Исай Лукодьянов - The Black Pillar

Will shook his head. "Only an atom bomb, I think." "Look here…"

They did not even have the strength to talk. They lay panting in their deckchairs, sweat pouring from them; and evening was still a long way off.

On the verandah of the messroom sat the riggers-half-naked. The multilingual conversation waxed and waned. For the tenth time Chulkov was telling how the pillar had pulled him and what would have happened if Jim hadn't grabbed him in time. And Jim was sitting on the verandah step, plucked a banjo in melancholy fashion and crooned in a hoarse voice:

"Oh Susanna, oh don't you cry for me,

For I've come from Alabama

With a banjo on my knee."

"What's happening?" Chulkov was saying in his quick way of speaking.

"I'm not magnetized, yet, that bastard's pulling me. It's pulling and I can't help myself. In a minute I think I'll fall on it-and curtains."

"Curtains," the Americans and the Romanian nodded in agreement. "A magneto."

"That's it!" Chulkov spread his arms out to show how he was approaching the pillar. "It was pulling me, the bitch. A good thing Jim got hold of me and held me. Otherwise-it was all U.P."

"U.P." nodded the riggers.

"Oh Susanna," sighed the banjo.

"Jim held on to Chulkov," explained Gheorghi. "I held on to Jim, so…" and Gheorghi demonstrated how he had held Jim. "Engineer Kravtsov held on to me…"

"In other words, granddad pulled the turnip, granny pulled granddad…"

"Then Ali-Ovsad held on to him!"

"Ali-Offside," repeated the riggers deferentially.

"It'll soon reach the moon," said Chulkov. "What the devil are the engineers waiting for? It'll reach the moon and then they won't know what to do."

The stocky Texan with the bandana started telling them how eight years previously, when he was a kid on a whaler, he had seen a sea-serpent half-a-mile long with his own eyes.

Hair-raising yarns followed. The riggers- strange as it seems-understood one another perfectly.

Evening fell over the ocean, but it got no cooler. In fact it got hotter still. The flood-lit steam-enveloped pillar looked like a fantastic waterspout that had leaped out of the sea and was rushing up and up for ever.

The men were powerless to stop this upward rush. They huddled close to the sides of the floating island, gulping down the close scorching air. Waves splashed down below, but they were hot as well-no refreshing oneself there.

Bramulla lay in a deckchair and gazed at the blue-black expanse of the ocean. His lips moved slightly; "Madonna! Madonna!" he breathed. By his side, motionless as a statue, stood Stamm, now wearing only trunks. He was wheezing, and was ashamed of his thin white legs.

The diesel-electric vessel "Fukuoka Maru"-the duty ship of the IGY-arrived about midnight, and hove to about a mile to the north-west of the rig. Her lights promised speedy deliverance from the terrible heat.

The freight and passenger lifts carried the men down from the upper deck of the rig to the landing stage. The crowd of half-naked men with rucksacks, suitcases, and travelling-bags made a strange sight in the brightly light. The steel decking vibrated under them. Their wet backs and shoulders and sweating, unshaven faces gleamed. Someone went down the ladder, touched the water with his bare foot, and clambered back again, swearing.

At last a white launch arrived from the "Fukuoka Maru". Smart sailors threw a gangway across, and immediately a slender fair-haired woman in light slacks and a blue sweater ran across it to the landing stage. Those standing at the edge jumped aside; they'd expected anything but that.

"Oh, don't worry!" said the woman in English, taking a cinecamera from her shoulder. "Heavens! How hot it is! Which of you is Doctor Bramulla?"

Bramulla, in his immense blue shorts, gave an embarrassed cough.

"Senora, a thousand pardons…"

"Oh, nonsense!" The woman levelled her camera and it began to whirl.

The Chilean waved his arms in protest and stepped back. Stamm slipped in among the crowd and started feverishly unpacking his suitcase, pulling out trousers and a shirt.

"Who's that?" Kravtsov asked Will in surprise. ''Is she a reporter?"

Will gave no answer, but watched the blonde with an expression close to hostility in his half-closed blue eyes. And indeed-what the devil was this woman doing there? Kravtsov turned his back on the lens of her camera.

The woman held out her hand to Bramulla.

"Norma Hampton of the 'Daily Telegraph'," she said. "How terribly hot it is! Doctor Bramulla, could you tell me…,"

"No, Senora, no! Whenever you like, but not now, please! Excuse me, Senora!" Bramulla turned to a young Japanese in white uniform who had followed Norma Hampton on to the landing-stage and was patiently awaiting his turn. "Are you the captain of the 'Fukuoka Maru'?"

"The mate, sir." The Japanese touched his cap. '"How many men can your launch carry?" "Twenty, sir."

"There are fifty-three of us. Will you be able to carry everybody over in two journeys?"

"Yes, sir, but without luggage, of course. We'll make a third time for the luggage."

Kravtsov left on the second trip. He stood in the stern of the launch and watched the huge floating island receding in the distance. The lights aloft had been extinguished and only the deserted landing stage was illuminated.

So that was how his watch on the ocean had ended! To all intents and purposes, there was nothing left for him to do here. He could return home at the first opportunity. The devil! What happiness-to see Marina, Vovka, and Mother! Vovka was running about already; who'd have believed it-he's only a year old, the little monkey! To stroll about Moscow and plunge into the thick of life there! It was autumn in Moscow now, and raining-oh! Lovely cool rain!

Let the scientists stop here and puzzle things out; he'd had enough.

Kravtsov saw the whitish steam swirling round the pillar; then the rig was swallowed up in the darkness and there was nothing, except the landing stage, showing up like a bright patch, to be seen.

He heard the cracked voice of the blonde reporter:

"The world press is awaiting you on board, Doctor Bramulla, so you'd better get ready for the attack. My colleagues wanted to go on the launch as well, but the captain didn't let them- he only made an exception for me. The Japanese are as gallant as the French. But why doesn't that pillar break?"

"I've told you already, Senora-we don't know anything about the substance of the mantle of the earth. Don't you see, the enormous pressure and high temperatures transform…"

"Yes, I know, you told me. But our readers are interested to know whether it can go on rising for ever."

"Senora," said Bramulla, still patiently trying to beat off the attack. "Believe me, I wish I knew myself."

The white hull of the motor vessel shone with lights. The launch raced in to the ladder and the "islanders" climbed up one after the other. As they stepped on to the upper deck of the "Fukuoka" they were dazzled by the press photographers' flashlights. The world press had rushed to the attack.

"Gentlemen of the press," a high-pitched voice was heard. "I appeal to you to wait. These men need rest. Tomorrow at six p. m. there will be a press conference. Goodnight, gentlemen."

Kravtsov, who was surrounded by a number of reporters, glanced up gratefully at the speaker- an elderly wrinkled Japanese in a grey suit.

A courteous steward took Kravtsov to his cabin and explained in broken English that the bathroom was at the end of the corridor.

"O.K." said Kravtsov and flung himself on the narrow bunk, stretching himself luxuriously. "Here!" he called to the steward. "Do you know where engineer McPherson has been accommodated?"

"Yes, sir." The steward took a sheet of paper from his pocket and looked at it. "Cabin 27. On this side, sir. Two cabins away from you."