Kir Bulychev - Alice - The Girl From Earth

The Pegasus’s pool wasn’t very large four by three meters and only two meters deep but the tadprowlers found it comfortable. They began to circle around inside, hunting for fish. It took little intelligence to realize they were famished certainly these creatures, evidently, were intent on setting the Galactic record for speed of growth.

While I fed the tadprowlers half the contents of one of the crates of water plants were consumed at once Poloskov appeared in the hold. He had already showered, shaved, and was dressed in uniform.

“Alice tells me your tadprowlers have grown a bit.” He said, laughing.

“Not enough to be worth mentioning.” I answered, pretending that such wonders were anything but unusual to me.

Then Poloskov looked into the pool and gasped.

“Crocodiles!” He said. “Real crocodiles! They could eat a man in one gulp”

“There’s nothing to fear.” I said. “They’re vegetarians. The researchers should have warned us, though.”

The tadprowlers swam on the surface of the water and opened thier enormous, hungry maws.

“They want to eat again.” Zeleny said. “Pretty soon they’ll come hunting us.”

Toward supper the tadprowlers had reached a length of two and a half meters and had entirely consumed the first crate of water plants.

“They could very well have warned us.” Zeleny groused, referring to the researchers. “They knew what was going to happen and were thinking: let the specialists sweat some.”

“Naw, that wasn’t it.” Alice spoke up; the researchers on Arcturus Minor had given her as going away presents: a model of an ATV carved from wood, a chess set made from the bones of an excavated parallelepiped, a small paper knife carved from the core of a petrified tree, and a number of other interesting items which they had made themselves over the long evenings to maintain their sanity.

“Oh well, we’ll see.” Zeleny said philosophically and went off to check the engines.

Toward evening the length of the tadprowlers reached three and a half meters. They were already finding it difficult to swim about the pool and they kept close to the bottom, swimming to the top only to munch on bunches of waterplants.

I found myself going to sleep that night with the heavy forboding that I would not be able to get the tadprowlers to the Zoo. The first of the animals had turned into a snow ball rolling down hill. Space was still filled with mysteries which a smiple terrestrial biologist just can’t sink his teeth into.

I made certain I got up before anyone else. I tiptoed down the corridors, remembering the nightmares that had run through my mind during the night. I had dreamed the tadprowlers had become longer than the Pegasus itself, crawled outside, and were now flying beside us in empty space and still trying to eat our ship.

I opened the door to the hold and stood for a moment on the threshold, looking around to make certain that a tadprowlers didn’t crawl out from around some corner.

But the hold remained silent. The water in the pool was unmoving. I walked closer. The shadows of the tadprowlers, now about four meters long, were black pools on the bottom.

My heart almost burst from my chest. I grabbed a mop and stuck one end into the water. Why weren’t the tadprowlers moving

The mop knocked against one of the tadprowlers and shoved it easily to one side, pushing one of its companions to the far side of the pool. That one did not move either.

“Expired.” I realized. “From hunger.”

“What’s up, papa?” Alice asked.

I turned. Alice was standing barefoot on the cold plastic surface of the hold, and instead of answering her I said:

“Go right back to our cabin and put something on your feet. You’ll catch a cold.”

Then the door opened and Poloskov came into the hold. Over his shoulder I could see Zeleny’s red beard.

“Well, what’s up?” The two spoke in chorus.

Alice ran off to put on her slippers, and I, not bothering to answer, tried to push one of the motionless tadprowlers to the side of the pool. His body felt like it was empty and drifted lightly around the pool. The eyes were closed.

“They kicked off.” Zeleny said sadly. “And after all our work transferring them to the pool yesterday. Well, I did warn you!”

I turned the tadprowlers over with the mop. That proved not at all difficult. The tadprowlers spotted belly was split open down the middle. All that remained in the pool were the creatures’ outer skins, which retained the form of their bodies because hard and thick scales covered them, not permitting the hides to collapse.

“O-ho!” Zeleny said, looking around the hold. “They’ve shed their skins!”

“Who?” Poloskov asked.

“If we’d only known!”

“Listen, Professor Seleznev.” Captain Poloskov turned to me in his official capacity, “judging from everything I suspect that unknown creatures are now aboard my ship, creatures which were hidden in the so called tadprowlers. Where are they?”

I turned the last of the tadprowlers over with the mop. It was empty as well.

“I don’t know.” I admitted honestly.

“And when you entered the hold, was the door shut or open?”

My mind was simply not working to well, and I answered:

“I don’t remember, Poloskov. Most likely it was closed.”

“Tarnation!” Poloskov said, and hurried toward the exit.

“Where are you going?” Zeleny asked.

“To search the ship!” Poloskov said. “And I advise you to search the engineering compartment. Just make certain you’re armed. We don’t know what’s come out of the tadprowlers. It could be dragons.”

They hurried out, but a few minutes later Poloskov returned running and handed me a blaster.

“This isn’t something to laugh at.” He said. “And I’d advise you to lock Alice in your cabin.”

“There’s really no need for any of this.” Alice said. “I have a theory…”

“I don’t want to hear your theory.” I said. “Off to the cabin.”

Alice fought back like a wildcat, but we finally succeeded in locking her into our cabin and began a search of the entire ship.

It is remarkable how many holds, bulkheads, corridors, accessways and simple spaces are hidden in a comparatively small research vessel. The three of us, covering each other, wasted three hours while we examined every cubic centimeter of the Pegasus.

Nowhere did we find monsters.

“That’s it.” I finally said. “Let’s have breakfast; then we can search the ship all over again. They had to have gotten somewhere?”

“I want to eat too.” Alice, who had been listening to our conversations over the internal com system, said. “Just get me out of this prison.”

We released Alice and proceeded to the crew’s lounge like soldiers on patrol.

Before we even sat down for breakfast we locked the door and placed the blasters beside us on the table.

“It’s a mystery!” Poloskov said, hunched over Soya-Bix. “Where could they be hiding. In the reactor? Could they have gotten outside.?

“Infernal monsters.” Zeleny said. “I just don’t like monsters. I didn’t like the tadprowlers right from the very start. Hand me the instacaf.”

“I fear we may never resolve this mystery.” Poloskov said.

I nodded, agreeing with him.

“No, it’s simple.” Alice interjected.

“Now you be quiet and drink your tea.”

“I can’t be quiet. If you want, I can find them for you.”

Poloskov started to laugh. Then he laughed a long time, and sincerely.

“Three grown men searched the ship for three hours, and you want to find them on your own.”

“All the easier.” Alice answered. “Bet I can’t?”

“Of course I do.” Poloskov laughed again. “What do you want to bet?”