Kir Bulychev - Alice - The Girl From Earth

As our mouths dropped from astonishment at having witnessed a fish become a bird, the bird shook its wings and flew up. It struck the ceiling of the crew’s lounge.

“Catch it!” I shouted. “It will break its wings!”

“Stop, papa! That’s not everything yet.” Alice said.

The bird struck the ceiling a few times and fell back onto the table. And, coming erect, began to change once more. But this time the feathers vanished, wings grew into the body, and in front of us sat something like a rodent. The rodent-oid darted past the tea cups and hid in the corner where the table came out of the wall.

“Is everything clear now?” Alice asked.

My daughter was preening. It is not every day that one is able to solve a mystery that had eluded so many other biologists.

“But how did you guess it?” I asked.

“You suggested the idea to me. You mentioned how when it was raining there were only fish, when the sun was out there were birds, and when the winds blew there were animals everywhere.”

“You’re right.” I said. “It is a remarkable adaptation, but perfectly suited to this planet. The living creatures take on the forms most suitable to the circumstances. They need fear neither wind, nor rain, nor sun. When, when winter comes, they must think of something…”

“That can be checked.” Alice said. “Just put the fish in the freezer.”

We did not put the fish in the freezer, but we did construct a cage containing an aquarium where the animal could spend the hours when it wanted to be a fish, yet tall enough that it could fly out of the water into the air and broad enough that it could run from corner to corner for feeding.

All collectors and fanciers of anything wild in Galactic Sector Seven eventually find their way to the planet Blooke. There, once a week, in the city of Palaputra, a bazar is held.

In our Galaxy there are some billions of collectors. For example, the collectors of Sol System gather on the first Sunday of every month on Mars, on the tablelands beside the Grand Canal. They tell me that even in the Andromeda Galaxy there is an enormous community of collectors, and on one of its planets they are so numerous they have taken control of all industry and that world produces only stamp albums, tweezers, and aquariums.

I’’ve spent time with Martian collectors; I found rare flying fish for the Zoo through them. But I had not yet had a chance to spend any time at all on Blooke.

Palaputra turned out to be a medium sized city, but filled to overflowing with hotels and warehouses. And the Palaputra space port was the envy of most major planetary capitols.

As soon as the Pegasus settled to the vast concrete expanse a ground vehicle filled with guards approached.

“And where have you flown in from?” They asked Poloskov, who had stopped at the top of our extendable stairs.

“From Earth.” Poloskov answered.

“And where is that?”

“In Sector Three. Sol System.”

“A-ha. I thought as much.” The Chief border guard said.

He was very similar to a fan. He had three enormous round ears, and when he spoke his head bobbed up and down so much it produced a wind. That’s why, out in the Galaxy, they called the inhabitants of Blooke Audites.

The guards climbed on board the ship and came into the crew’s lounge.

“And what is it you will be selling?” A guard asked.

“We’d rather be looking.” I answered. “We’re here in search of interesting animals for the Moscow Zoo.”

“Does that mean that you have nothing you will be selling?” The guard asked.

“Yes.”

“Then you have aboard here no sorts of animals?”

“We do have animals.” I said. “But they’re not for sale.”

“Show them to me.” The guard said.

“Why?” Poloskov was surprised. “We’re here as your guests. Isn’t our word good enough for you?”

“We would rather believe you,” the Audity said, “but you know little of the collectors. They drag various critters all about the Galaxy and we then must deal with the resulting infelicities. Once upon a time we were polite and never bothered to check starships, but now we do. We have learned through bitter experience.

And the security guard, raising a constant wind with his ears, told us the sad story:

Not that long ago a trader had been observed in the market. He had come to the bar with a small carpet bag and a can. In the can were white grubs. Collectors with birds to feed quickly came to value these grubs. The grubs were high in calories and the animals loved them. One of the collectors purchased the can of grubs. A second followed, then a third. So the merchant undid his bag and drew out a new batch. The collectors stood in line for the grubs. The two hundredth and twenty third in line was the famous collector of exotic fish Krabakas of Barakasa; he stood in line and watched the merchant pull cans out of his bag, and he calculated that there could be at most space for three and a half such cans of grubs in the bag. Then Krabakas of Barakasa reached the conclusion that something untoward was going on. He went up to the merchant and asked: “Could it be that you have a bottomless bag?”

“No, your excellency,” one of the chief security guard’s assistants interrupted him at this point of the story, “He asked: ‘Where do all the grubs come from?’“

“Quiet.” A third guard said. “Nothing at all like that. What Krabakas of Barakasa said to him was: ‘Give me your bag so I can look inside.’“

“Silence!’ The Chief Guard shouted at his aids. “I will bite your ears off if you interrupt me again! The merchant did not pay any attention to Krabakas’s words, possibly because Krabakas’s diameter is just about a half a millimeter and even if he is seven meters long he real does resemble a very thin blue worm himself. Then Krabakas turned to the collectors who stood in line and shouted: ‘I don’t like this suspicious merchant!’“

“I beg your forgiveness most humbly our excellency,” One of the aids could not stand it and had to speak, “but if I may be so bold as to say that Krabakas of Barakasa then said to the other collectors: ‘Grab that thief!’“

“You’ve gone mad!” The third guard whispered. “Krabakas said: ‘I am no less a rational being than you are, merchant, and I ask you to pay attention to me. And give me your bag, by the way.’“

“That’s all!” The Chief of Customs Inspection started to flap his ears in frustration. “I’m going to retire!”

The Customs Officers began to argue among themselves, switching over to their own, utterly incomprehensible language, which quite cunningly involved the flapping of their ears. A storm was rising in the crew’s lounge, and how it would have ended no one can tell, but a gust of wind blew the coffee maker from the table. The coffee machine shattered, and the Customs agents became very embarrassed for their behavior.

“Oh, I do beg your pardon.” The chief Audity said. “I fear we’ve gotten rather heated.”

“It’s nothing, nothing.” I said, trying not to break out in laughter gathering the remains of the coffee machine from the floor while Alice ran for a rag to wipe up the brown puddle.

“Krabakas of Barakasa,” the Chief Audity continued, “explained his suspicions to the collectors, and they took the small bag from the merchant. In the small bag they found two hands full of grubs. But when they extracted a part of the grubs, they immediately, with their own eyes, saw the remaining grubs divide in half and grow. Suddenly, from the far end of the bazar, they could hear a frightened cry. One of the song bird collectors had sprinkled some of the grubs in a cage and seen them reproduce in front of his eyes.”