Alice: The Girl From Earth

Chapter Twelve An unfortunate Discovery

By the time the Pegasus arrived at the planet Sheshineru the gifts and cargo that had filled its holds had for the most part found their way to their diverse destinations. You could finally walk down the corridors and not bump into packages, bags and containers.

We had crossed about a third of the Galaxy already and found ourselves in regions where scheduled freighters and liners from Earth never ventured.

The planet Sheshineru lays far from any of the great commerce routes. It’s natural world is notably poor; it’s only been three hundred years now since it was empty and uninhabited, but then colonists came from Rozodor, established oceans and an atmosphere, planted forests and lawns.

We would not even have bothered wasting time with a landing but Doctor Verkhovtseff had told us, back on the Three Captains World, that he had heard about an animal on the planet called a Skliss.

The Pegasus landed on the planet in the dead of night, in a field not far from the flickering lights of a medium sized city. We landed silently so as not to awaken the citizens and not to frighten them; very few ships ever reach Sheshineru and only a few of its citizens have ever seen aliens.

The engines were turned off, the engineer Zeleny stroked his beard and lay down to get some sleep; Captain Poloskov remained on the bridge to make some corrections in navigation charts that were long out of date. Alice began to write a letter to her grandmother, planning to transmit it from Sheshineru, and I went down to the first hold to choose an empty cage for the Skliss and feed the animals we already had aboard.

The ship was quiet and dark; I hardly made a sound as I walked on the soft carpet and thought about how we had to restock our water supplies on Sheshineru and obtain silk for the Sewing Spider. One of the wander bushes approached me from behind one corner and I told it:

“Go to sleep right away! Or I will not water you tomorrow.”

The wander bush waved and rustled its leaves in horror and drew back into its own section.

Suddenly I heard the sound of someone chewing food. Someone something had crept into the store room where we were keeping the remaining gifts. I stopped and listened carefully. I couldn’t tell which of the animals had gotten out of its cage, and not all of them were the sort I would want to approach with empty hands.

I very carefully looked into the store room’s open door. The room was empty. But the chewing became all the louder. I went inside. The chewing came from the closed door of the refrigerator where we were keeping the pineapples.

My eyes widened when I saw that the key to the refrigerator was hanging in its spot on the outside and no one could have gotten into the refrigerator and then closed it behind them without the key.

Slowly I extended my hand to the latch, turned it and pulled the door open.

On one of the shelves, shivering from the cold, sat a little green man, his long thin teeth gnawing one of the pineapples.

In terror the little person raised his eyes and clutched the pineapple to his chest.

“You will not be able to.” He said.

“Go on, finish the pineapple.” I answered. “But how in blazes did you ever get in here?”

“They won’t even let you eat in peace.” The little man said and vanished together with the pineapple.

I rubbed my eyes. The refrigerator was empty. Three pineapples were gone from the shelves. Something then touched my feet and I jumped back in shock.

It turned out that it was just one of the wander bushes wandering about the hold.

“Go to bed!” I shouted at it, although I usually never shout at animals or moving plants.

The bush picked up its branches and turned on its heels.

I looked inside the refrigerator again. A little green man stood inside with his back to me, raising on his tiptoes, trying to drag a large pineapple from the shelf.

“Stop that!” I shouted.

The little man turned to look at me and I realized that this wasn’t at all the same little thief who had been eating the pineapple three seconds ago.

“Oh, don’t get in a bother.” The little man said. “I do have permission.”

And he immediately vanished, carrying away the pineapple.

Previously in my life I had been spared from such wonders. My head even started to whirl. I looked into the refrigerator with what must have been the stupidest of all look’s on my face; as though someone could hide himself in its depths!

At the very same moment something touched me; a third green person was standing on the shelf.

“Don’t get upset.” He said. “My error.” Immediately he reached for a pineapple.

“Hey, what the Devil’s going on here?” I growled. “Where are you from?

“I live here.” The little person said, took the pineapple, and vanished into thin air.

