Classics fantasy – 3

– Well, show where it? – the chairman asked, shortening a stride.

– Yes here a box over a millstone, you see? – Tarasovna told, without entering a mill.

The chairman, probably, was afraid, but «noblesse oblige». It carefully approached a box.

– Here it piece what. How this box opens? Well, maybe, you understand better? – he addressed the militiaman.

The militiaman, the young guy in freckles, approached a box and bravely lifted a cover. At the same moment of Tarasovn shouted and ran out on the street. After it also the crowd of curious which jammed into a mill took to the heels. Only authorities remained on a mill. But also they involuntarily started back, having glanced in a box. I approached closer and when uvidat that is in a box, was struck not less the others.

In a box the end of horizontally rotating shaft was concluded. The wheel with the handle is attached to a shaft. A human hand – a live hand! – strong held this handle, and, probably, it rotated a wheel, and together with it and the shaft setting in motion through millstone gear wheels. In an elbow joint the hand was attached to the metal cylinder. This cylinder was connected to the pipe coming to light. Besides, two glass tubules and, apparently, the electric wires leaving a box were inserted into the cylinder it is less. On the same small box the galvanometer and the manometer were established.

Yes, with an ulterior motive Tarasovna so shouted. A strange and terrible impression was made by this working live human hand. Tarasovna, as well as her legendary progenitress Eve, curiosity ruined. Wagner was the same bad expert on female psychology, as well as bible god. Do not tell Wagner Tarasovne what in a box cannot be looked, she would not take an interest in the mechanism setting millstones in motion, quite satisfied with the fact that they spin. But Wagner forbade it to look and it excited insuperable curiosity. And now she learned the terrible truth: its millstones spin with a hand of the dead person!

Authorities were stunned. They did not know how to react to such case which is not provided by the law.

– Citizen! Get out from a box! – the militiaman shouted, assuming that if the hand moves, then she belongs to the living person who, obviously, is hidden in a box. But the hand continued to twirl a wheel, and no citizen appeared.

– There is no place to hide to the person here – the chairman told. – You see, the shoulder in bank is moved, and it is higher than one small box.

– Violation of the code about work – was thoughtfully told by the chairman’s son-in-law, the weigher of the railway station. – Without labor exchange uninsured is employed and, probably. Violation of days of rest and working hours. It is possible to appeal against the resolution.

– Whose hand? – the militiaman asked, having quickened.

– The summer resident my Wagner attached to me. His hand! – Tarasovna answered. – «I – say – to you I will use a mill, only do not look in a box». Unless I knew? Fie! That hands to earn bread by mortuaries? I do not want to work at a devil’s mill!

– And than badly? – the old man with the cunning blinked eyes asked. – It is not necessary to feed, it is not necessary to pay, and works day and night. And to a braid such piece to fit it or, say, to thresh. You lie on the furnace yes you eat kalatches, and it…

– And you be silent! – angrily the militiaman told. – Do not force down. I ask, a hand whose? Perhaps, here the smertoubiystvo occurred. Perhaps to the person the hand was cut off, and he without hand goes now and looks for where a hand.

– Good gracious! – Tarasovna began to wail. – Well, as will come yes here will shout: «Give my hand!»

– Here that and it. It, citizens, not a joke, but a crime under the article of the Criminal code. Where your summer resident Wagner?

– In Moscow. Today has to be.

– Here we will arrest him and we will remove interrogation from it. From where it got a human hand and on what code operates it? To stop a grinding! Illegally.

– Ah, fathers! – again Tarasovna screamed. Now she bitterly regretted the curiosity, and it is even more in what in a temper stirred up about the hand which frightened her. – Unless you will stop it? Shout at it do not shout – will not hear, there are no ears. Twists and twists.

– Well and let twists, and do not fill up grain.

Talking loudly, all left a mill. I remained to look what will be done by Tarasovna. She did not dare to disobey an administration order did not fill up grain in a funnel any more. But she regretted a hand which now in vain a millstone spit or maybe it was a pity for millstones, and Tarasovna stopped work of a hand, having turned a rychazhok on a box.

– You did affairs! – I told Tarasovna, becoming angry about her for the fact that her curiosity and garrulity will give now a lot of trouble to Wagner. I for a minute did not doubt that Wagner did not commit any crime.

– You did! – she answered with irritation. – All mill was befouled! Here and people speak: devil’s mill.

The chairman of the Village Council and the militiaman returned with the press and sealing wax. The militiaman remembered that measures to protection of traces of crime are not taken.

– Ceased to grind? – the militiaman asked.

– Poshabashila – Tarasovna answered.

The chairman set the seal to doors of a box in which there was a hand, and Tarasovna awfully was afraid that the chairman did not burn a mill. But everything was safely. The second seal was set to a mill door.

