Kir Bulychev - Alice - The Girl From Earth

“Look da, that has to be for Earth people!” Alice said.

We stopped in front of the hotel to get a good look at it, and because of the chance we might meet people we already knew.

A tall man in the uniform of the merchant space fleet came out of the building. He nodded in our direction, and I said:

“Hello. What brings you to Blooke?”

“We carted a load of atmospheric regenerators out from Earth.” He said. “You might have heard about the late unpleasantness here? They very nearly lost their atmosphere.”

While I was talking with the space man Alice was standing beside us and looking the hotel over. Suddenly she grabbed me by the hand.

“Papa! Look at who’s there!”

I looked, and saw Doctor Verkhovtseff looking down at us from a window on the third floor. Our eyes met, and he vanished from the window.

“That can’t be!” I shouted. “There’s no way he could expect to come here!”

“Let’s go and ask him how he got here.” Alice said.

The door to the hotel was carved, heavy, with a curved, gilded latch. The reception area inside was lined with mirrors and gilt filigree, with enormous hanging chandeliers made of cut crystal. The surfaces of wall not covered with reflecting glass were decorated with pictures of unicorns and beautiful maidens or knights in armor. Wide benches ran the length and breadth of the room along the walls. It was rather obvious that the Audity architects had seen the famous twenty episode TV miniseries ‘The Sun King.’ In the middle of the nobleman’s chamber I stopped.

“Wait here, Alice.” I said. “I don’t like this at all.”

“Why?”

“Judge for yourself: we just said our good-byes to Doctor Verkhovtseff, we flew here, and the Customs people tell us that he nearly killed this planet with the white grubs he was selling, and right away the first person we see through the hotel window is the Doctor.”

“Then it’s even more important we go and ask him what’s going on.” Alice said.

“Maybe.” I agreed and walked up to a long counter where a Audity porter in a white kaftan stood between a stuffed silk swan and a plastic bucket.

“Tell me,” I asked him, “in which room would Doctor Verkhovtseff be staying?”

“One moment, young man.” The porter answered, brushed his enormous ears to his back, and opened an enormous book with a leather cover with enormous hasps. “Verkhovtseff…” he mumbled. “Ve-ri-ho-vi-tseff… Ah yes, Verkhovtseff!”

“And where would he be staying.”

“In the eighth chamber would he be staying. On the third floor.” The porter said. “And you would be his friends?”

“His acquaintances.” I answered carefully.

“It is deplorable,” the porter said, “that such a foul and coarse guest should have such fine looking acquaintances.”

“Are you saying that he has done something…”

“Go.” The porter answered. “Suite number Eight. And tell him, that infidel that, henceforth, if he insists on cooking sausages on his bed and breaking the attendant robots when they try to stop him then we shall have to ask him to quit our establishment.”

“I got the impression that Verkhovtseff was a rather quiet individual.” I said to Alice once we were walking up the stairway.

The people who came downwards to met us were humans, Lineans, Fyxxians, and other beings who live on planets where the conditions resemble those of Earth. Some of them carried cages in their hands, others small aquariums, stamp albums, or just bags. They were hurrying to the bazar.

Room Number Eight was located at the end of a long corridor covered by vast numbers of Persian carpets. We stopped in front of a painted plastic door set in a sold oak wall and I pressed the call button.

There was no answer.

Then I knocked on the door. From a light impact of my knuckles the door opened wide. The small room beyond had been furnished and decorated according to the illustrations of historical romances from many parts of the Earth. Overhead hung a crystal chandelier, on the table a kerosine lamp without a wick, a tungsten samovar and a decorated Japanese silk screen. Of Verkhovtseff there was no sign.

“Doctor!” I called. “Are you here?”

There was no answer.

Alice entered the room and looked the silk screen over. I told her from the entry way:

“Come back out here. It’s impolite to enter someone else’s room…”

“In a moment, Pa…” Alice answered.

I heard rapid breathing behind my back. I looked around. A very fat man in a black business suit was standing in the doorway. He had blubbery lips and several chins which lay on his collar.

“And who are you seeking?” He asked in a very high, soft, almost childish voice.

“We’re looking for an acquaintance.” I answered.

“I beg your pardon, but I’m staying in the next room.” The fat man answered. “And I believe I heard the fellow staying here leave about five minutes ago, and I thought I should inform you.”

“And where is he off to, would you know?”

The fat man rubbed his chins, thought a moment, and said:

“To the bazar, I would say. Where else would anyone ever go?”

We left the Mother Volga and headed for the bazar. “A strange fellow indeed, this Doctor Verkhovtseff.” I thought.

We passed a hotel constructed in the form of an aquarium that provided hospitality to the inhabits of planets covered entirely with water, and a hotel similar to a tea kettle. Steam rose from the tea kettle’s spout; it was inhabited by Infernoids from Paracelsius. The planet was so hot that water boiled and it was covered with superheated steam.

A stream of customers flowed from the hotels; many were in environmental suites, many different kinds of environmental suits. Some crawled on the ground, some flew over our heads. We had to be careful where we walked because of the collectors about the size of ants who got under foot, and hoped those the size of elephants would be equally considerate of us.

The closer we approached the bazar, the thicker became the crowds, and I grasped Alice by the hand to keep her from unwittingly trampling anyone underfoot or unexpectedly being trampled by someone else.

The bazar was spread out over a vast plain for many kilometers. It was divided into a number of sections. At first we passed through the shell collectors department, then we cut right through the book collectors, struggled through an area filled with mineral and gem collectors, but after that it was more or less clear sailing through lines of flowers, except where I had to grab Alice by the hand and keep her from getting the vile smell of a Fyxxian rose on her.

But when we found ourselves in the philatelists’ section Alice asked me, “Wait a moment.”

A square a kilometer on a side had been filled with folding tables. There were more cases than, as the old saying went, you could shake a stick at. The philatelists sat mostly in pairs, but in some places four to a table as well. They were trading postage stamps. Those who had no tables traded them on the run or were just walking around. Alice bought a packet of stamps in bulk, one with the illustration of a Sirian bird, a Montenegran stamp from 1896, an album for Fyxxian stamps which arraigned the stamps in the right spot themselves, and two stamps from the planet Sheshineru.

“I got these for you special, Pa.” She told me.

One stamp was entirely white, on the second all that could be seen was a notation in tiny letters “A Young Skliss in Pasture.”

“You wanted to know what a Skliss was, Dad.”

“But where is the Skliss?”

“You get the Skliss tomorrow.” The fat man from the Mother Volga Inn said. He had overtaken us.

“What do you mean ‘tomorrow.’“