Fossicker Press invites you to take Kir Bulychev's Alice: The Girl From Earth out for a test read. Please feel free to download and enjoy. This file contains semi-uncorrected proofs to the book. A paper copy of the book can be obtained from Xlibris, complete with the Evgeny Migunov illustrations, hardback or paperback.

Alice: The Girl From Earth

Kir Bulychev

Translated by John H. Costello

Tomorrow Alice starts school. It will be a very interesting day. Her friends and acquaintances have been on the videophone to her all day and everyone is congratulating her. In fact Alice hasn't let anyone have any peace for the last three months just talking about her new school.

The Martian Boose sent her some sort of remarkable pencil case which no one ha s been able to open not me, not my co-workers, who include two Doctors of Science, and the Moscow Space Zoo's chief mechanic.

Shusher said he would accompany Alice to school to make certain she got a sufficiently experienced teacher.

There has been an astonishing amount of fuss. From my recollection, when I went to school for the first time, no one bothered to raise such a bother.

Now the commotion has died down somewhat; Alice has gone off to the Zoo to say good- bye to Bronty.

And finally, it's quiet in the house, and I can sit down and dictate a number of events from the lives of Alice and her friends. I'll send these notes to Alice's teacher. It will let her know what sort of dilettante she has to deal with in me, and it will let her know what she's getting into with my daughter.

From the very first, Alice was a child like any other. Until about three. The proof of my statement will be the events I relate first of all. But about a year ago, from when she first met Bronty, I have observed in her character the wisdom to do things not quite as everyone expects them to be done, to vanish at the most inconvenient times and even to by accident! make discoveries beyond the powers of even the greatest of modern scientists. Alice has the ability to get everyone to do what she wants, despite which she has a mass of good and true friends. For us, her parents, this has been very difficult. We are simply not able to just sit around at home all the time. I work in the zoo, and my wife is an architect constructing buildings, most of the time on other planets.

I want to warn Alice's teacher before she meets my daughter herself. Quite simply, things are not going to be easy. So let her pay attention to a number of completely truthful accounts of my daughter's experiences and adventures in various places of the Earth and space over the last three years.

Alice would not go to sleep. It was ten O'clock already and she would not go to sleep. I said:

"Alice, you must go to sleep now, or else I...."

"Or else what, papa?"

"Or else I shall call Baba Yaga."

"And who is Baba Yaga?"

"Hmm... That is something all children have to learn. Baba Yaga is the Wicked Witch of the North! She lives in a giant castle on stilts made out of chicken leg bones. She's an evil old woman who eats small children... Disobedient small children..."

"Why?"

"Well, because she's evil and hungry!"

"But why is she hungry?"

"Because there are no stores nearby, and no food service to her castle."

"Why not?"

"Because the castle is too old and it's too far away in the forest."

Alice had become so interested she even sat up in bed.

"Does she work in the nature preserve?"

"Alice, go to sleep immediately!"

"But you promised to call Baba Yaga! Please, papa, please call Baba Yaga!"

"I will call her. But you will be very sorry that I did!"

I walked over to the videophone unit and punched out a few numbers at random. I was certain there would be no connection and that Baba Yaga would not be home.

But I was mistaken. The videophone screen lit up, there was a buzzing someone had pressed the ACCEPT button at the other end of the line, and hadn't even appeared in person on the screen when a deep voice said:

"Martian Embassy. May we be of service?"

"Is it her, papa? Is it her?" Alice cried from her bed.

"She's already gone to bed." I said sternly.

"Martian Embassy here. May we be of service?" The voice repeated.

I turned to face the videophone. A young Martian was looking out at me. He had green eyes, and no eyelashes.

"I'm sorry." I said. "Rather clearly I have the wrong number."

The Martian laughed. He was looking not at me, but at something behind my back. Alice, naturally, had jumped out of her bed and was standing barefoot on the floor.

"Good evening." She said to the Martian.

"Good evening, little girl."

"Does Baba Yaga live with you?"

The Martian cast a questioning look in my direction.

"You see," I said, "Alice won't go to sleep, and I was hoping to get through to Baba Yaga and have her punish her. But I got a wrong number."

The Martian laughed again.

"Good night, Alice." He said. "You have to go to sleep now, or your papa will call Baba Yaga."

The Martian said good bye to me and hung up.

"Well, now are you going to go to sleep?" I asked. "You heard what your uncle from Mars said..."

"I'll go sleep, papa. Are you going to take me to Mars?"

"If you are a good little girl and behave yourself we'll go to Mars in the summer."

At long last Alice tell asleep, and I went back to my work. I was at my desk until one o'clock in the morning. And suddenly there was a deafening ringing from the videophone. I pressed the ACCEPT button. The Martian from the Embassy looked out at me.

"I'm sorry to trouble you at such a late hour." He said. "But your videophone was not turned off for the night, and I concluded you had yet to go to bed."

"No bother."

"Then is sit possible you can help us?" The Martian said. "The whole Embassy can't get to sleep. We've poured over the encyclopedias, gone through all the phone books, but we still can't find out who Baba Yaga is and where she lives..."

They brought a Brontosaurus egg to us at the Moscow Space Zoo. Some Chilean tourists found the egg after a landslide on the shores of the Yenisei River. The egg was nearly round and miraculously preserved by the eternal cold. When the specialists started to study it they noticed it appeared to be quite fresh, and so we decided to place it in the Zoo's egg incubator. .

Certainly no one expected success, but after no more than a week the X-Rays and ultrasound equipment showed us a developing, growing Brontosaurus embryo. No sooner had the news hit the info services and the Net scientists and correspondents began to pour into Moscow from all over. We had to reserve the whole eighty story Venusian Arms Hotel on Tver Street, and that wasn't enough to house them all. I had eight Turkish paleontologists sleeping like sardines in my dining room not to mention the journalist from Equador in the kitchen and the two women correspondents from "Antarctic Woman" who set up housekeeping in Alice's bed room.

When my wife phoned in the evening from Nikos, where she was overseeing the construction of a stadium, she had decided not to come home for a while.

All the world's newsfeeds were showing The Egg. The Egg from the side. The Egg from the front. A skeleton of a brontosaurus superimposed on the Egg...

A whole visiting Congress of Cosmolinguists came for a mass visit to the Zoo. But by that time we had cut off access to the incubator and the philologists had to content themselves with the polar bears and the Martian Mantises.

On the forty-sixth day of this madness the egg began to suddenly shake and shudder. My friend Professor Yakata and I were at that moment beside the hood which sheltered the egg with tea cups in our hands. We had already given up hope that anything would ever come out of the egg alive. We had been forced to halt the x-rays and other scanners because of the likelihood of damaging our 'baby,' And we hadn't been able to predict the date and time of the delivery in as much as no one in the world prior to this had so far managed to deliver brontosaurs into the world..

And now, suddenly, the egg shook and shook, then it broke with a crack and through the thick leathery shell of the Egg a black, snake-like head began to emerge. The automatic cameras and data recorders began to click like mad. I knew that a red light had gone on over the door to the incubator room outside. Throughout the area of the Zoo something approaching panic took hold.

Five minutes later we were surrounded by everyone who had a right to be here and anyone who was able to find a spot and wanted in. It became very warm and very stuffy.

At last the small brontosaur forced its way completely out of the egg.

"Papa, what's he called?" I suddenly heard a familiar voice.

"Alice!" I was shocked. "How did you get in here?"

"I came with the correspondents."

"Children cannot come in here."

"I can. I told everyone I was your daughter. They let me through."

"Don't you know it isn't very nice to use the people you know for private ends?"

"But papa! Bronty's so small; he'll be bored without other children. So I came too."

I could only throw up my hands. I didn't have a minute free or I would have escorted Alice from the incubator myself, and there was no one around who would have agreed to do it for me either.

"Just stay right here and don't go anywhere." I told her, and I headed for the hood covering the newborn brontosaur.

All that evening Alice an Is aid absolutely nothing to each other. I utterly forbade her to go anywhere near the incubator, but she just said to me, as though she had not heard a word that I said, "I feel so sorry for Bronty," and the very next day she was right beside the incubator again. Some of the space men from the Jupiter-8 mission brought her. The space men were heros, and no one was going to refuse them anything.

"Good morning, Bronty." She said, standing right next to the hood.

The baby brontosaur looked at her with a squint.

"Whose is that child?" Professor Yakata asked me. I tried to make myself invisible and failed..

But Alice was not one to slink away at mere words.

"Don't you like me?" She parried.

"Oh no, it's not that. Quite the contrary. I just was thinking, er, that maybe, hm, you had gotten lost...." The professor was quite unable to carry on a conversation with a little girl.

"Too bad." Alice said. "But I'll be back tomorrow to see you, Bronty. Don't be bored."

And Alice did in fact come back the next day, and she came nearly every day. Everyone liked her and let her through without a word. I quite washed my hands of the matter. After all, our house sits right next to the Zoo and, we could hardly bar the road or build a wall.

Brontosaurs grow very quickly. After only a month his was two and a half meters long, and we moved him to a specially constructed pavilion. The young brontosaur roamed throughout the fenced enclosure and munched on young bamboo shoots and bananas. The bamboo was brought in on the freight rocket from India but the bananas came from local hothouses. We put a cement wading pool in the middle of the enclosure and filled it with hot, salty water. The baby dinosaur loved it.

Then suddenly he lost his appetite. For three days he left the bananas and bamboo untouched. By the fourth day the brontosaur lay on the bottom of the pool and rested his small black head on the plastic rim. Everyone could see he was getting ready to die. This was something we could not permit to happen. There was only one brontosaur in all the world, and we had him. The best doctors in the world helped us. But all in vain. Bronty refused grass, vitamins, oranges, milk... Everything!

Alice knew nothing of this tragedy. I had sent her off to her grandmother's at Vnukovo. But on the fourth day she happened to turn on the television just at the moment when the news about the brontosaur's worsening health was read. I still don't know how she convinced her grandmother, but non the same morning Alice ran into the pavilion.

"Papa!" She shouted. "How could you not tell me? How could you?"

"Later, Alice, later." I answered. "We're having a meeting."

We were in fact having a meeting at the time. It had been going on for the last three days.

Alice said nothing more and ran out. And a few minutes later I heard a great deal of gasping, ooh-ing, and ah-ing from close by. I turned and saw that Alice had already crossed through the barrier, wormed her way into the enclosure and had run up to the brontosaur's head. She had a bulky roll from lunch counter in one hand.

"Eat, Bronty." She said. "Or you'll starve yourself to death here. If I were living here, I'd get sick of bananas too."

I hadn't even made it to the barrier when something unbelievable happened. Something which was greatly to Alice's credit and which strongly soiled our, the biologists, reputations.

The brontosaur lifted his head, looked at Alice, and carefully took the dinner roll in her hands.

"Don't make so much noise, Papa." Alice waved her finger at me. She had seen me frozen, half way across the barrier. "Bronty's afraid of you."

"He won't do anything to her." Professor Yakata said.

I could see for myself that the dinosaur wasn't doing anything. But what would happen if her grandmother came on this scene?

Afterwards the scientists argued the point endlessly. Some said Bronty just needed a change of diet, while others that he just trusted Alice more than he trusted us. Whatever the reason, the crisis ended.

Now Bronty has become entirely domesticated. Although he is now more than thirty meters long he likes nothing better than to take Alice for a ride. One of my assistants has constructed a special saddle and when Alice comes to the pavilion Bronty inserts his enormous neck into the corner and takes in his triangular teeth the saddle standing there and carefully lifts it to his shiny black back. Then he and Alice go for a ride around the pavilion or go swimming in the pool.

As I had promised Alice I took her along when I went to Mars for a conference.

The flight was uneventful. True, I do not take weightlessness well and therefore preferred to keep to the acceleration couch, but my daughter spent all her time flitting around the ship and once I was called to remove her from ceiling of the control room because she had wanted to press the red button the one for emergency deceleration. But the pilots were not really very angry with her.

On Mars we looked around the city, went with a tour group into the desert and even visited the Grand Cavern. But after this I had no more time to be with my daughter and I took her to the local boarding school for the week. A great many specialists from Earth work on Mars, and the Martians have helped us construct an enormous dome for a children's camp. The camp is a fine place there are real Earth trees growing there. Sometimes the kids go on excursions.

When they do, they wear their own space suits and walk in a file down the street.

Tatiana Petrovna that was the name of the headmistress said that I could leave her there without a worry. Alice also told me not to worry. And I said good-bye to her for the week.

On the third day Alice disappeared.

