Alice: The Girl From Earth

by Kir Bulychev

  While he was speaking I saw the Diamond Backed Turtle hurriedly crawling to the lab exit. The little critter had managed to get out of the safe again. I should have run after him, but then I thought it over and realized I would have to pass up the moment when Zeleny removed four years from the mirror flower.

  “How are things going back there.” Poloskov, who was still playing wizard with the metal detection sattelite, spoke over the communicator.

  “Everything’s in order.” I said.

  “Then I’m going on survey myself. I don’t want to let that thing out of my sight. For some reason it’s working unreliably.”

  “When you go in search of the Blue Gull,” I warned him, “don’t forget there could be more than one ship on this planet.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Leave the line open. If anything happens get in touch with his immediately.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “Maybe we’ll have a surprise for your return.”

  “Great. Just remember I like good surprises. Don’t surprise me otherwise.”

  Poloskov departed. We could hear the humming of the surveyor’s drives as it lifted into the air.

  “All ready, Professor!” Zeleny said. “Shall we take the risk?”

  For the third time Zeleny removed a layer from the mirror. This time it was so thick that he could barely hold it in his hands. The flower’s feathery petals were torn away, and all that lay on the table was the almost round, convex, center of the flower, much like a plate.

  It was a long time before the mirror lit up again. It was a very long time since any light had fallen on that surface at all.

  And when, finally, we saw an image, we realized the meadow did not look quite the same as it did now. The circle in the middle, now overgrown with grass, was empty, grey, like the concrete circle of a giant hatch. You could even make out the curving depression in the ground differentiating the circle from the surrounding earth.

  “See!” Alice as overjoyed. “That is the right field!”

  “Be very careful now.” I said. “You don’t want to cut of anything important.”

  “I understand.” Zeleny said. “I’m not a child.”

  But he was unable to make his precise incision. Dappled and very bright, almost transparent from impatience and intense curiosity, the empathicator managed, at the least opportune moment possible, to strike Zeleny’s elbow. The vibroblade slide through the thickest part and cut deep into the mirror. The mirror flower split in two and fell on the floor.

  Out of total shame and embarrassment the empathicator shrank to half its size and started to grow dark. It wanted them to kill it. It rushed around the laboratory, striking the infuriated Zeleny, who tried to catch it, with its stick legs; finally, it threw itself on the floor and turned totally black.

  “Don’t worry.” Alice tried to calm down the misfortunate empathicator. “That could have happened to anyone. We know that you didn’t do anything.”

  She turned to Zeleny, who was still cursing the empathicator out at the top of his lungs, and said:

  “Zeleny, please don’t! The empathicator is so sensitive he could die from embarrassment. And anyway, we have a whole bouquet more.” Alice pointed out. “You said so yourself.”

  “All right.” Zeleny agreed. He was a retiring person and, in general, even tempered. Too bad. We’ve wasted so much time. But in a minute we’ll discover the secret of the Second Captain for certain.”

  The empathicator, on hearing this, shrank down even further.

  Zeleny led the way as we returned to the crew’s lounge. The empathicator danced in following us, still showing almost entirely black, and the vile looking bushes stretched out their branches to trip him so he fell.

  We never even made it to the crew’s lounge. Zeleny stopped in the doorway and just said,

  “Oh!”

  I looked across Zeleny’s shoulder; both vases were overturned on the floor and the flowers were broken, smashed, destroyed by some ill-wishing force. Not a single complete mirror flower remained. Their leaves were scattered about the compartment.

  And unknown to all the blabberyap bird had vanished again.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Spy

  The flowers were destroyed. The Blabberyap bird had vanished. We were back to square one. How could we help the Captain? I reached for the microphone and called Poloskov.

  “Gennady,” I said, “we’ve got a complication. Where are you now, exactly?”

  “Flying over the planet’s north pole. Haven’t seen anything yet. What happened back there?”

  “No time to tell now. In general, we’ve used the mirror flowers to find out what happened here four years ago. Or more precisely, almost. Someone managed to break all the mirrors at just the right moment. We need more mirror flowers. How long would it take you to reach the field?”

  “About twenty minutes.” Poloskov said. “But then I’d still have to decelerate and land.”

  “Then don’t bother about it.” I said. “Continue your flight.”

  “I don’t think so.” Poloskov answered. “I’m returning to the Pegasus now. If someone managed to destroy the flowers it means they’re still on the ship you have enemies right outside. Don’t take any actions without me.”

  “Fine.” I agreed.

  When I put down the microphone Alice said:

  “The faster we get to the field the better.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Isn’t that obvious? To get new flowers. Their secret must be so important…”

  “But…”

  “Let me go there in the flitter.” Zeleny said. “Nothing will happen to me. I’ll dissect down to the year four layer and let you know right away…”

  “I’m with Zeleny.” Alice said.

  “I have no doubt you are!” I snapped back. “But we will wait for Poloskov. He has the landing boat and we can get to the field far faster than in the all terrain vehicle. And the worst thing we could do now would be to split up. And in the mean time we’ll look around and see how anyone could have gotten aboard the Pegasus at all to destroy the mirror flowers.

