Alice: The Girl From Earth

by Kir Bulychev

  “Honestly,” I implored, “we are not selling each other. On Earth, in general, it is not accepted for parents to sell their own children, or for children to sell their parents. We just came here together to buy some rare animals for our Zoo.”

  The snake thought about it a while and said:

  “I really don’t know enough about your species to know if I should believe you or not. It’s better to ask the empathicator. He is that sensitive.” He bent both heads to the Indicator and asked him:

  “Can this strange being be believed?”

  The empathicator turned emerald green.

  “As strange as it may sound, he affirms that you can be believed.”

  Then the snake grew quiet and said in quite a different tone:

  “But you do want me to give you to them?”

  The empathicator turned gold like the rays of the sun.

  “He wants it very much.” The snake said, his voice drenched with emotion. “Take him before I change my mind. And yes, this booklet “Feeding your Empathicator, and keeping him in the best color.”

  “But I don’t know what I can give you in return.”

  “Nothing.” The snake said. “I did, after all, insult you with my suspicions. If, in return for the Empathicator, you will agree to forgive me, I will be delighted, at least until evening.”

  “Not really,” I said. “I wasn’t at all insulted.”

  “Not in the least.” Alice said.

  Then the snake rippled the mass of its extensors and the Empathicator’s globular body flew into the air and landed in Alice’s hands. The Indicator remained gold, except along the spine where blue ripples ran up and down as though they were alive.

  “He is satisfied.” The snake said and quickly crawled away, not listening to our protestations.

  The Empathicator jumped down from Alice’s hands and walked beside us, rocking back and forth on thin straight legs.

  Coming toward us was an entire family of Audities. A large male with ears larger than an elephants, his wife, and six small children. They carried a canary in a cage.

  “Look.” Exclaimed Alice. “Isn’t that a canary from Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is not a canary.” The father Audity said severely. “It is a bird of paradise. But it is not at all what we had really wanted to buy. We were searching for a real Blabberyap.”

  “And not found one.” The little Audites said in chorus, raising a storm with their ears.

  “There isn’t a single Blabberyap.”

  “That is astonishing!” The Audity woman said. “Why in the past year the Bazar was half filled with Blabberyap birds, and now they have quite vanished. Do you know why?”

  “No.” I said.

  “We don’t know why either.” The Audity said. “So we had to settle for a Bird of Paradise.”

  “Papa,” Alice said when they had gone, “We need a Blabberyap bird.”

  “Why? I was amazed.

  “Because everyone needs a Blabberyap.”

  “All right, let’s go in search of a Blabberyap.” I agreed. “Only first I want you to look at the Sewing Spider. And if they’ll part with him, we are definitely going to buy. Our Zoo has dreamed of having one of those for a long, long time.”

  Chapter Ten

  We Buy A Blabberyap

  Alice and I traipsed our way around the whole bazar, buying at least seventeen different animals and birds for the Zoo, the vast majority of them totally unknown on Earth and never before seen by human beings. Alice asked each and every trader or collector:

  “But where can we get a Blabberyap bird?”

  Their answers were all the same:

  “The Blabberyaps stopped laying eggs.” One said.

  “The Blabberyaps have all died out from some mysterious illness.”

  “It’s impossible to capture a Blabberyap bird.”

  “Someone bought up all the Blabberyap birds on the planet.”

  “There never were any such birds as the Blabberyap anyway.”

  And many, many other answers. Nor, for that matter, did we understand how the disappearance had taken place. Everyone recognized this as fact: earlier, the Blabberyap had been one of the most common of birds and everyone loved to keep them at home and in zoos. But over the last year nearly all the Blabberyaps had simply vanished. Gone. Dissapeared.

  It was said that people went from house to house and bought Blabberyaps. It was said that someone stole the Blabberyaps from the zoos. It was said that all the Blabberyaps in the Blabberyaperies had contracted some sickness or other and died.

  The more hopeless finding a Blabberyap became, the more Alice wanted to get a look at the bird.

