Alice: The Girl From Earth - Булычев Кир - Страница 19

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• 19/94
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“You’re not in any danger, are you?” Poloskov asked.

“Not at the moment.” I answered.

And at that very moment the nearest bush had yanked on the mop and pulled it out of my hands. The mop flew to the furthest end of the corridor, and the bushes, as though buoyed by my now by my now unarmed state, moved toward me in close order.

At that moment I heard rapid steps approaching from behind.

“Get away, Alice!” I shouted. “Get back this instant! They’re as strong as lions!”

But Alice crawled beneath my legs and threw herself at the bushes.

She had something large and shining in her hands. I tried to grab her as she passed but lost my balance and fell. The last thing I saw was Alice surrounded by the threatening branches of the moving bushes.

“Poloskov!” I shouted. “I need help now!’

And at that very instant the bushes singing stopped! It turned into low humming and a sigh.

I got to my feet and surveyed a picture of absolute tranquility.

Alice was standing in a thicket of bushes and was watering them from a garden can.

The bushes had their leaves turned into little cups, trying not to loose a single drop of moisture, and sighed blissfully.

When we moved the bushes back into the hold we found the broken mop and wiped the floor, and I asked Alice:

“But how did you guess it?”

“It wasn’t all that special, Pop. The bushes are plants, aren’t they? That means they have to be watered. Like carrots. And we did dig them out of the ground, we moved them into plastic pots filled with sand, and we forgot to water them. When Zeleny grabbed me to try and save me, it gave me a chance to think: at home they live right at the edge of a spring. The Third Captain only found them and the water because of their singing, and they only sing when there’s a sand storm coming, that is when the wind is moving and drying out the air and pulls water from the sand. That’s when they’re agitated because they don’t have enough water. “

“Why didn’t you say so immediately?”

“Would you have believed me. You were fighting them like they were tigers. You completely forgot they were just ordinary bushes who have to be watered.”

“Not at all ordinary!” The Engineer Zeleny cut in. “Ordinary bushes do not go hunting for water down the corridors of a space ship!”

Then it was my turn, as the biologist, to have the last word.

“That’s just how these bushes engage in the struggle for existence.” I said. “There’s little water in the desert, the springs dry up periodically, and to stay alive the bushes are forced to move to where the water is.”

Since then the bushes have lived peacefully in their pots of sand. Only one of them, the smallest and least settled in, often pulls its roots out of the pot and lies in wait for us in the corridors of the ship, rustling its branches, singing and asking for water. I asked Alice not to reward the young scamp the roots drip onto the floor but Alice took pity on him and kept bringing him glasses of water. That was really nothing we couldn’t live with, but once she watered him with fruit juice instead of water and now the little bush has become such a pest you can’t walk down the ship without him getting in your way; he traipses around the ship leaving wet root marks behind, stupidly jabbing at people’s legs with his leaves.

There wasn’t a penny’s worth of intelligence in him, but he loves fruit juice more than a million dollars.

“Where to first?” Poloskov asked.

He was examining the space map. The course to Palaputra, where we would find the market in animals, was laid out on it. At the same time a dotted line noted our course toward the Empty Planet described to us by Doctor Verkhovtseff.

“We can always go to Palaputra.” I answered, “But the Empty Planet isn’t noted in a single guide to space. Why not take the risk?”

“But even doctor Verkhovtseff himself said all the animals had vanished. Maybe they all died and we’ll just be wasting our time.”

“And our fuel is getting tight.” Zeleny interjected himself into the conversation. “Whatever else Palaputra has, we can replenish our fuel supplies there. Can we do that on the Empty Planet? We could find ourselves there, out of fuel, and waiting until someone else passes by.”

But we ignored Zeleny. He is simply a pessimist. We were both certain that we had more than enough fuel to last us. He just wanted to be doubly careful.

“So I say,” I said, “Let’s look in on the Empty planet. It’s a mystery, and there’s nothing more interesting on any world than figuring out a mystery.”

So we set course for the Empty Planet.

Unfortunately, after two days’ flight it appeared that Doctor Verkhovtseff’s coordinates had been less than precise. We should have been able to see the star around which this planet orbited after our last jump, but before us was emptiness.

What could we do? We decided to continue on course for yet one more day, and if nothing had changed then, to abandon the search for the planet.

We reached that decision toward evening, before supper, and after supper Zeleny headed for the com center to inform Earth that our flight was proceeding normally and that everything was in order. I followed after Zeleny.

When Zeleny turned on the receiver and listened to Space I liked being there, listening when uninhabited emptiness came alive. We could hear distant ships and bases communicating, ships acknowledging each other and automatic buoys transmitting information from uninhabited planets and asteroids about local conditions, space ‘weather’ reports about meteorite swarms and pulsar stars.

While Zeleny prepared the transmission I flipped the receiver switch.

Suddenly I heard a female voice come in weakly.

“Located in sector 16-2, have noted previously unknown meteorite stream in the Blooke system. In three days time the stream will intersect the Blooke to Fyxx passenger lane. Please advise all ships.”

“We’re right in that sector.” I told Zeleny.

“I heard.” Zeleny answered; he had already jotted the transmission down and begun to enter the information from the unknown ship into the log.

“And since that ship is in our sector, let’s ask it about the Empty Planet.” I said to Zeleny. “It could be we’ve gone off course.”

Zeleny said the ship had to be too far from us to pick us up, that our transmitter would undoubtedly fail, that the woman who was warning of meteors would know less than nothing about the planet, because the planet did not exist, as he grumbled and at the same time twisted the control knobs of the transmitter and, when the unknown ship took our call, he said:

“Starship Pegasus speaking. We are currently in your sector and are headed for the Empty Planet but we can’t even spot the star.”

“Give me your co-ordinates.” The woman’s voice answered. “I’ll recheck it for you.”

We called the bridge and Poloskov gave us the coordinates. We passed them along per instructions.

“It’s all clear.” The woman’s voice answered. “There is a cloud of cosmic dust between you and the star, so of course you can’t see it. Your next jump should take you through the cloud.”

“Enormous thanks.” I said to the unknown ship. “We were given the coordinates of the planet on the Three Captains’ World, but our source was not an astronaut but a museum administrator, and we were afraid he erred.”

“Doctor Verkhovtseff?” Then woman’s voice asked.

“Yes. You know him then?”

“I know him very well.” The woman answered. “He’s a marvelous old man. Simply wonderful. If only we had met earlier; I have a letter to pass on to him but there’s no way I can stop in there. Not for a while. Any chance you will be heading back that way?”

“None.” I answered. “From here we go on to Blooke, to Palaputra. We’re biologists looking for rare animals.”

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• 19/94
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