Classics fantasy – 9. A. Belyaev

burned-down fire. Wind will run, the flame uvula will flash, will light faces of fishermen, the edge of the drying network, the black shining belly overturned on the bank of the boat will draw near coals also again. From the coast pulls dampness, tar, fish.

      Tired fishermen ate up fish soup, scooping wooden spoons from a kettle.

      – Burst напоследях. And then каюк: zagovey on fish! – the gray-haired thick old man Gleb Kalganov broke the silence, is shorter – Kalgan.

      On its parties three sons – on the right the senior, at the left younger, same large, bearded big fellows, as well as he, only dark-haired sat.

      Gleb is the head of fishing artel. The Caspian Sea and lower reaches of Volga – for it the open book which each line he knows by heart. Knows water, fish habits, vagaries of the weather, the seas and its inhabitants. On one signs known to it is able even to foretell when the puzanok, a beshenka, a vobla where they will direct a way whether the big catch will be goes. In all that his word – the law concerns fish. And as the fishing village only also lives fish, Gleb’s word and in all other – the law. What will tell, so to that and to be. Before war he was not the last owner on crafts, had the capital, a tackle, ware. Revolution destroyed his welfare, but not the authority. He governed artel in the old manner – a spit as wanted.

      His words were surprising of fishermen. Kalgan behaves in a queer way!

      – On our century of fish enough! – the speckled Horned owl responded.

      – A spoon lick yes the tongue lose. The fact that not enough! – Gleb important answered. Having kept silent a little to be convinced that nobody interrupts any more, he continued: – The last times come. God took away reason from people, and put their mad became. The God’s world is wanted to be remade in own way: to dry up the sea, Zavolzhye to turn Volga mother in the steppe. Also there will be we as cancer aground. Truly aground! Both fathers, and our grandfathers lived by the sea, fished. Da Volga’ sea were to us an arable land, and fish – bread. And here – on you! The sea will dry up, Volga will leave, fish will die, also we will die. Where and a vobla and other sea creatures caviar to throw a puzanok will go? There is no place. There is no Volga. Cover! And our huts will stand in naked to a step. And the seabed will begin to be plowed. Where the God’s small fish froliced, there tractors zatarakhtit, will arrange state farm. Village Council at the bottom sea. Beauty!. Our fishing heads were gone! Without Volga, there is no sea to us a zhista!

      Gleb became silent, having inclined the head as a bull under blow of a butt.

      The speckled Horned owl spitted out loudly, swore:

      – Yes you, maybe, drank superfluous, Kalgan, was not overslept? Regain consciousness, cross! What to part nonsense for the night? Whether imaginable this business?. – Also stopped short.

      Gleb raised the head and strictly looked at the Horned owl.

      – I never spent on drink mind and was not engaged in nonsense… Yesterday the chairman of the Village Council spoke to me. Arrived, speaks, some of Astrakhan, to employ the administration, people. All of them also told that Volga will be closed, will drain the sea. From Astrakhan, speaks, the sea of versts on three hundred will depart. Means, and from us it is a little less. Below Kamyshin, at the Little sister, visitors say, already dig the earth, the stone, sand bring, barracks build. A dam Volga will be intercepted. In a word, upoky, My God, smother deceased your slaves!

      Fishermen suddenly rustled as if storm wind on the wood passed.

      – How to be a tepericha? – the young scared tenor outvoiced all.

      Gleb grinned in gray-haired moustaches – got!

      – How to be – he important started talking. – Vreme-na-a! That year, is worse. And all because that God was forgotten. God told: “All good very much”. And they here you are! Then by God it is incorrectly created. Undertook to correct! And former and that unless is bad? In old times as was? – And Gleb already rode out the fad. He spoke about “Golden Age” when fishes caught more than eighty million kilograms in the Caspian Sea and lower reaches of Volga a year, for twelve million rubles, about a beluga weighing one and a half thousand kilograms, about a starred sturgeon in fifty kilograms, about a sterlet in sixteen kilograms.

      – And now that? Beluzhka – fifty five kilograms, a sturgeon – ten-twenty, a sevryuzhka at all six kilograms. Fish becomes shallow, fall trade. And now at all limes want them.

      After such preparation Gleb wanted to lead the speech further. But here unexpectedly the thin fisherman Kuzma Sysoyev, all prickly as the Caspian bull-calf, a prickly, long ago not shaven beard, prickly eyes and words prickly got into conversation:

      – Bolsheviks are guilty, speak? They exhausted fish? And you are not present? And who in forbidden time yes in forbidden places caught fish? You will tell, not you? Who seines blocked the river, up did not pushchat fish to places of spawning? Who on “holes” of a stanovishch of oblavshchik arranged yes wintering there a bream and a sazan and caught a catfish? Not you? You are also the first fish wrecker! Exhausted fish, and itself was inflated. It to you tightened now belts, here and began to whimper: ha-arasho was! To whom it is good, and to whom it is bad. окрест you in servitude had all fishermen! It Otjetsya on our sweat-blood, on you, a svolocha, worked.

      Gleb though that, as though and not about it the speech. Lit a tubule, in an extinct fire spat and quietly answered:

      – Well, brothers, I became bad to you, the old man drove out of mind, look for the senior more young. And I see that me have nothing to do here more. Tomorrow I will at daybreak take a swag for shoulders yes with the sons and I will start wandering on a path of a kuda of an eye look.

      Fishermen were disturbed.

      – Bude, Kalgan!

      – Without you, as without eyes!

      – Do not throw us!

      – The dog grinds – wind carries!. – were heard from darkness of a voice of fishermen. But the salted, dense bass of Gleb covered all these voices:

      – My word is firm! As told, well. And now to sleep!

      Sighing and sighing, fishermen settled. It became absolutely silent. Only splash of the running wave was heard.

      – Nikita! – Gleb said in low tones, having pushed sideways the son. – Sh-shsh… Creep, look whether this devil obstinate – Kuzma sleeps!

      – Pokhrapyvayet – Nikita reported in a minute.

      – Wake the carefully others… Horned owl, perhaps, too not трожь.

      And when fishermen woke up, Gleb began to speak to them:

      – Here that, children. Our business – tobacco. But only I so think that else it is possible to save the sea and Volga. Let’s not give them in offense! Sh-shsh! Listen! Said in council that this devil’s dam costs millions, and money it is just barely enough released. Here I also think … – Gleb started talking even more quietly: – If will break through this dam, and all plan will break through them to the devil’s grandmother. More money at them will not be enough. You realize? We will go all artel to Kamyshin, we will be employed in navvies, and there… it will be visible. Who agrees, that tomorrow and register!

      Again silence. Large stars began to blink very often as if at night birds of an eye stuck together.

      The small Volga town of Kamyshin is flooded alien fierce: seasonal workers, workers, employees, technicians, cooperators…

      The village the Little sister on the right side of Volga, Solodushino with left and the island Shishkin, lying on the line of a barrage, are unrecognizable. As mushrooms after a rain grew barracks, cooperatives, dining rooms, catering establishments, clubs, hospitals.

      The Kamyshin gardeners, damning a barrage, a piping and Mikheyev, transferred