Alice: The Girl From Earth

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 out 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…”

“And where am I?”

“Yes, where are you?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea! For all I know I could be in the Hawaiian Islands, or maybe even Tasmania! Perhaps I am on some uninhabited island like Tristan da Cuhna and it will be another year before I see a ship!”

“Don’t panic!” The com-link voice said. “We’ll think of something!”

Suddenly Alice could hold back her laughter no longer. The being in the hat heard the laugh and quickly jumped up.

“Wait?” She shouted. “There’s someone here. Maybe a wild animal, perhaps even a hyena….”

“I am not a hyena!” Alice called. She stepped out of the underbrush.

“An aborigine!” The being in the hat shouted. “Nikitin, hold the line. I’ll try to find a common language with him.”

The person ran toward Alice, shouting in English and then in French. “Stop, fine person. I mean you no ill will! I am lost! Tell me please, what is the name of your country?”

“You’re in the Crimea.” Alice answered.

“You speak Russian!” The stranger was dumbfounded.

“Of course I do!”

“Then why did you keep silent?”

“I wasn’t silent. I wanted to tell you that you’re on Karadag, on the South Shore of the Crimean Peninsular.”

“No wonder, I should have known.” Off came the fur hat to show long, dark flowing hair; off came the eye glasses to show a beautiful young face with enormous blue eyes; off came the fur coat to reveal a tall young woman.

The woman stretched out her hand and introduced herself:

“Svetlana. Svetlana Odinokaya.”

“Alice Selezneva.”

“Thank you. You have saved me. Without you I would have perished.”

“It’s rather hard to perish here. There are people everywhere.”

“But you found me.”

“You have a pretty name.” Alice said. “You must write poetry.” For some reason this conclusion met with Svetlana Odinokaya’s strong disapproval.

“How could you even suspect such a thing!” She growled. “If men want to get drunk in verse over dawns and sunsets or odd named flowers, let them! I’m a real scientist. I did not come here to enjoy myself; we were about to carry out the final tests of the Minimizer Mark Two, the only one of its kind in existence. “

“And what are you going to test?” Alice asked. The fur hat and coat lay on the suitcase; the only thing Svetlana had in her hands was the pocket com she had turned off.

“Its response to the extreme conditions of the Northern Ice Sea!” Svetlana said.

“You seem to have missed your stop.”

“It doesn’t matter. Just lead me to the nearest flyer station and I’ll continue my journey.” Alice liked Svetlana, and really didn’t want her to fly off to the North Pole.

“But tell me, can’t you carry our your tests here?” Alice asked.

“Here? In the Crimea? What sort of extreme conditions can I find around here. And, oh….”

Svetlana turned the pocket-com back on; Nikitin’s face appeared in the small screen.

“Listen, Nikitin.” Svetlana said severely. “I’ve just gotten an offer from the natives to carry out our series of experiments here.” She pointed the pick-up toward Alice.

“So you’ve ascertained where the ‘here’ is, I take it?”

“Isn’t that already understood. We’re in the Crimea, where else, in Karadag. Instead of hitting the selector button for KARsk sea you made me press the button for KARadag and sent me here.”

“Lana, just how could I make you do anything if you were the one sitting in the flyer and I was in the Institute?”

“Nikitin, you miserable coward!” Svetlana shouted and threw the pocket-com away from her in anger, and informed Alice:

“We’ll carry out the tests here! I’m going to need a testing ground. An open space larger than this one.”

“There’s one not far from here.” Alice said. “I can take you.”

Svetlana picked up the suitcase, tossing the coat over her shoulder. Alice picked up the hat, the goggles, and the pocket-com. The com’s screen was broken; Alice supposed Svetlana had thrown it down far too hard.

Alice walked in front; Svetlana followed about two paces behind.

“And just what are you doing here?” Svetlana asked. “Are you really a native?”

“No.” Alice answered. “I study at a school in Moscow. I only came here for one day with some film makers that I know; they’re here to film the sunset for the film ‘Fairy Tale Symphony.’“

“Men, I take it.”

