“One hundred and fifty!”
“Of course,” I thought to myself. “They don’t know my Alice . Just what one might expect of her.”
“The girl’s feeling fine, and will soon he here.”
“But how did she get out there?”
“On a post jet plane.”
“But of course,” said Tatyana Petrovna, beginning to cry. She had suffered more than any of us.
Everybody hurried to comfort her.
“We were walking past the post-office, and they were loading the robot post-jets. But I didn’t pay any attention, because you see them a hundred times a day.”
And ten minutes later, when the Martian pilot brought Alice in, everything was cleared up.
“I crawled in to get a letter,” said Alice .
“What letter?”
“But Daddy, you said Mum would write us a letter. So I looked in the jet to see if I could find it.”
“You crawled inside?”
“But of course. The doors were open, and many letters were there.”
“And then?”
“I no sooner crawled in, when the doors closed and the jet took off. I started looking for the button, to stop it. There were many buttons. When I pushed the last one, the jet landed and the door opened. I went out and all around there was only sand, and no Tatyana Petrovna, and no children.”
“She pushed the button for an emergency landing!” said the Martian in the blue tunic, all admiration.
“I cried a bit, and then decided to come home.”
“And how did you guess which way to go?”
“I climbed up a small hill to take a look from there. And there was a door in the hill. I could see nothing from the hilltop. So then I went into the room and sat down.”
“What door?” wondered the Martian. “There’s only desert in that area.”
“No, there was a door and a room. And in the room there was a big stone. Like an Egyptian pyramid. Only a small one. Remember, Daddy, you read me a book about an Egyptian pyramid?”
Alice’s unexpected explanation greatly excited the Martian and Chief Nazaryan of the Life-Saving Service.
“The Tuteksi!” they cried.
“Where was the girl found? Give us the position!”
And half those present disappeared like smoke. Then Tatyana Petrovna, who had personally brought Alice something to eat, told me that thousands of years ago on Mars there had once lived a mysterious civilization called the Tuteksi. Only small stone pyramids remained as relics. Up to now, neither the Martians nor Earth archaeologists had been able to find a single building of the Tuteksi — there were only small pyramids scattered through the desert and covered with sand. And now Alice had actually stumbled on a Tuteksi building.
“There, you see. Again you’re in luck,” I said. “But all the same, I’m taking you home at once. You can get lost there all you want. Without a space-suit.”
“I also prefer getting lost at home,” said Alice.
… Two months later I read an article in the Russian journal Round the World. It was called “What the Tuteksi Were Like”, and stated that a valuable monument of the Tuteksi culture had at last been found in the Martian desert. Now scientists were engaged in deciphering the writings on the pyramid. But the most interesting of all was the discovery of a drawing of a Tuteks, in a wonderful state of preservation. And there was a photograph of the pyramid with the portrait of a Tuteks.
Somehow, this portrait seemed familiar, and a strange foreboding came over me.
“Alice,” I said in my severest voice. “Tell me the truth, now. Did you draw anything on the pyramid when you were lost in the desert?”
Before answering, Alice came up and looked attentively at the picture in the journal.
“That’s right, it’s a drawing of you. Only I didn’t draw it, I scratched it with a stone. I was so awfully bored…”
THE SHY LITTLE SHUSHA
Alice has many animal friends. Two kittens; a Martian praying mantis which lives under her bed and imitates a balalaika at night; a hedgehog, who lived with us briefly and then went back to the woods; the brontosaurus Bronty — Alice visits him in the zoo — and lastly our neighbours’ dog, Rex, a toy dachshund, but to my mind, of dubious breed.
Alice acquired one more animal when the first expedition to Sirius returned.
She met Poroshkov at the First of May demonstration. How she arranged it, I don’t know — Alice has wide connections. One way or another, she mingled with the children who presented flowers to the astronauts. Imagine my surprise when I saw Alice on television! She was running across the square carrying a bouquet of blue roses bigger than herself, and she gave it to Poroshkov.
Poroshkov took her up in his arms. They watched the parade together, and left together.
Alice returned home only toward evening, carrying a large red case.
“Where have you been?”
“Most of the time, at kindergarten,” she answered me.
“And the rest of the time?”
“We also went to the Red Square.”
“And after that?”
Alice realized I had seen her on television.
“Besides, I was asked to welcome the astronauts.”
“Who asked you to do that?”
“A friend of mine — you don’t know him.”
“Alice, have you ever come across the term ‘corporal punishment’?”
“Oh, I know: that’s when you get a spanking. But I thought it only belonged in fairy tales.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to make the fairy tale a fact. Why do you always worm yourself into places you shouldn’t?”
Alice was on the point of showing her resentment, but suddenly the red case in her arms began jiggling.
“What have you got there?”
“It’s a present from Poroshkov.”
“You asked him for a present. That’s going too far!”
“I didn’t ask for anything. It’s a shusha. Poroshkov brought them from Sirius. A little shusha, a baby shusha, you might say.”
And Alice carefully pulled out of the red case a six-legged creature resembling a kangaroo. The baby shusha had the large bulging eyes of a dragon-fly. It rolled its eyes quickly, clinging tightly to Alice’s dress with its forepaws.