That was more than I could stand. I pressed the button on my com and called Poloskov.

“Gennady,” I asked, “are you sleeping?”

“No.” Our Captain answered. “Working. And what’s happened to your voice?”

“My voice? Nothing.”

“It’s four octaves higher than it normally is. Has anything happened?”

“Tell me, Gennady, is the ship’s airlock sealed?”

“Of course it is. No one can get in.”

“And Zeleny is sleeping?”

“He is. So is Alice. I just checked them. Alice was writing a letter and fell asleep halfway done. What’s going on?”

“Do you know of any cases.. instances… occurrences…of little green men appearing to people?”

“Little?” Poloskov asked industriously. “The type that sit on your shoulder? With tails perhaps? I do seem to recall reading about that somewhere, in a very old book.”

“No” I answered, “somewhat larger, without tails, and with a taste for pineapple. And one’s right here now! Here! The fourth!”

And in fact yet another little robber had appeared in the refrigerator, winked at me, and vanished.

“ I’m coming.” Poloskov said to assure me. “Don’t do anything precipitate. Get a hand on yourself…”

By the time Poloskov began is run from the bridge to the hold less than half of our stock of pineapples remained on the shelves, and right away two green, little persons appeared and were giving each other a hand up to get to the refrigerator’s top shelf.

“Don’t let it frighten you.” Poloskov said. “That has to be a hallucination.”

“What do you mean calling me a hallucination!” One little green man was outraged. “You can touch me.”

“Sometimes.” The second interrupted him.

“Give our regards to Alice.” The first said.

And the pair of them vanished, just in time to make room for another.

“Alice is really sleeping?” I asked Poloskov.

“Definitely.”

“Then however did they learn of her?”

“I can’t begin to guess. This must be some sort of madhouse.

The refrigerator was finally empty. No one else had appeared fora while.

“Then let’s close the door.” Poloskov said. “It will be quieter.

I slammed the door of the refrigerator shut.

“Where could they have learned about Alice?” I repeated. “We only landed here an hour ago and no one has been outside.

Poloskov and I remained awake, trying to think of an explanation for the strange phenomena, but we thought of nothing. Several times we checked the bolts on the airlock doors and walked around the ship. It remained empty, quiet, and peaceful.

In any event I spent the night in Alice’s cabin, an uncomfortable situation because the deck cover was hard and I had to share the space with Alice’s plastic swim fins.

Fortunately, I got up before Alice and when my daughter opened her eyes I was already sitting in the side chair and thumbing through “Guidebook To The Inhabited Planets” as though nothing had happened.

“What are you doing in here?” Alice asked.

“I wanted to check on something in your library what do the locals look like?”

“Then why do you look like you spent the night on the floor?”

I flipped the book shut, took a look at myself in her mirror, and hurried off to my own cabin to fix myself up, where, in the process of washing my face, I almost convinced myself that there were no little green men, that it was all a mirage, a dream, a delusion.

With those thoughts in my mind I went down to the hold to take a look in the refrigerator.

The refrigerator was open, absolutely empty not a trace of a pineapple remained with a pensive Poloskov standing in front of it.

“In general, I suppose the locals have learned how to walk through walls.” He said. “Although it goes against all the laws of nature as I understand them.”

“No, those certainly can’t be the local inhabitants.” I said. “Most likely we managed to pick up members of some sort of parasitic civilization while in space.”

Right then Alice came into the hold.

“Good morning, Captain Poloskov.” She said. “Where did you put the pineapples?”

“They stole them.” Poloskov said. “And we’re considering how to punish the thief.”

“Who?” Alice was surprised.

“Little green devils.” Poloskov answered. “Just let me get my hands on them! You can only imagine what they’ll think of me on Rotweiss! They were expecting those pineapples… There’s one, grab him!”

As he spoke a little green man appeared suddenly in the refrigerator; he took one look at the empty shelves sand said, not even looking at us: “Darn it! Too late!” and promptly vanished.

