by Kir Bulychev
“What?”
“Hither and yon, I say. I spent a lot of time on it, looking up all sorts of old fashioned phrases. It was a normal way of speaking, back about a hundred and fifty years ago, they liked to talk that way.”
“Then take back your old men. We’ll think of something else.”
“And what am I supposed to do with them. They’re no use to me.”
“Put in a standard memory cube and you get perfectly useful robots, babysitters. Even interesting ones. The beards add a sort of cachet, and they know all the fairy tales, from hither and yon.”
Chapter Four: Svetlana Odinokaya’s Suitcase
“What are you doing here? Herman suddenly noticed Alice, and asked.
“Being frightened, both of us.” Alice answered. She turned to point out the young woman who had also been frightened, but the older girl had vanished without a trace.
“That won’t do!” Herman was annoyed. “I told them the old man would frighten modern children!”
“I thought he got here in a time machine.”
“No, never fear; even two hundred years ago such over simplified old men didn’t exist. I supposed. Are you on vacation now?”
“Yes. Are you making a film?”
“‘The Fairy-Tale Symphony.’“
“Lots of effects?”
“Full sensory effects: sight, sound, smells, touch….”
“And you’re filming it today?”
“Today? I don’t know what we’re going to do for the crowd scene. The old man is unsuccessful…. You know what…. We have the nature scenes to film, on the Black Sea coast. Want to come along?
“Yes I do! But what about Papa?”
“Let me handle your papa.” Herman said. “I just have to have a word with the director. Volodya! Volodya Chulukin! Where are you?”
“Who wants me?” A voice asked from the bushes, and immediately the director stepped out onto the sidewalk, short, quick-moving little man in a very fashionable Mexican sombrero with bells along the rim. The director moved quickly and spoke faster, but evidently he thought fastest of all; he rarely finished his sentences. His thoughts kept changing and he broke off the first sentence to begin the second.
“What do you mean we’ve had a ‘misfortune?’“ He said. “The old man didn’t work out, and not only… Oh, by the way, have you taken the different segments into consideration…. Maybe we should move to a sound stage?”
“Volodya, send me to the coast. We need a sunset, one with violet clouds. Otherwise the day is wasted.”
“And what about Maria Vasilevna?”
“She’ll manage.”
“And anyway…. Okay, go then. Only just make certain you’re back by morning, or Maria Vasilevna will….”
Immediately, Chulukin turned and vanished into the bushes, as though he had not been there at all.
“So it goes.” Herman said. He pulled out a pocket-com and tapped out Alice’s father’s number.
“Hi there, Igor.” He said. “Say, I’d like to steal your daughter away for a day…. We’ll be back by morning…. Certainly not! It’s the Black Sea, where’s it’s warm as toast. I’ve ordered the weather especially… Hey, that’s great!”
Herman turned off the pocket-com and told Alice:
“Your father approves of the plan. And any way, he’ll be busy well into the night or longer. Something to do with the Crooms. What is that, do you know?”
“They’re some sort of animal from Sirius. I’ve never seen one. But I have to drop by the house…”
“Don’t even think of it! Nature doesn’t wait. We either head off right now, or you’ll have to stay behind in the city.”
“There really is something I have to drop off at home.”
“You can do it tomorrow. To the cars!”
No cars were in immediate evidence, in as much as they were barred from the boulevard. But at his words something started to roar and purr in the bushes.
“They’ve stored the equipment away.” Herman said. “Let’s go.”
So Alice had to get aboard. As much as she wanted to stop by her house and put the mielophone her father had told her not to touch back in its place, it was simply impossible for Alice to refuse the chance of such a trip; how often to you get a chance to watch how a real movie is made?
The flyer was waiting on the flat roof of one of the nearby buildings at the boulevard corner. It would take the flyer longer to reach the Crimea than the subway trains, but the film makers, as much in a hurry as they were, still had to use a flying machine to carry all the equipment the cameras and lights. Loading it into a subway train would have taken too long and been inconvenient for everyone. All the more so since the subway only ran between the cities of Moscow and Simferopol and, at their destination, they would have had to rent a flyer or take a monorail to get to the coast anyway.
Normally, right after work, thousands of Moscovites in flyers and taxis headed toward the suburb of Fili-Mazilovo in the South-West corner of the city, to the enormous silver dome with the large red “M” on it. This was the Moscow end of the Crimea metro. Several parallel tunnels cut like think threads linking the Fili station with Simferopol on the Crimean coast hundreds of kilometers to the south These tunnels ran completely straight, and that meant the tunnels descended several kilometers beneath the ground at the midpoints. During their construction the first intercity underground lines were very difficult affair, until the builders introduced enormous moving robots which literally swam through rock so hot that it was liquid and covered the face of the tunnel it left behind with a super-dense plastic to produce a tube that was shiny, impervious to heat, and smooth like the inside of a ceramic cup.