“See? He loves me already,” said Alice. “I’ll make him a bed.”
I knew the story of the shushas. Everybody did, especially we biologists. I have five of them now in the zoo, and from day to day we expect additions to the family.
Poroshkov and Bauer had found the shushas on one of the planets in the system of Sirius. They were gentle, inoffensive creatures who stuck close to the astronauts. They were mammals but, above all, they reminded you of penguins by their habits. The same patient curiosity, the same everlasting attempts to crawl into the most inappropriate places. Once Bauer had to rescue a baby shusha who was about to drown himself in a huge tin of condensed milk. The expedition brought back a whole film on the shushas; it was a big hit at all the cinemas and on TV.
Unfortunately, the expedition had no time for a proper study of these animals. They only knew that the shushas came into camp in the mornings, and disappeared at nightfall, hiding somewhere in the cliffs.
One way or another, when the expedition was already on the way back, Poroshkov found three shushas in one of the ship’s compartments. They had probably got lost in the spaceship. True, Poroshkov thought at first that the shushas had been smuggled on board by one of the crew, but the latter’s indignation was so sincere he had to abandon his suspicions.
The appearance of the shushas gave rise to a mass of additional problems. First, they might prove to be the source of unknown infections. Second, they might die during the trip, from the change of conditions. And lastly, nobody knew what they ate… And so on… But all misgivings proved false. The shushas held out perfectly during the disinfection period, obediently fed on bouillon and tinned fruits. Over the last, they made a deadly enemy of B
auer who was extremely fond of fruit preserves, for the crew had to get along without any during the last months of the trip so the stowaways could be fed.
One fine day during the long journey, a shusha gave birth to six little ones. So when the ship landed on Earth, it was overladen with shushas and their babies. The animals were quick to learn, and caused nobody any unpleasantness or discomfort — except Bauer, of course.
I remember the historic moment when the expedition landed. The hatchway opened and under the eyes of the cinema and TV cameras out came these amazing, six-legged creatures followed by their little ones, instead of the spacemen. A sigh of wonder ran through the Earth. But at that moment a smiling Poroshkov followed the shushas down the ship’s ramp, carrying in his arms a baby shusha all splotched with condensed milk.
Some of the animals arrived in our zoo, others remained pets of the astronauts. Poroshkov’s baby shusha finally ended up with Alice. God knows how she charmed it away from such a stern chap as Poroshkov.
The shusha lived in a large basket beside Alice’s bed, did not eat meat, slept soundly at night, made friends with the kittens, was afraid of the praying mantis, and softly purred when Alice stroked him or told him all her ups and downs.
Shusha — so we named him — grew quickly and in two months was as tall as Alice. They would go walking in the park opposite our house, and Alice never used a collar or leash with the animal.
“What if he frightens somebody?” I asked.
“Oh, he wouldn’t. And besides, his feelings would be hurt if I put a collar on him. You see, he’s so sensitive.”
Once Alice could not sleep. She was capricious and insisted I read her the story of Dr. Doolittle.”
“I’ve no time, child,” I told her. “I’ve some rush work to do. By the way, it’s time you read books yourself.”
“But it’s not a book — it’s a microfilm, and the letters are tiny.”
“Well, there’s a sound attachment. If you don’t want to read it, switch on the sound.”
“I don’t want to get out of bed to switch it on. I’m cold.”
“Then you’ll have to wait. I’ll finish what I’m writing and come and turn it on.”
“You don’t want to. I’ll ask Shusha.”
“Then ask him,” and I smiled to myself.
A minute later I suddenly heard the gentle microfilm voice in the next room: “…And Dr. Doolittle also had a dog called Avva.”
That meant Alice had got up to switch it on.
“Get right back into bed,” I called out. “You’ll catch cold.”
“But I am in bed.”
“You shouldn’t tell lies. Who turned the microfilm on, then?”
“Shusha.”
I certainly did not want my daughter to grow up a liar. I put my work aside, and went to her room for a serious talk.
The screen hung on the wall. Shusha was running the micro-projector, and on the screen some unfortunate animals were crowding round the door of the good Dr. Doolittle.
“How did you manage to train him?” I asked, sincerely surprised.
“I didn’t have to train him. He can do everything himself, without that.”
Shusha shyly moved his front paws up and down over his chest. There was an awkward silence.
“But just the same…” I finally got out.
“Excuse me,” broke in a shrill, wheezy voice. It was Shusha. “But I really did learn to do it myself. After all, it’s not difficult.”
“Would you mind telling me how…” I began.
“It’s not difficult,” repeated Shusha. “The day before yesterday you showed Alice a fairy tale about the King of the Praying Mantises.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. How did you learn to talk?”
“We practised together,” said Alice.
“I simply can’t take it in. Dozens of biologists are working with the shushas, but not one of them has said a single word.”
“And our Shusha can even read. Can’t you?”
“A bit.”
“He tells me such interesting things…”
“Your daughter and I are great friends.” “But why have you kept silent so long?”
“He’s shy,” Alice answered for the shusha. Shusha lowered his eyes.