“Yes.” Alice answered. “All of them, even one man sold old he fought against Napoleon and there’s real moss growing on him.”

“On them all.” The words ground through Svetlana’s teeth. “On them all.”

For some reason the woman was very displeased with men, although Nikitin had seemed polite and well-mannered enough to Alice.

“So why are you so angry at men?” Alice asked.

“I’ve simply had far too much of Nikitin.” Svetlana said. “He’s my collaborator. Terribly muddle-headed. Not to mention absent minded. You can’t imagine just how absent minded he is! Yesterday for some reason he bought a whole bouquet of roses. He brought them to the lab. And do you know what he did then? He put them on my chair, forgot them right there! Right on my computer! How utterly repulsive! They stink!”

“Well what if he put the bouquet of flowers on your desk deliberately? Alice asked.

“All the worse! It means he’s taunting me, mocking me!”

“But what if he’s not?” Alice asked.

“How so?”

“And what if he likes you?” Alice said. “What if he wanted to please you?”

“Never! He knows that if he wanted to do something I’d like he could dust my computer!”

They came out onto a small flyer landing spot right above the sea itself. Below it the land fell away in a small cliff several times a man’s height tall, and below that the waves whispered and hissed as they washed back and forth on the narrow line of tiny stones.

“We’re here now.” Alice said.

“One minor problem.” Svetlana said. “If there are more extreme conditions, we’ll wait for them here. I gather there are storms, high winds, and earth quakes in the area?”

“Maybe.” Alice agreed.

She went over to the precipice and peered out to sea. Directly ahead of her was the small island with the barge. The awkward figures were all walking up and down the coast.

“Make yourself some tea?” Svetlana asked.

Alice turned.

Alice nearly fell down from astonishment. Svetlana was sitting in a light folding chair at a small table. There was a tea service on the table. An enormous stripped umbrella had been unfurled over the table.

“How did you do that?” Alice was amazed.

“Very simple.” Svetlana was pleased with the effect. She motioned to the closed suitcase. “Everything came from the Minimizer. Want to see?”

Alice walked over to the suitcase and looked inside. In the suitcase lay a number of toys. Svetlana squatted beside the suitcase and rapidly extended her hand inside it, and Alice saw how the hand grew smaller and smaller. Svetlana grabbed a small piece of orange plastic from the suitcase, pulled it out and threw it to one side. Her hand immediately became just as large as it had been, and the piece of plastic turned itself into an inflatable boat large enough for several people. Svetlana’s next move was to pull a pump from the suitcase and attach it to the boat, and after several minutes the boat was completely inflated.

“Did you invent this?” Alice asked, captivated.

“Any object which falls within the minimization field is shrunk to one forty-sixth its original size,” Svetlana said, “not only in size but in weight as well.

“That’s marvelous!”

“Our invention will be invaluable help to any expedition.” Svetlana said, not without pride in her voice. “You can take with the minimizer more than you could possibly fit into a whole truck.”

“To other planets!” Alice said.

“And for tourists.” Svetlana said. “Not to mention travelers, or people who have to move house.”

“But the testing phase isn’t ended.” Svetlana said. “So far the minimizer is extremely expensive and there is only this one copy, which, like me, should be at the North Pole, except Nikitin sent me here!”

“I’m very pleased that you came here instead.” Alice said. “I’m very happy to meet you!”

“The same.” Svetlana said.

Alice was about to boast to Svetlana that she also had in her possession a one of a kind instrument, the mielophone, which enabled you to read someone else’s thoughts, but then she remembered, she had taken the mielophone without her father’s permission and grew ashamed.

Meanwhile, Svetlana reached into her suitcase for a thermos and poured the two of them cups of lemon tea, and asked:

“And why did you conclude that he didn’t want to get me angry?”

“Who?”

“Nikitin, of course! I was so furious with him…. But if he didn’t want to anger me, that means I was furious at him for no good reason?”

