Classics fantasy – 11. A. Belyaev

of scuba diving? I will establish bilateral connection with the old friend, the captain of the U-246 submarine, and his team now.

      It tinkered, jumped, and the pomerknuvshy screen recovered again.

      On the screen the person of average years with cut moustaches and the cheerful blinked eyes appeared. On it there was a form of Navy.

      – Kostin! You called me?

      – To companion Yershov, captain of the U-246 submarine, respect! – the projectionist in the microphone answered. – My cohabitants according to number are interested in underwater communication. If you please, tell how it and that.

      – It is possible to tell but only I do not like to spin in front of the televizorny device. Admired – and enough! I am switched off.

      The screen went out, and at the same moment Yershov’s voice was heard:

      – Now we will have a talk. Well what to tell you? How we seized subglacial transport? Not at once, of course. There were also failures, but about them will tell later. The fact the fact that seized; and seized because we are people persistent.

      – Forgive, please – Kostin’s voice was heard because of the device. – You where are now, Yershov?

      – Where? Where to me to be? Not on an oven, of course. In the submarine, as always.

      – Under water?

      – Under water.

      – Under ice?

      – Under two-meter continuous ice.

      – And anything?

      – Not nothing, and is excellent. We have heat, light-, comfortably. Clean air. Mechanisms work as a chronometer. Precisely according to the schedule we will be on the place.

      – Well that! – Kostin told. – And we have that here such children who consider that it is worse than the submarine on the earth and there is no place.

      – Yes they, likely, never were in the modern submarine? Would swim for a while with me, would tell other! – hotly Yershov exclaimed. – We have real underwater ships with the big tonnage and spacious passenger cabins. We photographed transfer of several thousand workers, engineers, technicians together with materials and bulky details of cars. Look how at us all this is organized.

      Audience saw pictures on the TV again.

      Before them there was a pure big bay protected from an impact of the drifting ices by a powerful dam. Ashore – the arc-shaped pier filled with numerous cranes. Near pier stood in a row as huge spindles, the underwater ships. Over water the black shining backs of these new, terribly big inhabitants of water rose only. On pier there were people in warm fur suits. They patted shaggy mittens, foot tapped legs. It was visible that there is a furious frost. But wet backs of underwater giants did not ice over. From them there was even steam as from the horses who ran on a frost there are a lot of kilometers. The external surface of the underwater ships heated up electricity. Above cases of the underwater ships open hatches were seen. There was a loading. Huge arrows of cranes highly flew by over the heads of the people standing on the coast, took freights in boxes, gave them to holds of the ships.

      Jim arrived from the country of the advanced equipment. He saw constructions of large ocean ports, but what he saw on the screen now, struck it. Designs, the principles of loading mechanisms were as though the same. Another surprised: rates and coordination of work. Cranes moved silently and with such speed that the head was turned, looking at them. It was some chain of quickly rotating roundabouts. What power! What victory over friction, weight!

      Jim gasped when he saw how the huge ten-wheel engine swept by in a roundabout, and he did not manage to disappear in a hold subsoil as it was followed by other, same heavy and bulky cars. Cranes stood on such distance one from another that the ends of their arrows could touch on the run each other if not the hour accuracy of the mechanisms rotating arrows in one direction.

      Did not pass also several minutes as all freights were absorbed by underwater monsters.

      The melodious sound was distributed, cranes instantly stopped, having extended the arrows in the direction of port. In several seconds landing of people began.

      Watching them, the audience as though also made landing and fluently examined an interior of the multystoried underwater ship. There was everything that happens by big ocean steamships: both fine cabins, and pools for swimming, and platforms for games, and library, and auditoriums. But was also features in machines and devices much: laboratories for processing of sea water in oxygen; standard installations for creation of artificial climate; powerful cars for explosions and melting of floating ices; warehouses of underwater suits for big depths with a reserve of oxygen, drinking water, food and the engines allowing divers to float quickly in any direction across and verticals. Even devices and devices for geological researches at the bottom of the sea.

      And in ways of loading, and in the device of the underwater ships there was a lot of “poetry” of the equipment that all were delighted.

      The underwater ship went with a huge speed… The new port, some mountains covered with snow, the city, the plant… The young ruddy worker ascends to a station platform – one of many thousands of people transferred with unprecedented speed together with cars, materials for thousands of kilometers under ices.

      Audience involuntarily deeply sighed, having ended viewing of this amazing, concerning movie. Yershov, having allowed the audience to recover, continued:

      – We did not gather as some other, straight away to cross all Arctic Ocean. We began with coasting swimming. The first submarines could pass without rise on a surface only small spaces. We long and carefully studied a bottom of the polar seas, ices, undercurrents. Adapted submarines for subglacial swimming and improved them. We had drills with which it is possible to drill ice, and tubes for receiving external air, and good explosives. Also case durability increased by compression, the accumulators, a radio communication, radio lots warning about obstacles in a way were improved. At “station” we were expected always by a ready ice-hole – гидропорт. Here is how this business carefully accustomed. Also adjusted so that now risk any. Action radius everything extends. And already the first big passenger subglacial ships crossed the ocean from European to the American coast.

      – And incidents after all were? And failures? – Kostin asked.

      – The person also will not learn to go without to falling – Yershov answered. – There were also failures, there were also incidents. In the submarine all unfortunate incidents come down to the fact that it is impossible to emerge for some reason or other and the crew risks to choke. Was and with us such case when I on “Perch” swam – so called our submarine. This “Perch” got to an ice trap. There was a furious storm. Nervousness is such that our “Perch” even at a decent depth danced as the glass devil in a jar. It was necessary to fall even below. We had an oxygen reserve for about sixty hours, but nevertheless situation was serious. There is nothing to rise to the surface and to think: screws instantly would break in wild chaos of the rubbing, breaking, mixing up ice floes. But how many hours, days the storm still will last?.

      We slowly moved forward, to the polar station – the purpose of our swimming. And suddenly – stop! A push from which all of us got. Somehow looked round, we see: we are in an ice cave. Perhaps, we went off-course and entered a cave which was formed in the glacier of some island which was going down in water; and maybe, it was also in an iceberg; and maybe, it just was an ice heap in shallow water. Anyway, it is necessary to get out of a cave. It was such size that the submarine could not be deployed. It was necessary to go carefully a backing. In a few minutes intense silence we felt a push again. Ice hammered an exit from a cave. We appeared in an ice trap. Us was four: I am a captain, my assistant navigator Chudakov and mechanics Shanin and Burmin. With them I swim also now. We began to confer what to do. Fortunately, the radio station was