It was a totally extraordinary event. To begin with, in all the years the boarding school had been in operation it had never lost, or even mislaid, a single child for more than ten minutes. It was totally impossible to get lost in the city on Mars. Let alone an Earth child, in a space helmet. The first Martian who saw him would bring him back to the school. Not to mention the robots. And the police. No, getting lost on Mars is completely impossible. But Alice had done it.

She had been nowhere to be seen for about two hours when I was summoned from the conference and brought to the boarding school in a martian walker. I must have looked utterly distraught when I cycled through the airlock into the dome everyone gathered there froze and were absolutely silent. And just who wasn't there! All the teachers and the schools robots, the ten Martians in space helmets (they had to wear helmets when they went into the dome where there was an Earth atmosphere) space men, the emergency search team chief Nazaryan, archeologists...

It turned out the city-net and entertainment channels had for the last three hours been broadcasting news that an Earth child had vanished. The whole videophone system was being used to broadcast the emergency. The Martian schools had closed and the school children had gone out in groups combing the city and surroundings...

Alice's disappearance was noticed as soon as her group returned from its walk. Since then two hours had passed. The oxygen in her helmet was sufficient for three hours.

I, knowing my daughter, asked if they had looked in the secluded spots in the school itself, or right next to the building. Quite possibly she

They answered that the city had no cellars, all the potentially secluded spots had been searched by the school children and the students at the Martian University who knew them all by heart.

I was very angry with Alice. Just about now I expected her to emerge from some corner or hole with the most innocent look on her face. But her behavior had inflicted enormous bother and cost, worse than a bad sand storm. All the Martians, and all the Earthmen living in the city had been torn from their own affairs and business, and set out on foot to join the rescue service. At the same time I was terribly worried. This little adventure of hers could end terribly badly.

News from the search parties was flowing in constantly.

"Third Martian Technical School students report they have search the stadium. No Alice." "MarsSweets candy factory reports no child found on our property."

"Is it possible that she managed to get out into the desert?" I mused. In the city, they would have certainly found her by now. The Martian deserts are still not well explored, and one could get lost there so throughly they would not find you in ten years' searching. But the closest regions of the desert had already been searched by people in walkers.

"They found her!" A Martian in a blue tunic shouted; he was looking at his pocket-com.

"Where? How? Where?" Everyone under the dome shouted in excitement.

"In the desert. Some two hundred kilometers from here."

"Two hundred?!"

Of course. I thought. They don't know Alice. Something entirely expected...

"The child is all right and will be here soon."

"And just how did she get out there?"

"In a postal rocket."

"Of course!" Tatiana Petronva said and started to cry uncontrollably. She had endured far more than anyone else. Everyone ran to console her.

"We went on a walk that took us past the post office. They were loading the automated postal rockets. But I didn't pay it any attention. You see them more than a hundred times a day!"

But ten minutes later, when a Martian flyer brought Alice in, everything became clear.

"I went inside to get your letter, Papa." Alice said.

"What letter?"

"Papa, you said that mama was going to write us a letter. So I went inside the rocket to see if it was there."

"You just got inside?"

"Of course. The door was open, and there were a lot of letters there..."

"And then..."

"As soon as I got inside the door closed, and the rocket took off. I started to press buttons to stop it. There were a lot of buttons. When I pressed the last one the rocket went down and then the door opened. I went out, but it was all sand around everywhere, and Auntie Tanya wasn't there, and the other kids weren't there..."

"She hit the emergency landing button." The Martian in the blue tunic said with admiration in his voice.

"I cried a lot, then I decided to walk home."

"But how did you decide which way to go?

"I went up on a small hill to look around. And there was a door in the hill. I couldn't see anything at all from the hill. So I went inside the room and sat down there."

"What door?" The Martian was amazed. "That region is completely empty."

"No, there was a door, and room. And in the room there's a big stone. Like an Egyptian pyramid. Only small. Remember, Papa, you read me that book on Egyptian pyramids."

Alice's unexpected revelation produced consternation among the Martians and Nazaryan, the Rescue Chief.

"The Tewteqs!" They shouted.

"Where did you find the girl? The map coordinates!"

And half those present vanished in a puff of smoke.

But Tatiana Petrovna, who had started to feed Alice, told me that many thousands of years ago there had existed on Mars a mysterious civil ization called the Tewteqs. All that remained of them were stone pyramids. Up to now, neither the Martians nor the archaeologists from Earth had been able to find a single example of Tewteq construction. Just pyramids, scattered around the desert and drowned in sand. And here Alice had come across a Tewteq ruin by accident.

"So here we are, and nothing bad happened, again." I said. "But I am going to take you back home right away, anyway. On Earth you can get lost as much as you want. Without a helmet.

"I like getting lost at home more too." Alice said.

Two months later I was reading an article entitled "What were the Tewteqs?" in the magazine Around The World. In the article the writers described how they were at last able to examine an intact Tewteq archeological site. The scientists were now occupied with the deciphering of the inscriptions found in the site. But what was most interesting, on the pyramid itself they observed the drawing of a Tewteq, preserved as though it had been carved yesterday. And there was the photograph of the pyramid with the Tewteq portrait....

The portrait was somewhat familiar. I was suddenly overcome with a horrible suspicion.

"Alice." I said in my strictest of Strict Father voices. "Answer me honestly: did you draw anything at all on the pyramid when you were lost in the desert?"

Before she answered, Alice walked over and looked at the picture in the magazine very carefully.

"You're right, Papa. I did draw it. Only it wasn't really drawing. I had to scrape it with a small stone. I was so bored there...."

Alice has many pets: two kittens, a Martian Mantis which lives beneath her bed, and which spends its nights imitating the balalaika, a hedgehog which lived with us for a while and then ran back to the forest, the brontosaur Bronty, who lets Alice ride his back in the Zoo, and finally the neighbor's dog, Rex, a lap dog I suspect is really a mongrel.

Alice acquired one other pet when the first expedition to Sirius returned.

Alice had met Poloskov. I do not know quite how she arranged it; Alice seems to know everyone. Somehow or other she was with the group of children that brought the returning space men flowers. Imagine my surprise when I saw Alice running along the red carpet with a bouquet of blue roses bigger than she was and handing them to Poloskov himself.

Poloskov took the bouquet, took my daughter's hand in his, and together they listened to the welcoming speeches, and they left together.

Alice only returned home in the evening, carrying a large red basket in her hands.

"And where were you?"

"The kindergarten, mostly." She answered.

"And where were you leastly?"

"Well, they took us to the space port?"

"And afterwards?"

Alice understood that I was just as capable of watching the television as she. She said:

"And then they asked me to greet the space men."

"And who was it who asked you?"

"Someone. You don't know him."

"Alice, have you ever made the acquaintances of the term 'corporal punishment?'"

"It's when they spank you. But I thought that was just in fairy tales."

"I fear we shall have to turn fairy tales into reality. Why do you always get into places you shouldn't go?"

Alice pouted, but suddenly the red basket in her hands began to shake.

"And just what is that?"

"A gift. From Poloskov."

"You inveigled you begged a gift from him. Now, that simply isn't...."

"I didn't ask him for anything. It's a shusher. Poloskov brought them back from Sirius. It's a baby shusher. A shusher-cub. A shushin. Shushy?"

And Alice carefully reached into the basket and lifted out a small, six pawed little animal similar to a kangaroo. The baby shusher had large, compound eyes. He was turning them every which way, clutching tightly at Alice's dress with the upper pair of paws.

"See, he loves me already." Alice said. "I'm going to make him a bed."

I already knew the story about the shushers. Everyone knew the story about the shushers, my fellow biologists especially. I had five shushers in the zoo already, and in a day or so we were expecting additions to their family.

Poloskov and Zeleny had discovered the Shusers on one of the planets of the Sirius system. They were tame, harmless little animals who wouldn't go a step from the spacemen once they found the Earthmen's camp. They turned out to be mammals, although in behavior they more resembled terrestrial penguins. They exhibited quiet curiosity and were constantly attempting to crawl into the most unlikely and unhealthy places. Zeleny even had to save a shusher once before it could drown in a large can of condensed milk. The expedition made an entire film about the shushers which had been enormously successful on the entertainment channels and the web.

Unfortunately the expedition simply did not have enough time to study the shushers as they should have; they knew the shushers came into the expedition's camp at sunrise and vanished with the sun, hiding in among the rocks.

However they managed it, when the expedition had already taken off for home, Poloskov discovered three shushers who had evidently gotten aboard the ship. Naturally Poloskov's first thought was that the shushers had been brought on board as contraband by one of the expedition's members, but the distress of his comrades was so sincere that Poloskov soon abandoned his suspicions.

The appearance of the shushers produced a whole mass of consequent problems. First of all they might very well be a source of some unknown infection. Secondly, they might very well die en route back to Earth when the ship made its jump. Thirdly, no one knew what they ate. And so on.

But all of the dangers proved, in the end, to be chimeras. The shushers went through disinfection without the slightest problem at all, they dutifully subsisted on bouillon and dried fruits. This made them a lifelong enemy in Zeleny, who had a taste for fruit himself and had to spend the last months of the expedition getting his vitamins from pills in order to 'feed the mice.'

Over the course of the long flight back to Earth the Shushes gave birth to six kits. As a result the ship reached Earth orbit filled to the gills with shushers and shusher kits. They turned out to be quick witted little animals and, other than Zeleny, none of the crew suffered the slightest unpleasantness or inconvenience.

I remember the historic moment when the expedition landed back on Earth, when, under the glare of the television and film cameras the airlock opened, and, instead of the spacemen, first through the orifice was an astonishing, furry animal. And after that came several more, just smaller. You could hear the gasp of astonishment around the world, but it cut off a moment later when a laughing Poloskov followed the shushers from out of the ship. In his hands he had one of the kits, condensed milk still smeared on its fur.

One part of the contingent of animals ended up in the zoo, others remained with spacemen who refused to give them up. Poloskov's shusher kit finally reached Alice. The Lord alone knows how my daughter charmed the spaceman out of the shusher.

Shusher lived in a large basket right beside Alice's bed; he got along fine without meat, slept nights, made friends with the cats and the large Martian Mantis, and he purred in a low, quiet voice when Alice petted him or told him how good he was or what he had done wrong.

Shusher grew very quickly and two months later he stood as tall as my daughter. They went for walks in the small garden across the street and Alice never put a collar and leash on to him.

"But what if something frightens him?" I asked. "He might get run over."

"No, nothing frightens him. And anyway, he'd really be embarrassed if I put him on a leash. He's really very sensitive."

One time Alice could not get to sleep. She was very cranky and after I put her to bed she called me on the house com and insisted that I read to her about Doctor Doolittle.

"Not now, kid." I said. "I have work to do right now. Besides, it's time you started reading your own books."

"But it's not in the book, Papa. It's still on the old microfilm and the letters are too small."

"So that's why we have the book reader. If you don't want to read yourself, turn on the sound."

"But I'd have to get up, and it's cold."

"Then you have to wait a while. When I finish writing I'll turn it on for you."

"If you won't do it, I'll ask Shusher."

"Ask him all you want." I laughed.

And a few minutes later I suddenly heard from the room next door the microfilm reader voice say: "...lived in a little town called Puddleby-on-the-Marsh. All the folks....".

And that meant Alice had gotten out of bed anyway and turned on the reader.

"Back to bed right now!" I shouted. "Go to sleep!"

"But I am in the bed."

"You mustn't lie to me. Just who turned on the reader?"

"Shusher."

One thing I will not permit is for my daughter to grow up a liar. I put aside my work, went into her room, planning to have a very serious conversation.

The book reader screen on the wall had been turned on. Shusher was at the control panel. On the screen Doctor Doolittle was surrounded by unfortunate animals.

"And how did you manage to teach him to do that trick?" I was truly astonished.

"I didn't teach him to do anything. He knows how to do it all on his own."

Shusher crossed his upper pair of paws on his chest in embarrassment.

There was a strained moment of silence.

"Oh well..." I finally started to say.

"Pardon me." A high pitched, husky voice broke the silence. It was Shusher speaking. "But I really did teach myself. It wasn't very difficult."

"I beg your pardon."

"It wasn't at all difficult." Shusher repeated. "You showed me how to work it yourself when you showed Alice the tale of the Mantis king the day before yesterday."

"No, that doesn't matter. How did you learn to speak?"

"I showed him how." Alice said.

"But I don't understand it at all! Dozens of biologists are working with the shushers and not once has a single shusher said a word to any of us!"

"But our shusher can read too, can't you?"

"Somewhat."

"He's told me a lot of interesting things..."

"I've become great friends with your daughter."

"But why were you silent for so long?"

"He's timid." Alice answered for him.

Shusher blinked his eyes.

