birds and animals outstripped “Taiga” for a long time. Only one people conducted the last fight against a flame. They were exhausted. Dudin used deck hoses, but in a tank there was not a lot of water that it there was enough up to the end forest way. At the same time water was necessary also for cooling of motors and petrol tanks which could blow up from heating. Coils every minute reported the observations. They saw border of the wood for a long time and channelized. The border was close, but the continuous sea of fire – is even closer. Fortunately, wind was changed. Carried smoke and hot air aside. Otherwise all would choke before would devour their flame.
– I see a gleam – Ignat the thunderous voice cried.
All started, looked forward, but behind smoke nothing was visible. However Ignat was not mistaken. Only several rows of trees separated a taiga from wood border.
Filled up by sparks, choking, captives of fire continued to fight for the life, dumping the lighting-up boughs from the deck. Грицай from the water remains in a bucket ran all over people and poured over them. From clothes steam rose.
Suddenly Dudin’s shout sounded from a stern:
– Cable. “Dragon” was hooked for a tree bough. Stop. Stop the car.
These words were immediately transferred to the captain. Everyone endured heavy second of internal fight. Situation for all was clear: the delay of “Taiga” at least for several minutes can cost life everything. It is possible to escape, having only offered “Dragon” and coils. Behind on many kilometers the fiery sea stormed. And “Dragon” will inevitably fall in fire. But to allow death of companions… never. All to escape – or to die all.
– Stop.
“Taiga” stopped as the bridled horse. Dudin, having poured over itself the water remains from a bucket, pulled a cable, trying to release it.
“Be not late because of us. Save the all-terrain vehicle and crew” – wired coils.
The captain only annoyancely waved a hand. Dudin continued to wind on the winch, to release a cable. But the cable was strongly hooked for a bough. The tree already flared below. Flame fires, getting over from a branch on a branch, approached a cable. The cable will be warmed, metal will become more softly and will tear…
Everything, having forgotten about personal security, with nervousness monitored Dudin’s work. Foma, having taped heavy boots on the iron deck, disappeared in the hatch.
– Ignat, you have a revolver? – Jim asked.
Ignat trembled from this question and viewed with great concern Jim. Really at it did not sustain nerves and he wants to commit suicide? But Jim, overcoming nervousness, smiled. Ignat after short fluctuation gave the revolver to Jim. The same minute from the hatch Foma with a rifle in hands rose. The same thought came to Em and Jim to mind. They began to send to a bough a bullet behind a bullet. The bough cracked – the cable was released. All breathed a sigh of relief.
And a circle of “Taiga” the flame stormed. Heat became intolerable. It was impossible to remain further on the deck. Simakov gave the order to all to go down to the internal room of the ship. But he decided to remain on the captain’s bridge.
– Alive you will burn down – Ignat objected.
Simakov persisted.
– I have to … – Simakov choked with smoke, has a fit of coughing and reeled.
Ignat seized him with the huge ruchishcha as he of the child, and incurred to the hatch.
In a saloon Simakov regained consciousness and again tried to come to the deck. Ignat squeezed a hand of the captain and strictly told:
– Sidi, “Taiga” moves forward and itself will get out of the fire. There was a half a kilometer.
Anna Fokina dropped the head on a table. Faint… Jim rushed to it to the aid. But what he could make? Raised the zolotovolosy head of the girl, perplexed blew in a face. Dubrovina with white as at the dead person, the person being unsteady and clinging to hot walls, ran to the first-aid kit behind alcohol. But near a door itself fell.
– However business – tobacco – Foma spoke anybody without addressing.
– Hallo. You are living? – coils cabled. – “Taiga” is at edge of the wood. Remained no more…
– What is? Why he did not finish speaking? – Simakov was excited and cried in the receiver: – Testov! Testov! Hallo! Grinev! Do not answer. Really “Dragon” came off? I go on the deck – Simakov resolutely told.
Ignat saw that this time to dissuade is useless.
– Wait a moment. Before the father do not climb in a scorching heat – Foma hooted, placing hands before Simakov – I say, wait a moment, but I will knock not that. Sidi. I now…
Foma, rolling over as the bear, left and returned with a leather coat, a helmet and dark glasses soon.
– Here, put on. Yes water have a shower bath. I still preserved half-buckets. Simakov quickly put on. Foma poured over it from legs to the head.
– Now we go.