I met halfway on Wagner Road, intending to warn him about events of day. However my maneuver was not successful. The militiaman called to me and suggested to return. Anything else did not remain to me how to go to a garden and to continue the interrupted reading.

The village worried and hooted as an alarmed beehive. All with impatience expected Wagner’s arrival, and he forced itself to expect long enough. Already began to get dark when the boys guarding on the road cried:

– Goes! Goes!

All hurried on the road. Wagner really drove up to us. But on what crew! Imagine the long office table covered with the cloth which is going down to the earth. Above at the edges «table» is fenced with a board or iron wall of centimeters fifty height. It, obviously, was also that «samobezhka» about which Wagner spoke to me.

Because of the mountain the gray cloud rose. Wind twisted small tornadoes of dust on the road. The rain, long ago zhdanny Tarasovna came.

– Sit down! – Wagner shouted, having seen me. It stopped the extraordinary cart, I jumped and took seat near it. At this time the crowd, predvoditelstvuyemy the chairman of the Village Council, already approached a samobezhka.

– The citizen, climb up, you are arrested! – the chairman told.

Unexpectedly the wind gust lifted the edge of cloth which veiled a samobezhka. Shout of horror swept on crowd, and she started back as if not a light breeze, but the strongest hurricane suddenly struck it. Shrill squeal of Tarasovna covered all voices. Several minutes proceeded this confusion which reason I did not understand.

Wagner quietly looked at crowd, undertook a wheel of management, and… the crowd screamed even more loudly than former again. Samobezhka rose by racks as a horse whom the skilled equestrian forces to turn all the case on hind legs. Then Wagner directed the crew uphill, without paying attention to shouts of crowd, the chairman and the militiaman. The militiaman rushed after, but Wagner translated the speed lever, and the samobezhka with extraordinary ease began to take rise.

The militiaman remained behind, but he did not want to be reconciled with the defeat. He ran after us. To the station was nearby. We went not at a full speed yet. In a few minutes after we passed the station and came out to the highway conducting to Moscow, we heard for ourselves a motorcycle crash. Obviously, the militiaman who got from where the car, decided to continue a pursuit. Wagner smiled.

– Here I will show you all qualities of my samobezhka now.

He continued to drive at the same speed, without paying attention to the approaching persecutor. And when the militiaman already almost overtook for us, Wagner turned… is not present, did not turn, and such bend who is absolutely impossible for the ordinary car made. It suddenly stopped a samobezhka and then somehow moved it all case to the right to the roadside as if the samobezhka could run not only forward, but also sideways. It was made so unexpectedly that the militiaman did not manage to constrain the motorcycle and slipped forward.

But Wagner was not satisfied with this effect. It started up a samobezhka forward again and it appeared ahead of the militiaman soon, as if setting on him. At this time the rain went. On the highway the big pools which were flowing down in quite deep ditches on both sides of the highway were formed. Wagner admitted the persecutor even closer and suddenly, having abruptly turned, sent a samobezhka across the highway, to a ditch. I involuntarily grasped overboard. But my fears were vain. Samobezhka as the small tank, safely crept through a ditch and ran on the pitted, kochkovaty field. The militiaman with the motorcycle, of course, could not follow us. He would break the car in the first ditch.

– Here you see! – Wagner himself, probably, delighted with the invention told.

– Perfectly! – I exclaimed. – But how this samobezhka is arranged and what frightened crowd when it uvidat your crew?

– The pursuit lagged behind, we can have a talk – Wagner told. – Bend and raise cloth.

I raised cloth and screamed from surprise. Cloth covered… three pairs of naked human legs!

– Have fun, and there is enough – Wagner told, laughing. – It is necessary to comply also companion militiaman, he honestly fulfilled the duty. We go back and we will give up in hands of the authority. We will return on the dacha and we will explain all incident. I have documents that all hands and legs are taken by me for scientific experiences from dissecting room; it is clear, that I did not commit any murder.

– But what image these legs and the hand rotating millstones…

– And here wait – professor interrupted me – now we will do a ceremony of surrender, and then I will tell you.

And when this ceremony was done, Wagner, continuing to go on the samobezhka under escort of the militiaman accompanying us on the motorcycle began the explanations:

– I will be short. They say, life is burning. However the last observations over vital processes showed that it absolutely not so. Life is not burning, but without burning life cannot last long. Found special substance in muscles a glycogen which from the chemical point of view represents almost the same, as sugar. And so, at muscle work in it lactic acid and warmth, that is free energy are formed of this sugar. It is calculated that upon transition of sugar to one gram of lactic acid hundred seventy calories are released. Thus, muscle work, or if you want, her life, happens without oxidation or combustion. But when in the working muscle heat (energy) was generated and the glycogen appeared, without oxygen this lactic acid cannot disappear, and the muscle not in forces farther to work. But transfer you such tired muscle to the atmosphere of oxygen, and lactic acid immediately will disappear, oxygen will be absorbed, and carbonic acid and heat, as are emitted at any burning.

