Classics fantasy – 11. A. Belyaev

there was not enough meat, fats. And here to us Eskimos and Chukchi helped to hunt an animal. We had guns. Provided with meat, fat of. Also were lit with fat, fat and отоплялись, and ate fat.

      However, several people got sick with a scurvy at us without habit to such food. Reported about it on radio. To us on airplanes vitamin medicines delivered. And all patients got on feet soon.

      But nevertheless this first winter was heavy.

      Brought construction materials in the summer. Them to deliver hard here. Here I also thought: why don’t we use local construction material at all – ice – where it is only possible? Talked to our engineers, discussed this business and developed the real ice industry. Columns support for temporary conducting of electricity were seen? Ice. These houses – a needle – ice. Teplyaki on buildings and some works – ice… It is necessary to tell about these teplyaka separately. Now I will prepare tea.

      – Too ice?

      – Hot.

      – To us it is not cold – Ignat told. – Here even our tropical Jim and that, apparently, does not freeze. You did not freeze, Jim?

      – Did not freeze, and hot to tea I will drink – Jim answered, shrinking.

      – But tell, please – Ignat asked a question – from internal heat, from your electrokitchen unless ice walls do not melt?

      – Of course, melt a little, but an utter nonsense. If on centimeter two in a month melt what it means at a wall thickness in meter? And if thawed more, the trouble is not big. Pour from above water, the new ice layer will accrue. Only also put that by spring your ice izba in an internal cubic capacity will win – will become more spacious. So I wanted to tell about teplyaka.

      – Forgive, I interrupt you – Jim told. – Here permafrost moved us from wooden witness marks and destroyed it. And there cannot be it?

      – About permafrost there will be a special conversation? So far I will tell only one: the izba was under construction on frozen soil, and a needle is under construction on the ice base. Ice – the bad conductor of heat. It does not allow to be warmed to the soil and to be swollen out. So about teplyaka.

      What here, on Far North, we had to fight most of all against? With cold and a gloom. Well, we suffered only the first winter from a gloom. Installed in the summer wind-driven generators which gave us the first energy, and with it and light. Then the station of underground gasification, and further not far off and the temperature station – our main goal earned. Now we have enough light. And it was necessary to tinker with cold. It is impossible to conduct construction on Far North only in short polar summer. So and in two hundred years of everything that we started, you will not build. It was necessary to resolve by all means a question of a year-round construction season. Business as though and not it terrible. In fur clothes warmly. But in it it is difficult to work in the open air. The main thing – hands. In fur mittens it is inconvenient. It is not work any more – bear paws. Well, our many workers, especially from alien, also removed mittens: in work supposedly hands will not freeze. Till the native winter, on the frosts measured. And here as will take, you iron – hands and are freezed. – Verkhovsky sighed. – Several people so on imprudence of hands lost. Gangrene – also cut off fingers, and even all brush. Of course, we began to build wooden teplyak at once. But there was not enough tree. Here again remembered ice. Light board or plywood тепляк water you will pour – and it is ready. Does not pass heat. And then and entirely learned to build of ice. “The plant of ice casting” was opened. From thin sheets of iron of forms made a large number. Water of a form you will pour, on a frost you will expose – it is ready. Froze. Then in the warm room you will bring them that walls a bit thawed, and take out freely. Here to you an ice column with grooves. Here to you ice board of any size and thickness. You will start an ice board in a groove of an ice column, water you will flow – and it was soldered without the slightest crack. But with water without habit too stories left. Water on a frost – that fire. To one worker naked hands poured, they in ice ingots addressed at once. It was necessary to thaw carefully. Incidentally from a hose warm water poured over another. It turned into an ice statue. It is good that the face was not filled in. Speaks, even laughs, to it it became even warmer under skins, and cannot set either a hand, or a leg. And to the earth froze. It was necessary to cut down it from an ice pedestal, in тепляк to carry and there to thaw.

      Gradually seized also ice production. For teplyakam warehouses for provisions began to do. In the summer of geese, ducks we will fill; polar bears – all the year round shoot. And in ice warehouses. On ice columns ice regiments, an ice roof, ice fences… With these fences the funny thing at us left. We built them above human height and thickness in a quarter of meter. The bear should not get (our warehouses stand on the suburb). And products began to vanish. It is visible, bears managed. And lighting electric did not save, even electrograggerses did not help. We began to watch. And what you think? Bears sapped. Both breathe, and lick, and scrape claws ice and eventually will do a manhole. It was necessary to do then more thickly ice walls and with a slope. Couple of bears was hit on the crime scene. Then their marauding came to an end. After all and now alien bears still get, go around warehouses. And local we are known. Close are not shown. Like border now at us: we see them, they – us, and they do not cross the border.

      After warehouses we undertook construction of ice roads for a snowmobile. Beauty! One hundred and fifty kilometers per hour you fly. Arrow.

      – Snow the way does not sweep up?

      – Yes in these latitudes in general rainfall is not enough. The cloth of the ice road is a little raised that wind blew off snow. No, does not stir snow.

      – And bridges?

      – Wow! And bridges ice. By all means sweep. Well, here. The ice sculpture came for the ice industry. Verochka Kolosova was the real sculptor. In free time it began to cut busts from ice. Made a polar bear. Beauty. And I suggested a thought to it – to make a metal form. Found clays, it molded Lenin and Stalin’s big busts, cast a compound pig-iron form that did not break off, and began to fabricate busts from ice. Now these busts in each polar settlement, in each reindeer-breeding collective farm, in each reserve.

      Also the ice recreation park is remarkable.

      – Park? – mistrustfully Ignat asked.

      – The park – Verkhovsky confirmed. – And when only children managed to build all this?! Funny. Ice fantastic trees. Ice towers. Inside – the course upward, and on a cone surface, from top to down, the screw, a spiral – an ice path for the sledge. Ice roller coaster and what! You will move down down – and there some more kilometers from dispersal you rush. Skating rinks with catapults for skaters. Catapults are, of course, not ice. Palace of miracles. The right, the real palace, to three floors, with halls inside and intricate turrets outside! And in each hall – the fancy things made of ice. Both statues, and animals, and even woods. Furniture is ice, on walls bas-reliefs. With electricity it is lit, you will enter in the evening – beauty. Magic. The fairy tale from “Thousands and one night”. A miracle which you will not find and you will not create in the warm countries.

      Think, it is only water, the frozen water. Here what does a frost!

      No, whatever you may say, a frost – it is remarkable piece. How it at Pushkin?.

      …mighty winter,

      As the vigorous leader, conducts

      On us shaggy teams

      The frosts and snow…

      Or at Nekrasov: “Moroz voivode a patrol bypasses the possession”. Of course – the voivode. With it do not joke. But if was able to undertake it, then and he from the voivode in our servant will turn back. Here we will build the temperature station and a frost to the public, in heat, we will turn into work.

      – And