“It is stopping! It is stopping!”

Indeed, the sphere was no longer approaching; this huge flaming bubble wavered, to and fro, making a few attempts to break away, and finally became congealed on the spot.

Deriugin felt that hot tears burst out on his eyes.

“Devil take it! It is a victory just the same! Although temporary and shaky, still, it is a victory! This- accursed human scourge was imprisoned after all!”

SUDDENLY darkness set in — as if a blanket of gray-had covered up the turbid sky. Deriugin turned his head back over his shoulders and fell into a tremor; half of the horizon from south-east was enveloped irk utter darkness; a lace-like black cloud spreading all the way from the volcano, blotted out the sun. In proportion thereof, the fiery sphere in the front shone brighter and lighter. From above fell heavy flocks of gray dust. The animal instinct enslaved his heart and filled up the body with wizened imbecility.

Someone clutched Deriugin’s arm again. The chief mechanic, whose face was disfigured with horror, pointed to the East and shouted hoarsely:

“The wind, the wind, Santa Madonna!!”

Indeed, from the northwest the wind bore clouds of sand, heaps of ashes, dry grass and twirled them into pillars of whirlwinds from right and left. The fiery sphere shuddered under the blows, rocked and sighed: then, making two attempts to free itself, it suddenly gave an enormous leap toward the southern end of the enclosed circle. On the platforms of the tractors little fires — began to jump restlessly, signalizing the new formation. But it was too late. Cut up by the hurricane, the atomic vortex within a few seconds flew past the distance between the line of magnets and, enveloping in a flaming shroud the nearest of them, took itself off into the booming and rumbling darkness.

For several minutes the tractors tossed about confusedly like a herd of awkward turtles. Then, they stretched out in three lines and thundering and clanking with the metals, they took up the chase. Meanwhile, the darkness continued to spread, blanketing more than half of the sky The wild chase continued for fifteen minutes. The fiery trail of the whirl disappeared completely in the blinding darkness which now had enveloped the full horizon. A torrent of rain poured clown, mixed with dirt and ashes. To continue, was both absurd and impossible. Deriugin sat apathetically in his place, his arms crossed on his chest and his eyes shut, completely crushed by the enraged elements. Indolently his thoughts roved in his head, stopping at nothing. Thus passed half an hour.

Then it appeared as if the Earth had heaved a heavy sigh from its depths and quaked all the way down to its bottomless abyss. A shuddering, incredible roar devoured everything else and was precipitated in rumblings of sounds upon the trembling darkness. A giant fiery pillar grew up in measureless height, as if the Earth’s womb had belched out its contents into heaven. A hot wave of heat smote Deriugin and he lost his. conscience.

When he recovered, he found himself in one of Rome’s hospitals amid tens of thousands of wounded, maimed and half-crazed people who had escaped death during the unusual catastrophe which had befallen their unfortunate country.

He could not conceive for a long time what had happened. The events resembled too much the nightmares of a sick brain. But here’s what happened: The earthquake in Campagna ended with such a colossal eruption, that it could be compared only with the catastrophe on the Krakatao Island in the Strait of Sunda, in 1883. Three consecutive subterranean shocks discharged from the crater of Vesuvius incredible amounts of glowing lava, pumice and ashes.

The power of explosion was of such nature, that the air-wave produced by it, was impelled into the upper layers of the atmosphere. These were the shocks that impressed themselves uppermost in Deriugin’s mind. All the cities and villages within and about 100–150 kilometers around the center of the catastrophe were either destroyed by subterranean shocks and hurricanes, or buried under the layers of ashes and liquefied rock dirt. The coast was inundated by a huge wave swept upon it from the sea. The number of killed was not yet known, but it was estimated to exceed several hundred thousands.

But together with that, in the general chaos of destruction, disappeared the atomic vortex. It was difficult, however, to say with any degree of certainty what had happened to it, but the postulate forwarded by Professor Umbero Medona, of the Bologna University, was accepted as plausible and logical.

Apparently, the fiery sphere fell into a cyclone formed about Vesuvius, owing to the rising currents of air above the crater. Attracted by it, the sphere tore out of the ring of engines and sped away along the wide spiral toward the center of the tornado, and at the moment it reached the crater, the main explosion occurred, ejecting the atomic vortex together with the ether wave out of the bounds of the Earth’s atmosphere. Opinions were current to the effect that such coincidence was not of common nature, but was caused by a chain of phenomena. Yet, to prove that this was so, was a thing beyond possibility.

At any rate, the Earth rid itself of the dreadful menace albeit at a dreadful price. Eitel Flinder suddenly disappeared from Genoa, but, in all probability met his death in the catastrophe that buried the beautiful Campagna.

Владимир Орловский родился 28 июня 1889 г. в г. Луков (ныне — Польша) в семье военного ветеринарного врача. В 1907 г. окончил кадетский корпус, в 1910 — артиллерийское военное училище в Петербурге. До начала войны 1914 г. состоял слушателем Николаевской Инженерной академии. В 1910–1913 гг. проходил службу в Варшаве, причем «романтическая история довольно запутанного характера» едва не привела молодого подпоручика к гибели в связи с попыткой самоубийства. К слову сказать, ровно через десять лет он еще раз попытается покончить счеты с жизнью, причиной тому послужит страшная нужда и голод…

С 1914 по 1917 — на фронте. В октябре 1917 г. вызван в Петроград для продолжения курсов Академии. В 1919 г. получил назначение в 9-ю армию Южного фронта, где дослужился до поста начальника инженерной службы армии Южного фронта. Позже, в автобиографическом очерке, он лаконично и предельно честно напишет: «За время войны утвердился окончательно в отвращении к этому страшному делу, с которым пришлось столкнуться вплотную на позициях».

В 1920 г., сразу после окончания боевых действий, военный инженер Грушвицкий демобилизовался (в 1922 г. перебрался с семьей в Петроград) и перешел в учебное ведомство, где преподавал физику и химию. Одновременно учился на физико- математическом факультете Ленинградского Государственного университета, учебу в котором успешно окончил в конце 20-х гг.

Стал профессором Ленинградского Фармацевтического института. Там же с 1939 по 1942 гг. возглавлял кафедру неорганической химии. Профессор В. Е. Грушвицкий является автором научных и научно-популярных статей и работ по химии.

Умер в январе 1942 г. в блокадном Ленинграде.

Если говорить о делах литературных, то сам писатель с определенной долей самоиронии вспоминал, как будучи юнкером написал «фантазию, навеянную Андреевскими страхами», но, получив вежливый отказ в редакции, был столь огорчен, что на целых пятнадцать лет забросил сочинительство. Однако удачный дебют все же состоялся — в 1925 г. Тогда ленинградское издательство «Прибой» публикует его научно-фантастическую повесть «Машина ужаса». Всего написано Владимиром Орловским (именно под этим псевдонимом писатель стал известен) немного: роман, повесть и ряд рассказов.