Where lactic acid disappears? It turns into sugar again. Only the fifth part it disappears completely. Thus, one may say, that a muscle – the car working due to chemical energy which arises upon transition of bodies with more complex structure in bodies simpler due to falling of potential of chemical energy. Means in order that energy of a muscle was restored, it is necessary to supply it with oxygen only. In the atmosphere of pure oxygen under the known experimental conditions the muscle becomes tireless.

Here on it I also built the invention with the hands and legs which are cut off at corpses. Why to them to vanish if they can bring useful work? You know that members of the body can live, separated from a body, vaguely long time if only to feed them properly. They can function, that is perform the usual work. Human muscles are the perfectly constructed cars. Why them not to force to work after the death of the owner, exciting reduction by electric current?

You know that my muscles also do not know were tired. But I went in fight against fatigue of the muscles in a bit different way. I invented fatigue anti-toxins. With a hand on a mill and legs under this crew I arrived differently. First of all I provided them with food. The special physiological solution very close to composition of blood (notice: strenuously saturated with oxygen), feeds hand muscles on a mill and these legs. Plentiful supply with oxygen does muscles tireless. Electric current causes their reduction.

– And why you suited a pipe on a mill?

– I was afraid that flour dust can get to a vessel with nutritious liquid and will condense it, having made unusable for «feeding» of a hand. On a pipe oxygen directly from air turns out. This my invention which considerably is reducing the price of operation of muscular strength of the person. You only think what prospects are opened by my invention! Over time all people, as well as I now, will not know muscular exhaustion. Productivity of human work will increase extraordinary. But it is not enough: we will force to work also the dead. Just imagine: millions of years it was required to the nature to create such perfect mechanism as a human body, and here death forever destroys this magnificent car! Unless it is not ridiculous? If we are not able to win against death absolutely, then we will prolong, at least, muscle work. Imagine factory which cars are set in motion by the human hands which are cut off from a body.

– Terrible picture!

– Anything. The advantage would force people to look other eyes at this picture soon. Here I put a hand on a mill. Tarasovna was frightened. But benefit is clear for it. And eventually she would probably not refuse that her late husband continued to give her help the hands… Arrived.

Rain expected to fall. At our entry into the village from all log huts the people who surrounded us began to run out. «Court» terminated quickly. Wagner showed pieces of paper from Moscow, and they were convincing. Tarasovna asked it to take away somewhat quicker from a mill a dead hand. She was afraid that this hand sometime will strangle her at night. However, in a hand there was no need also. The heavy rain lifted rechonka water, and it was ready to replace a hand of the dead person. And this hand, despite Wagner’s protest, was carried at the cemetery and dug. (It is told P.E. Yakimenko.)

Concerning this story Wagner wrote:

«The scientific explanation of the fact is offered quite correctly. The muscle of an animal or the person, even cut out from a body, really possesses some stock of potential chemical energy thanks to the fact that in it there are materials capable for disintegration. If such muscle to irritate with electric current, it can perform the known work. After work in a muscle there is a lactic acid. But at oxygen food lactic acid disappears, and the muscle becomes capable to work again. Thus, in the atmosphere of pure oxygen the muscle can become tireless. I really conducted such experiment with a tireless muscle at the dacha. By means of electricity I forced to move a hand of the person which even performed some work. Experience continued only several minutes and was repetition of the experiences which are already done in some scientific laboratories. But such «posthumously working muscle» cannot have practical value. Game will not cost candles – oxygen costs much. Of its direct getting from air how it is done by lungs, I only think. Perhaps, I will use the mechanism of lungs and hearts motors. You will understand now that in the story from science and that from the imagination.

Wagner».

Over a chasm

I. MYSTERIOUS GIVING

During the walks in the neighborhood of Simeiz I paid attention to the lonely giving standing on a steep slope of the mountain. To this giving it was not carried out even roads. A circle it was enclosed with a high fence, with the only low gate which was always densely covered. And neither the greens bush, nor a tree was seen over a fence. A giving circle – naked ledges of yellowish rocks; between them sickly junipers and undersized, curve mountain pines grew here and there.

«What for the imagination came to someone to mind to lodge on this wild, naked rock? And whether somebody lives there?» – I thought, wandering around giving.