  “But just what is a Blabberyap, I mean?” I asked Krabakas of Barakas, whose acquaintance I had just made.

  “Nothing really special.” Krabakas answered politely, swaying at the end of his blue tail. “They talk.”

  “Parrots talk too.” I said.

  “I don’t know anything about parrots. Perhaps parrots are what you call our Blabberyaps.”

  “Maybe.” I agreed, although parrots could hardly have evolved on this planet. “Where would they have come from?”

  “What I don’t know, I don’t know.” Krabakas of Barakasa said. “Maybe they originated on this very planet. I have heard that Blabberyaps are capable of traveling between the stars and always return to their home nest.”

  “If you can’t find us a Blabberyap, we’d better return to the ship.” I told Alice. “All the more because your Empathicator is starving.”

  The Empathicator heard my words and as a sign of agreement became a bright green.

  We turned toward the entranceway and immediately Krabakas’s cry from behind stopped me. He hung over the cages like a blue whirlwind.

  “Hey!” He shouted. “Earth humans! Come back here right away!”

  We returned. Krabakas had wound himself into a little ball from excitement and said:

  “You want to see a Blabberyap? Well, consider yourselves fabulously lucky. I have a fellow here hiding behind these cages who brought a real, fully grown Blabberyap bird to the Bazar.”

  Alice, not waiting for him to finish, rushed back to where we had been, the Empathicator crawling after her, the colors of impatience being replaced by all the colors of joy

  On the other side of the wall of bird cages we found a short Audity with his ears pressed tightly to his head, hiding. He was holding a large white bird by its tail. The bird had two beaks and a golden crown.

  “Oh!” Alice said. “You recognize it, don’t you, dad?”

  “Looks familiar some how.” I said.

  “Familiar!” Alice burst out. “That’s the bird sitting on the shoulder of the statue of the First Captain!”

  Alice was right. I remembered. Naturally, exactly as the sculptor had cut the stone.

  “You’re selling your bird?” I asked the Audity.

  “Quiet!” The Audity whispered. “If you don’t want to get me killed, don’t make any noise.”

  “You can buy it without a long conversation.” Krabakas of Barakasa spoke into my year. “I would have bought it myself, but I think you need it more. Perhaps, this is the last Blabberyap on the planet.”

  “But why such secrecy?”

  “I don’t really know myself.” The Blabberyap’s owner answered. “I live well away from town and only get in here very, very rarely. Some time ago, several years ago in fact, this Blabberyap landed in my yard. He was exhausted and injured. I looked after him, and since then he’s lived in my house, although I must say that this Blabberyap has evidently spent its whole life on other worlds. He speaks many different languages. Some days ago I was forced to come into the city on business and met an old friend in a caf‚. We were talking, and my friend mentioned there wasn’t a single Blabberyap bird left in the city. Someone had been buying them up or killing them. But then I told my friend that I had a Blabberyap. ‘Watch him.’ My friend told me. Right away some Ea
rth human came up to me told me he wanted to buy the Blabberyap bird.”

  “Did he wear a hat.” Alice asked suddenly.

  “Yes, he did.” The Audity answered. “How did you know?”

  “And he was middle aged and skinny?”

  “Yes.”

  “It has to be him.” Alice said.

  “Who is it?” Krabakas of Barakasa asked.

  “The same fellow who was trading in grubs.”

  “Of course it would be him the miscreant!” Krabakas muttered angrily.

  “Wait, don’t interrupt.” The Audity stopped us. “I then refused to sell him my beloved bird and went back home. And, imagine, on that very same night someone tried to break into my house. And on the next night someone tried to burn me down, but the Blabberyap was not sleeping and awakened me. And yesterday I found a still unfinished tunnel beneath my house. And last night someone threw an enormous stone into my bed room. Even I can understand: if the bird remains in my house I will not remain alive. If you do not fear death, take the bird, but I cannot answer for the consequences.”

  “Take it.” Krabakas said, “The bird is rare, in excellent condition, and you are leaving here anyway. You have nothing to fear.”

