Kir Bulychev - Alice - The Girl From Earth

Alice, not waiting for him to finish, rushed back to where we had been, the Empathicator crawling after her, the colors of impatience being replaced by all the colors of joy

On the other side of the wall of bird cages we found a short Audity with his ears pressed tightly to his head, hiding. He was holding a large white bird by its tail. The bird had two beaks and a golden crown.

“Oh!” Alice said. “You recognize it, don’t you, dad?”

“Looks familiar some how.” I said.

“Familiar!” Alice burst out. “That’s the bird sitting on the shoulder of the statue of the First Captain!”

Alice was right. I remembered. Naturally, exactly as the sculptor had cut the stone.

“You’re selling your bird?” I asked the Audity.

“Quiet!” The Audity whispered. “If you don’t want to get me killed, don’t make any noise.”

“You can buy it without a long conversation.” Krabakas of Barakasa spoke into my year. “I would have bought it myself, but I think you need it more. Perhaps, this is the last Blabberyap on the planet.”

“But why such secrecy?”

“I don’t really know myself.” The Blabberyap’s owner answered. “I live well away from town and only get in here very, very rarely. Some time ago, several years ago in fact, this Blabberyap landed in my yard. He was exhausted and injured. I looked after him, and since then he’s lived in my house, although I must say that this Blabberyap has evidently spent its whole life on other worlds. He speaks many different languages. Some days ago I was forced to come into the city on business and met an old friend in a caf‚. We were talking, and my friend mentioned there wasn’t a single Blabberyap bird left in the city. Someone had been buying them up or killing them. But then I told my friend that I had a Blabberyap. ‘Watch him.’ My friend told me. Right away some Earth human came up to me told me he wanted to buy the Blabberyap bird.”

“Did he wear a hat.” Alice asked suddenly.

“Yes, he did.” The Audity answered. “How did you know?”

“And he was middle aged and skinny?”

“Yes.”

“It has to be him.” Alice said.

“Who is it?” Krabakas of Barakasa asked.

“The same fellow who was trading in grubs.”

“Of course it would be him the miscreant!” Krabakas muttered angrily.

“Wait, don’t interrupt.” The Audity stopped us. “I then refused to sell him my beloved bird and went back home. And, imagine, on that very same night someone tried to break into my house. And on the next night someone tried to burn me down, but the Blabberyap was not sleeping and awakened me. And yesterday I found a still unfinished tunnel beneath my house. And last night someone threw an enormous stone into my bed room. Even I can understand: if the bird remains in my house I will not remain alive. If you do not fear death, take the bird, but I cannot answer for the consequences.”

“Take it.” Krabakas said, “The bird is rare, in excellent condition, and you are leaving here anyway. You have nothing to fear.”

“Shall we take him, Papa?” Alice asked and reached out her hand to the Blabberyap bird.

Before I had a chance to answer the Blabberyap fluttered its wings and landed on Alice’s shoulder.

“Fare thee well, my friend.” The Audity sighed.

I settled accounts with the Audity, who almost immediately departed quickly, not even bothering to count the money.

“You can feed the Blabberyap white bread.” The good Krabakas said in parting, “as well as milk. Extract of dogrose would also be useful.”

Having said that compacted himself into a blue cube and lay down in the cage with the canaries.

Alice and I headed toward the Bazar entrance. Alice walked in front, the Blabberyap bird sitting on her shoulder. In truth, he had yet to say a single word, but that did not disturb me. After Alice came the Empathicator, pensively changing its color. I followed, holding a bridle attached to an extremely rare, working, almost sentient Sewing Spider, that I had bought for pocket change. The Sewing Spider was spinning a silk scarf in its cage, its long end trailing along the ground. Behind me came the robot trundler filled with cages and aquariums; it was packed as so high there was no place for anything else. As our little procession passed the Bazar’s collectors turned to us from all sides and repeated again and again in dozens of voices and languages:

“Look! They’ve got a Blabberyap!”

“A Blabberyap!”

“A live Blabberyap!”

Suddenly the Blabberyap inclined its head to the side and started to speak.

“Attention!” It said in Russian. “A landing on this planet is impossible. I am returning to synchronous orbit, and you, my friend, don’t forget to turn on the inertial dampers.”

Having said that, the Blabberyap began to chatter in a totally unknown language without a pause and kept it up for at least two minutes.

“Now that is a parrot.” Alice said.

The Blabberyap grew silent, listened to her words and repeated:

“Now that is a parrot.”

Then it seemed to think a little and said in my voice:

“But why such secrecy?”

Then the Blabberyap spoke in its former master’s voice:

“…on that very same night someone tried to break into my house. And on the next night someone tried to burn me down…”

“It’s all very clear now.” I said. “We’ve been very lucky, Alice; this is a super-parrot, the parrot to end all parrots. It remembers whatever it hears, immediately and once and for all.”

At the same time the Blabberyap began to speak Russian again:

“Listen, Two, I have nothing to give you, so I want you to take my Blabberyap bird. It will remind you about our wanderings it keeps in its head everything that it hears, to the last word. And you know how to get it to repeat anything you may wish.”

The Blabberyap answered in another voice:

“Thanks, First. We’ll see…”

Then the Blabberyap’s throat gave forth a rumbling and a roaring as though off in the distance a space ship was rising toward the stars.

“Papa, you understand what it just said?” Alice asked.

“Yes. It would seem, those are the voices of the famous Captains.” I said.

We had exited one square and were trying to avoid the crowds in the section devoted to the stamp collectors with our unusual cargo. From out of the crowd ahead the familiar fat man in the black leather business suit came toward us.

“I say,” He asked. “I take it you found what you wanted?”

“Oh, yes.” I answered. “Everything went beautifully.”

“We bought a Blabberyap.” Alice spoke with pride. “And you can’t imagine all the interesting things he’s been saying.

At the same moment the Blabberyap opened his beak, straightened the crown on his head and spoke in the First Captain’s voice:

“You of all people know how much I want to get back into space again, Second. But there are barriers everywhere…”

The fat man turned toward Alice, saw the Blabberyap, and his face turned as white as a sheet, and his eyes bulged out in alarm.

“Give that to me.” The fat man said.

“Why?” I was rather surprised.

“Because you must.” The fat man reached out for the Blabberyap.

The Blabberyap managed to peck him painfully on the finger.

“Ouch!” The fat man shouted. “Damned vermin! I’ve hunted you for too long now!”

“Remove your hand.” I said.

The fat man came to his senses and obeyed.

“Sorry.” He said. “I’ve been searching for a Blabberyap bird for a long time. I came more than seventy light years to find one. You can’t refuse me! I’ll pay whatever you want.”

“But we don’t need your money.” I said. “On Earth we don’t really use it any more. We carry it along when we go into space to places where they still use it, of course….”