I never before saw that somebody left it. My curiosity was so big that I, admit, tried to glance on the yard of the mysterious dwelling, having climbed up on above the lying rocks. But giving was so located that from where I came, I could see only a small corner of the yard. It was also empty and is not cultivated, as well as the surrounding area.

However after several days of observations I managed to notice that on the yard there passed some elderly woman in black.

It interested me even more.

– If there live people, then they have to support though some communication with the outside world, well, at least to go to a market behind products!

I began to inquire among the acquaintances, and at last I managed to satisfy my curiosity. However, nobody knew authentically about inhabitants of giving, but one acquaintance told me that, by hearsay, there lives professor Wagner.

Professor Wagner!

It was enough absolutely to rivet my attention on giving. I by all means wanted to see the extraordinary person who did so much noise by the inventions. But how?. I literally began to spy on giving. I felt that it was bad and nevertheless continued the observations, for hours and hours at different times day and even night staying behind a juniper bush, near giving.

They say, if the person persistently pursues one aim, then sooner or later he will reach it.

Somehow early in the morning, when just it is light, I suddenly heard that the treasured door in a high fence creaked. I all pricked up the ears, contracted and with bated breath began to watch, what will be farther.

The door opened. The tall person with a ruddy face, a fair-haired beard and the hung moustaches left and attentively looked round around. Of course, it it, professor Wagner!

Having convinced that around nobody is not present, he began to rise slowly up, reached the small mountain platform and began to be engaged in some exercises, absolutely unclear for me, there. On the platform stones of various size were scattered. Wagner approached them and did attempts to lift them, then, carefully going, passed to the new place and again undertook stones. But all of them were so big and heavy that even the professional athlete could hardly get moving forward them.

«That for a strange entertainment!» – I thought. And suddenly I was so struck that could not constrain involuntary exclamation. There was something improbable: professor Wagner approached a huge fragment of the rock, the size of more human growth, took by the acting keen edge and lifted a fragment with such ease as though it was the piece of a cardboard. Having extended a hand, it began to describe arches this fragment of the rock.

I did not know what to think. Or Wagner had supernatural force… but then – why he could not lift stones small rather, or… I did not manage to finish thinking about the thought as new focus of Wagner struck me even more.

Wagner threw a block up as a small stone, and it departed, having risen by height of two tens meters. With nervousness I expected as this block on the earth will bang. But the fragment fell back quite slowly. I counted ten seconds before the block fell down. And, when it was above the ground on the ball human growth, Wagner held up a hand, caught and held a block, and his hand did not even tremble.

– Huo-ho-ho! – cheerfully Wagner burst out laughing with the Basque and far flung away from himself a block. It, having flown by some time parallel to the earth, suddenly abruptly changed the line of flight on steep, quickly fell and with a terrible roar scattered in pieces. – Huo-ho-ho! – again Wagner burst out laughing and made an extraordinary jump. Having risen meter by four, it flew by along the platform in my party. He, obviously, did not calculate a jump as with it the same story, as happened to a block: unexpectedly it began to fall quickly. And if not a slope where it fell, Wagner probably расшибся to death. It fell near me, on other side of a juniper bush, moaned and swore, having grasped a knee. Having stroked the hurt place, he made attempt to rise and again moaned.

After some fluctuation I decided to find the presence and to give it the help.

– You very much расшиблись? Whether not to help you? – I asked, leaving a bush.

Apparently, my emergence did not surprise professor. At least, he showed nothing him.

– No, I thank you – he quietly answered – I will reach. – And he made new attempt to rise. His face was distorted from pain. He even leaned back back. The leg in a knee quickly swelled. It was obvious that not to do it without assistance.

And I began to act resolutely.

– Idemte, until pain weakened you even more – I told and lifted him. It obeyed. At each movement the sore leg inflicted on it suffering. We slowly climbed a steep slope. I almost carried Wagner on myself and itself was exhausted under weight of his quite heavy body. But at the same time I was extremely happy that I thus had an opportunity not only to uvidat, but also to get acquainted with professor Wagner, to visit his dwelling. However, maybe, having reached a gate, he will thank me and will not let in to himself? This thought disturbed me when we approached a high fence of its giving. But he told nothing, and we crossed treasured line – hardly he could say yes something. To it it was absolutely bad. From pain and concussion he almost fainted. I fell for fatigue too. And still, before entering it into the house, I managed to dart through a shoulder an inquisitive glance at the yard.

The yard was quite extensive. In the middle there was some device similar to the device Moraine. In the depth of the yard, in the earth, some big, laid by thick glass round opening was seen. Around this opening, the metal arches which were from each other at half a meter distance acted from it to the house and in several directions from the earth.

Any more I managed to consider nothing. Towards to us the house left the scared elderly woman in black – his housekeeper as I learned then.

We put professor Wagner to bed.