  I went out into the corridor and headed for the airlock. If the airlock was closed, it meant that our malefactor was still aboard the Pegasus, hiding. If it was open it meant that someone had boarded our ship, performed his odious deed, and ran off. But I did not believe this very much. The perpetrator would have had to have gotten aboard the ship, found his way to our crew’s lounge, just to destroy all the flowers. And how was he able to know to do this while we were all busy looking at the flowers’s layers from four years ago? How could they have guessed? I could not understand this thug was able to hide himself on the ship and had found out we were about to solve the mystery of the Second Captain.

  But who could it have been? Zeleny, Alice and I had all been in the laboratory together. If you ignore the Empathicator… Ah yes, the Empathicator! He had bumped Zeleny’s elbow.

  “No, it couldn’t have been the Empathicator. True, he is a very sensitive creature, but really, he’s must an animal, that’s all he is, no more He can’t even speak. Or perhaps he doesn’t want to.”

  Then I was at the airlock. Booth airlock doors were wide open.

  All my theories came crashing down in tiny shards. There was just now way they could hold together. If I had just bothered to search my memory a little more I would have remembered that the Empathicator had not left us for a second and therefore could not have broken the mirrors in the crew’s lounge.

  The airlock was wide open, and the mysterious malefactor had left our ship, carrying with him our precious Blabberyap bird. Perhaps the very last Blabberyap bird in all Creation.

  The sun beamed down onto the meadow in front of the ship, the bushes were a palette of colors and birds were singing. Peace and contentment. It was even difficult to credit the idea that any very untoward events had occurred here recently.

  I glanced up at the sky? Could that be Poloskov up
there? Poloskov as not due for some time. So high it was right beneath the clouds themselves the Crockadee bird was circling overhead.

  “Help me, Captains!” I suddenly head a familiar voice. “Forward into the breach dear friends, forward!”

  “Where are you, Blabberyap?” I shouted. “Do you need help? I’m coming!”

  “‘The grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men,’“ the voice of the Blabberyap sang from the bushes in the voice of the First Captain, “‘he marched them all up a hill, and marched them down again.’“

  I hurried toward the bird’s voice, pushed aside the bushes and saw the Blabberyap bird. The bird could not fly because hew as holding onto the heavier diamond backed turtle with his front beak. He steadied himself with his feet, wings, and with his free beak he sang songs and called for help.

  “There you are, thank goodness!” I said. “Thank heavens. And here were beginning to get worried that you’d vanished again.”

  The Blabberyap bird proudly fluttered and then carefully folded its wings. It had done its job.

  I picked up the turtle.

  “Smart bird!” I told the Blabberyap. “You saw our prankster was running away, chased after it, caught it and dragged it home. For this you deserve five pieces of sugar tonight, no less.”

  I headed back to the ship. The Blabberyap slowly followed as if on parade, all the time preening mightily.

  “And you, stupid.” I turned to the turtle. “You forgot everything. Who is going to feed you here? Have you forgotten you are a rare animal and belong to the Moscow Zoo? And there is really no where for you to run away to around here…”

  Just then I heard the rustle of wings over my head and in two jumps I had cleared the airlock. I had already learned what the Crockadee sounded like in flight. The Blabberyap Bird made it into the airlock with me and we slammed the door behind us. Then the two of us sat on the floor in front of the lock to catch our breaths, while the Crockadee meanwhile pecked at the sealed airlock door from the outside with its iron beak.

  Alice and Zeleny met us in the corridor. They had become worried at my absence.

  “All’s well that ends well.” I told them. “It turns out our Blabberyap Bird is a genius. It saw that the diamond backed turtle had gone off on a trip all by itself, chased it down, and brought it home. Here, look how frightened the turtle is?”

  The turtle was kicking its legs and trying to break free from my grip.

  “And how did the turtle manage to get outside?” Alice wondered. “The airlocks were closed.”

  “Nothing astonishing about that.” I answered. “The one who broke the mirror flowers opened the airlocks.”

  “And where did they get the ship’s key? And anyway, where is the Pegasus’s electronic key? It was hanging in the crew’s lounge.”

  “This mystery would challenge Sherlock Holmes.” Zeleny said.

  “Oh, I can solve it.” Alice answered. “I know the answer.”

  “Well, what is it you know?”

  “The solution to the mystery is in your hands.”

  I looked at my hands. They were busy holding onto the diamond backed turtle.

  “I don’t get it.” I said.

  “Take a look at what its hiding in its beak.”

  The turtle’s head was pulled up inside the carapace, but the small end of the Pegasus’s electric key was peaking out a little. I pulled on the key. The turtle fought back, holding onto it for dear life, and I was forced to use some strength before I could claim the key back. At that something in the turtle snapped, and its legs rolled out from inside the shell and hung lifelessly.

  “Now that is interesting.” Zeleny said. “Give me the turtle. I’ll take a look and see what sort of song this bird sings.”

  I still didn’t quite understand what exactly was going on, but I passed the dead turtle to the engineer and, perturbed, hung the key back in its spot. Zeleny lay the turtle on the table, pulled a screw driver from inside his jacket, and, having first examined the turtle from all sides, moved the screwdriver to beneath the shell. The shell gave a click, like the roof of a watch case, and flopped to one side, and I got a glimpse of a host of elements: memory cells, atomic batteries. The turtle turned out to be artificial, a manufactured miniature robot.