THE SPECTRE
In summer, we live at Vnukovo. It’s very convenient, because the monorail goes there, arid from the stop to the cottage it’s only a five-minute walk. In the woods across the road, many brown and orange-cap mushrooms grow — but not enough to go round for all who go gathering mushrooms.
I always went to the cottage straight from the zoo but, instead of finding relaxation, was caught up in the whirlpool of resort life. The vortex of it all was our neighbour’s boy, Kolya, famous through all Vnukovo for taking toys away from children. A psychologist had even come from Leningrad to see him, and afterwards wrote his thesis on the boy. The psychologist made a study of Kolya, but the latter kept eating jam and whining day and night. I brought him a three-wheeled photon-rocket from town, hoping he wouldn’t whimper so much.
Living there besides Kolya were his old grandmother — who loved to talk on genetics and was writing a novel about Mendel — Alice’s grandmother, a boy called Yuri and his mother Karma; then there were the three triplets on the next street who sang in a chorus under my window, and last of all — the Spectre.
The Spectre lived somewhere under an apple-tree in the garden, and had turned up comparatively recently. Only Alice and Kolya’s grandmother believed in it, but nobody else.
Alice and I were sitting on the verandah waiting for our new robot — put out by the Shchelkovo factory — to make farina for supper. The robot had already short-circuited twice, and both Alice and I had cursed the factory, but neither of us wanted to do the cooking ourselves and Granny had gone to the theatre.
Then Alice said: “He’ll come today.”
“Who will?”
“My specater.”
“Spectre,” I corrected her, automatically, not taking my eyes off the robot.
“All right,” said Alice, not bothering to argue. “So it’s my ‘spectre’ then. And Kolya stole nuts from the triplets. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Quite amazing. What were you saying about the spectre?”
“He’s very nice.”
“You think everybody’s nice.”
“Except Kolya.”
“Well, except Kolya. Honestly, if I brought home our new, fire-spitting serpent, I’m sure you’d make friends with it.”
“Probably. Is it kind?”
“Nobody’s been able to talk with it on that subject yet. Its home is on Mars, and it spits boiling hot poison.”
“Probably its feelings are hurt. Why did you bring it away from Mars?”
I could find nothing to answer. It was the utter truth. We hadn’t asked the snake’s permission before shipping it on the Kaluga from Mars. And on the way, it had swallowed the spaceship crew’s favourite dog. After that, all the astronauts hated it.
“So what’s all this about a spectre? What does it look like?” I changed the subject. “It walks only when it gets dark.” “Well, naturally. Spectres have done that since the beginning of time. Have you been listening to the tales of Kolya’s grandma?”
“His grandma only tells me about the history of genetics. About the persecution of Mendel.” “Ye-s, and incidentally how does your spectre react to the crow of a cock?” “He doesn’t. Why should he?” “Well, you see, respectable spectres are supposed to vanish, uttering terrible curses, when the cock crows.”
“I’ll ask him about it this evening.” “Very well.”
“And to-night I’ll go to bed a bit later. I have to talk with the spectre.”
“Please do. All right, we’ve had our little joke, and that’s enough. The robot’s overcooked the cereal again.”
Alice concentrated on her cereal, and I on some scientific reports from the Guiana zoo. There was an interesting article on Stingites. A revolut
ion in zoology. They had managed to breed them in captivity. At birth, the offspring were dark-green, despite the fact that the shells of both parents were blue. It was growing dark.
“Well, I’m off,” said Alice.
“Where are you going?”
“To the spectre. You already promised I could.”
“But I thought you were joking. Well, if you must go into the garden, go inside and put on a sweater. It’s turning cold. And don’t go farther than the apple-tree.”
“Why should I? That’s where he’s waiting for me.”
Alice ran into the garden. I followed her with half an eye. I did not want to invade her world of fantasy. Let her surround herself with spectres and wizards, with brave knights, and good giants from fairy-like blue planets… Of course, just so long as she went to bed on time and ate her meals regularly.
I turned out the verandah light, so it would not interfere with my watching Alice. There she was, nearing the old apple-tree with its thick, spreading branches. Now she was standing under it.
And then… A blue shadow moved away from the trunk of the tree, and came to meet Alice. The shadow seemed to float through the air not touching the grass.
The next moment, grabbing whatever heavy object I could find, I was running down the steps, taking them three at a time. There was something about this I didn’t like. It was either some kind of stupid joke, or… I didn’t think beyond that ‘or’.
“Careful, Daddy!” Alice cried in a loud whisper, hearing my footsteps. “You’ll frighten it.”
I caught Alice by the arm. Before me, a blue silhouette dissolved in air.
“Daddy, what have you done! You see, I almost saved it.”
Alice howled disgracefully as I carried her back to the verandah.
What had been under the apple-tree? A hallucination?
“Why did you do it?” roared Alice. “You promised me…”
“I’ve done nothing at all,” I answered. “There aren’t any spectres.”
“You saw him yourself, you did. Why are you telling me a lie? And, you see, he can’t bear any movement of the air. Honestly, don’t you realize you have to approach him slowly, so a breeze doesn’t blow on him?”
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