Ignat also followed them.
Hardly climbed up a hot iron ladder to the hatch. Foma, having put on leather mittens, opened the hatch. Drenched them with hot crimson smoke. Foma quickly slammed the hatch.
– Cover. Kayuk – he told. – It is impossible to leave. All the same you will burn down. – And it violently brought together Simakov from a ladder.
Being unsteady, reached a saloon. People sat and lay on tables, there was not so hot, as on the heated floor. Silence, rumble of motors, fire noise…
– However as though freshened up a little – Foma told.
And at the same moment the coil voice bearing a message about rescue was distributed.
– “Taiga” left the fire. Whether you are living? We are living. Cold wind quickly ostuzhivat walls of “Taiga”. Are saved.
8. “Dragon” in the swamp
“Taiga” stopped. All come to the deck covered with ashes and coals. Somewhere else the semi-burned boughs smoke. Lowering sky. Sows a rain, as through a sieve. Looks rise up. Where it is proud “Dragon”, emptiness flew. Around night. Silence…
– The navigator, mechanics, in places! Full speed! – Simakov orders.
– The full speed is impossible. Accumulators were exhausted – Dudin reports.
Simakov frowns and gives new team:
– To lift Dyubo’s pipe and vindrotor.
– Is to lift Dyubo and vindrotor – Grishin and Dudin answer.
In a few minutes “Taiga” slowly turns and goes to a big fire. Fire laid in the wood a huge gap. At the edges still flare as torches, lonely trees. “Taiga” moves wearily as if the covered with wounds monster. Wind slowly pours in forces in the exhausted accumulators. And people as tireless ants, already strive, clean the deck from garbage, ashes, coals. Here the first searchlight flashed and filled in with blue light the road ahead.
– Simakov! I fly to investigation – Anna Fokina says.
The captain tenderly smiles. He wanted to offer it it, but regretted it.
– And forces will not hand over in flight? – he asks carefully.
– After such bath it is just necessary to be aired.
– Companion Fokina – Jim says – it is possible also for me with you to fly?
– You fly – Simakov answers. – I for you, Anna, will be quieter. Its help can be necessary.
Anna takes the wheel, and, obedient to her movements, graceful “Dragonfly” soars up up and rushes over a big fire. Drenches them with warm air. The smell of burning reaches. Jim askance glances at Anna Fokina. From under a helmet the golden lock of hair is beaten out from it and trembles on the blushed cheek.
“Dragonfly” does a sharp bend, is turned on the place. Jim looks down and sees two flashing points of blue light. “Dragonfly” sits down on the earth. Run up to the car with pocket electric lamps of Tests and Grinev. Fokina runs out from a cabin and embraces young people.
– Testov! Grinev! Are live? – joyfully she exclaims.
– Intact.
– And “Dragon”?
– And it as it should be. Fell behind a big fire, on the swamp. Decided to reach “Taiga” on foot.
– “Taiga” meets halfway. And you what, Tests, you limp?
– Hurt a little.
– It not business. It is difficult for you to go. Companion Jim! Give way to it. I will bring him to “Taiga”.
“Dragonfly” flew away.
Stumbling, shivering from a rain and wind, Jim goes after Grinev. Light of a pocket lamp lights ahead burned trunks of trees, hummocks, pools…
In the distance the searchlight of “Taiga” flashed. Jim breathes a sigh of relief.
9. Forest examination
All were going to have dinner in a saloon.
When satisfied the first hunger, Simakov told:
– Well, and now, companions, let’s sum up the results.
– Leave, Simakov – interrupted him Ignat. – Found time a production meeting to arrange! You will be in time still. After such scrape it is necessary to have a rest, to have fun. Here Jim of Jolie to us will play the Hawaiian guitar. He from Florida drags it and even in a bed does not leave it. Will wake up, will play and again will fall asleep.
Jim brought a guitar and played, having brought together around himself all inhabitants of the all-terrain vehicle.
– Well, and we are with you, the old man, we will sit down here in a corner and we will talk if you so cannot wait – Ignat told. – The fire showed much…
– Shortcomings of a design of “Taiga” – “old man” inserted.
– Let’s tell, subquality work – Ignat softened. – The first – an electrofile of trees. To cut off a tree the metal strip made white-hot, of course, it is rather, than a saw. But fire danger is big. Ourselves caused the fire around “Taiga”…
– We did not have fire extinguishing foam.