“That’s him.” Poloskov repeated. “And you can’t even catch him.”

“That’s one of the locals.” Alice said. “I looked in the book which Papa left on his chair”.

“You’re certain?”

“Completely certain.”

“Then all the worse for them. I am sending an immediate protest to their government. Is this any way they treat their guests?” Poloskov’s face had turned red.

“Forgive them, Captain.”

“No, that would be unthinkable. Where is the telephone.”

“Captain Poloskov, just think about it.” Alice pleaded. “These are gentle and fine people. They don’t want to steal the pineapples. It just happened. Accidentally.”

“You’re too good hearted Alice.” Poloskov replied. “Over night, just as soon as we landed, they managed to break into our supplies and steal the pineapples. Who knows what they’ll be after half an hour from now?

“Captain,” Alice said firmly, “have you forgotten what I won from our bet? A wish?”

“I remember.” Poloskov said.

“So, my wish is..that you forgive them their pineapples.”

And at that very moment the walls of our ship reverberated with a terrible noise. So powerful it was that it broke through the baffling. We forgot all about the little green men and rushed en mass to the airlocks. Along the way Poloskov managed to hit one of the EMERGENCY buttons and little red lights began to blink in the corridors.

Poloskov opened the upper airlock and we looked outside from the height of three storeys.

The enormous, wan red star had risen. Long grey clouds raced across the sky. The whole field in front of the Pegasus was filled with little green people. They were waving flags, placards, and banners with the words “Hi There! Fine to Meet You!”

“Wel-come A-lis! Wel-come Alice! Hurray! Hurray! Hip Hip Hurray!” as well as other greetings in thier own language which we did not understand.

On seeing Alice their joy knew no bounds. It was as though the sky had come down to earth.

In the blink of an eye several little green men appeared in the airlock, picked Alice up, and before I could even gasp they had vanished with her, appearing at the same moment in the very crush of the crowd. The crowd carried Alice off toward the city whose white towers we could see on the horizon on their upraised hands.

All that remained behind was a little old green man who waited while we hurried down the gangplank to greet us and say:

“Evidently, dear guests, you don’t understand anything at all of what is going on.”

“Nothing whatsoever.” Poloskov said.

“Nothing is going to happen to Alice?” I asked.

“Nothing at all. Permit me to explain?”

“Certainly.”

“Let’s sit down on the grass. The ground is warm and we won’t catch cold.”

We obeyed the little old green man and he told us the following:

Not all that long ago nothing distinguished the planet Sheshineru at all from numerous down-and-out provincial worlds of the Galaxy. But about ten years back a locaal scientist had invented a tablet which permitted travel through time for about one or two years in either direction. At first the whole planet was overcome with joy, everyone began swallowing tablets and traveling where and whenever, but after several weeks the bitter hangover set in.

Someone could set of for the future and learn there that his wife had left him, or that his house had been robbed. Someone else could go into the past in order to set right some utterly bitter error or werong, but discover that he could not set it right, he could only repeat it. If you suspected someone of deception it took little effort to return to a certain day and follow after your enemy; if you suspect that you were going to die from some disease or other, it was equally easy to go into the future and discover if the doctors who said you were healthy were deceiving you. Gradually, people began to fear the future and now no one ever went there. Instead, everyone spent their time in the past. Everyone has some fine memories, and now you could depart into the past in order to live those pleasant moments over again. And you cold go back again, and again and again, endlessly.

“Let’s go into the city.” The little old green man said. “So you can see waht this had led us to.”

We followed him into the city. The city was half empty, trash lay everywhere. The big parade with Alice had already gone on ahead and all we met were a few random passers by on the streets. They didn’t pay any attention to us, but from time to time one of the pedestrians just vanished. Someone else might appear in the middle of the street, think about something for a moment, and then vanish again.