Such lines linked the really big cities like Moscow and Peterburg, and New York and Chicago, and even Los Angeles. And in 2100 AD the first Warsaw-New York line was going to be completed. They had been building it for three years now, because under the ocean the tunnel descended nearly to the center of the Earth, which made the work go very slowly, and which is far too complicated to be described in our story.
But the subway line to the Crimea had long become familiar and comfortable. Everyone in Moscow after work could get to Simferopol in the barrage of subway cars in only forty minutes, and from there it was fifteen minutes by flyer to any part of the coast. Around midnight or after, when the late summer nights finally grew dark they returned to Moscow sunburned and exhausted from swimming.
Herman, Alice, three assistants, two work robots, and the pilot, fitted themselves into the big flyer with the Mosfilm emblem on it. The flyer rose without a sound from the roof and gained height, headed in the direction of the south, toward the Black Sea.
It wasn’t a bad beginning to her summer vacation after all.
Alice looked around and found a beanbag seat comfortable enough to sit in and dragged it closer to one of the windows. Behind her back someone started to groan. Alice turned, surprised that someone would be able to fit himself into such a tight spot. Behind her, frowning, sat the first old man from the group shot, chewing on the knob end of his thick walking stick.
“Oh,” Alice said. “The old man!”
“What’s that doing here?” Herman was surprised. “Why bring him along?”
“Chulukin told us to make certain we took him.” One of the assistants said. “It’s possible he might be useful after all.”
“I, useful? Of course I’m useful!” The old man said angrily. “I was with General Gurko when we took Shipka. The greenhorns….”
“If you’re afraid of him, Alice, you can sit here by me.” Herman said.
“Now that would be too much!” Alice was angry. “Who’s afraid of a robot? And it’s better here, by the window.”
In fact Alice would rather have changed where she was sitting, but that would have meant admitting to herself and to the others that she was afraid of the old man, which she was not going to do. And anyway, the flight would take less than two hours. And when one of the assistants passed o
ut doughnuts and soft drinks Alice even broke the doughnut in two and offered half to the old man.
“Don’t feel shy.” She said. “Take it. I can’t eat it all.”
But the old man robot shook his head:
“You go ahead and eat, pumpkin. I had cabbage soup this morning, not all that long ago.”
Alice realized the old man was lying. Robots do not eat cabbage soup or anything else. But certainly this robot was programmed to think of himself as an old, old, man, not as any sort of robot, so he could play a role in a film.
Alice had not finished eating the doughnut when the flyer came in for a landing. It arched between low forested hills and flew straight toward a blue, even bluer than the sky, sea. Over the shoreline itself, between two high grey cliffs, the flyer froze in place and slowly descended to the landing spot nestled right next to the water.
“This is it.” Herman said. “We were here last week. Isn’t it paradise?”
On the small hill they had erected a tent, a small dome out of light plastic. An almost black skinned man in swimming trunks came out of the tent. Alice found out he was called Vasya, and he was the assistant director.
“How did it go?” Herman asked.
“I have all the camera positions chosen and marked. We can begin any time.”
“Great work! But we’re going for a swim first. Alice, come with me, and don’t go off on your own. You might drown.”
“And how could I drown? I can swim under water as much as I want…”
“And all the same, your father made me responsible for you. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear.”
“You can leave your bag here.”
“No, I’ll take it with me.”
“Whatever you want.”
Vasya showed the film makers down the path to the water, but the robots set about constructing a temporary camp. The water was warm and delicious, and Alice was even more sorry that her father did not take her to the sea on sundays.
The old man in woven straw shoes came down to the beach with the film makers and sat down on the shore.
“Isn’t it hot?” Alice shouted to him from the water.
“Don’t swim too far, pumpkin.” The old man robot said. “Some fish might find you tasty. The whale fish.”
The robot was already used to Alice, and Alice was used to him and no longer frightened.
The old man looked around, scratched his head, and started to remove his shoes.
“Hey, old man!” Herman called to him. “Stop that. Put them back on. You’ll overheat your extremities and there’s no workshop here.”
The old man sighed and obediently put the shoe back.
“Poor old man.” Alice said.
“I agree, but what can I do? The clothing on him is his insulation. But he is convincing, don’t you think?
“Very convincing?” Alice agreed, and dove. Under the water she opened her eyes, and was so frightened she opened her mouth to scream, swallowed water and shot like a bullet back up to the surface. She almost went back down again but Herman caught hold of her and lightly tapped her on the back while she coughed the water out of her.
“What was so frightening?” He asked.
“A face…” Alice said. “Such a frightening face I just couldn’t….”
At that moment the water in front of them exploded and the laughing snout of a dolphin appeared on the surface.
“Hey, get away!” Herman shouted at him. “You’re frightening the kid!”
“He was joking.” Alice said; she had already gathered her wits. “It was my fault for not recognizing him.”
“He’s one of our regulars, and friendly.” The sunburned Vasya said.
“Ruslan in Moscow says hello!” Alice shouted as the dolphin swam away.
“I’d say we’ve had enough fun.” Herman said. “Time to go to work.” He swam toward the beach.
“How was the water?” The old man-robot said to the swimmers.
