morning will blow – Jim answered. – The house is recently difficult.
At last they switched off clock radios, turned off light and settled. Ignat immediately snored. To Jim it was not fallen down. Whether stirred roulades which were removed a nose by Ignat, whether the homeland was remembered. There now day. The bright, hot sun shines. And on streets also warmly, is even even warmer, than in this izba… And here behind the walls smelling of pitch wind howls, lifting blizzards. Around on one thousand kilometers the ice desert. Wolves, bears… Anna Fokina was remembered. Whether he will see it tomorrow? To Jim it became sad. It is a pity, the Hawaiian guitar in a suitcase. Would play on it, absolutely quietly not to wake Ignat. However, perhaps, and gun shots you will not wake him… No, it, Jim, will not remain here. Will go to Uzbekistan, to Transcaucasia. There is more sun, more probably home.
Under a floor, at an oven, the crash was heard. Crude dries up. Again crash and someone’s heavy sighs. Ignat sighs? No, he snores exactly, rhythmic. A strong crash, hissing, as in a water tap, when there is no water, whistle, a smack… And suddenly Jim felt that the bed under him is unsteady. Or he has a dream? Jim pinched himself for a cheek. No, he does not sleep. The crash does not stop. Jim begins to worry. He lowers legs on a floor and feels in darkness that the floor board into which he stepped costs an edge. In the formed crack bears ice cold. It is necessary to light fire rather. Jim goes on a floor, stumbles, falls. Legs freeze. Where this damned switch? Jim switched on light. At the same moment the roar was distributed. Boards of a floor rose, turned, from under them water began to act. Jim woke Ignat. That half asleep could not understand in what business.
– Rather! Get up rather! – Jim hurried him. The izba was quickly filled with water. One more shot. The wall warped, between logs the crack was formed. Frosty air began to enter this crack with whistle. Water rose, froze, ice with a crash broke, from a crack stuck out water flows and immediately froze. In the face of the surprised Jim and Ignat the izba turned into a glacier.
They began to put on quickly. Ice already on half-meter filled an izba. It squeezed out a door which with a crash was opened, and now in an izba became also cold, as well as outside.
Hardly two friends ran out on the street as there was a new eruption. On their eyes all izba was filled with ice up to the top. Ice squeezed out windows, came to light. With a roar of weapon shots it broke off a tree, a stone, everything where water got and where it froze.
The amazed Jim and Ignat stood and looked at this extraordinary show. Ice filled an izba to a ceiling, stuck out from windows and a door, went down to the earth. At last everything calmed down. Light of the next lamp lit dilapidated to a witness mark.
– Legs did not wet? Go rather to mine to a witness mark to be heated and dry. Not that you will be left without legs. Pound legs snow, take off boots! – the appeared watchman – the Chukchi or the Yakut ordered goodness knows where from. Jim and Ignat could not distinguish him yet. The watchman forced to undress legs and to rub with snow. Only when legs became red as paws of a goose, the watchman took away Jim and Ignat in the izba standing in the neighbourhood.
– What happened? – Jim asked.
Ignat already understood and explained to him:
– All this permafrost “jokes”. You do not know what is permafrost? The layer of the frozen soil which is not thawing in the summer. In places here even during a thirty-degree summer heat the sun heats the soil only on one and a half meters. And below the layer of the chilled soil and ice lies. It never thaws. Though, of course, permafrost actually is not eternal. It is possible that to – гда in these latitudes there was warmer climate and permafrost was not. It is also possible that the climate will become warmer over time and permafrost will disappear. But now it is necessary to potter with it much. It prevents agriculture though small permafrost and does not interfere with growth of some plants. But especially permafrost brings a lot of trouble upon builders. The bases, walls of buildings burst, sometimes all building collapses. The majority, for example, of the railway buildings lying on the route of the Great Siberian way is constructed in permafrost strip. And repair of these buildings destroyed by permafrost manages if I am not mistaken, millions in five in a year.
– But why it occurs?
– Very simply – Ignat answered. – Our izba or to a witness mark was constructed on the frozen soil. Unpleasant property of permafrost – its water tightness. From here also all tricks which are caused by permafrost to builders result. Ground waters are clamped in rather thin layer of earth. From above – the soil which is freezing together in the winter, and from below – permafrost layer. This layer gives quicksands and landslides in the summer. In the winter – it is even worse. As winter frosts it is more and more, expose to frost the top layer of earth, ground waters which are between this top layer and lower, merzlotny below and below, contract stronger. There is a huge pressure – to two thousand kilograms per square centimeter. Water breaks through the top frozen layer in the thinnest or weak point. And a weak point – the made most winter-proof. You heated the furnace, the soil under a floor got warm, ground waters broke, filled the house up to the top, and the house turned into a continuous piece of ice. I was told about such comical case on the Yakut and Amur highway when the barrel put in the fall upside down was a heater. There came frosts, the soil around a barrel began to freeze through quite strongly. And under a barrel still rather warm air remained, and there frost penetration went more slowly. Pressure difference turned out. Ground waters broke and filled a barrel from below. Sometimes these waters form huge hillocks of a pucheniye, up to ten meters high and fifty meters wide. Permafrost – our enemy with whom we conduct persistent fight.
Ignat and Jim dried up stockings, fur boots. Ignat looked in a window. The watchman, apparently, reported already the accident. Near icy witness marks there were several people. The old man wearing spectacles, dressed in a big fur-coat to toe, pottered with the camera. The woman, also in a fur-coat stood nearby. Natives swung mittens and spoke about something.
– Let’s go, we will look what they do there.
– What, unsuccessfully slept? – Pelkin asked, approaching them. – It at us happens. It is visible, very much you heated.
The photographer who appeared the meteorologist Verkhovsky grumbled: the device refused to work.
– The lock does not act on cold – he said. – It is necessary to warm up. – Someone ran behind chips and spread out a fire. Verkhovsky, holding the device over a flame, prepared. The woman in a fur-coat pressed a pocket small lamp. Dazzling light of extraordinary force flashed.
– Belief! – Bugaev screamed.
– Ignat!
The bright flash of magnesium blinded Jim. He heard as snow under Ignat’s legs began to creak.
– Why you did not report about the arrival? – Vera asked.
Jim understood that the girl who was him in dazzling flash of magnesium also was “the snow queen” – the engineer Vera Kolosova.
15. Father Frost
– This the real ice city – Ignat exclaimed.
Jim with surprise looked at an unprecedented show. On the bank of the frozen sea there was the whole town of dome-shaped ice houses. Lit with bright electric light, they had an extraordinary appearance as if houses of the fantastic city of the unknown planet. Ice houses-kupoly had no windows.