We spend our summers in Vnukovo. It's very convenient; the monorail station is five minutes walk from the old country house. In the forest on the other side of the road grow different kinds of edible mushrooms, the brown caps that grow beneath the birches and the orange caps that grow near the pines, but they are far outnumbered by the mushroom hunters.

I arrived at the country house straight from the Zoo and instead of settling in to a rest found myself up to my ears in the local goings on. It centered around a local boy, Colin, who had become notorious in the Vnukovo area for seizing other children's toys. His parents had gone so far as to summon a psychologist from Vladivostok, who had in turn written his dissertation on the lad. The psychologist studied Colin, and Colin ate pot stickers and whimpered all day long. I had brought the kid a model photon rocket just to shut him up.

Aside from Colin there was his grandmother, who loved to talk about genetics and had written a novel about Mendel, Alice's grandmother, a kid named Yura and his mother, Karma, a set of triplets on a neighboring street who sang in a chorus underneath my window whether I wanted it or not, and, of course, the apparition.

The apparition lived somewhere near the apple tree and was a quite recent arrival.

I was sitting with Alice on the terrace and waiting for the new house robot to finish my super. So far the robot had tried its hands at cooking twice, and failed, leaving two saucepans sitting on the kitchen counter with overdone maccaroni and burned rice, and Alice and I were cussing out the factory, but neither of us wanted to bother with the chore, and Alice's grandmother had already set off for the theater, nor could we have called for instructions. Our house-com was broken and she had taken the pocket-com with her.

Alice said:

"He'll come today."

"Who - he?"

"My parition."

"Ap-parition. One word." I corrected her automatically, not taking my eyes from the robot.

"Okay." Alice wasn't going to argue. "So he'll be my AP-parition. And Colin stole some nuts from the twins. Isn't that remarkable?"

"Remarkable. What's your apparition like?"

"He's nice."

"Everyone you know is nice."

"Other than Colin."

"All right, other than Colin.... I was thinking; if I brought you home a fire breathing dragon lizard would you be able to make friends with it too?"

"Sure. Is it nice?"

"No one's been able to talk with it yet to find out. It comes from Mars and spits fiery venom."

"Sure. They got it angry. Why did they take it from Mars?"

There was no possible answer that I could give. It as the simple truth. No one had certainly ever asked the lizard when they removed it from Mars. And on the way back to Earth the lizard had eaten the ship's pet dog, making all of the space men very angry.

"Well, what can you tell me about the apparition?" I asked to change the subject. "What's it like."

"He only walks when it becomes real dark."

"Well, that's to be expected. From time immemorial. It's recounted in all of the fairy tales. Colin's grandmother...."

"Colin's grandmother just wants to tell me the history of genetics. How they persecuted Mendel..."

"Yes, and by the way, does your apparition react to the cry of a cock?"

"He doesn't. Why do you ask?"

"You see, a real apparition finds it useful to vanish from sight with terrible curses when a cock crows at dawn."

"I'll ask him tonight about the cock."

"Fine."

"And I have to go to bed later tonight. I have to speak to the apparition."

"As you will." Alas, our joking had come to an end. At long last the robot removed the frozen suppers from the microwave, beaming with pride in accomplishment.

Alice started to eat and I went back to my notes on the National Parks of Guinea. There was a very interesting article on Sirian Wickers. A revolution in zoology. They had been able to breed Wickers in captivity. The offspring were born dark green, despite the shells of both parents having been blue.

It grew dark outside the windows. Alice said,

"Well, I'll be off?"

"And where are you going?"

"To the apparition. I promised."

"And here I was thinking that you were joking. Well, if you really have to go out into the garden, then go, only put on a jacket because it's become cold. And don't go any further than the apple tree."

"But why should I go further? He's waiting for me there."

Alice ran out into the garden. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. I did not want to enter into her fantasy world. If she wanted, let her surround herself with apparitions and wizards and enchanted nights, good giants from the magic blue planet... Just so long as she would go to bed on time and eat normally.

I lowered the lights on the veranda so I could keep an eye on Alice better in the darkness. So I watched as she ran up to the apple tree, an old tree with mighty branches, and she stood beneath it.

And then... A blue shadow separated itself from the apple tree's trunk and moved to meet my daughter. The shadow swam through the air, not touching the ground. The next moment, grabbing something heavy for a club I had already jumped down the three steps to the lawn. I didn't like it at all. Either it was some sort of really dumb joke, or... It was the 'or' that I didn't want to even think about...

"Be careful, papa!" Alice said in a loud whisper. She had heard my heavy steps. "You'll frighten him!"

I grabbed Alice by the hand. In front of me a blue silhouette came apart like mist.

"Papa, what you've done! And I almost saved him!"

Alice howled shamefully while I carried her back to the terrace.

What was that thing beneath the apple tree? A hallucination?

"Why did you do it, Papa?" Alice howled. "You promised..."

"I didn't do anything." I answered. "Apparitions do not exist."

"You saw him yourself. Why won't you speak the truth? He can't stand it when the air moves. Don't you understand you have to come up to him slow so not to make a wind?"

I really did not know how to answer her. Of one thing I was certain, as soon as Alice fell asleep I was going out into the garden with a flash light to take a look.

"And he gave me a letter for you. Only now I won't give it to you."

"What sort of letter."

"Can't have it."

I finally noticed the piece of paper she had clutched in her fist. Alice looked at me, I looked at her, and she handed over the piece of paper anyway.

On the paper were notes for the feeding of red Crooms. I had been missing the note for the last three days.

"Alice, where did you find my notes?"

"Turn it over. The apparition didn't have any paper so I gave him some of yours."

On the reverse side of the paper, written in English in an unknown hand, was:

"Honorable Professor!

"I have summoned my courage to appeal to you, for I have fallen into a most unpleasant situation from which I may not emerge without outside intervention. Alas, neither can I go further than one meter from the center of this apple tree. You may look upon me in my woeful condition only during darkness.

"Thanks to your daughter, so thoughtful and sympathetic a being, I am finally able to resetablish communication with the outside world. "I, the woeful Professor Kuraki, am the victim of an unsuccessful experiment. I have been conducting experiments in matter transmission. I was able to transmit two turkey hens from Tokyo to Paris. They were received without problems by my colleagues. However, on the day I decided to test the equipment myself, the fuses in my laboratory overheated precisely at the moment of transmission. And the energy for molecular re-integration was insufficient. I was dispersed in space, however, my most concentrated locus is located in the region of your honorable garden. In this vexatious condition I have found myself for two weeks, and no doubt I have been given up for dead. "I beg of you, immediately upon receipt of this letter communicate with my colleagues in Tokyo. Someone must fix the fuses in my laboratory. Only then will rematerialization be able to occur. "Thanks a million, Kuraki"

I spent forever looking around in the darkness beneath the apple tree. Then I went down from the terrace and went closer. It was whitish blue, scarcely discernable as a shine in the air around the tree's trunk. Looking closer, I could make out the details of someone's face. The 'apparition' appeared to be praying, his hands raised toward the sky.

There was no time to waste. I ran all the way to the monorail station and found a com to call Tokyo.

The entire operation took no more than five minutes.

It was only on the way back home that I remembered I had forgotten to put Alice to bed. I hurried.

The light on the terrace hadn't been turned off.

Alice was there, showing her herbarium and collection of butterflies to a shortish, emaciated Japanese. The Japanese held a sauce pan in his hand and, not taking his eyes from Alice's treasures, was delicately eating overdone maccaroni.

Seeing me, our ghost bowed quite low, and said.

"Professor Kuraki, your humble servant. You and your daughter have saved my life..."

"See, Papa. This is my parition." Alice said. "Now do you believe me?"

"I certainly do." I answered. "Delighted to make your acquaintance."

The Missing Guests

The preparations for the meeting with the Labucillians were an enormous public spectacle. Never before had the Solar System hosted guests from so far away in space.

The Labucillians' first signals were received by the station on Pluto, and three days later the Londel Radio Observatory established contact with them.

The Labucillians were still far out but the Sheremetevo Spaceport was ready to greet them. Girls from the "Red Rose" Nursery had decorated it with garlands of flowers, and students from an arts college were practicing a show for their arrival. All the embassies had reserved seats on the reviewing stands and the reporters were spending their nights in the space ports restaurants.

Alice was living not far from there, in our country house in Vnukovo, and was gathering flowers and plants for her herbarium. She wanted to have a collection far better than the one Vanya Spitz in the senior group had made. Therefore, Alice took no part in the preparations for the big meeting. She did not even know about it. Nor did I have any direct connection to the First Contact. My work would only begin when the Labucillians landed.

But in the mean time events developed in the following manner.

On March 8 the Labucillians advised us that they had made Earth orbit. At exactly that moment a tragic accident occurred. Instead of the Labucillian ship the station had locked onto a lost Swedish satellite, the "Nobel-29. When the error was finally noticed it turned out the Labucillian ship had vanished. It had gone on to its landing, and contact with it was temporarily lost.

On March 9 at 6:33 the Labucillians advised us they had landed in the area of 55 minutes 20 seconds north latitude and 37 minutes forty seconds east longitude in the terrestrial system of coordinates, with a possible error of 15 seconds. That is, not far from Moscow.

Further communication was cut off and with one exception about which I will say later, could not be re-established. It turned out that terrestrial radiation had seriously damaged the Labucillian's communications equipment.

Immediately hundreds of machines and thousands of people rushed to our guests' presumed landing area. The roads were clogged with those desiring to find the Labucillians. The spaceport at Sheremetevo emptied; not a single correspondent remained in the restaurants. The sky over Moscow was cluttered with helicopters and other rotary wing aircraft, ornithopers , whirlagons and anything else that could be up into the sky. It looked like thousands of enormous bugs were hovering over the city.

Had the Labucillians' ship crashed and embedded itself in the ground the people in the air would have observed the crater.

No one found it.

Not a single local inhabitant saw the ship come down. And this was passing strange; at that moment a nearly all the inhabitants of Moscow and the surrounding countryside were looking up at the sky.

This indicated there had been an error. Somewhere.

Toward evening when I returned from my work to the country house the entire work-a-day life of the planet had been altered. People were afraid that something untoward had happened to our guests.

"Maybe they were antimatter?" Someone argued on the monorail. "When they entered Earth's atmosphere they would have gone poof!"

"Without a visible explosion, or any trace at all? Idiot!"

"And just how much do we know about the nature of antimatter?"

"Then who radioed their landing coordinates?"

"Maybe a practical joker?"

"Not a chance! How did they fake the communications with Pluto station?"

"Well, they could have...."

But it was the version about the invisibility of our guests that won the most adherents.

I was sitting on the veranda, looking over my overgrown lawn, and thinking as well; what if they had landed close by, in the next field? Could the poor aliens be standing around now outside their ship, wondering why people were paying them no attention. Might they get angry and depart? I was wanting already to go down and set out for the that very field when I saw a file of people exiting the forest. It was my neighbors from the next house over. They were holding hands like children playing a game. I realized they had reached the same conclusion I had, but earlier, and were trying to locate our presumably invisible visitors by touch.

At that moment there was more, unexpected, information came over NewsNet; they rebroadcast a transmission received by old style radio hams in Northern Australia. The transmission repeated the coordinates and then added the following words: "We are located in a forest. The first group has gone out in search of people. We continue to receive your broadcasts. We are astonished by the lack of contact...." At that moment contact was broken off entirely.

The idea that the visitors were invisible was immediately accepted by several score million more people.

I could see from my perch on the terrace the chain of people stop, turn, and head back again toward the forest. And at that moment Alice came up the steps with a small basket of strawberries in her hands.

"Why are they all running around?" She said before even saying hello.

"Who are 'they?' And one says 'Hello' if you haven't yet seen your only paterfamilias since this morning."

"Since last night. I was still sleeping when you left for work. Hello, papa. What's going on?"

"The Labucillians have vanished." I answered.

"I don't know them."

"No one knows them, yet."

"Then how did they get lost?"

"They were flying to Earth. They flew here and got lost."

I felt like I was talking nonsense. Alas, it was the simple truth.

Alice looked at me with suspicion.

"Does that happen all the time?"

"No, it doesn't. Not usually."

"And they couldn't find the space port?"

"Evidently."

"And where were they lost?"

"Somewhere in the area of Moscow. Maybe not very far from here."

"And everyone's looking for them on foot and from the air?"

"Yes."

"And why don't they just come themselves?"

"Then they must be waiting until people find them. It's their first time on Earth. So they wouldn't go very far from their ship."

Alice was silent for a moment, as though she were content with my answer. She walked around the porch about two times, not letting the basket with strawberries out of her hands. Then she asked:

"Are they in the field or in the forest?"