“Doesn’t he like you a lot?” Alice asked.

“Alice!” Svetlana was shocked. “You’re not yet old enough to be talking about such things!

“Why? I’m already twelve years old, and I can talk absolutely about everything.”

Svetlana shrugged her shoulders, looked out to where the sea met the sky, and said:

“Speaking truthfully, as men go, he’s all right. And not a bad experimenter. He does have positive qualities.”

“Then you were angry at him for no reason. Now he’s sitting in Moscow, disturbed because you were so put out, and waiting for when you’re going to shout at him

“You’re exactly right!” Svetlana said. “I should be informing him that I’ve set up. That the experiment has begun. And quite successfully too. Hand me my pocket com.”

“I’m afraid it’s broken.” Alice said, handing the pocket-com to the woman. “You threw it too hard.”

“Oh what he’s putting me through,” Svetlana said, and pressed various buttons one after the other, shook the device, and even hit it a few times. But the unfortunate instrument stayed dead.

“Oh well,” Svetlana said. “They shouldn’t make things so shoddy; a light blow and it’s trash. Now what do I do? How can I notify Nikitin that our experiment has begun? Tell me, how?”

“Well, you can go down to the film company’s camp. They have their own com equipment. You can call Moscow from there.”

“You’re right. That’s brilliant.”

“I can show you where it is, it isn’t far, only about two hundred meters down that trail.”

“I think not? What am I if I’m not able to find it? What’s your movie director’s name?”

“Herman. And what will I be doing?”

“You’ll be sun bathing or swimming; that’s what you came here to do. And you can keep one eye on my equipment at the same time.”

Alice agreed, and Svetlana quickly headed off down the path.

Alice sat for a while in the arm chair beneath the umbrella. Then she want back out into the setting sun. She stretched out on the grass at the edge of the landing spot. The sun was still warm, but it was the softer sun of evening. Svetlana still had not returned. The silence was complete; from the sea came thin, almost mosquito voices…. And Alice herself did not notice when she dropped off to sleep.

She was awakened by someone approaching hre. The steps were so heavy they made the ground shake.

Alice opened her eyes, but at that moment an enormous, heavy metallic fist smelling of machine oil and rust, clamped itself on her face. Alice tried to beat it away, trying to get out of its grasp, but something had clamped her legs to the ground and her hands crawled over metal.

“Do you have the wire?” She heard a low, scratchy voice.

“Aye, aye, sir.” A second voice, scratchy like the first but higher pitched, said.

“Tie it around the prisoner’s legs.”

It hurt a great deal. Alice’s legs were tied with wire, which cut into her ankles. Then her hands were tied behind her back as well. And although the metal hand that forced Alice’s head on the ground covered nearly all her face, Alice was able to make out that what had fallen upon her were two metal beings, certainly robots, but never before in her life had she seen such rusty, coarsely made and terrible robots anywhere.

And iron finger forced a gag into her mouth, a dirty rag. Now Alice could twist and turn and fight back as much as she wanted, but she was bound hand and foot and totally powerless to do anything.

Alice was only able to turn her head and watch how the two robots roamed the camp, examining Svetlana’s remaining things. Naturally, Alice was hoping that Svetlana would return and free her. But suddenly Alice grew frightened; Svetlana suspected nothing. She might find herself a prisoner too. The robots were clearly insane! Alice had never heard of insane robots, but she couldn’t think of another explanation.

“A tool for the seating of human beings.” She head the voice of the first robot.

“Worthless. Leave it.”

“Human clothing, constructed from the hides of a animals.”

“Unnecessary.” That was the voice of the second robot.

“A boat! An inflatable boat. A mechanism of transportation!”

“Take it. We need transport mechanisms. The steel container is a poor means of attack.”

“A small portation mechanism.” The first robot. It picked up the suitcase.”

“Bring it. It is useful.” The second robot said. The first robot clapped the suitcase shut; he threw it into the inflatable boat.

