Kir Bulychev - Alice - The Girl From Earth

So we set course for the Empty Planet.

Unfortunately, after two days’ flight it appeared that Doctor Verkhovtseff’s coordinates had been less than precise. We should have been able to see the star around which this planet orbited after our last jump, but before us was emptiness.

What could we do? We decided to continue on course for yet one more day, and if nothing had changed then, to abandon the search for the planet.

We reached that decision toward evening, before supper, and after supper Zeleny headed for the com center to inform Earth that our flight was proceeding normally and that everything was in order. I followed after Zeleny.

When Zeleny turned on the receiver and listened to Space I liked being there, listening when uninhabited emptiness came alive. We could hear distant ships and bases communicating, ships acknowledging each other and automatic buoys transmitting information from uninhabited planets and asteroids about local conditions, space ‘weather’ reports about meteorite swarms and pulsar stars.

While Zeleny prepared the transmission I flipped the receiver switch.

Suddenly I heard a female voice come in weakly.

“Located in sector 16-2, have noted previously unknown meteorite stream in the Blooke system. In three days time the stream will intersect the Blooke to Fyxx passenger lane. Please advise all ships.”

“We’re right in that sector.” I told Zeleny.

“I heard.” Zeleny answered; he had already jotted the transmission down and begun to enter the information from the unknown ship into the log.

“And since that ship is in our sector, let’s ask it about the Empty Planet.” I said to Zeleny. “It could be we’ve gone off course.”

Zeleny said the ship had to be too far from us to pick us up, that our transmitter would undoubtedly fail, that the woman who was warning of meteors would know less than nothing about the planet, because the planet did not exist, as he grumbled and at the same time twisted the control knobs of the transmitter and, when the unknown ship took our call, he said:

“Starship Pegasus speaking. We are currently in your sector and are headed for the Empty Planet but we can’t even spot the star.”

“Give me your co-ordinates.” The woman’s voice answered. “I’ll recheck it for you.”

We called the bridge and Poloskov gave us the coordinates. We passed them along per instructions.

“It’s all clear.” The woman’s voice answered. “There is a cloud of cosmic dust between you and the star, so of course you can’t see it. Your next jump should take you through the cloud.”

“Enormous thanks.” I said to the unknown ship. “We were given the coordinates of the planet on the Three Captains’ World, but our source was not an astronaut but a museum administrator, and we were afraid he erred.”

“Doctor Verkhovtseff?” Then woman’s voice asked.

“Yes. You know him then?”

“I know him very well.” The woman answered. “He’s a marvelous old man. Simply wonderful. If only we had met earlier; I have a letter to pass on to him but there’s no way I can stop in there. Not for a while. Any chance you will be heading back that way?”

“None.” I answered. “From here we go on to Blooke, to Palaputra. We’re biologists looking for rare animals.”

“So am I.” The woman answered. “We may very well have met, but there’s no time for that now. I have to be off in a hurry. I’m hunting a living cloud.”

“One last question.” I said. “Have you ever been on the Empty Planet yourself?”

“I certainly have.” The woman answered. “The seas were overflowing with fish, but there wasn’t a single animal on dry land. Good luck.”

Then all that came out of the speakers was the meaningless hum of static.

“She’s accelerating at full speed.” Zeleny said. “She’s heading off somewhere. What’s this about a living cloud?”

“There are no such things as living clouds.” I said. “I met this woman at some conference or other and told her that she was utterly mistaken. You heard her opinion of Doctor Verkhovtseff? A ‘marvelous old man.’“

“Well, I still don’t trust him.” Zeleny grumbled. “If he was so marvelous and wonderful why did he lie to us? Why is he writing a novel and then not writing it? Why does he swear that he hasn’t been to Arcturus Minor for six months? And why didn’t he want to show us the Three Captains’ notebooks?”

Zeleny went back to the receiver.

The woman was right. The next day after the jump we spotted a small star on our sensors around which orbited but a single planet. Judging from everything we had been told, that had to be the Empty Planet.

We set down toward sunset on the shores of a large lake, at the edge of an endless plain overgrown to fearturelessness by a yellowing grass. A light rain, long and boring, kept us on the ship in front of the ports through which we saw neither beasts nor birds. What if this place was in fact devoid of animal forms?

Alice and Zeleny headed to the lake for water. They were a while in returning, but I did not become alarmed as I could clearly see them occupied with something along the shore through the ship’s ports.

Then Zeleny returned’ he headed not for the bridge, but for his own cabin.

“What have you looking for?” I asked him through his com unit.

“Fishing tackle.” Zeleny answered. “There’s so many fish in that lake they turn the water black! We started to scoop water into the bucket and it was full of fish. Don’t you want fresh fish soup, Professor?”

“No.” I answered. “And I must advise you against eating what you find here too. There are poisonous fish even on earth, and adding anything found on another planet to your diet without a lot of tests is just plain thoughtless.”

“Ah weel….” Zeleny said. “Then I’ll just have to add to your collection the hard way.”

Zeleny ran back to the shore, and I grabbed Alice’s rain coat to keep her from catching acold, grabbed a net, and headed for the lake.

Zeleny disdained the net for catching fish, declaring that it was not sporting, and he was a sportsman. But Alice and I filled the whole bucket. We carried our fish back to the ship. A sodden Zeleny followed after us, his catch in a fish tank.

“Don’t forget to close the ship for the night.” I said; we left the containers with our hauls in the main airlock.

“Of course I won’t!” Zeleny’s excited voice came back; he was so entranced with the local fishing he would have stayed at the lake all night, except it had become dark.

In the morning the first thing I did was look out the ports. The sun was shining brightly and multitudes of birds circled overhead

“That’s the ‘Empty Planet.’“ I said aloud and went to awaken my friends. “Come look at the Empty Planet.” I repeated. “Yesterday we caught fish, today the birds are circling overhead in monstrous flocks.”

I awakened Alice and Poloskov, but Zeleny had already gotten up ahead of me. He had lain out his assorted lures and other types of fishing tackle.

“I have to get ready for the big one.” He told me. “I can feel in my bones there are pikes as long as I am tall.”

“Just be careful.” I answered. “Watch out that no pike catches you.”

Then I went down to the airlock to take a closer look at the birds. I noticed one distressing detail; it turns out that, intoxicated with the joy of reel and tackle, our Engineer forgot to close the Pegasus’s outer airlock door for the night. No animals had managed to get inside, but we had lost every last one of our fish. Evidently the birds had noticed the open airlock and had dropped by for and early morning snack, claiming all our catch from the night before.