  “Shall we take him, Papa?” Alice asked and reached out her hand to the Blabberyap bird.

  Before I had a chance to answer the Blabberyap fluttered its wings and landed on Alice’s shoulder.

  “Fare thee well, my friend.” The Audity sighed.

  I settled accounts with the Audity, who almost immediately departed quickly, not even bothering to count the money.

  “You can feed the Blabberyap white bread.” The good Krabakas said in parting, “as well as milk. Extract of dogrose would also be useful.”

  Having said that compacted himself into a blue cube and lay down in the cage with the canaries.

  Alice and I headed toward the Bazar entrance. Alice walked in front, the Blabberyap bird sitting on her shoulder. In truth, he had yet to say a single word, but that did not disturb me. After Alice came the Empathicator, pensively changing its color. I followed, holding a bridle attached to an extremely rare, working, almost sentient Sewing Spider, that I had bought for pocket change. The Sewing Spider was spinning a silk scarf in its cage, its long end trailing along the ground. Behind me came the robot trundler filled with cages and aquariums; it was packed as so high there was no place for anything else. As our little procession passed the Bazar’s collectors turned to us from all sides and repeated again and again in dozens of voices and languages:

  “Look! They’ve got a Blabberyap!”

  “A Blabberyap!”

  “A live Blabberyap!”

  Suddenly the Blabberyap inclined its head to the side and started to speak.

  “Attention!” It said in Russian. “A landing on this planet is impossible. I am returning to synchronous orbit, and you, my friend, don’t forget to turn on the inertial dampers.”

  Having said that, the Blabberyap began to chatter in a totally unknown language without a pause and kept it up for at least two minutes.

  “Now that is a parrot.” Alice said.

  The Blabberyap grew silent, listened to her words and repeated:

  “Now that is a parrot.”

  Then it seemed to think a little and said in my voice:

  “But why such secrecy?”

  Then the Blabberyap spoke in its former master’s voice:

  “…on that very same night someone tried to break into my house. And on the next night someone tried to burn me down…”

  “It’s all very clear now.” I said. “We’ve been very lucky, Alice; this is a super-parrot, the parrot to end all parrots. It remembers whatever it hears, immediately and once and for all.”

  At the same time the Blabberyap began to speak Russian again:

  “Listen, Two, I have nothing to give you, so I want you to take my Blabberyap bird. It will remind you about our wanderings it keeps in its head everything that it hears, to the last word. And you know how to get it to repeat anything you may wish.”

  The Blabberyap answered in another voice:

  “Thanks, First. We’ll see…”

  Then the Blabberyap’s throat gave forth a rumbling and a roaring as though off in the distance a space ship was rising toward the stars.

  “Papa, you understand what it just said?” Alice asked.

  “Yes. It would seem, those are the voices of the famous Captains.” I said.

  We had exited one square and were trying to avoid the crowds in the section devoted to the stamp collectors with our unusual cargo. From out of the crowd ahead the familiar fat man in the black leather business suit came toward us.

  “I say,” He asked. “I take it you found what you wanted?”

  “Oh, yes.” I answered. “Everything went beautifully.”

  “We bought a Blabberyap.” Alice spoke with pride. “And you can’t imagine all the interesting things he’s been saying.

  At the same moment the Blabberyap opened his beak, straightened the crown on his head and spoke in the First Captain’s voice:

  “You of all people know how much I want to get back into space again, Second. But there are barriers everywhere…”

  The fat man turned toward Alice, saw the Blabberyap, and his face turned as white as a sheet, and his eyes bulged out in alarm.

  “Give that to me.” The fat man said.

  “Why?” I was rather surprised.

  “Because you must.” The fat man reached out for the Blabberyap.

  The Blabberyap managed to peck him painfully on the finger.

  “Ouch!” The fat man shouted. “Damned vermin! I’ve hunted you for too long now!”

  “Remove your hand.” I said.

  The fat man came to his senses and obeyed.

