Ignat, Jim and Doronin hurried to make fire at the edges of a glade. There was a fresh night. Boughs crackled. Smelled of the burning needles and dampness of the wood. Fires lit a wall of the larches surrounding a glade.

Suddenly Ignat uvidat the blue spark flashing between trunks. The same minute noise of the airplane was heard. It roamed over a glade and decreased in ten meters from travelers.

– Too quite good landing – Doronin approvingly told.

– If to look, in this taiga, it appears, not so there are not enough people – Jim was surprised.

– I said to you that we everywhere houses – Ignat responded.

The pilot left a pilot’s cabin, examined a glade and

shook the head. Doronin understood it: it is hard to sit down, but it is even more difficult to fly up from this glade. Any minute – you “will hit” in a tree and you will break.

People with lamps approached from the wood. One of them was the bearded man of years for fifty, similar to the old taiga hunter, another – young, almost the young man. Both of them were in leather suits.

Got acquainted. Young it was the captain, and bearded – the navigator of mysterious “Taiga”. Ignat could not wait to find out that it, at last, for the ship. But at first it was necessary to resolve more important issues. The arrived pilot suggested to take Semenov to hospital, instead of Semenov other pilot can conduct the airplane, but Semenov declared that he can entrust nobody the car. He was sure that he in a day or two will recover and will depart further. Not to concern the patient, he was not objected.

With the first beams of the sun Semenov was transferred to the sanitary plane. Doronin helped to examine motors. The car was dragged on edge of a glade. The plane rose, the abrupt bend made, shook and was behind the wood. Whether it will be leveled?. – with nervousness Doronin thought, listening to sounds. But motors rolled exactly, sounds were removed. The plane became visible already at big height soon. Having made a semicircle, it took on the South.

– Kind way, companion! – Doronin shouted it is experienced as if Semenov could hear him.

– We go, perhaps? – Foma told.

4. Taiga ship

The captain, the navigator, Jim and Ignat, having said goodbye to Doronin, went to the wood.

– Telephone us if bears attack you! – Ignat shouted, turning around, and smiled.

– For myself I am not afraid – Doronin answered. – In a cabin I will not be got. And I have a weapon. However and you remind of yourself.

Travelers went deep into the wood. Smells of a Labrador tea, needles, the earth. Slanting beams of the sun light bloody spots of leaves of a buckthorn. The captain glances at a compass, but Foma Gruzdev has compasses: he looks at boughs of trees, at trunks, on a grass and there is more surely, than Simakov armed with a compass.

At last travelers got out to a big glade. The first that they saw here, there was a kite of an extraordinary form soaring highly over the wood. Judging by height, it had to be a huge construction! – something like the cylinder thirty meters long cut on two half along a big axis. On each side the cylinder – two semicircular planes turned by the rounded edges back; under the cylinder – the platform and on it the box. Behind “dragon” – a huge tail from several funnels connected by a cable. On the lower platform under the cylinder two human figures pottered about.

– It appears, your “Taiga” – the air ship? – Ignat told, addressing Simakov.

– No, “Taiga” – not the air ship – objected the captain. – What you see is only a high-rise electropower plant of “Taiga”. Our “Taiga” carries for itself the flying power plant attached on a steel rope.

– But what represents the ship? – impatiently Ignat asked.

– You will see it soon – the captain quietly answered.

Travelers passed many forest glades, so far, at last, came to a wide forest glade. This glade had an unusual appearance. Low cut trees – it is so low that stubs above the ground were not visible, lay on both sides of a glade as a mowed grass. Over a glade already far behind travelers loomed in the sky of “snakes”, at the end of a glade travelers saw a high pipe, and then and the huge black construction which occupied with the hulk all glade and rising dark weight level with tops of trees. Over the case of this overland dreadnought pipes were seen. The average pipe was wider and nearly above a factory pipe. It was also seen by them still published. Other pipes were much lower. The whole web of delays strengthened them. On “nose” and “stern” masts rose: obviously, radio station. Any pipe did not smoke. In the case of “ship” round windows were seen.