"In the forest."

"How do you know that?"

"They told us themselves. By radio."

"That's good."

"What's good?"

"That they're not in the field."

"Why?"

"I was afraid that I saw them."

"How so?"

"It's nothing, I was just joking..."

I got up from my chair. In general, Alice can be a great fabulator...

"I didn't go walking in the forest, Papa. Word of honor, I didn't. I was in the meadow. That means I didn't see them."

"Alice, I want you to tell me everything, in detail, all that you know. I'm not going to add anything myself. You saw strange...people, in the fore st?"

"Word of honor, cross my heart, I wasn't in the forest."

"All right, all right. In the meadow."

"I didn't do anything bad. And really, they're not all that strange."

"I want a decent answer from you, an adult answer: who did you see and where were they? Don't torment me and the rest of the human race...."

"Is the rest of the human race here, Papa?"

"Listen to me, Alice..."

"Oh, all right. They're here. They came with me."

I looked around involuntarily. The terrace was empty. If you didn't count the buzzing bee, there was no one here but Alice and myself.

"No, not there. You're not looking in the right place." Alice sighed, walked up closer to me, and said. "I wanted to keep them. I really didn't know the human race was looking for them."

She stretched out the basket with the strawberries. She raised the basket right in front of my eyes, and I made out, not really believing what I saw myself, two figures in space suits. They were covered with strawberry juice and sitting together on a single berry.

"I didn't do them any harm." Alice said guiltily. "I thought they might be gnomes, from the fairy tales."

But I wasn't listening to anything else she said. Carefully clutching the little basket to my heart I was running for the videophone. All I could think was, for our visitors, our uncut lawn must have seemed like an immense forest.

And that how we made our First Contact with the Labucillians.

Our Man In The Past

The ordeal with the time machine took place in the Little Hall of Science House. I had picked Alice up from the kindergarten and realized that if I took her home I would miss the demonstration. So I made Alice swear that she would behave herself and we went to Science House together.

The Head of the Temporal Institute, a very large and very bald person, stood in front of the time machine and explained the scientific principles of its construction and operation. The scientific community listened eagerly.

"Our first experiment, as you all know, was rather unsuccessful." He said. "The cat we sent back to the beginning of the twentieth century exploded in the region of the Tungus river, giving rise to the legend of the Tungus meteorite. Since then we have not experienced serious failure. True, in accordance with certain natural laws with which anyone may become acquainted by perusing our Institute's brochures, for the moment we can send people and objects back only to the seventh decade of the twentieth century. One has to say that some of our co-workers have spent time there, obviously in the utmost secrecy, and returned home successfully. The temporal transmission procedure is comparatively uncomplicated, in as much as it is the results of the labors of some hundreds of our people over many years. One need only put on the Time Belt... If I could be so fortunate as to have a volunteer from the hall, and I will demonstrate the procedure for preparing to move through time on him..."

There was an awkward silence. No one wanted to be the first to go onto the stage. So obviously, who else should be the first to step forward but Alice, who only five minutes before had sworn up and down that she would behave herself.

"Alice!" I shouted. "Get back down here!"

"Oh don't be alarmed." The Institute Head said. "Nothing at all will happen to the child."

"Nothing's going to happen to me, Papa!" Alice said happily.

The people in the hall began to laugh, heads turned in my direction, in search of the strict father.

I tried to appear nothing of the sort.

The Institute's Head put a belt around Alice's waist and attached something like earmuffs to her head.

"And this is all there is." He said. "Now the person is ready to travel through time. All he has to do is enter the time cabinet here and he will appear in the year One Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy-Five..."

What has he said!? The panicky thought exploded through my head. If Alice was listening....

But it was too late. Of course she was going to take advantage of the opportunity.

"Little girl, what are you doing? Stop!" The Institute's director shouted.

But Alice had already climbed into the Time Cabinet and, in the eyes of everyone, vanished. The hall gasped in chorus.

The Temporal Institute's director, white as a sheet, waved his arms back and forth, trying to lower the din. And, seeing that I had started to run toward him down the aisle, started to speak, bent over the microphone so he could be heard over the other noise:

"Nothing at all will happen to the child. After three minutes she will re-appear in this very hall. I give you my word that the apparatus is completely reliable and tested! Don't worry a bit!

His arguments were excellent, but all I could think of as I stood there was the fate of the cat who had been transformed into the Tungus meteorite. I both believed and disbelieved the speaker. Think of it a minute; what would you do if your child found herself a century in the past. And what if she should run away from the machine there, and get lost?

"Isn't there any way you can send me after her?" I asked.

"No. In three minutes.... Don't be alarmed; our man in the past will meet here."

"You have one of your researchers there?"

"Yes and no. He's not a researcher. We just found someone who understood all our problems perfectly and the second time cabinet is in his apartment. He lives there, in the twentieth century, but because of his specialty is sometimes comes into his future, our present..."

At that moment Alice appeared in the cabinet. She stepped onto the scene with the look of someone who had completed a mission successfully. Under one arm she held a large, antique book.

"So you see...." The Institute's Director said.

The hall burst into friendly applause.

"Little girl, tell me, what did you see?" The speaker said, not even giving me the chance to approach Alice.

"It was very interesting there." She said. "Pop! And I was in another room. There was a man sitting at a desk. He was writing something. He asked me: 'Little girl, are you from the twenty-first century?' I said of course I was, only I didn't know the number of the century because I can't count too well, I go to kindergarten in the middle group. The man said he was very pleased to meet me and that I had to go right back.

"'Do you want to look at Moscow the way it was before your grandfather was born?' I said I wanted to, and he showed it to me. It was very strange. All the buildings were small. Then I asked what he was called, and he said he was Arkady. He was a writer and wrote science fiction books about the future. Only it turns out that he doesn't think everything up by himself because sometimes people from our time come to him and they tell him everything. Only he can't tell anyone of this because it's a strict secret. He gave me his new book... And then I came back."

The hall greeted Alice's story with wild applause.

Then a venerable scholar rose from his seat and said:

"Young lady, in you're hand you are holding a unique book a first edition of the SF novel "The Holes On Mars." Would you give this book to me? There's no way you'll be able to read it."

"No," Alice said. "I'm going to learn how to read myself real soon."

End

Chapter One

Alice The Criminal!

I had promised Alice: "When you get a pass out of second grade I'll take you along on the Summer expedition. We'll be flying on the Pegasus to collect exotic and rare animals for the Zoo."

I had said that back in winter, right after New Year, but right at the same time I posted certain conditions: she had to study hard, do not do anything really stupid, and under no circumstances was she to have any 'adventures.'

Alice worked hard at carrying out her terms of the bargain, and it looked like there would ne nothing to threaten our plans. But in May, just about a month before our departure date, certain events transpired which almost wrecked everything.

On that day I was working at home, writing an article for Cosmozoology Courier. Through my study's open door I saw my daughter enter the house on her return from school, downcast and gloomy, throw the bag with her bookreader down with a crash on the table, refuse her dinner and pick up not the book that had been her constant companion for the last three months Animals of Distant Planets but instead grab for The Three Musketeers.

"Are you having difficulties?" I asked.

"Nothing in particular." Alice answered. "How'd you guess?"

"It showed."

Alice thought a while, put the book back down and asked:

"Dad, do you have any gold nuggets hanging around?"

"Just how much gold do you need?"

"About a kilogram and a half."

"Nope."

"Do you have less than that?"

"Do be honest, I don't have any less than that at all. None whatsoever. What's it good for?"

"I don't know." Alice said. "I just need it."

I came out of my study, sat down on the divan beside Alice, and said:

"I think you'd better tell me just what it is you've gotten into."

"Nothing special. I just need the gold."

"And if you were to be totally honest with me...."

Alice took a long and painful sigh, looked out the window, and finally came clean:

"Dad, I'm a criminal."

"A criminal?"

"I committed a robbery, and now they are going to kick me out of school for sure."

"Too bad." I said. "But continue. It might be that everything isn't quite so terrible as it was when you looked at the problem first glance."

"Okay. Well, in general, Alesha Naumov and I decided to catch the giant pike. It lives in the Ikshinsky reservoir and devours the fry. One of the fishermen there told us about it. You don't know him."

"And for this you need gold ore?"

"For a fish lure.

"My whole class talked it all over and decided we would need a lure to catch the pike. Ordinary pike you catch with simple lure, but a giant pike would need as really special lure to catch it. And we have a big piece of gold in the school museum. Or we had. It weighed a kilogram and a half. One of our graduates gave it to the school; he found it in the asteroid belt."

"And you stole gold ore weighing a kilogram and a half?"

"It really wasn't like that, Dad. We were just taking in on loan. Leva Zvansky said that his father was a geologist and could get us a new one. And so we decided to make lures out of gold. The giant pike wold be sure to fall for a lure like that."

"Is that all?"

"Nothing much else happened, Dad. The other kids were afraid to open the display case so we drew straws and I wouldn't have ever taken it if I hadn't drawed the shortest straw."

"Drawn."

"What?"

"To draw straws. Past participle 'drawn.' I draw, I drew, I have drawn, I had drawn."

"Oh, yeah. So I drew the shortest straw and there was now way I could go back on my word to the other kids. All the more so since no one was going to miss that piece it just sat and sat in the museum..."

"And then?"

"And then we took it to Alesha Naumov, who got a laser and cut the darned gold nugget into lots of small pieces. And then we went to the Ikshinsky reservoir and the pike took our bait."

Alice thought it over a moment, and she added:

"Or maybe it wasn't the giant pike. Maybe it was a snag on a dead tree. The lure we made was very heavy. We searched for it and we never found it. We all took turns diving for it."

"And your crime was discovered?

"Yes, because Zvansky was a liar. He brought a handful of diamonds from home and said there wasn't a bit of gold to be had. We sent him back home with his diamonds. As if we needed diamonds! And when Elena Alexandrovna came by and said: 'Kids, open up the museum; I'll be taking the first graders on their tour. Talk about bad timing! So everything was discovered. And she went running to the headmistress: "Danger," she says (we were listening under the door) "The past has come alive in someone's blood!" Alesha Naumov did promise to take all the blame on himself, but I didn't let him. I drew the straw, so they hang me. And that's everything."

"And that's all?" I was amazed. "And you've `fessed up to it?"

"I haven't had a chance yet." Alice said. "They gave us all until tomorrow. Elena said that either the gold nugget is in place or we will be having a 'serious conversation.' That means that tomorrow they're going to take us out of the races and maybe even expel me from school when I do 'fess up."

"What races?"

"Tomorrow is the big air bladder races. For the school championships. My class's team is Alesha, me, and Egorov. And there's no way they'll let Egorov fly alone."

"And haven't you forgotten one further complication?" I said.

"What complication." Alice asked with a tone in her voice that told me she knew perfectly well which one.

"You have failed to live up to our agreement."

"Yes I did." Alice agreed. "But it was done in a good cause."

"It was? You stole a gold nugget in the weight of a kilogram and a half, cut it into fish lures, lost it in the Ikshinsky Water Reservoir and you don't even recognize what you did! A good cause indeed! I fear the Pegasus will have to leave you behind."

"Oh, Daddy! Alice whispered. "What do I do now?"

"Think." I said, and went back into my office to finish the paper. But writing proved difficult. Such a silly misadventure! How like small children to cut a museum exhibit to pieces with a laser!

After about an hour I looked outside my office. Alice was nowhere to be seen. She had run off some where. I went back inside and punched out the number of Friedman at the Mineralogical Museum; we'd met long before when our expeditions had crossed in the Pamir Mountains.

His round face and black moustache filled the videophone screen.

"Lenny," I said, "Do you by any chance have any gold nuggets weighing about a kilogram and half in stock?"

"I'd say I have at least five kilos. What do you need it for? For work?"

"No. It's needed at home."

"I don't know what to say." Lenny answered, curling one long moustache end around a finger. "They're all on the account books."

"And I need the most worthless." I said. "Or rather, my daughter needs it for school."

"Alice?"

"Alice."

"Then you know what," Friedman said, "I'll give you the gold. Or rather, not to you, but to Alice. And you can pay me back with a favor in return."

"With pleasure."

"Loan me one of your Centaurian Blue Leopards for one day."

"What?"

"Your Blue Leopard. We are infested with mice."

"They go after the stones?"

"I don't know what it is they are eating, but the Pied Piper would be hard pressed to keep up with them. And they do not fear the cat. And they get away from the robot mousecatchers and ignore the old style mousetraps. But the smell and sight of a Blue Leopard sends mice running until they can't go any further. Now, what am I to do? A Blue Leopard is a rare and exotic animal, and I need someone who can bring it to the Museum and make certain it doesn't eat anyone. Other than mice, of course."

"Okay." I said. "Just send the gold nugget by the morning, by pneumopost."

I hung up the videophone and immediately heard a knock on the door. I opened it. Before our door stood a fair haired little boy in the orange costume of a Venusian terraformer, with the emblem of first Expedition to the Sirius system on his sleeve.

"Pardon me." He said. "Are you Alice's dad?"

"I am."

"Hello. My name is Egorov. Is Alice at home."

"No. She went off somewhere."

"Too bad. Can you be trusted?"

"Me? Oh, of course!"

"Then I have to have a man to man conversation with you."

"Not Astronaut to Astronaut?"

"Don't laugh." Egorov flushed red. "I plan to earn my wings some day."

"I don't doubt you will." I said. "So how about the man to man conversation?"

"Alice and I are in the airbladder race tomorrow, only something has happened that might cause them to pull her off the team. To put it generally, she has to return something that was lost to the school. I'm giving this to you., but I don't want you to say who it from. Is that clear?"

"Very clear, o mysterious and unknown stranger." I said.

"Take it."

He held out a small bag to me. The bag was very heavy.

"Gold, by any chance ?" I asked.

"So you know?"

"I know."

"It is."

"I trust it was come by legitimately."

"Of course it was! What do you think I am? I got it while camping in the mountains. Well, good bye."

I hadn't yet managed to reach my seat when the door bell rang again. I found two small girls on our doorstep.

"Hello." They said in chorus. "We're from the first grade. Take this for Alice."

They handed me two individual purses and ran off. In one purse lay four gold coins, very old coins from someone's collection. In another, three tea spoons. The tea spoons it turned out were not, in fact, gold; they were platinum. Yet another piece of gold arrived in a box in the evening mail from another unknown wellwisher. Then Leva Zvansky dropped by and tried to foist on me a small casket with diamonds. After he left an member of the 8th Grade class came by; he brought along three tiny gold nuggets.

"I collected them back when I was a kid." He said.

Alice returned toward evening. She shouted happily from the door:

"Papa! There's nothing to worry about. Everything worked out. I can go with you on the expedition."

"Why such a change." I asked.

"Because I found a replacement." Alice was scarcely able to drag the Mother Load of gold ore out of her bag. It appeared to be about six or seven kilograms.

"I went to see Captain Poloskov. I told him the problem and he called around to everyone he knew. He also fed me supper, so I'm not hungry."

Then Alice caught sight of the gold nuggets and other gold and platinum objects that had accumulated in our house over the course of the day, which I had spread out on the dinner table.

"Oh my!" She said. "The museum is making out like space pirates."

"Listen to me, my fine young criminal." I said to her. "I would, under no circumstances, be taking you along on this expedition were it not for your friends."

"And why, because of my friends?"

"Because they would hardly have run all over Moscow searching for gold objects for a really bad person."

"But I'm not such a bad person." Alice said without the slightest hint of modesty.

I frowned, but at that moment there was a ka-chunk in the wall slot indicating the arrival of a package via the pneumatic tube postal system. I opened the wall slot and pulled out the package with gold in it from the Mineralogical Museum. Friedman had completed his part of the bargain.

"And this is from me." I added it to the pile.

"So you see," Alice said, "you're my friend too."

"It would appear so." I answered. "But I suggest you not be presumptuous."

The next morning I had to accompany Alice to school, as the weight of the gold objects that had accumulated in our apartment had reached seventeen kilograms.

Handing her the bag at the entrance to the school I said,

"I quite forgot about your punishment."

"About what?"

"On Sunday you will be taking the Zoo's Centaurian Blue Leopard on a trip to the Mineralogical Museum."

"Take the Blue Leopard to the Museum? But he's too... too stupid!"

"Yes. He'll be there to scare the mice. And you'll be there to see he doesn't frighten anyone else."

"Agreed." Alice said. "And we are going on the expedition."

Chapter Two

Forty-Three Stowaways

The last two weeks before our departure passed in a flash of excitement and often unnecessary commotion. I hardly saw Alice at all during that time.

Firstly, I was in charge of preparing, checking, and loading and finding places aboard the Pegasus for all the cages, snares, ultrasound lures, traps, nets, forcefield generators, and the thousand other things which were needed to catch animals.

Secondly, the medicines, stored foods, films, recording tapes, cameras, dictaphones, microscopes, herbarium papers, note books, rubber boots, calculators and computers, umbrellas for the varius suns, and from the rain, lemonade, rain coats, panama hats, dried ice cream concentrate, jetpacks, and the still million more other things that might prove necessary on the expedition.

Thirdly, in as much as we would, on our outbound run, be stopping in at many isolated scientific bases, stations, and diverse worlds we found ourselves carrying freight and gifts: oranges for some astronomers on Mars, canned herring for some explorers on Arcturus Minor, cherry juice, India ink, and modeling clay for the archaeologists in the 2-BTS system, brocade dressing gowns and electrocardiographs for the inhabitants of the planet Fyxx, a set of walnut trees won by an inhabitant of the planet Samora in the "Do You Know The Sol System" contest, fried quince (fortified with vitamins) for the Labucillians and still many more gifts and packages which were foisted on us in the last moments by the grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, children and grand children of those people and extraterrestrials we would be seeing. Toward the last moment our Pegasus began to take on the appearance of Noah's Ark, a flying flea market, a Harrod's and Macy's all rolled into one. Over the last two weeks I must have lost twelve pounds, and the Pegasus's captain, the famous astronaut Poloskov, must have aged six years. Add to that the Pegasus was not really a large ship, and its crew was really very small.

On Earth and other planets command of the expedition would devolve to me, Professor Seleznev of the Moscow Zoo. That I am a professor hardly means that I am already old, grey haired, and important; it just happened that I had always been fascinated by animals and had not changed my childhood preference for rocks, stamps, radio astronomy, or other such interesting things. When I was ten I joined the Young Naturalists Club at the local zoo, and after high school went to University to major in biology, but even while I was in college I continued to spend my free time in the zoo and biological laboratories. When I graduated from the university I knew enough about animals to write my first book. That was back before we had faster than light ships that could carry us to the ends of the Galaxy, and there were very few astrozbiologists. That was twenty years ago, and astrozbiologists have become fairly common. But I happened to be one of the first. I made the rounds on many different planets in other star systems and quite without knowing what I was doing I found I had become a full Professor.

When the Pegasus leaves Terra firma the ship's master and commander over us all will be Gennady Poloskov, the famous astronaut and ship's captain. The two of us had encountered each other earlier on distant planets and scientific bases. He had been a guest in my house many times and was especially fond of Alice. Poloskov is not at all like the Movie Star Starship Captain; when he takes off his uniform he looks more like a kindergarten teacher or librarian. Poloskov is of medium height, with ash blond hair, taciturn, and very precise in all his movements. But when he takes his place in the command chair on the bridge, he changes: his voice deepens, his face radiates firmness and decisiveness. Poloskov has never lost his composure and he is very well respected in Star Fleet.

We had difficulty in getting him to captain the Pegasus; Jack O'Connell had been after him to captain his new passenger liner on the Earth-Fyxx run. If it had not been for Alice I'd never have talked him into it.

The third member of the Pegasus's crew is Zeleny, the engineer. He is a tall man with a bushy red beard. He's a fine engineer and has flown with Poloskov on previous expeditions; his chief joy in life is to immerse himself in the engines or fix something else in the engineering section. In general Zeleny is first rate, but sometimes he becomes distracted and then some or other very important machine or instrument would be disassembled precisely at that moment when we needed it most And Zeleny was a confirmed pessimist, always certain that whatever we were doing would not end well. Whatever it was. For example, he had read in some old book how someone had cut himself while shaving with a razor and died of blood poisoning. Now, although you will not find such a razor anywhere on the planet Earth, although all men now smear their faces with a depilatory paste rather than shave, he had decided to let his beard grow out. Whenever we land on an unknown planet he immediately advises us to leave, because the animals here are few, or something not needed by the Zoo at all, and if they are needed there's no way we could get them back to Earth, and so forth. But we're all used to Zeleny and we pay no attention to his grumbling, nor does he become angry with us. The fourth member of our crew, if you do not count the cook robot which was always broken anyway and the automated land rover, was Alice. She is,as you know, my daughter; she had just finished the second grade and something or other was always happening to her, but so far all her various adventures had ended successfully. Alice was a useful member of the expedition she was able to look after the animals and was almost never afraid of them.

The night before we took off I had trouble getting to sleep; it seemed like I kept hearing the doors to the house opening and slamming shut. When I got up Alice was already dressed, as though she had never even been to bed. We both hurried to the flyer. We were carrying almost nothing with us, if ignore my black leather briefcase, and Alice's shoulder bag, where the swim fins and harpoon for underwater hunting had been tied. The morning was cold, chilly, and bright. The meteorologists had promised to give us rain after supper, but, as always, they had been off in their timing and the rain had come just before dawn. The streets were empty; we had already said good-byes to our relatives and friends and had promised to write from every planet.

The flyer cruised slowly over the streets and drifted west to the space port; I gave piloting over to Alice and pulled out my reader, scrolling down the enormous list, re-examining and cross- checking for the thousandth time because Captain Poloskov had sworn to me that if we could not kick of three tons of payload, at the very least, we would never make it off the planet.

I was paying no attention to our approach to the space port; Alice was clearly concentrating on something, but what it was not was flying, which she had completely forgotten about. She was so distracted she landed the flyer at the base of another ship, a freighter loading piglets for Venus.

At the sight of a car dropping out of the sky the piglets scattered in every direction, the robots herding them rushed to catch the fugitives, and the human in charge of the loading cursed me out for trusting a landing to a small child.

"She's not so small." I answered the freight handler. "She just finished second grade."

"Even worse." The freight handler said, clutching a just caught squealing piglet to his chest. "There's no way we'll catch them all before sundown!"

I glared at Alice, took the control rod from her, and moved the car to the white disk of the Pegasus. The Pegasus, back in the days when it was fresh from the shipyards, had been a high speed mail carrier. Then, when ships that were faster and more capacious appeared, the Pegasus was relegated to expeditions. It had enormous holds and had already served both geologists and archaeologists, and now the Zoo had acquired its services. Poloskov was waiting for us; we had barely managed to say our hellos when he asked:

"Have you thought about which three tons we clear out?"

"I've don some thinking, yes." I said.

"Tell me about it."

At that moment a little old lady in a blue shawl came up to us and asked:

"Would it be possible for you to take a small package for my son in the Aldebaran system?"

"Why not?" Poloskov threw up his hands. "We can't take any more of this!"

"It's really a very small package." The old woman said. "Two hundred grams, no more. "You can just imagine what it will be like if he can't get his birthday present..."

We couldn't imagine.

"And what is in the package?" Poloskov asked politely, surrendering to the mass of grey hairs.

"Nothing unusual. Cookies. Kolya so loves cookies! And a stereotape showing his son, my grandson, learning to walk."

"Bring it on." Poloskov said gloomily.

I looked around for Alice. She had gotten off somewheres. The sun was already high over the space port and the Pegasus's long shadows reached the space port buildings.

"We'll re-load part of the cargo for the moon to the regular freight ship." I told Poloskov. "And take off will be easier from the moon."

"I was thinking that too." Poloskov said. "But in any case we have to unload four tons to have a reserve."

"And where can I put this wee package?" The old woman asked.

"Then robot at the lock can take it." Poloskov said, and the two of us started to go over what we would have to unload.

Out of the corner of one eye I got a glimpse of Alice moving about and that carried my eye toward the old woman and her wee package. The old woman was standing in the shadow of the ship, and quietly arguing with the robot loader. Behind the old woman floated a seriously overloaded baggage handler.

"Poloskov," I said, and nodded in the old woman's direction.

"Oh lord!" came from our famous captain's lips. "There's no way I'm going to live through this."

He made a tiger's leap for the old woman.

"What's this?" He thundered.

"The package." The old woman said timidly.

"Cookies?"

"Cookies." The old woman was already recovering from fright.

"And why, pray tell, so large."

"Please, Captain." The old woman said boldly. "Would you expect my son to get cookies from me and go off and eat them all in hiding, alone, not even bothering to share with his one hundred and thirty fellow researchers. Would you want that?"

"I I want nothing else." The exhausted Poloskov said. "I am staying home and flying nowhere! Is that clear? I'm not going anywhere!"

The battle with the old woman lasted half an hour and ended in Poloskov's victory. During that time I remained aboard and oversaw the robots in removing the oranges and the walnut tree prize.

I encountered Alice in a far passage of the cargo hold and was very surprised at our meeting.