– It – not an objection. Or rather, it proves the same what also I speak about. How many materials for production of this foam we have to carry with ourselves to file and extinguish trees throughout hundreds of kilometers of a forest way!
I think that it is necessary to pass to cutting with saws, only to improve them, to bring cutting speed to a maximum. The second. What most of all delivered efforts during the fire? The fact that trees, boughs, needles fell on the deck. Ourselves made a fire by all-terrain vehicle. If there was no deck, then, I think, the all-terrain vehicle could be made such really all-terrain vehicle that it could make the way also through a flame.
– Well, you intercepted it – Dudin told, listening to a conversation. – We would fry in “Taiga”.
– You so think? – Ignat addressed it. – You had to read about creation of the interplanetary ship? At a departure from the terrestrial atmosphere there has to be such huge friction that the cover of the rocket can melt. And nevertheless people are going to fly on the rocket, without frying at the same time. How they assume to reach it? The external cover will be made of the most refractory metal, say, from chromic or manganic steel. Under this cover – insulating layers, asbestos laying, then an internal metal wall and coolers from liquid oxygen or ammonia. The rocket is hermetically closed. Inside – cylinders with the compressed or liquid oxygen, the devices absorbing carbonic acid. If “Taiga” represented such interplanetary rocket but moving on wheels, it could go absolutely quietly through a wildfire flame.
– But the interplanetary rocket flies by the terrestrial atmosphere of everything in several seconds and gets to temperature of world cold which quickly cools it – Grishin told.
– If the rocket was badly covered from external heat, then and there would be enough several seconds to incinerate also it, and people. Unless meteorites do not burn down in the atmosphere? Fire of wildfire will not give such high temperature. It is all about metal.
– Most of all trouble upon us was brought by the deck. Though it and level with the wood, and strong air draft on it threw not only boughs, but also trees. The deck is necessary because on it all vetrosilovy engines are installed. This pipe and rotors are very bulky. They get wind power, but on the run probably create big resistance and this most slow down the movement.
– All this quite right – Simakov answered. – “Taiga”, of course, did not pass forest examination. It is obvious. We will consider experience and we will think what to make changes. But on snow, and to us to wait for it not for long, I think, our all-terrain vehicle so will not cut a poor figure. And here propellers are good. On their easy snow road it is quite enough…
– It is still too a question, my friend! – Ignat objected. – A snowmobile – not an example. Sledge are light, and “Taiga” with all the freight weighs, likely, not less good engine.
The conversation was interrupted by Jim. He started singing the Black song in which fun, the suppressed natural cheerfulness and passion of its race make the way through melancholy of sad historical destiny of the people.
This singing was so unexpected that even Simakov forgot a thought which he wanted to state. All sat silently as captivated.
Happy with the had effect, muffling an applause, Jim started singing the new song at such incendiary and prompt speed that at listeners hands and legs came. Fokina the first did not keep, darted off and began to dance, behind her – Kamneva, Dudin, Grishin, Ignat, even Dubrovina. Foma, pritopyvy the nozhishchy, clapped hands on hips and muttered a bass:
– To N and Jim! Here so Jim! It directly… Jim!.
Late at night, passing across the deck, Ignat noticed Anna Fokina and Jim near the captain’s cabin.
– Not dates grow there, and figs, cotton, almonds, grapes, lemons, oranges, grenades, peaches … – Jim, obviously said, telling about the homeland.
10. “Arrived!”
“Taiga” left extreme northern border of growth of the wood and went on the desert naked area. Somewhere else were seen pathetic as if the trees plucked by wind, the clumsy, bent-down to the earth birches, knotty, curve. They stlatsya almost on the ground. The soil went marshy. In air smelled of sour. Marsh gases escaped from the earth, puffed, gave smacking kiss, grunted, puzyrit oozy water. Geologists sat in the studies and processed material: sorted samples of minerals, numbered, displayed on boxes, noted the location, the area of a bedding in the magazine.
Kamneva summed up the results and made the report. Research of minerals among continuous massifs of the wood was new business. The geologist rushed into narkomlesovsky possession. Under protection hitherto of the inaccessible woods huge richness of the most various minerals was kept.
Jim went near laboratory and could not wait when Anna Fokina ends the work. He sighed, sang a song. Eventually Fokina left in a corridor, took it by hand and entered into laboratory.