“These people are traveling in time.” Our companion said. The present holds no interest for them The future they fear. No one is working. The government tried to ban the tablets but they are so easy to prepare anyone can make them at home in their own kitchens.”

“No I understand why your people knew about Alice yesterday.” I said. “And about our ship’s landing.”

“Of course, they all came into your refrigerator from the future.”

“And why all the joy on seeing Alice?” Poloskov asked. “Why not for me, for example?”

“It’s all very simple.” The elderly Sheshinerian said. “We are really very inoffensive, peaceful people, and we greatly appreciate kindnesses shown to us.”

“What does that have to do with it? Alice certainly didn’t know that you were going to crawl into our refrigerator.”

“Ah, such naivete.” The little green man said reproachfully.

He vanished into thin air and after three seconds reappeared with a large pineapple in his hands.

“I just spent a few seconds in your refrigerator.” He said.

“But there are no more pineapples there.”

“But I was just here yesterday night. Isn’t it clear enough? The simplest of things. I now flew into the past and yesterday at night took this pineapple from the refrigerator. But I did not steal it. I took it because Alice today, this morning, reminded Poloskov that she still had one wish that she had earned, and that her wish was that he give us the pineapples. So, today this morning we welcomed Alice with gratitude because she had decided to let us take the pineapples yesterday night….”

“I’ll go crazy here!” Poloskov said. “First it was today in the morning, the it was yesterday at night, and you took the pineapples which still shouldn’t have been taken because it later became possible to take them….”

“But we have so few joys left in life, so few pleasures.” The little green man said, not listening to Poloskov. “And we have never tasted pineapples before. I, for example, will now, every day, go back to yesterday so I can finish eating the pineapple which I ate yesterday…”

For a while the two of us were silent, mulling the information over in our heads. Then the Sheshinerian sighed and said:

“I can’t stand it any more. I am going into the past to finish eating your marvelous pineapple.”

“Wait up.” I stopped him. “I have a question, a business question.”

“Better you don’t ask it at all.” The little green man said. “I already know what you will ask.”

“Oh, yes…” I said.

“You will ask about an animal called the Skliss, which was the reason you came here?”

“Naturally.”

“We can get you a hundred Sklisses, but you wouldn’t want them. You will take a look at one that’s just around the corner. You will then wave your hands in frustration and you will say: ‘But that’s just an ordinary cow!’

We looked around the corner. There was a cow there.

I waved my hands in frustration and said: “But that’s just an ordinary cow!”

“Told you so.”

Then the little green man said his good byes and left more precisely, he vanished into thin air because that was what all the inhabitants of this planet did, so he did not see what happened next, and all his ability to look into the future and into the past helped him not at all, for we took that cow with us and brought it back to the Moscow Zoo, and even today it is one of our most popular exhibits.

As soon as our little green guide vanished, the cow stretched and slowly got to its feet, and unfurled long, membranous wings which until then it had wrapped around its belly. The cow sighed and looked at us with large, sad eyes, stretched out its wings and raised a cloud of dust, jumped up with clattering hooves and flew to the other side of the street.

The Skliss flew like a cow, badly and clumsily, but the Skliss really did fly!

I asked a green skinned little boy who had unexpectedly appeared right next to us.

“Whose cow is that?”

“You mean the Skliss?” The kid asked.

“Well of course, yes, whose Skliss is that?”

“It’s no ones’.” The kid said. “Who needs a Skliss? It’s totally impossible to herd them and they just fly about. Take one, no one cares.”

So we set off for the Pegasus, chasing the Skliss ahead of us with a long stick of wood. From time to time the Skliss would fly up into the air but it very quckly grew tired and returned to the ground and a lazy trot.

Along the way we picked up another Skliss who wanted to come along, but we couldn’t take it with us; feeding even one such animal would be rather difficult. The Skliss mooed for a long time in disappointment and waved its tail back and forth.

Alice returned shortly after we did. She had become bored with the Sheshinerians. They, in turn, quickly forgot all about her and vanished, some into the past, and some into the near future.