"And what are you doing here?" I asked.

Alice hid a half eaten bagel behind her back and answered:

"Just familiarizing myself with the ship."

"Go to the control room." I said. "Scat!"

Finally, toward twelve, we had finished the re-loading. Everything was ready. Poloskov and I went over the figures again; when the anti-gravs kicked in, there would be a reserve of two hundred kilograms, our weight would be more than completely neutralized and we would fall toward space. Poloskov used the loud speaker system to get in touch with Zeleny. The engineer was sitting in the control seat, running his hands through his rusty beard.

Poloskov bent over the screen and asked:

"Can we take off?"

"Any time." Zeleny said. "But I really don't like the weather."

"Traffic control." Poloskov said into the microphone. "Pegasus requests permission for lift off."

"A moment please." The dispatcher answered. "Do you have any places for passengers?"

"Not a single one." Poloskov answered firmly. "We are not taking any passengers."

"That's not what I meant. Do you have room aboard to carry five people to the Moon?"

"Why? What about the regular flights?"

"All over booked."

"Why?"

"You don't know? Today's the Galactic Sector soccer championships; Earth versus Fyxx in Luna City."

"Whatever reason would they put it on the moon?" Poloskov had absolutely no interest in soccer and in general had spent the last there days prior to our departure quite divorced from such mundane realities.

"Where have you been?" The dispatcher said. "How are Fyxxians supposed to play under terrestrial gravity? The moon's gravity is uncomfortable enough!"

"In other words, Earth emerges victorious?" Poloskov asked.

"I doubt it." The dispatcher answered. "They switched three defensive ends with Mars, including Simon Braun."

"I should have your cares and travails." Poloskov said. "When can we leave?"

"We're going to win anyway." Alice entered the conversation. She had come onto the bridge without my noticing.

"Right, kid!" The dispatcher beamed. "Now, can you take any of the fans? For me to send them all I'd need seven ships. I can't imagine how the applications are already piling up...."

"No." Poloskov cut him off.

"Well, that's up to you. Ready your engines."

Poloskov turned to the engine controls.

"Zeleny," he said, "turn on the in-system drives, but just enough to make certain we're not overloaded.

"How could we be overloaded." I felt shocked. "We've just recalculated everything."

The ship almost began to shiver with the expectation of coming speed.

"Five Four Three Two One Liftoff!" The captain said.

The starship groaned and remained on the ground.

"What happened?" Poloskov said.

"Pegasus, what's going on?" The dispatcher, who had been overseeing our liftoff, asked.

"Nothing happened, that's what." Zeleny said. "I keep telling you that nothing good is going to come of this."

Alice was sitting like she was fastened to her seat, not looking in my direction.

"We'll try it again." Poloskov said.

"You don't have to prove anything." Zeleny answered. "There is a considerable overload, far too much mass for our engines to shift. I have the readings here..."

Poloskov attempted to lift the Pegasus a second time, but the ship remained on the ground as though nailed in place. Then Poloskov said:

"We must have some sort of major error in our calculations."

"No. The computer checked them, and I added them up on the side." I answered. "We have a reserve of two hundred kilograms."

"But then what's the cause?

"We'll have to throw a lot of the freight overboard. We can't loose any more time. Which cargo hold do we begin with?"

"With the first." I said. "It's filled with packages bound for the moon."

"Not the first, please!" Alice suddenly said.

"All right." I answered her automatically. "Then we start with three and get rid of the cages and trapping equipment."

"But the third..." Alice started to say.

"Now what's going on?" Poloskov asked angrily.

The traffic control dispatcher's face was on our screen again.

"Pegasus," he said. "We have a request for you?"

"What sort of request?"

"You'd better speak to the Information Desk."

The screen changed to show the starport waiting room. A crowd had gathered around the Information Desk; among them I recognized a number of familiar faces. Where had I seen them before?

The woman standing closest to the Information Desk pick up looked at me.

"Now this is absolutely shameful! This is a horrible prank to play!"

"What prank?" I had no idea what she was talking about.

"I told Alyosha: 'You can't go to the moon; you have five Cs in your final quarter."

"And I told Leva he couldn't go to this game." Another woman pushed her way into the pick up. "He could see it perfectly well on television!"

"A-ha." I said to myself slowly. I did know these people who were about to stage a riot in the starport's waiting room. They were the parents of the other children in Alice's class.

"So it's all clear." Poloskov said. "Just how many stowaways do we have on board?"

"I didn't think we'd be overloaded." Alice said. "There was no way the kids could miss the match of the century! What's the point of me going to the match if they're not there?"

"And how many stowaways do we have?" Poloskov repeated in a voice of steel.

"Our class and the two parallel ones." Alice whispered. "While dad was sleeping I flew them to the spaceport and hid them aboard."

"You are not flying anywhere!" I said. "There is no way we can take irresponsible people on this expedition."

"Papa, I won't do it again." Alice begged. "Please, understand! I have a strongly developed sense of responsibility!"

"We could have crashed because of your sense of responsibility." Poloskov said.

Usually he was the one who would pardon any of Alice's transgressions, but now he was very angry.

"Get those stowaways off the ship." He added. "If we can do it in half an hour, you will remain aboard. If not, we take off without you."

The last stowaway was hunted down and expelled from the cargo holds in twenty-three minutes. Six minutes later they were all standing outside the ship, terribly proud and terribly sad, with a crowd of mothers, fathers, and grandparents rushing toward them from the space port's buildings.

In sum there had been forty-three stowaways aboard the Pegasus; to this day I do not understand how Alice was able to find places for them all aboard so well hidden that we had noticed not a one of them.

"Bye, Alice! Have fun!" Alesha Naumov shouted from below when we were at last closing the locks. "Root for Earth for us! And come back soon!"

"Earth will win!" Alice shouted back.

When the Earth was already dropping away from us and we had set course for the Moon, Alice said:

"It didn't turn out all that well, papa."

"Not all that well at all," I agreed. "I am quite ashamed of you."

"That wasn't what I meant." Alice said. "The whole Third B class took off on a freight barge for the moon in potato sacks. They'll be at the stadium, but our Second grade class won't. I have not lived up to the trust of my fellow students."

"And what did they do with the potatoes they displaced?" Poloskov asked, surprised.

"I don't know." Alice said. She thought and added: "It will just be me and the Third B class at the game. Yuck!"

Chapter 3

"Have You Heard About The Three Captains?"

When the Pegasus set down at the Luna City Space Port I asked my fellow travelers:

"What plans do you have? We're taking off tomorrow at six AM on the button."

Captain Poloskov said he was planning on remaining aboard ato ready the ship for its flight.

Engineer Zeleny asked permission to go to the soccer match.

Alice also said she was going to the soccer game, but without all that much pleasure in her voice.

"Why so glum?"

"You mean you've forgotten? The whole Third B class will be at the stadium, and I''ll be the only one from the Second. It's all your fault."

"Mine?"

"You were the one who kicked my kids off the ship?".

"We couldn't have gotten off the ground with them aboard! Not to mention what their parents would have said to me. What if something had happened?"

"Where." Alice was angry. "In the Sol system? At the end of the twenty-first century?"

When Alice and Zeleny left I decided to go for one last cup of real coffee from a real restaurant for the last time until we returned to Earth, and I headed for the Selene.

The enormous domed hall of the restaurant was nearly full; I stopped not far from the entrance and began searching for a free place, when a familiar voice thundered at me:

"Who is it that I see before me!"

It was one of my oldest friends, Gromozeka; he had occupied a distant table. I hadn't seen him for almost five years, but I had certainly never forgotten about him. Once we had been very close, in as much as our acquaintance began when I managed to save him in the jungles of Eurydice. Gromozeka had managed to get separated from an archaeological survey crew, was unable to find his way in the forest and nearly ended up in the jaws of a Minor Dragonette, a fairly nasty critter all of sixteen meters long.

On seeing me Gromozeka unfurled the mass of the tentacles he had curled up for convenience sake, his charming green smile split his half meter wide maw in two, he reached out his razor sharp claws for me, and, at full throttle, he rushed to my side.

Some tourist who had never before in his life seen an inhabitant of the planet Chumaroz, screamed and fell down in a faint. But Gromozeka paid him no heed; he strongly enfolded me in his tentacles and clutched me to the hard boney plate on his breast.

"Sweetheart!" He roared like a lion. "How many years have separated us, now many winters have we been forced to endure each other's absence! I was about to get a ticket for a flight to Moscow to see you, and now, here, before my eyes I can hardly believe it! How have the Fates been so kind!"

"I'm going off on an expedition." I said. "Hunting animals around the Galaxy."

"That is stupendous!" Gromozeka was delighted. "I cannot tell you how overjoyed I am that you have finally been able to overcome the plots and intrigues of your enemies and go off into the field."

"But I don't have any enemies."

"You cannot deceive me." Gromozeka said, shaking sharp, clicking claws in front of my nose reproachfully.

I did not bother to speak back because I knew how suspicious my friend was.

"Sit, sit." Gromozeka ordered. "Robot, a bottle of your best Georgian wine for my dearest friend and three liters of Ex-Lax for me."

"Order taken." The robot waiter answered and trundled off to the kitchen for our order.

"And how has life been?" Gromozeka continued his interrogation. "How is your wife? And your daughter: has she already started to walk?"

"All the way to school." I said. "She just finished second grade."

"Wondrous." Gromozeka roared. "How quickly time runs with us in its grasp..."

With this some sad thought overcame my friend, and, being a very impressionable being, Gromozeka sighed, and caustic smoking tears flowed from each of his seven eyes.

"And how are things with you?" I grew alarmed.

"You can''t imagine how quickly time flies," Gromozeka said between the tears. "The children grow, and the two of us grow old."

Gromozeka, overcome with aa feeling of tenderness, expelled streams of caustic yellow smoke from each of his four nostrils; the cloud of noxious gas began to fill the restaurant, but he got himself in hand and spoke up:

"Pardon me, most noble restaurant patrons; I shall try to avoid causing you any further discomfort."

The mist spread between the tables; people coughed and a few even had to leave the hall.

"Let's go." I said, wheezing, "or you might do something else."

"You're right." Gromozeka agreed resignedly.

We exited the restaurant and went into the hall, where Gromozeka occupied an entire divan, and I found room for myself beside him in a chair. The robot brought us the wine and Ex- Lax, a wine glass for me and a liter bottle for my friend.

"Where are you working now?" I asked Gromozeka.

"We'll be digging a dead city on Coleida." He answered. "I stopped by here to pick up an infrared detector."

"An interesting city on Coleida?" I asked.

"Perhaps, interesting, or not." Gromozeka answered carefully. He was horribly superstitious. To avoid the Evil Eye he circled his rightmost eye with his tail four times and said in a whisper: "Baskuri-bariparata."

"When do you begin?" I asked.

"Our team departs from Mercury in two weeks time. That's where our temporary base is."

"A strange, inhospitable place." I said. "Half the planet is a scorching airless desert while the other half is a frozen airless desert."

"Nothing extraordinary." Gromozeka said, and reached again for the Ex-Lax. "We were there last year hunting the remains of the ship of the Midnight Wraiths. That's work. But I've told you all about myself! I want to hear your plans."

"I only know them approximately." I answered. "For starters we'll be making a circuit of research bases in the neighborhood of the Sol system, then we're off. We've a lot of time three months, and the ship is pretty big."

"Not headed for Eurydice?" Gromozeka asked.

"No. There is a Dragonette Minor in the Moscow Zoo already, and the Dragonette Major, unfortunately, can't be caught."

"And even if you could catch it," Gromozeka said, "Your ship would never be able to carry it."

I agreed the Pegasus could never carry a Dragonette Major, but that was because it had to eat four tons of meat and bananas a day.

The two of us were silent for a while. It can be very pleasant to sit with an old friend with no need to hurry anywhere. An elderly woman tourist in a purple wig, decorated with holographic flowers, came up to us and timidly extended a notebook.

"Would it be possible," she asked, "if I could obtain your autograph as a memento of our chance encounter."

"And why not?" Gromozeka said, reaching for the notebook with a clawed tentacle.

The old woman drew back in fear; her small hand trembled.

Gromozeka turned the notebook to a blank bage and wrote in a florid script:

"To the fair young damsel hominoid of Earth from her admirer from the misty planet Chumaroz. Selene Restaurant, 3 March."

"Thank you." The old woman whispered and departed in tiny steps.

"And did I write it well? Gromozeka asked me. "It was touching?

"It was touching." I agreed. "But not entirely correct."

"How so?"

"That was not a very young human girl, but a woman of late middle age. And, in general, we use hominoid to include most of the apes and our pre-sapient ancestors that we dig up from paleontological sites."