  “Sorry.” He said. “I’ve been searching for a Blabberyap bird for a long time. I came more than seventy light years to find one. You can’t refuse me! I’ll pay whatever you want.”

  “But we don’t need your money.” I said. “On Earth we don’t really use it any more. We carry it along when we go into space to places where they still use it, of course….”

  “But I can give you whatever you want for the bird! I can get you a whole zoo!”

  “No.” I answered firmly. “As far as I understand it, Blabberyaps are almost extinct. This Blabberyap will be safe in the zoo.”

  “Give me the bird, or I’ll take it.” The fat man threatened.

  “Just try it.”

  A pair of two Audity policemen were walking past. I turned toward then to ask for help but the fat man had vanished as though the ground had swallowed him up.

  We continued our journey.

  “See, Papa. There’s some sort of secret connected with the Blabberyaps.” Alice said. “Just don’t give him up to anyone.

  “Don’t worry.” I calmed her down.

  We were walking along an empty road. The Bazar was noise and activity on the other side of a low wall. Ahead of us we could see the city of Palaputra and its hotels. Suddenly we heard light footsteps. I turned quickly and froze from surprise.

  Running up the road toward us was Doctor Verkhovtseff. His hat was pushed to one side, his suit was rumbled and he looked far thinner than when we had seen him last. He reached us.

  “Professor.” He said to me, panting for breath. “You’re in great danger. You’re lucky I managed to reach you in time. What good fortune!”

  “What sort of danger?” I asked.

  “The danger is the Blabberyap itself. If you don’t part with it immediately, your ship is doomed. I know exactly what I am speaking…”

  “Listen, Doctor Verkhovtseff.” I said angrily. “Your behavior goes well beyond strange. You behaved like some thriller novel conspirator back on the Three Captain’s World when you told us you did not know what kind of bird was carved on the monument. Then you came here and tried to destroy all the oxygen in the atmosphere, so they say, by selling white grubs. You behaved like a
pig at the hotel, cooking sausages on your bed and breaking the robot attendants. And now you demand that we give you the Blabberyap bird. No, don’t interrupt me. When you’ve thought things over, come visit us in the ship and we can talk about this under calm circumstances.”

  “You will come to regret it.” Verkhovtseff said, and reached into his jacket pocket.

  The Empathicator turned red from terror. The Sewing Spider started to wave the unfinished scarf in Verkhovtseff’s direction.

  “Be careful, papa! He has a gun!” Alice shouted.

  “Poloskov.” I spoke into the transmitter that was placed on my chest. “Take down our coordinates. We’re in danger. Emergency!”

  On hearing my words Verkhovtseff froze, thinking what to do next. To our good fortune a large crowd of collectors leading an enormous green elephant came onto the road; Verkhovtseff jumped over a fence and vanished.

  “Oh, I really like all this!” Alice said. “We’re having a real adventure.”

  “Frankly, I don’t like adventures like this at all. We’re here to collect animals for the Zoo, not fight battles with Doctor Verkhovtseff.”

  Three minutes later the Pegasus’s landing boat hung over our heads; it was Poloskov on a rescue mission. The boat slowly flew over us all the way back to the ship, which we arrived at without further incident.

  Chapter Eleven

  On Course For the Medusa System

  As soon as we had settled the animals in their cages and fed them I went up to the bridge and sent a message to the research base on Arcturus Minor. It read:

  “Please determine location of Doctor Verkhovtseff. Have reason to believe he is not what he appears to be.”

  That evening the answer arrived from Arcturus Minor:

  “Doctor Verkhovtseff not on Three Captains’ World. No other information currently available.”

  “We’d already found out by ourselves he wasn’t on the Three Captains’ World on our own,” Poloskov said when he read the message. “He’s here.”

  We had constructed a large cage for the Blabberyap bird and hung it in the crew’s lounge. The Blabberyap spent the whole day muttering in unknown languages and never came close to uttering anything by one of the Captains, but Poloskov believed Alice and me anyway and said: