of miles from the cities and the railroads.
On average the floor there was one not examined cabin – library. Jim went there. In library he found the doctor Dubrovina. She took sheets of the Pravda newspaper from a radiobildapparat.
At last Jim went down on a ladder to the first floor. There were an electrified kitchen, the engine room, warehouses of provisions, combustible, spare parts. Here, in the certain storeroom, Foma stored skins of the animals killed on hunting and the whole collection of guns, boxes with cartridges, hunting knives… Survey is over. Jim rises by the second floor. In a corridor meets Bugaev.
– Everything is all right – Ignat says. – Our airplane took off forward. Semenov feels like the good fellow. We go on the deck.
7. Captives of fire
Foma approached Simakov:
– Smells of ashes, the captain.
– I feel nothing – Simakov told, smelling air.
– I have nostrils of an old tayezhnik. Today wind on the South, and will pull on the North, and you will feel – Foma answered.
– Well that disturbs you? – Simakov asked. – Probably, hunters made fire.
Foma vaguely began to nod the head.
– Everything can be – he answered. – But only whether… it is better for us to be chosen from here somewhat quicker?
– You think that in a taiga the fire? – already with some concern Simakov asked.
– Smells and! – Jim was responsible for the bearded navigator, involving air wide nostrils. Felt a smell of burning and Bugaev and Simakov.
– Perhaps, you are right – the captain told. – It is necessary to get away.
On boughs of trees, from a larch on a larch, jumped with the scared peep of a squirrel. They were a set, and all of them rushed on the North, running away from the fire. Below on a glade three hares rushed. Aside, in a thicket, the big bear seemed. He came to a glade, got on hind legs, smelled air and, again hard having fallen on forward, hasty walked in the wood, with extraordinary speed turning the body.
Over the wood with shout flocks of birds flew. Foma clapped the heavy ruchishcha on each side and groaned. In it the hunter woke up. How many game! But now not to it. It was necessary to ring a bell, convoking all for emergency works.
One by one on the deck inhabitants of “Taiga” appeared: the mechanic Alexey Zhukov, geologists – golden-haired Anna Fokina and black, as the Gipsy, Zinaida Kamneva, the doctor Dubrovina, students probationers – Mitya Dudin (Ignat recognizes in him the pilot of “Dragonfly”) and Fedya Gritsay. Even two dogs laikas disturbed by a bell and the risen turmoil ran out. They heatedly barked from a board at birds and animals.
At last there was a fat man radio operator Grebenshchikov. He reported that from “Dragon”, the high-rise electropower plant, report about the begun fire.
– We know. Our Foma got wind of this fire earlier, than they from the sky noticed.
Jim looked on “Snake”.
– To them it is good there – he told. – To them not only fire, but, perhaps, and smoke will not reach.
– And if the wire by which “Dragon” is tied to “Taiga” fuses what then? – Ignat objected.
– Not so terribly – Anna Fokina responded.
“She laughed” – Jim, услыхав the girl’s voice thought.
The moment was such that not before official representations. Guests got acquainted with crew a mute nod of the head.
– All hollow parts of “Dragon” are filled with hydrogen – Fokina continued. – “Dragon” will not fall; will carry it for the line of the fire.
– However wind can fall to the South, and “Snakes” in a flame – is disturbing Kamneva told.
– Attention! – the captain shouted. – All in places. Operation of machines at full capacity!
Zhukov ran to the motors. Foma became for a steering wheel. The captain Simakov with Ignat and Jim went to the captain’s cabin, under it the others were grouped.
Motors hooted. “Taiga”, having trembled all over, slowly moved forward. The overland ship approached closely a wall of larches soon. There was no place to go further. Without restraint propellers on a nose hooted.
– Really one screw draft can be moved this monster? – Ignat asked.
– On snow it is possible – Simakov answered. – Here propellers only help: “Taiga” moves on wheels which rotate by means of motors. There will be time, will tell in detail. And also you will see something.
– Frame! – he shouted.
Ahead of the all-terrain vehicle the metal frame strengthened on low wheels moved forward. The forward ends of a frame were connected by a thin metal plate. Behind a plate, at some distance from it, there passed the metal pipe. It went parallel to a plate and also connected the ends side metal cores. In total together also made the “frame” reminding the shafts connected ahead, but very widely placed.
– Current! – Simakov continued to order, bending to an acoustical pipe.
Jim and Ignat saw how the thin metal strip ahead of “shafts” reddened and was made white-hot. The strip crashed into a larch and passed through its trunk with ease of the knife cutting oil. Juice of a tree addressed in the steam which escaped from a section. The smoke seemed. But at the same moment from the pipe which was behind a plate through holes streams of the foamy liquid which was sticking around the place of a cut began to escape. The flashing flame immediately was extinguished. Hissing amplified. Steam and smoke covered an electric knife.
– Claws!
Two pairs of levers terminating in iron claws came up from where from below. Dudin and Gritsay dexterously operated iron hands. Claws grabbed a tree above a cut and left aside. “Taiga” moved forward. Kamneva, Fokina, Dubrovina helped Dudin and Gritsayu to direct falling of trees when “hands” did not manage to make it in time. “Taiga” bristled up the mechanized hooks, claws, levers.
Work was intense, unsafe, demanding big dexterity and skill. The captain coped from time to time on radio with what speed the fire moves. From a tower of “Dragon” reported to him about it.
– In what direction the closest border of the wood lies? – the captain of coils asked.
– Before us to the horizon the continuous wood – answered from “Dragon”. Simakov frowned.
– It is necessary to send Anna to investigation – he told.
– On an aviette “Dragonfly”? – Ignat asked.
The captain nodded.
– Geologist-pilot.