Travelers approached from a stern and therefore could not define a form and length of this extraordinary ship. It seemed, it stood directly on the earth. And having only approached closely, they could examine “Taiga”. The case of the ship reminded the submarine case. But by the sizes it was the real ship to three floors. On a nose the captain’s cabin with a searchlight over it towered. Ahead of it, lower – three propellers, and one propeller aft. The ship was based upon the wide platforms having the wheels skating rinks reminding skating rinks of road trambovochny cars. Below, under a window, there were closed hatches and exit doors. Several ladders conducted on the main deck.

– There now and “Taiga” – Simakov told. – It is the all-terrain vehicle adapted for long expeditions on a taiga and the tundra at any climatic conditions and at all times years. You still will manage to get acquainted in detail with it, and now to an idemta to have breakfast. All of us got hungry enough. And does not prevent to have a rest. We almost did not sleep this night.

After the captain all climbed a ladder on the deck. At the end of her Ignat noticed peacefully lying “Dragonfly”. She took very few place and reminded the dozing insect.

– How are you, captain? – Ignat someone’s cracked басок heard. Near an average pipe there was a thin suntanned young man. It was the mechanic Alexey Zhukov. His hands were soiled with oil.

– Everything is all right – Simakov answered on the run. – Here, brought guests, we will have breakfast. And at you as?

– Oll-rayt – Zhukov answered.

– Oll-rayt – Jim repeated and smiled. Guests got acquainted with Zhukov.

All went down in the saloon which was on average the floor, the capacious room with a high ceiling. The path from linoleum of cream color divided the room into two half. On both sides there were tables laid by pure cloths. On a ceiling – opaque lamps. In a corner – black диглг a loudspeaker. At a wall – the screen. Between little tables – in oak kegs bushes of the blossoming oleanders. Everything shone and sparkled purity.

– Here it is pleasant to me – Jim told. – Here what miracles hide the impassable Soviet woods!

The woman in a white dressing gown brought the smoking breakfast. Ignat pushed Jim and said in low tones:

– Look and it is the doctor who arrived to us.

Simakov burst out laughing and told, addressing Dubrovina:

– Marianna Ivanovna! Our guests are surprised that you today for the waitress.

– Ourselves serve ourselves – having greeted guests, Dubrovina told. – We have no patients, I have more time, than at others, here I also manage. Eat properly. The lunch will be late.

Jim and Ignat obeyed a good advice and have densely breakfast. Having sated, Ignat addressed the captain:

– Well, tell me in more detail about the ship.

5. The inventor tells

Our country was faced by a grandiose task: up to the end to discover Siberia with its inexhaustible power sources and natural wealth. The North is impassable. The seas are barricaded by ices. The Arctic is cut off by vast spaces of the tundra, a taiga, the woods, as impassable as ices of the polar seas. Ices are already punched by our ice breakers. And the woods remained impassable because we had no forest “ice breaker”. Came it is time to be accepted also to the woods. The grid of squares was imposed on vast “free” spaces – at first only on the card, and each square – each kilometer in this square – had to undergo careful inspection: geological, geochemical, botanical, hydrological. Unless this task can be resolved quickly horse draft and pedestrian circulation? The question of vehicles in a taiga demanded bystreyshy permission. Air traffic is good as means of bystry communication, but for the prospecting parties loaded with any tools, supplies, samples of ores and we designate, something was necessary other. It was necessary to construct the ship all-terrain vehicle which could overcome easily off road terrain, contain in itself all prospecting party, tools, food stocks for long months. The ship which would be both “car”, and “house”, and the marching laboratory which is very decently equipped. And I thought several years of a design of such all-terrain vehicle. Then we began to work as inventive crew at the Chelyabinsk plant.

