Kir Bulychev - Alice - The Girl From Earth

Poloskov opened the upper airlock and we looked outside from the height of three storeys.

The enormous, wan red star had risen. Long grey clouds raced across the sky. The whole field in front of the Pegasus was filled with little green people. They were waving flags, placards, and banners with the words “Hi There! Fine to Meet You!”

“Wel-come A-lis! Wel-come Alice! Hurray! Hurray! Hip Hip Hurray!” as well as other greetings in thier own language which we did not understand.

On seeing Alice their joy knew no bounds. It was as though the sky had come down to earth.

In the blink of an eye several little green men appeared in the airlock, picked Alice up, and before I could even gasp they had vanished with her, appearing at the same moment in the very crush of the crowd. The crowd carried Alice off toward the city whose white towers we could see on the horizon on their upraised hands.

All that remained behind was a little old green man who waited while we hurried down the gangplank to greet us and say:

“Evidently, dear guests, you don’t understand anything at all of what is going on.”

“Nothing whatsoever.” Poloskov said.

“Nothing is going to happen to Alice?” I asked.

“Nothing at all. Permit me to explain?”

“Certainly.”

“Let’s sit down on the grass. The ground is warm and we won’t catch cold.”

We obeyed the little old green man and he told us the following:

Not all that long ago nothing distinguished the planet Sheshineru at all from numerous down-and-out provincial worlds of the Galaxy. But about ten years back a locaal scientist had invented a tablet which permitted travel through time for about one or two years in either direction. At first the whole planet was overcome with joy, everyone began swallowing tablets and traveling where and whenever, but after several weeks the bitter hangover set in.

Someone could set of for the future and learn there that his wife had left him, or that his house had been robbed. Someone else could go into the past in order to set right some utterly bitter error or werong, but discover that he could not set it right, he could only repeat it. If you suspected someone of deception it took little effort to return to a certain day and follow after your enemy; if you suspect that you were going to die from some disease or other, it was equally easy to go into the future and discover if the doctors who said you were healthy were deceiving you. Gradually, people began to fear the future and now no one ever went there. Instead, everyone spent their time in the past. Everyone has some fine memories, and now you could depart into the past in order to live those pleasant moments over again. And you cold go back again, and again and again, endlessly.

“Let’s go into the city.” The little old green man said. “So you can see waht this had led us to.”

We followed him into the city. The city was half empty, trash lay everywhere. The big parade with Alice had already gone on ahead and all we met were a few random passers by on the streets. They didn’t pay any attention to us, but from time to time one of the pedestrians just vanished. Someone else might appear in the middle of the street, think about something for a moment, and then vanish again.

“These people are traveling in time.” Our companion said. The present holds no interest for them The future they fear. No one is working. The government tried to ban the tablets but they are so easy to prepare anyone can make them at home in their own kitchens.”

“No I understand why your people knew about Alice yesterday.” I said. “And about our ship’s landing.”

“Of course, they all came into your refrigerator from the future.”

“And why all the joy on seeing Alice?” Poloskov asked. “Why not for me, for example?”

“It’s all very simple.” The elderly Sheshinerian said. “We are really very inoffensive, peaceful people, and we greatly appreciate kindnesses shown to us.”

“What does that have to do with it? Alice certainly didn’t know that you were going to crawl into our refrigerator.”

“Ah, such naivete.” The little green man said reproachfully.

He vanished into thin air and after three seconds reappeared with a large pineapple in his hands.

“I just spent a few seconds in your refrigerator.” He said.

“But there are no more pineapples there.”

“But I was just here yesterday night. Isn’t it clear enough? The simplest of things. I now flew into the past and yesterday at night took this pineapple from the refrigerator. But I did not steal it. I took it because Alice today, this morning, reminded Poloskov that she still had one wish that she had earned, and that her wish was that he give us the pineapples. So, today this morning we welcomed Alice with gratitude because she had decided to let us take the pineapples yesterday night….”

“I’ll go crazy here!” Poloskov said. “First it was today in the morning, the it was yesterday at night, and you took the pineapples which still shouldn’t have been taken because it later became possible to take them….”

“But we have so few joys left in life, so few pleasures.” The little green man said, not listening to Poloskov. “And we have never tasted pineapples before. I, for example, will now, every day, go back to yesterday so I can finish eating the pineapple which I ate yesterday…”

For a while the two of us were silent, mulling the information over in our heads. Then the Sheshinerian sighed and said:

“I can’t stand it any more. I am going into the past to finish eating your marvelous pineapple.”

“Wait up.” I stopped him. “I have a question, a business question.”

“Better you don’t ask it at all.” The little green man said. “I already know what you will ask.”

“Oh, yes…” I said.

“You will ask about an animal called the Skliss, which was the reason you came here?”

“Naturally.”

“We can get you a hundred Sklisses, but you wouldn’t want them. You will take a look at one that’s just around the corner. You will then wave your hands in frustration and you will say: ‘But that’s just an ordinary cow!’

We looked around the corner. There was a cow there.

I waved my hands in frustration and said: “But that’s just an ordinary cow!”

“Told you so.”

Then the little green man said his good byes and left more precisely, he vanished into thin air because that was what all the inhabitants of this planet did, so he did not see what happened next, and all his ability to look into the future and into the past helped him not at all, for we took that cow with us and brought it back to the Moscow Zoo, and even today it is one of our most popular exhibits.

As soon as our little green guide vanished, the cow stretched and slowly got to its feet, and unfurled long, membranous wings which until then it had wrapped around its belly. The cow sighed and looked at us with large, sad eyes, stretched out its wings and raised a cloud of dust, jumped up with clattering hooves and flew to the other side of the street.

The Skliss flew like a cow, badly and clumsily, but the Skliss really did fly!

I asked a green skinned little boy who had unexpectedly appeared right next to us.

“Whose cow is that?”

“You mean the Skliss?” The kid asked.

“Well of course, yes, whose Skliss is that?”

“It’s no ones’.” The kid said. “Who needs a Skliss? It’s totally impossible to herd them and they just fly about. Take one, no one cares.”

So we set off for the Pegasus, chasing the Skliss ahead of us with a long stick of wood. From time to time the Skliss would fly up into the air but it very quckly grew tired and returned to the ground and a lazy trot.