  “Now we know why the turtle was so agile.” Alice said. “It got about the engine room as much as it wanted and was always tripping us up. Remember, Papa, it was always getting underfoot whenever we talked about really important things.”

  “It’s a technical miracle.” Zeleny said with admiration. “There’s a transmitter here and even a tiny anti-gravity drive.

  “That means that Fat Man knew our every word.” I said.

  “Yes, of course. Fat Man!” Alice remembered. “The turtle was his gift.”

  “And I felt uncomfortable in trying to decline him. He was so insistent on giving it to the Zoo.”

  “Just so long as he didn’t give the Zoo a delayed action bomb.” Zeleny said gloomily. “That’s our enemy on the inside. The turtle transmitted to them what it heard in the lab, that we had found a way to look into the past, and immediately received an order to interfere. Then it broke all the other flowers in the crew’s lounge. And I take it none of you will accept my wager that not a single mirror flower remains intact on the field where they were found. The turtle’s master will have been busy.”

  “That’s right, I won’t.” Alice said. Then she snatched up the ship’s key and ran off.

  “Yes.” I said. “But right now we have one advantage over Fat Man and Verkhovtseff.”

  “What?”

  “They don’t know if we saw anything useful in the mirror flowers or not.”

  “That’s not the most important thing now.” Zeleny answered.

  “And what is?”

  “The most pressing question is why the turtle suddenly fled from the Pegasus.”

  “It had finished its work and ran off.” I said.

  “But none of us suspected it at all. It had free access to the ship and was crawling all over us and even transmitting our conversations back to its masters. And it suddenly decided to run away?”

  “Perhaps they need it more elsewhere now.”

  “Unlikely.” Zeleny said. “I don’t like this business at all. Most likely it planted a delayed action bomb somewhere in the ship and at any moment we could be blown to smithereens. Ourselves and the animals. I propose we immediately evacuate the ship.”

  “Wait a moment.” I stopped Zeleny. “If they wanted to destroy us they could have done it a lot earlier.”

  We heard brisk steps out in the corridor, and suddenly Poloskov ran into the crew’s lounge. He immediately saw the disassembled turtle on the table and understood everything that was going on without our having to explain it.

  “It means they are still on the planet.” Poloskov said. “The turtle wouldn’t have destroyed the flowers without their orders. It was just a robot.”

  “They ordered it to set a bomb.” Zeleny said. “And instructed it to get out before it went up with us.”

  We all turned to Poloskov, waiting for the Captain to speak.

  “Nonsense!” Our Captain said.

  “But then why did it run away?”

  “It was carrying the key to the ship.” Poloskov said. “Who needs the key to a ship that’s been blown up?”

  “No one.” Alice said. “But it took the Captain to think of it.”

  “I used perfectly ordinary logic.” Poloskov said.

  “But we didn’t.” Alice clapped her hands in delight. “We should have guessed that the turtle couldn’t have carried any bomb into the ship. When would it have been able to get out of the ship?”

  “Also correct.” Poloskov said. “But that’s not the most important thing now. The fat man and Doctor Verkhovtseff suspect we are about to uncover the secret of the Second Captain, and they’ve decided to get rid of us and the Pegasus. Secretly or openly, I don’t know, but we should be expecting guests. W
e’ll have to get ready for their arrival.”

  “But what about the remaining flowers? In reality, we really don’t know anything at all.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Where is that Darned Girl?”

  Raising a space ship from the ground and moving it all of several kilometers over the surface of a planet is not at all simple. It is, in fact, far more difficult than just taking off from a planet. Not every captain would agree to such an attempt.

  But Poloskov had decided to shift the Pegasus to the field of flowers. We were all far safer in the ship, and I was not going to allow anyone to go off on there own.

  While Poloskov made his calculations on how best to raise the Pegasus the rest of us went around the ship to make certain everything was battened down and ship shape, the animals in their cages and the crockery in its cabinets. In general, after half an hour the Pegasus was ready for flight.

  We had gathered on the bridge. Poloskov sat in the control hair, I in the navigator’s position. Alice sat close by.

  “Engines ready?” Poloskov asked into his microphone.

  “Ready for take off.” Zeleny answered from the engine room.

  But before Poloskov could say “Take…” a curtain of white fire cut through the blue sky. Another space ship was landing right next to us. Trees were blown down and scattered by the backwash; the ground shuddered.

  “Wait a minute.” Poloskov told Zeleny; he was staring into the view screen.

  “What have we got now?” Zeleny asked.

  “Neighbors have landed.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know yet. They’re behind the trees and can’t be seen. But get ready to take off immediately. It might be them.”

  “Verkhovtseff and the fat man?

  “Yes.”

  We pushed ourselves into our acceleration couches, not tearing our eyes from the forest. It seemed to me I could even hear the opening of the other ship’s lock, the ladder falling to the planet… Then they were coming down the ladder, running through the bushes, whoever they were… Were they friend’s or enemies?