"Oh, what shame!" Gromozeka was distraught. "But she had flowers in her hat. If I run after her now I might be able to re-write the autograph."

"It's not worth it." I stopped him. "You'd just frighted her out of her wits."

"Yes, heavy is the burden of glory." Gromozeka said. "But it is pleasant to discover that the most important archaeologist on Chumaroz is known even on the distant Earth's Moon."

I did not bother to disabuse my friend; I suspected the old woman had not once in her life imagined, yet alone encountered, an astroarchaeologist. She had simply never seen anyone like Gromozeka before.

"Listen," Gromozeka said, "I have an idea. I can help you."

"How?"

"Have you heard about a planet named The Three Captain's World?"

"I read about it somewhere, but I don't remember where or when."

"That is superb."

Gromozeka leaned closer, placing one of his heavy, rather warm tentacles on my shoulder, straightened the shining plates that formed the globular, almost balloon-like belly, and began:

"In Sector 19-4 there is a smallish, uninhabited planet. It used to be it did not even have a name, just a numerical code. Now space men call it the Three Captain's World. And do you know why? There, on a flat, stony plateau they have erected three statues, placed there to honor three space captains. These were great explorers and noble people. One of them was born on Earth, the second on Mars, and the third Captain was born on Fyxx. Hand in hand these Captains strode the constellations, landing on planets everyone else thought were impossible to land on; they saved entire worlds threatened by danger. They were the first to defeat the jungles of Eurydice, and one of them wounded a Dragonette Major. They sought out and destroyed a nest of space pirates, although the space pirates outnumbered them by twenty to one. The descended into the methane atmosphere of Golgotha and recovered the Philosopher's Stone lost there by Kursak's convoy. With it they destroyed a poisonous volcano that threatened to exterminate the population of an entire planet. You could spend weeks recounting their achievements...

"Now I remember." I interrupted Gromozeka. "Of course I've heard of the Three Captains."

"To-to," Gromozeka grumbled and drank from his can of Ex-Lax. "How quickly we forget our heros. Shameful." Gromozeka reproachfully nodded his soft head and continued. "Some years ago the paths of the Captain's diverged. The First Captain was lured onto the Venus Project."

"That I know about." I said. "That means he's one of those who are changing the planet's orbit."

"Yes. The first captain always loved grandiose projects. And when he learned that the decision had been taken to shift Venus's orbit further from your sun and change the period of its rotation so that people can settle there, he immediately offered his services to the project. And this is glorious, in as much as the scientists had decided to turn Venus into a very large space ship and there is no one else in the Galaxy better suited than the First Captain in dealing with the celestial mechanics of a world-ship."

"And the remaining Captains."

"The second, it is said, died somewhere, whereabouts unknown and when unknown too.

"The Third captain set off for the Andromeda Galaxy and will not return for many, many years.

"What I wanted to say to you, is that the Captains encountered many strange, rare, even miraculous beasts and birds. Their notebooks and diaries would surely provide invaluable information."

"And where are they?"

"Their notebooks and records are maintained on the Three Captains' World. Right beside the monument which was erected by subscriptions from the grateful inhabitants of some seven hundred planets there is a laboratory and memorial center. The full time resident archivist is a doctor Verkhovtseff. He knows more about the Three Captains than anyone in the Galaxy. If you drop in there, you will not regret it."

"Thank's Gromozeka." I said. "Perhaps you've had enough Ex-Lax? Didn't you once complain to me that it had a bad effect on your heart?"

"What can I do?" My friend threw up his tentacles in horror. "I have three hearts, anyway. Ex-Lax has a precarious affect on one of them, but there is no way I can remember which one."

We spent another hour remembering old friends and adventures the two of us had both, however precariously, survived. Suddenly the door to the corridor opened and a crowd of humans and off-worlders appeared. They were carrying the members of the Earth soccer squad on their hands and other appendages. A band was playing; there were shouts of triumph.

Alice jumped out of the crowd. "Know what?" She shouted when she saw me. "Those mercenaries from Mars didn't help the Fyxxians one bit. It was three to one! Now there will be a match on a neutral field!"

"And what about the Third B." I asked maliciously.

"They never made it." Alice said. "I'd have seen them for sure. I guess the Third B was caught and sent back. In potato sacks! Serves them right!"

"You're a dangerous person, Alice." I said.

"She is not!" The outraged Gromozeka cut in. "You have no right to insult a helpless child so! I will not give her to you to be insulted again!"

Gromozeka embraced Alice with his tentacles and lifted her to the ceiling.

"No," he repeated again agitatedly. "Your daughter is my daughter, ad I will not allow it."

"But I am not your daughter." Alice said from above. Fortunately, she was not the least bit frightened.

But the same could not be said for the engineer Zeleny. At that very moment he came into the corridor and what did he see but Alice beating at the tentacles of an enormous monster. Zeleny did not even notice me. He threw himself at Gromozeka, his rusty beard like the banner on a charging Medieval knight's lance, and tore into my friend's round belly like a madman.

Gromozeka snatched up Zeleny with his free tentacles and draped him over one of the ceiling lights. Then he carefully lowered Alice and asked me:

"Did I become too demonstrative?"

"A little." Alice answered for me. "Put Zeleny down on the floor."

"He shall not throw himself on archaeologists." Gromozeka said. "I do not want to take him down. Ave, we shall see each other in the evening. I have remembered that I must spend the rest of the working day in the base warehouse."

And, craftily winking at Alice, Gromozeka pushed off on all his tentacles in the direction of the airlocks, leaving behind him a more than faint whiff of Ex-Lax in the corridor.

We got Zeleny down from the chandeliers with the help of the soccer team, and I was somewhat angry at my friend; as talented a scientist and true a friend as Gromozeka may be, he was raised very badly and his sense of humor sometimes takes strange forms.

"Where are we headed for?" Alice asked when we were walking toward the ship.

"Our first task," I said, "Is to get our cargo to Mars and the researchers at Arcturus Minor. And from there we'll go directly to sector 19-4, to Three Captains Base."

"All hail the Three Captains!" Alice said, although she had never heard about them before in her life.

Chapter Four

The Vanishing Tadprowlers

The investigators on Arcturus Minor met the Pegasus with a brass band, figuratively if not literally. As soon as we had eased our way down onto the metal plates of the landing field they smartly marched out into the constant rain to greet us, followed by the all-terrain vehicle. The pre-fab landing field was still staggering under our ship's weight; rusty water bubbling with the products of plant decomposition still splashed in the cracks between the plating. They were all in space suits with top hats on top of the closed helmets, the trumpets and bassoons were flat plastic cut-outs, and two of the researchers carried a large plate with the Key to the Planet.

And when we came down to the wet metal strips of the space port they decorated our helmets of our space suits with leis and awarded Alice with the keys to the research station.

Our arrival was an excuse to have a feast in the close confines of the base dining hall. We were treated to fruit salad concentrate, dehydrated duck and artificial ham sandwiches. The engineer Zeleny, who also worked as the Pegasus's chef, responded in kind and managed to place on the table real apples, real sliced pears with real currants and, best of all, real rye bread.

Alice was the principal guest. All the researches were adults; they had been forced to leave their children at home on Mars, the Earth, and Ganymede, and they depressed without real children. Alice answered all their questions, honestly trying to be far more stupid than she was in reality, and when she returned to the ship she confided in me:

"They were hoping I'd be a pretty little doll; the kind who wouldn't cause them any trouble."

The next day we transferred all the cargo and packages we had brought to the research base, but, unfortunately, it turned out that the research team couldn't invite us to go hunting local animals: the season of storms had begun, all rivers were overflowing their banks and travel around the planet was nearly impossible.

"Would you like us to get you a tadprowler?"

"Why not?" I agreed.

I had occasion to hear about various of the local reptiles, but so far I had not encountered a tadprowlers.

About two hours later the researchers brought us a large aquarium, on the bottom of which dozed meter long tadprowlers, who resembled giant salamanders. Then the researches dragged a large container of water plants up the gangway.

"This feed will just get them going." They said. "Look, the tadprowlers are very voracious and will grow quickly."

"Shouldn't we make the aquarium a bit larger?" I asked.

"An Olympic sized pool might even be better." The base chief answered.

His people even now were dragging yet another container of food for the tadprowlers up the gangway.

"Just how quickly do they grow?" I asked.

"Pretty quickly. I can't really put it more precisely." The base chief answered. "We don't hold any of them in captivity."

He smiled mysteriously and started to speak with someone else.

I asked the head of the research team:

"And you've never had a chance to spend any time on the Three Captains' World?"

"No." He answered. "But once Doctor Verkhovtseff came to visit us; that was about a month or so ago. I really have to say that he struck me as being an enormous crank."

"How so?"

"Why would he need the design schematics of the starship "Blue Gull?"

"I am sorry, but why is that strange?"

"It's the Second Captain's ship, the one that vanished without a trace four years ago."

"But why would Verkhovtseff need information on that ship?"

"Why indeed? I asked him about it. It turns out he is up to his ears in writing a book about the exploits of the Three Captains, a documentary novel, and he can't continue his work without knowing how that ship was constructed."

"Are you saying the ship's special?"

The base commander almost laughed condescendingly.

"I see you haven't a clue..." He said. "The ships of the Three Captains were all made specially to order, and then each of them was more or less re-built by the captains themselves by their own hands. And these were astonishing ships! Equipped for all conceivable circumstances. One of them, the Everest, the First Captain's ship, stands today in the Paris Astronautics Museum."

"Then why doesn't Verkhovtseff just call the Paris Astronautics Museum?" I was retorted.

"Because each of the three ships was different!" The research chief answered. "Each of the Captains was unique, and so was each of their ships."

"So I guess we're off to Verkhovtseff." I said. "I gather you can give us the coordinates of his base?"

"With pleasure." The Chief answered. "And give him our greetings while you're at it. And don't forget to transfer the tadprowlers to your pool."

We said our farewells to the hospitable researchers and departed.

Before I dropped off to sleep I decided to examine the tadprowlers.

It turned out their similarity to salamanders was only superficial. They were covered with a tough, shining mass of scales, and they had enormous sad eyes with long lashes, short tails split in two and ended with thick, coarse brushes.

I decided would move the tadprowlers to the pool in the morning there was nothing that could happen to them overnight in the aquarium. I threw the tadprowlers two pieces of water plants and turned off the light in the hold. A beginning had been made the first animals for the Zoo were aboard the Pegasus.

In the morning Alice awakened me.

"Papa," she said. "Wake up."

"Anything happen..."

I glanced at my watch. It was still only seven O'clock in the morning ship's time.

"Why have you gotten up so early?"

"I wanted to take a look at the tadprowlers. I've never seen anything like them on Earth before."

"What of it? For that you have to awaken your elderly father? You should have turned on the robot. Let him get breakfast ready; we have to reason to hurry to get up."

"Your breakfast can wait, Daddy!" Alice shot back very impolitely. "I'm telling you, get up and come look at the tadprowlers!"

There was something in her voice that made me very apprehensive.

I got out of my bunk and, without bothering to get dressed, ran to the hold where the aquarium had been placed. The sight which awaited me was tremendous. The tadprowlers, as unbelievable as this may sound, had more than doubled their size over-night and now no longer fit into the little aquarium. Their tails stuck over the sides of the glass and now hung down almost to the deck.

"That can't be!" I said. "We'll have to ready the pool immediately.

I ran to awaken the engineer Zeleny.

"Come quick; the tadprowlers have grown so much I can't even lift one up."

"I did warn you." Zeleny said "It's all going to be like this. Why in heaven's name did I ever agree to work on a wandering Zoo? Why?"

"I don't know." I said. "Come on."

Zeleny put on a coverall and let himself be dragged, grumbling, to the hold. When he saw the tadprowlers he gasped, scratched his beard, and groaned:

"Tomorrow they'll occupy the entire ship!"

Fortunately for us the pool had already been filled with water. With Zeleny's aid I transferred the tadprowlers. They turned out to be not quite as heavy as they looked, but they twisted and squirmed from our hands so much that when we had dropped the third and last of them into the pool we were bruised and covered with sweat.

The Pegasus's pool wasn't very large four by three meters and only two meters deep but the tadprowlers found it comfortable. They began to circle around inside, hunting for fish. It took little intelligence to realize they were famished certainly these creatures, evidently, were intent on setting the Galactic record for speed of growth.

While I fed the tadprowlers half the contents of one of the crates of water plants were consumed at once Poloskov appeared in the hold. He had already showered, shaved, and was dressed in uniform.

"Alice tells me your tadprowlers have grown a bit." He said, laughing.

