Classics fantasy – 11. A. Belyaev

it – only the beginning. In work of wind there are not only minute, but also hour breaks, sometimes throughout many hours. How to fight against it? Accumulator number second. It is the ordinary electric accumulator.

      Further there are interruptions in wind energy supply which can last in the days. And on a scene the accumulator number third acts. You are familiar with Schmidt’s electrolyzer? When passing electric current through the acidified or alkaline water water decays on oxygen and hydrogen. Schmidt’s electrolyzer pursuing this aim consists of the pig-iron plates from zakraina which are screwed together with asbestos laying in one whole battery. Intervals between plates are filled with weak solution of potash. The hydrogen and oxygen which are formed when passing current are taken away separately and gather in vessels. This electrolysis is made by the same wind power. The wind-driven generator “in leisure hours” reserves for itself the gas fuel received from water.

      Oxygen – “by-product” – goes on various well – frets, hydrogen serves as fuel for the gas engine with its dynamo.

      At last, there is one more reserve, ordinary heat engine, say, on oil, with a dynamo. But almost it is never not necessary to resort to it.

      The problem of alignment of inconstancy of wind power was so resolved. These accumulators can be used to wind-driven generators of any design. An invention essence – in combined methods of accumulation of wind power.

      – And wind pulls “Taiga” smoothly? – Ignat asked.

      Simakov frowned.

      – There are nevertheless hitches – he told as if unwillingly. – It is necessary to be defended then to reserve energy in accumulators. But such cases was not enough. We on work flow have long stops during which we also can reserve large amounts of energy.

      – So, the problem of energy is more or less resolved. And what was the second difficulty at design of the all-terrain vehicle? Movement mechanism? – Bugaev asked.

      – Yes, but it would be most interesting to get acquainted with this problem, “having swum for a while” by our ship.

      6. Jim examines the ship

      Ignat went to a radio cabin to consult about Semenov and Doronin, and Jim was engaged in survey of extraordinary overland “ship”.

      Along all case there was a corridor. Walls and doors of a corridor – from gray opaque metal. On a ceiling – lamps in the cubic glass lamp shades made as if of pieces of ice. On a floor – linoleum. Purely, as in hospital. On a door, against a saloon – the black brilliant plate with an inscription in Russian. Jim carefully slightly opened a door. Anybody. Big, as a saloon, the room in three windows windows. All walls are filled with regiments. On them folders, boxes with numbers. Ranks of the racks filled with the same boxes. Some warehouse…

      The next cabin – out-patient clinic. Jim looks and here. Walls and furniture sparkle a whiteness. Surgical table. A glass case with a set of medical tools.

      X-ray, quartz and still some devices unknown to Jim. Nearby on a wall – a marble distributive board with knife switches and switches, ampermeters, voltmeters. Under a glass cap – a microscope. In a corner – scales.

      “The quite good medical equipment for such small crew” – Jim thought.

      The third room – laboratory. Jim already safely opened a door, believing that he will find nobody.

      – Ah, forgive … – he confusedly speaks and closes a door. Behind a door laughter and as though words is heard: “Where you? Enter…” But it is not solved and goes along the corridor further, carrying away fleeting impression: gloss of chemical ware and tools, samples of minerals on tables and two female heads inclined over microscopes. One – with smoothly combed dark hair, another – short-haired, zolotovolosy. Black, apparently, is more senior; gold – is younger, white, ruddy. Which of them so loudly burst out laughing? Gold?! And why laughed? Likely, Jim looked very silly… To return? No, no… Also did not knock. Will think: “What ill-bred!” Now it will be more careful.

      Jim came over to other side of a corridor and carefully knocked at a door on which there was a plate with an inscription “Club”. “Enter” – deafly was heard to it. It slightly opened a door. The room was empty. Really it is that girl heard its knock and responded? Why he is so excited? It is good that there is nobody here.

      All wall is occupied by the TV screen. Big lamp receiver. In room corners two desktop billiards with brilliant spheres – ball-bearings. Glass case. In it Ping-Pong, chess, dominoes… A carpet to all room. Easy chairs. Curtains on windows. Beautiful chandelier. Sitting in this room, it is difficult to present that you are in the “impassable” Siberian woods, for thousands 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