Alice: The Girl From Earth - Булычев Кир - Страница 56

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“I’ll be going with the Captains.”

“But we’re heading for the next Galaxy. That’s a long and difficult flight.”

“Don’t argue with me.” Ella snapped back decisively. “I’ve come to my decision. We’re not going to be separated from each other for so long.”

“But what about the children?” The First Captain asked.

“The children will stay with their grandmother. She doesn’t dance at the Bolshoy Theater every day. She can take them out of Kindergarten on Saturdays and Sundays.”

The First Captain was beginning to look rather embarrassed in front of his friends.

The Second Captain inclined his head as a sign of agreement.

The Third Captain signified the same by raising one of his six arms.

“Don’t forget,” Ella told me, rather clearly having no doubts that she would be able to convince the three men of her plans, “You promised me you’d find the living planet. And I will bring you the most remarkable animal we encounter at Andromeda.”

The Pegasus was the first of the ships to leave the Moon. We were in a hurry because it was best if the animals could be transferred as soon as possible into permanent recreations of their home environments. The Captains and Ella accompanied us to the ship and wished us a pleasant voyage. The Pegasus rose on its thrusters over the airless surface of the Moon and set course for Earth.

I hurried to the cargo bays to see for myself how our animals were feeling. Most of the cages we had brought out from Earth were unused. There really weren’t all that many animals. The cage that had housed the pirate Ratty was empty as well. We had landed him and his two followers on one of the planets where they had caused so much trouble. Presumably they would know how to punish the pirate properly.

I fed the Skliss the last handful of grain. The skliss pressed his side to the bars so I could groom him.

Alice came into the hold. Behind her the wanderbushes seminili verenicei.

“So,” I asked, “what are you going to tell them at school?”

“Do I really have to tell them everything?” Alice shrugged her shoulders. “There’s no way they would believe it all.”

She picked up the mop and started to help me clean the cages.

“Yes,” I agreed. Who would believe it all?.

“You’re not satisfied with the expedition?” Alice asked. “Didn’t we get enough animals?”

“No, word of honor, I’m quite satisfied. We’ve made new friends and what new friends!”

“That’s great!” Alice hugged me. “You know, the Captains promised to take me to the other Galaxy. No, don’t worry, not on their first trip, but later, when I’m grown a little.”

“What can I say,” I said, “except ‘Have a Nice Trip.’“

“Don’t be worried, Papa, we’ll most likely be taking you along too. Biologists are always needed on an expedition.

“Thanks, Alice. You’re a true friend.”

Together the two of us finished cleaning the cages and feeding all the animals so that when we landed on Earth everything would be ship shape.

Alice was born on November 17th. It’s a successful day for such an event. It could have been far worse. I, for example, know someone who was born on January First, with the result that no one ever gave im a special birthday celebration because everyone was busy with New Years. It has to be bad for anyone born in the summer. All your friends are either away on vacation or trips; Alice has never had that trouble.

Just a week before Alice’s birthday I, coming home from the Zoo, started to think: What shall I get her? It is always a problem. I have packed away at home seven identical neckties, six holographic dancing ballerinas and ballerinas carved from wood carved out of roots and knots, three inflatable submarines, fourteen atomic powered lighters, a set of tin Eifel towers all of six inches high, and a multitude of other unnecessary things which you receive on your birthday and which you quite carefully hide away: five blue porcelain cups marked Mars Exposition 2070, an ash tray in the form of a ship of the star wraiths — as well as more such ash trays than one could possibly use.

I was sitting and remembering what Alice asked me back in September. She had asked for something. Something she needed. Back then I wanted to think about it more. And I forgot.

Then the videophone rang.

I pressed the ACCEPT button. On the screen appeared a set of seven eyes arranged in a fan shape above a rounded snout, below the nose the shark-tooth filled muzzle of my oldest and dearest friend, the off-world archaeologist Gromozeka, from the planet Chumaroz. Gromozeka was twice as large as an average human being, he had ten tentacles, seven eyes, a plate of bone armor on his chest and three wonderful, rather confused hearts.

“Professor,” He said. “It is quite unnecessary to burst into tears on seeing my visage. In but ten minutes I shall be at your home and will clutch you to my very own chest.”

“Gromozeka!” I just managed to say the one word when the screen at the other end turned off and my friend vanished. “Alice!” I shouted. “Gromozeka’s coming!”

Alice was doing her homework in the next room; she was delighted to tear herself away from it and come running into my office. A wanderbush came rolling in after her. We had brought it back from our last expedition. The bush was spoilt and demanded it be watered only with fruit juice, with the result that the floors of our house remained slippery puddles and our house robot spent his days grumbling, wiping up after the capricious plant.

“I remember him.” Alice said. “We saw Gromozeka on the Moon last year. What’s he digging up now?”

“Some dead planet or other.” I said. “They found ruins of cities. I saw it on NewsNet.”

Gromozeka leads an adventurous and peripatetic existence. In general, the inhabitants of the planet Chumaroz love nothing better than to sit at home. But you can’t have a rule without exceptions to it. Over the course of his life Gromozeka had gone to more planets than thousands of his conspecifics.

“Alice,” I said. “What should I get you for your birthday?”

Alice patted the bush on its leaves and answered thoughtfully.

“That’s a really serious question, Dad. I have to think on it. Just don’t go off and chose something without asking me. You might get me something I don’t need.”

And at that moment the house’s entry door flew open and the floor shuddered beneath the weight of my guest. Gromozeka rolled into the office, gawked with his enormous maw that was filled from end to end with shark’s teeth, and shouted from the threshold:

“I am here at last, my priceless friends! Straight from the space port to you. I am exhausted and about to go to sleep. Find me a wide enough space on your floor for a bed and cover me with a rug, and wake me in twelve hours.”

Then he caught sight of Alice and started to howl even louder:

“Female child! Daughter of my friend! How you have grown! Just how old are you now?”

“I’ll be ten next week.” Alice said. “I shall be embarking upon the second decade of my life.”

“Just right now we were trying to decide on her birth day present.” I said.

“And what have you chosen?

“Nothing, yet.”

“Shameful!” Gromozeka said. He lowered himself down on the floor on his bottom tentacles like an upside down flower, to take his load off them. “If I was the one who had such a fine female progeny I would celebrate her birthday for a full week and give her a whole planet.”

“All well and good.” I said. “Especially when one takes into consideration that a year on Chumaroz is longer than seventeen Earth years, and a week stretches for four terrestrial months.”

“As always, Professor, you succeed in quashing the mood.” Gromozeka was annoyed. “And have you found any Ex-Lax? Only the undiluted stuff. My thirst is terrible.”

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