by Kir Bulychev
We hunted through the surrounding underbrush, looked under and behind every bush; he could not have gotten very far. The Blabberyap bird would have raised an alarm.
“This is a fine mess.” Ella said with reproach. “You can’t keep a lone pirate locked up! Really, what sort of weeding are you doing?”
And then I noticed that the cloud was pushing against the restraining force screen stronger than it had before. I looked closer. There were footprints…
“I know where he is!” Alice shouted. She had run from behind me to the net. “He crawled into the cloud.”
“Are you here, Veselchak U?” Verkhovtseff said, leaning against the cloud.
The cloud started to shake, like a pile of hay where a wandering dog is hiding out.
“Let’s let the cloud go and see.” Seva said cheerfully.
“Not on your life!” Ella objected. “I’d never find another one.”
But the fat man’s nerves could take it no longer and his head popped out of the side of the gas cloud and through the force screen, which was only really strong enough to contain molecules of gas. His eyes were puffy and he was gasping for breath; evidently the composition of the gas in the cloud was unbreathable.
Suddenly the Fat Man cut from the cloud and threw himself running across the field.
“Where are you going?” The Second Captain called after him. “We’ll catch you in the end. If you keep running like that your heart will give out!”
But the Fat Man was not listening. He rushed between the bushes, jumped over pits, stumbled and was back on his feet again waving his arms up and down.
And so the Crockadee, lazily cruising the heights, spotted the Fat Man from above, and darted for him like a vulture fixed on a baby rabbit.
Another second and the Fat Man was waddling on air, and the bird carried him high so quickly that when the Second Captain had puled out his pistol the bird was almost half a kilometer above the ground.
“Don’t shoot.” The First Captain stopped him. “If he falls from that height he’ll be smithereens…”
No sooner had the fatal words been uttered than the fat man managed to twist around in the bird’s claws and strike at his captor with his hands. The bird let go. The fat man fell to earth like a rag doll. He vanished on the other side of the hill.
We were all silent. Then Zeleny said:
“He chose his own punishment. He couldn’t have thought of anything better.”
All of us had to agree with him.
While we had been looking at the sky the gas cloud gad silently oozed its way through the net. It had condensed itself until it had flowed between the energy strands like jam, running every which way, and when we had opened our eyes what we saw was that we stood up to our knees in grey jam.
“Grab it!” Ella shouted. “It’s getting away.
And the mist did get away. It changed phase again and surrounded us with an impenetrable mist, and when the mist dissipated an enormous grey cloud floated over our heads.
“We were planning to leave here anyway.” The second Captain said. “I suggest we make haste.”
We quickly herded the Skliss aboard the Pegasus and took off. The remaining three ships rose to follow right after us, and all of us, forming a net with our ship’s force fields, chased after the living cloud.
We did not catch up with the cloud until past the planet Eyeron, by which time the gas had spread to cover some thousands of cubic kilometers and we spent three days forcing it into a compact enough form to fit into our nets.
In the end we trapped the cloud in a triple net and solidly held it in between two of our ships. In that way we brought it to the Solar system where everyone would be able to admire it in an enclosure built in Archimedes Crater on the Moon, although I, personally, cannot think of anything more boring to look at than a living gas cloud.
Ella had insisted that the gas cloud should be placed in a Zoo on Earth, but the terrestrial climate would have been harmful and, really, who goes to a Zoo to look at a mass of grey gas? You go to a Zoo to look at an empathicator, to get a gift scarf from a Sewing Spider, or to pour lemonade on the roots of a wanderbush, or to figure out which animal in the herd of cows roaming over the pasture is the Skliss.
Our last time together was in the Moonwalker Hotel in Lunar City.
“It’s time to say farewell.” The Second Captain said.
The Captains were sitting in a row on a long divan; they looked nothing at all like their stone monuments on the Three Captain’s Planet. The First Captain was pensive and had difficulty in hiding chagrin; while he had been in the Medusa system they had begin the transfer of Venus to its new orbit, so he had missed the grand moment.
The Third Captain was feeling very poorly; he had a cold which he had contracted in the pirates’ cavern, but when Verkhovtseff brought him medicine the Captain refused.
“This isn’t something that can be cured by terrestrial medicines, let me be hoenst with you. Don’t pay any attention. As soon as I go back into space, everything will be all right. The best hospital is the bridge of a starship.”