“The raid is finished.” He said. “We can return to our detachment’s bivouac.”

He dragged the boat to the cliff, but the second turned to Alice. And, suddenly from the edge of the clearing, they heard a penetrating voice:

“Whatever is going on here? Who let you loose here, you steel tramps?”

As if this weren’t bad enough, Alice thought. Now they’re going to grab the old man film robot.

“Stand!” The robot standing beside Alice ordered the old man. “Do not move! We will shoot.”

“Just try it!” The old man, instead of trying to save himself, picked up a stick and rushed at the enormous robot.

“Release the child!” He shouted. “I will make scrap metal of you. You heathens, we beat the Turks for General Gurko. How could you have forgotten? I’ll show you how we did it now! Soldiers, brothers, forward to battle!”

The robot stepped backwards in surprise, but, evidently, determined the old man was no match for it. It stopped moving and the old man of a film robot rushed toward it, even though the shock of white plastic hair only reached as high as the metal robot’s belt. The second robot left the boat and intercepted the film robot from the side. The film robot did not see the other enemy and continued, waving his stick, advancing, thinking he was going into battle against the Turkish redoubts.

One of the second robot’s heavy metal hands rose and grabbed the stick out of the old man’s hand. The other hand grabbed the old man around the neck. The old man waved his arms up and down, but there was no way he could get free.

Seeing that the small enemy had been overcome, The first robot tossed the boat over the small cliff and dragged Alice after it. Alice started to struggle, trying to get free or loosen this cursed wire that was now cutting into her ankles.

“You cannot resist!” The robot said. “If you do I will force your head into the water and you will no longer obtain oxygen for metabolic functions.”

Alice stopped shaking her head right away. If the robot had been able to take into its iron head the idea of attacking a human being, it could just as easily get the idea of drowning one. And Alice was very cross with her mother, who had refused to allow her to have the operation to give her artificial gills. Lots of kids had artificial gills put in, especially those who lived near the sea, or under it, or in the pelagic cities on floats as big as whole islands. If she had the synthagills she could have stayed underwater for as long as she wanted.

When I get home, Alice decided, I’ll certainly be able to convince mom to let me have the operation. There must be five million people with gills, I’m not one of them, and then this hapens!

The second robot arrived. He was walking slowly and self-importantly, and the last rays of the sun played over his metal body. He carried a stick in his hand and was using it to push the old man from behind, driving the old man, a typical old man, the grandfather from countless children’s TV series, in front of him. The old man’s hands were tied behind his back, the beard hung down on his chest, but his mouth was free. The old man was muttering something angrily.

“A robot leading a robot.” Alice wanted to say it, but stopped. The old man robot was the most ordinary and well made robot, even if fate had decreed he was to be a movie star. Yes, he had threatened Alice with the stick on the boulevard back in Moscow, but, as Herman had explained, he would never have hit her. It was just his role in the movie, that of an cranky old man.

“Oh, our sins weigh heavilly.” The old man muttered, finding a place for himself in the boat. What have we done to have this befall us, to be captured by metal Anti-Christs!” Then he saw Alice and became very angered.

“What is the child doing here? What is it you are going to do? The child is small…”

“Silence!” The robot said. “The disobedient will be thrown overboard.”

“Oh….” The old man said and grew silent.

The metal robot turned on the engine and the boat soundlessly cut the water toward the entrance to the bay. The robots steered the boat closer to the cliffs evidently they feared being sighted by the film crew. Only after they had gone some distance along the coast did the boat turn toward the open sea. The robots ordered their prisoners to lay in the bottom of the boat and pulled enormous Mexican sombreros from beneath the benches, put them on their heads, and pretended to be vacationers to anyone who saw them from afar.

The engine coughed and whistled quietly, the small waves beat against the boat’s plastic keel, and it seemed to Alice that someone was shouting to her from the coast:

“Alice! A-alice… Where are you?”

But perhaps it only seemed like that.