Tens of projects were rejected by the Chelyabinsk committee of society of inventors, a little – the center. But, eventually, the project was approved and the means are allotted for construction. Two more years left on construction and experiences. Our ship all-terrain vehicle was born. It came to maintaining the Ural branch Academies of Sciences and academic council for studying of productive forces. This council developed the plan and a route of our first, skilled expedition. We are engaged in research of minerals, we study forest riches, in passing we do glades, we conduct meteorecords and many other things. Daily we report on radio official reports about our works.

Whether “Taiga” justifies the appointment? Ours child, alas, very much and very imperfectly. It is necessary to bring improvements a lot, but generally we as though resolved a task. We can make researches throughout all year, despite frosts, a snowstorm, polar night. It means, rates of development of the North at least treble.

Jim clapped the hands.

– Very well. Oll-rayt! – he exclaimed.

Simakov continued:

– We needed to overcome two main difficulties. The first – power. To move such large object as “Taiga”, it is necessary to have engines in many thousands of horsepowers. To arrange such zhyulvernovsky “steam house”? For forest area where fuel can be taken on the place – all right; but what you will order to do in the naked tundra where neither a tree, nor a bush, nor a blade? To take a coal reserve for several months? – It is impossible. Besides that the ship would “be inflated” many times over, it would become even heavier, and it should “float” on swamps, on dirt, on hummocks. It would get stuck. Liquid fuel not much more would improve situation.

– Accumulators? – Ignat asked.

– Thought also of them. But even the newest “electric canned food” nevertheless would not provide with energy for many months this steel monster.

And we decided to use wind, having created the wind station. It is a kite. It can be started on 500 meters and runs faultlessly. In local latitudes at such height wind blows steadily. But energy of a dragon is not enough. And we put air turbines – vindrotor. They work not so smoothly, but nevertheless give us a lot of energy. At last… you saw an average pipe of huge height? All its device is very simple. Outside of any mobile parts. Only one tower-shaped cylindrical pipe like a chimney from sheet iron is visible. On the top end, at some distance, it is surrounded with the short cylinder. This external ring is supported from below by very narrow edges. The lower end of a high pipe is open. And here, under whatever corner wind blew, the result will be same: in a cylindrical tower the vertical stream of air is created. In other words, the wind which is constantly changing the direction and force turns into almost constant air stream here. Speed changes, but the direction – up a pipe – remains invariable. At the lower basis of a wind tower horizontally lying turbine is installed. Such device provides easy access to the cars protected at the same time from all influences of bad weather.

– And for what these small pipes? – Ignat asked.

– The principle of their work is also simple. The cylinder is cut in half, and halves are put horizontally on a basic disk in such a way that edges of one half come for edge another; between them – an interval. Air also gets to this crack. It twirls a rotor, the rotor sets a dynamo in motion.

– And cumulative energy of all these installations is enough to supply the air ship with energy?

– Yes and no. As I told, one high-rise station has not enough. Below wind nevertheless blows changeably. And when “Taiga” goes the continuous wood, below absolutely quietly. And we had to call to the aid one more invention – system of “accumulators” for wind installations of Ufimtsev. In short words, business is as follows.

Wind – gratuitous energy, which everywhere at hand. But all misfortune is that wind – whimsical elements. It blows, ceases to blow, wind force also changes continuously. Hundreds were offered if not thousands of witty projects of advanced wind-driven generators. But inventors, scientists not “got at the root”, did not set the task to fight against the main lack of wind turbines – inconstancy of their work.

Wind force as I already told, changes often. Even for one minute it is changeable. How to level these minutes of inequality? The accumulator, so-called inertial and kinetic is created. Simply speaking, it is an advanced swing wheel in which inertia force develops. It moves and therefore it is “kinetic”. In it the inertia force and therefore it is “inertial” is used. In order that in him there was less friction and a maximum of useful effect, it was placed in a special case from which air is extorted or which is filled with hydrogen. Wind blows – the flywheel spins. Wind ceased to blow, and the flywheel still spins several minutes, continuing to give the reserved energy. The wind power “jumping” for minutes is a little leveled, and minute breaks in energy supply are eliminated.

But 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.