“Superb!” Alice answered.
Herman hopped up and down on one foot, trying to expel water from one of his ears. When he was successful, he said to Alice:
“You’re on your own, for the moment. You can go for a walk if you’d like, but just don’t get lost.”
“Walk along the paths.” The old man said. “Don’t brave the forest. Should Baba Yaga catch hold of you, she will take you to the Blue Mountains, fit you into a kettle and eat you with butter.”
“What kind of butter?” Alice grew interested.
“With what kind! What kind? Why, with sunflower oil butter, of course!”
Toward evening the sea had become quite flat and shiny, as though covered with an oil slick. The lazily rolling waves foamed white only at the edges of the shore itself, like the brocade edge of a table cloth. The shore was covered with enormous grains of sand and very tiny sea shells, so thin and fragile it was pointless to try to collect any. But on the other hand there were very beautiful stones in the water and in the belt of sand wet from the receding tide. Some of them were transparent and rounded by the waves until they were like beads, while others were many-colored and still retained the irregularity of pieces of real stone, although their corners were polished. Found in the sand as well, but in fact not very often you were more likely to encounter them very far to the East in the Caucasus mountains were flat stone cookies, grey and brown. They were very useful for skipping on the waves since they could be made to jump many times.
When Alice gathered two handfuls of stones, she found what she was doing very boring, and she began to throw a few stone cookies to see if she could make them reach the horizon. But the flat stones weren’t the very best and after two or three jumps they were swallowed up by the water, raising a column of thick, shimmering water. Finally, Alice was able to locate a stone petal hardly thicker than a coin and quite round. That one should have jumped all the way to the horizon. Alice took aim, threw the stone, and it obediently jump across the even water. Once, twice, three times, four, five… On the ninth time it vanished beneath the waves anyway, and immediately thereafter a dolphin jumped from the water in the same spot. It promptly dove right back, but Alice grew frightened that she had hit it and decided to throw no more stones.
She walked further along the shore in search of the most beautiful stone. She walked for a very long time. The shore curved inward to form bays several times, but she never found just the right stone. Then Alice decided to walk up into the foothills.
Here, far from the resorts and vacation houses, it was silent. From time to time flyers, like varicolored flies, flew by over head, the grasshoppers chirruped, a scorpion crawled out from under some rock, saw Alice, and quickly hid itself.
Alice walked up to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the sea. The ocean appeared flat, less a sea of tides and breakers than a mass of blue jell-o. Not far from the coast she could make out a small island. It was almost flat, if you ignored the big pile of rocks that rose like a finger from the shore or the roofless, windowless ruin of a house. A barge had run aground right beside the big pile of rocks. Some tiny figures were slowly moving along the shore beside the barge. Their movements were odd, very slow and somehow unhuman. Probably they were specialized robots, but what were they doing: cleaning the bottom of the boat? Building an anchorage?
Alice walked further along the shore. She found herself in a grove of freshly planted trees. Around her stretched row after row of pines only a little taller than Alice herself. When Alice had become an adult these trees would also have grown and become enormous. She would have to make certain she returned here then to take a look at this forest.
Suddenly from in front of her Alice made out a loud, agitated voice. She made a few more steps forward and then stopped. Someone was arguing. It would be awkward to just jump out from the trees and bother the people. So Alice very carefully peered out from behind the branches of the young pines.
Beyond the trees was a meadow, and in the meadow was a very strange creature.
It was a person, but what kind of person man or woman, young or old she could not guess. That was because the being was dressed in a fur coat that went down to her toes, on the head was a fur winter hat with ear pieces that ran below the chin, and the face was covered with enormous dark glasses.
The being was sitting on a suitcase, holding a pocket phone in one hand, and speaking:
“Nikitin, just where did you send me? No, of course you understood correctly. I asked, where did you send me?”
“I did not send you anywhere.” The voice answered from the hand phone. “Wherever it is you flew, that’s where you are.”
“And where was a flying?”
“To the Karsk Sea, to Unity Island.”
“You mean, to the North Pole?”
“That’s right.”
“Then tell me, please, what it is you see around me that resembles the North Pole in any way, shape, or manner?”
The being in the hat lifted one mittened hand and took in the surroundings with the hand phone’s video scanner in order to convince the person at the other end that nothing hereabouts resembled the North Pole in the slightest. The situation was so odd Alice had trouble keeping from laughing.
“You’re right. It’s not the North Pole.” The sad voice came from the hand phone. “How could it have happened?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask myself.” The being answered. “Now what do I do?”
“I would recommend that you get back into the flyer and see what button it was you pushed.”
“Men are such naifs!” The being in the hat said. “Doesn’t it occur to you that when I left the flyer it was on automatic and went right back home?”
“Unfortunate.” The voice at the other end of the com link said. “I’ll have to send another flyer for you.”
“Genius!” The being in the hat shouted excitedly. “I expected no better answer from you; but tell me please, Nikitin, just where are you going to send the other flyer to for me?”
“Well, wherever you are…”