Only the Second Captain was in a good mood. He had just handed over the formula for galaxion to a group of physicists from Earth. The physicists had taken up about half the hotel rooms in Luna City and every arriving ship brought their colleagues from different universities and institutes. There were scientists coming from Fyxx and Leonce, and the space docks of Pluto had already begun work on the first ship that would be powered by the new drive.
“You’re laughing all the time.” Ella said to the Second Captain; she hated sitting in one spot and was nervously walking around the room. “I suppose you’re pleased with yourself for creating such a commotion among the physicists?”
“Eminently pleased.” The Second Captain admitted. “I have to admit that I was afraid our people had discovered the formula for galaxion on their own and they no longer needed it. All those years I kept worrying: what if they’ve invented galaxion already on Earth?”
“But you never would have surrendered the formula to the pirates?” I asked.
“No, of course not. You can just imagine the sort of plans they would have had for it in your worst nightmares! I hope, I trust that we will never see such things. In the final analysis, space is no longer as big as it once was. I’m just sorry that you were never able gather as many animals as you wanted, Professor Seleznev. But I’ll try to repay you for your efforts by getting you birds and animals for the zoo from where ever I find myself.”
“Thank you, my friends.” I said, “But I must say don’t be concerned for me. We’ll be going out in the Pegasus next summer. That is, of course, if Poloskov and Zeleny won’t refuse to fly with me.”
“No plans for that.” Poloskov insisted.
“I’m willing.” Zeleny said. “If the circumstances and the stars are right.”
Zeleny was incorrigible, but I knew he’d be coming too. He knew it too, but of course he couldn’t avoid raising his doubts.
“And I’m going too.” Alice noted.
“We’ll see.” I answered. “You have the whole of the next year of school to get through.”
“And where are you planning on going now?” Poloskov asked the Captains.
“I’m off to Pluto/” The Second Captain said. “They’ve building ships with galaxion engines now. I’m hoping to get one of the first.”
“And I am going home first, to Fyxx.” The Third Captain said “I haven’t been home in ages. And then I’m going to build a ship with the new drive as well.”
“And I have to go back to Venus now.” The First Captain said. “Venus is already moving into its new orbit. A few months more and my work will be finished. That’s when I’ll be able to rejoin the others.”
“So you’re all going back to Deep Space?” Alice asked.
“Yes.” The First Captain said.
“Of course.” The Second Captain said.
“Where else?” The Third Captain finished.
/> “And I had been planning to fly to a living, sentient planet.” Ella declared. “That should have been even more interesting than a living space cloud. But I fear I will have to ask Professor Seleznev to fly there in my place.”
“And why?” I asked. “You after all, are the one who’s the specialist in supernatural animals.”
“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’s Birthday
1
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.”
Ex-Lax was something missing from our medicine cabinet and the house robot was dispatched to the nearest drugstore for it.
“Now tell us.” I said. “What have you been doing, where have you been digging, and what have you found?”
“I cannot say.” Gromozeka answered. “I swear by the Galaxy itself that it is a terrible secret. A terrible secret, but a sensational one too.”
“You want to tell us, but you can’t.” I said. “I never knew before now that archaeologists kept secrets.”
“Ho,” Gromozeka expelled a puff of yellow smoke from his nostrils. “I have embarrassed my best of friends! You are angry with me! That is everything. I must depart and, perhaps, do away with myself. I am sworn to secrecy.”
Seven heavy, smoking tears rolled out from my sensitive friend’s seven eyes.
“Don’t take it so hard.” Alice said then. “Papa didn’t want to embarrass. I know him.”
“I have embarrassed myself.” Gromozeka said. “Where is the Ex-Lax? Why do these robots always take so long to run their errands? All they do is stand about and gossip with other house robots. About the weather or about the football scores. And it’s completely forgotten that I am dying of thirst.”
“Perhaps I can bring you some tea?” Alice asked.
“No.” Gromozeka waved his tentacles in fright. “That stuff’s pure poison for me!”
At that moment, fortunately, the robot appeared with a large bottle of Ex-Lax. Gromozeka poured the liquid into a glass, sniffed it to appreciate the bouquet, and drank it down in one gulp; white smoke issued like steam from his nostrils.
“Now that’s better. Now I can transmit to you, Professor an enormously important secret. Let the consequences be on my head.”
“You really don’t have to.” I said. “I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble.”