Even with my unaided eye I saw the hood of the autoclave unscrew itself and fall soundlessly into the snow. A long jet of steam shot up out of the autoclave, all the way to the stars.
“Allow me to elucidate for the press—” Vybegallo began, when suddenly there was a hideous bellow.
The ground shifted and began to tremble. An immense cloud of snow flew up into the air. Everyone fell on top of everyone else and I was thrown over and sent rolling. The bellowing kept growing louder, and when I managed to clamber to my feet by clutching at the caterpillar tracks of the truck, I saw the edge of the horizon creeping toward me horrifyingly, like the rim of a gigantic chalice in the dead light of the moon, folding over and in on itself, the armored shields swaying menacingly, onlookers scattering and running, falling and jumping up again, covered in snow. I saw Fyodor Simeonovich and Cristóbal Junta, standing under the rainbow hoods of a defensive field, stagger back under the impact of the hurricane as they raised their hands, struggling to extend the protection over all the others, but the whirlwind ripped their defenses to shreds, and the shreds went hurtling off across the plain, like huge soap bubbles, and then burst in the starry sky. I saw the raised collar of Janus Polyeuctovich, who was standing with his back to the wind and his cane firmly braced against the denuded earth, looking at his watch. And now where the autoclave had been there was a dense, swirling cloud of steam lit with a red light from within, and the horizon was curling back in on itself tighter and tighter, and we all seemed to be on the bottom of a colossal jug.
And then suddenly, right beside the epicenter of this cosmic outrage, there was Roman with his green coat almost torn off his shoulders by the wind. He swung his arm out wide and tossed something large that glinted like a bottle into the steam, then immediately fell flat on his face, covering his head with his hands. The ugly features of a genie, contorted in frenzied rage, appeared out of the cloud, his eyes rolling in silent fury. Opening his jaws in soundless laughter, he flapped his massive, hairy ears, there was a smell of burning, the transparent walls of a magnificent palace flashed above the blizzard, quivered, and collapsed, and the genie, transformed into a long tongue of orange flame, disappeared into the sky. For a few seconds it was quiet, and then the horizon settled back down with a heavy rumbling. I was thrown high into the air, and when I came to I found I was sitting not far from the truck with my hands braced against the ground.
The snow had disappeared. All around us the ground was black. Where the autoclave had stood only a minute ago there was a large gaping crater with white smoke rising out of it. The air was filled with the smell of burning.
The onlookers began getting to their feet, everyone with grimy and contorted faces. Many had lost their voices. They were coughing, spitting, and groaning quietly. They began cleaning themselves off and discovered that some had been left in nothing but their underwear. First there was murmuring, and then shouts: “Where are my pants? Why don’t I have any pants? I was wearing pants!”; “Comrades, has anyone seen my watch?”; “And mine?”; “And mine’s missing too!”; “My platinum tooth’s gone, I only had it put in last summer…”; “Hey, and my ring’s disappeared… And my bracelet!”; “Where’s Vybegallo? This is an outrage! What does it all mean?”; “To hell with the watches and the teeth! Is everybody all right? How many of us were there?”; “But what was it that happened? Some kind of explosion… A genie… And where’s the titan of the mental world?”; “Where’s the consumer?”; “Where’s Vybegallo, come to think of it?”; “Did you see the horizon? Do you know what it was like?”; “A folding of the spatial continuum, I know about these things…”; “I’m cold in this vest, give me something…”; “Where’s that Vybegallo? Where has that fool gone to?”
The earth stirred and Vybegallo climbed out of his trench. His felt boots were gone.
“Allow me to elucidate for the press,” he said hoarsely.
But he wasn’t allowed to elucidate. Magnus Fyodorovich Redkin, who had come especially to find out at last what genuine happiness was, bounded up to him, waving his clenched fists, and howled, “You charlatan! You’ll answer for this! This circus! Where’s my cap? Where’s my fur coat? I’m going to make an official complaint about you! Where’s my cap, I said!”
“In complete conformity with the program of the project,” Vybegallo muttered, gazing around, “our dear titan—”
Fyodor Simeonovich advanced on him: “You, my dear chap, have been hiding your talent in the ground. You ought to reinforce the ranks of the Department of Defensive Magic. Your ideal people should be dropped on enemy bases. To strike terror into the aggressor.”
Vybegallo staggered back, shielding himself with the sleeve of his rough coat. Cristóbal Joséevich approached him, looked him over from head to toe, tossed a pair of soiled gloves at his feet, and walked away. Gian Giacomo, who was hastily creating the appearance of an elegant suit for himself, shouted from a distance, “This is absolutely phenomenal, signore! I have always felt a certain antipathy toward him, but I could never even imagine anything like this…”
At this point G. Pronitsatelny and B. Pitomnik finally grasped the situation. So far they had been smiling uncertainly and gaping at everyone in the hope of understanding something. But now they realized that things were not proceeding “in complete conformity” after all. G. Pronitsatelny walked up to Vybegallo with a firm stride, tapped him on the shoulder, and said in a voice of iron, “Comrade Professor, where can I get my cameras back? Three still cameras and one movie camera.”
“And my wedding ring,” added B. Pitomnik.
“Pardon,” said Vybegallo pompously. “On vous demandera quand on aura besoin de vous.[2] Wait for the explanations.”
The journalists’ courage failed them. Vybegallo turned and walked toward the crater. Roman was already standing at the top of it. “There’s everything you could possibly imagine in here,” he said from afar.
The titanic consumer was not in the crater. But everything else was, and a great deal more besides. There were cameras and movie cameras, wallets, fur coats, rings, necklaces, trousers, and a platinum tooth. Vybegallo’s felt boots were there, and so was Magnus Fyodorovich’s cap. My platinum whistle for summoning the emergency brigade was in there too. And in addition we found two Moskvich automobiles, three Volga automobiles, an iron safe with seals from the local savings bank, a large piece of roasted meat, two crates of vodka, a crate of Zhigulevskoye beer, and an iron bed frame with nickel-plated knobs.
Vybegallo pulled on his felt boots and declared with a condescending smile that now they could proceed with the discussion. “I’ll take questions,” he said. But the discussion never got going. The infuriated Magnus Fyodorovich had called the militia, and young Sergeant Kovalyov came racing up in a little jeep. We all had to give our names as witnesses. Sergeant Kovalyov walked around the crater, trying to discover any traces of the criminal. He found an immense set of false teeth that set him pondering deeply.
Their equipment having been restored to them, the journalists had suddenly begun to see things in a different light and were listening attentively to Vybegallo, who was once again spouting his demagogic trash about unlimited and diversified needs. Things were getting boring and I was freezing.