"Not enough to be worth mentioning." I answered, pretending that such wonders were anything but unusual to me.

Then Poloskov looked into the pool and gasped.

"Crocodiles!" He said. "Real crocodiles! They could eat a man in one gulp"

"There's nothing to fear." I said. "They're vegetarians. The researchers should have warned us, though."

The tadprowlers swam on the surface of the water and opened thier enormous, hungry maws.

"They want to eat again." Zeleny said. "Pretty soon they'll come hunting us."

Toward supper the tadprowlers had reached a length of two and a half meters and had entirely consumed the first crate of water plants.

"They could very well have warned us." Zeleny groused, referring to the researchers. "They knew what was going to happen and were thinking: let the specialists sweat some."

"Naw, that wasn't it." Alice spoke up; the researchers on Arcturus Minor had given her as going away presents: a model of an ATV carved from wood, a chess set made from the bones of an excavated parallelepiped, a small paper knife carved from the core of a petrified tree, and a number of other interesting items which they had made themselves over the long evenings to maintain their sanity.

"Oh well, we'll see." Zeleny said philosophically and went off to check the engines.

Toward evening the length of the tadprowlers reached three and a half meters. They were already finding it difficult to swim about the pool and they kept close to the bottom, swimming to the top only to munch on bunches of waterplants.

I found myself going to sleep that night with the heavy forboding that I would not be able to get the tadprowlers to the Zoo. The first of the animals had turned into a snow ball rolling down hill. Space was still filled with mysteries which a smiple terrestrial biologist just can't sink his teeth into.

I made certain I got up before anyone else. I tiptoed down the corridors, remembering the nightmares that had run through my mind during the night. I had dreamed the tadprowlers had become longer than the Pegasus itself, crawled outside, and were now flying beside us in empty space and still trying to eat our ship.

I opened the door to the hold and stood for a moment on the threshold, looking around to make certain that a tadprowlers didn't crawl out from around some corner.

But the hold remained silent. The water in the pool was unmoving. I walked closer. The shadows of the tadprowlers, now about four meters long, were black pools on the bottom.

My heart almost burst from my chest. I grabbed a mop and stuck one end into the water. Why weren't the tadprowlers moving

The mop knocked against one of the tadprowlers and shoved it easily to one side, pushing one of its companions to the far side of the pool. That one did not move either.

"Expired." I realized. "From hunger."

"What's up, papa?" Alice asked.

I turned. Alice was standing barefoot on the cold plastic surface of the hold, and instead of answering her I said:

"Go right back to our cabin and put something on your feet. You'll catch a cold."

Then the door opened and Poloskov came into the hold. Over his shoulder I could see Zeleny's red beard.

"Well, what's up?" The two spoke in chorus.

Alice ran off to put on her slippers, and I, not bothering to answer, tried to push one of the motionless tadprowlers to the side of the pool. His body felt like it was empty and drifted lightly around the pool. The eyes were closed.

"They kicked off." Zeleny said sadly. "And after all our work transferring them to the pool yesterday. Well, I did warn you!"

I turned the tadprowlers over with the mop. That proved not at all difficult. The tadprowlers spotted belly was split open down the middle. All that remained in the pool were the creatures' outer skins, which retained the form of their bodies because hard and thick scales covered them, not permitting the hides to collapse.

"O-ho!" Zeleny said, looking around the hold. "They've shed their skins!"

"Who?" Poloskov asked.

"If we'd only known!"

"Listen, Professor Seleznev." Captain Poloskov turned to me in his official capacity, "judging from everything I suspect that unknown creatures are now aboard my ship, creatures which were hidden in the so called tadprowlers. Where are they?"

I turned the last of the tadprowlers over with the mop. It was empty as well.

"I don't know." I admitted honestly.

"And when you entered the hold, was the door shut or open?"

My mind was simply not working to well, and I answered:

"I don't remember, Poloskov. Most likely it was closed."

"Tarnation!" Poloskov said, and hurried toward the exit.

"Where are you going?" Zeleny asked.

"To search the ship!" Poloskov said. "And I advise you to search the engineering compartment. Just make certain you're armed. We don't know what's come out of the tadprowlers. It could be dragons."

They hurried out, but a few minutes later Poloskov returned running and handed me a blaster.

"This isn't something to laugh at." He said. "And I'd advise you to lock Alice in your cabin."

"There's really no need for any of this." Alice said. "I have a theory..."

"I don't want to hear your theory." I said. "Off to the cabin."

Alice fought back like a wildcat, but we finally succeeded in locking her into our cabin and began a search of the entire ship.

It is remarkable how many holds, bulkheads, corridors, accessways and simple spaces are hidden in a comparatively small research vessel. The three of us, covering each other, wasted three hours while we examined every cubic centimeter of the Pegasus.

Nowhere did we find monsters.

"That's it." I finally said. "Let's have breakfast; then we can search the ship all over again. They had to have gotten somewhere?"

"I want to eat too." Alice, who had been listening to our conversations over the internal com system, said. "Just get me out of this prison."

We released Alice and proceeded to the crew's lounge like soldiers on patrol.

Before we even sat down for breakfast we locked the door and placed the blasters beside us on the table.

"It's a mystery!" Poloskov said, hunched over Soya-Bix. "Where could they be hiding. In the reactor? Could they have gotten outside.?

"Infernal monsters." Zeleny said. "I just don't like monsters. I didn't like the tadprowlers right from the very start. Hand me the instacaf."

"I fear we may never resolve this mystery." Poloskov said.

I nodded, agreeing with him.

"No, it's simple." Alice interjected.

"Now you be quiet and drink your tea."

"I can't be quiet. If you want, I can find them for you."

Poloskov started to laugh. Then he laughed a long time, and sincerely.

"Three grown men searched the ship for three hours, and you want to find them on your own."

"All the easier." Alice answered. "Bet I can't?"

"Of course I do." Poloskov laughed again. "What do you want to bet?"

"A wish." Alice said.

"Agreed."

"Only I have to search for them alone."

"Not on your life!" I said. "You are not going out there alone. Have you forgotten that there may be creatures of unknown capabilities and intentions roaming about the ship?"

I was furious at the Arcturus Minor researchers for their dangerous practical jokes. I was angry with myself as well for being asleep in bed and missing the moment when the tadprowlers' outer coverings were discarded. And, I was angry with Alice and Poloskov who had taken such a serious moment to make a childish bet.

"Then we're off." Alice said, getting up from the table.

"First finish your tea." I said severely.

Alice finished her tea and confidently headed for the hold where the aquarium stood. We followed after her, feeling ourselves to be fools. What reason, after all, did we have for listening to her?

Alice quickly looked over the section. She asked Poloskov to pull the cases off the wall. He complied with a smile. Then Alice returned to the pool and walked about it. The tadprowlers' empty skins of the lay black on the bottom. On the surface of the water drifted uneaten waterplants.

"Here." Alice said. "Pick them up. But be careful they can jump."

And then we saw what was sitting on the green water plants in a row, three frogs. More precisely, not quite frogs, but three creatures very similar to frogs. Each about the size of a thimble.

We snatched at them and placed them in a can and then I, regretting my earlier obstinacy, asked Alice:

"Listen, kid, how did you guess?"

"That's not the first time you've asked, papa," She answered, covered with pride. "It's all because you're all grown up, all very wise and educated, and you think, as they say, logically. I'm not very wise and educated and I think about whatever pops into my head. I was thinking, that if the name of these tadprowlers comes from tadpoles then what they turn into is frogs. And young frogs are always smaller than tadpoles or prowlers. You went about the ship with pistols and hunted for giant monsters. Even I was afraid at the time. But I was sitting locked in the cabin and thinking that, you don't always look up and search for something enormous. Maybe you should look in the corner and hunt for a really small frog. And I found them."

"But why did frogs so small need such big skins?" Poloskov was curious.

"I wasn't thinking about that." Alice admitted. "I didn't think about that at all. And if I had, then I would never have found the frogs."

"And what do you say, Professor?" Poloskov asked me.

"What's there to say? We have to study the tadprowlers outer covering. Evidently it's some kind of fabric from feed and a complicated concentrate for the frogs. Or maybe the enormous size of the tadprowlers makes it easier for them to defend themselves from predators."

"And don't forget about my wish, Poloskov." Alice said severely.

"I won't forget about anything." Our captain answered.

Chapter Five

The Advice of Doctor Verkhovtseff

While en route we sent a subspace message to Doctor Verkhovtseff: "Arriving on Saturday. Can you meet us?" Verkhovtseff answered immediately. That he would be delighted to meet with us and would lead us through the dangerous belt of asteroids that surrounded the Three Captains' World in his own speedster.

At the appointed hour we slowed to a halt outside the asteroid belt. The thick roi of sone debris was like a cloud hiding the planet's surface from us. For some reason we were all excited; it seemed likely the encounter with Doctor Verkhovtseff would lead to important and interesting events. Perhaps,. Even to adventures.

The doctor's space cruiser flashed like a silver arrowhead among the asteroids and then he was beside us.

"Pegasus, are you receiving me?" A muffled voice came from the speaker. "Follow my lead.."

"What does he find so interesting here? It must be boring to be on just one planet." Alice said; she had taken her place on the bridge in the little acceleration chair that had been made specially for her.

No one answered her. Poloskov piloted the ship while I took the navigator's position. Zeleny was not on the bridge; he remained in the engine room.

The Pegasus changed course, avoiding a jagged asteroid, and immediately obeyed Poloskov's command to drop toward the surface.

Beneath us passed a desert at various points cut with gorges and dotted with the pockmarks of craters. The space yacht's silver arrow flew in front of us, guiding us in.

We slowed noticeably. You could already make out cliffs and dried rivers. Then in front of us was the dark green circle of an oasis; arched over it was the dome of the base. The doctor's yacht went into a curve and landed on flat ground. We followed his example.

The Pegasus had hardly stopped rocking when Poloskov stood up from his acceleration couch and said, "That's it." Out the port, between the green oasis and our ship, I could see three stone statues.

It was the Three Captains. Their monument had been erected on a very tall base; even from far away you could make out that two of them were human beings. The third was a spindly, three legged Fyxxian.

"We've landed." Alice said. "Can we go out."

"Wait a moment." I answered. "We don't know the composition of the atmosphere or the temperature. Which space suit are you planning to wear?"

"None of them." Alice answered. She pointed out the port. A man had exited the silver space yacht; he wore an ordinary, if very old fashioned grey business suit and had a floppy grey hat on his head. He raised his hand and waved to us.

Poloskov turned on the outside speakers and asked:

"I take it the atmosphere is suitable for breathing?"

The man in the hat quickly started to nod: Come on out, there's nothing to fear!

We let down our gangplank; he met us at the bottom.

"Welcome to the base!" He said and bowed. "We so rarely see guests here!"

His manner of speech was very old fashioned; it went with his clothing.

Doctor Verkhovtseff appeared to be about sixty. He was short and skinny, but in general looked like a pleasant late middle aged mam with a face covered with tiny wrinkles who spent most of his time squinting or laughing, and when from time to time the skin of his face was stretched the wrinkles became white and very broad. Doctor Verkhovtseff had long, thin fingers. He shook our hands and invited us to visit the base.

We followed the doctor the green trees of the oasis.

"Why is there an oxygen atmosphere here?" I asked. "The rest of the planet appears to be sheer desert."

"The atmosphere is artificial." The Doctor said. "It was made when they erected the monuments. Several years from now they will be erecting a large museum dedicated to the heroes of space. They will be bringing in ships that have outlived their usefulness and all sorts of trees and wildlife from distant planets, a whole ecosystem."

The doctor stopped in front of a stone block. Carved into it were these words in InterGal:

SPACE MUSEUM TO BE ERECTED HERE SOON

"As you can see," Verkhovtseff said, "The museum will be the joint venture of some seventy different planets. In the mean time, as a beginning, an enormous atmosphere reactor was built in the center of the planet to separate out oxygen from ores. At the moment the atmosphere here isn't the best, but by the time the museum opens it will be the best in the Galaxy."

As we spoke we approached the base of the monument.

The monument was enormous, at least as high as a twenty story building. We stopped, bent our heads back as far as they could go, and looked over the Three Captains.

The first captain appeared to be young, broad shouldered and muscular. He had an almost up-turned nose and a broad face. The captain was laughing. On his shoulder sat a strange bird with two claws and a beautiful crown of stone feathers.

The second captain was taller than the first. He had the very wide chest and thin legs of those people who had been adapted to live on Mars. The Second Captain's face was sharp and lean.

The Third Captain was a Fyxxian in a stiff space suit with helmet open and thrown over his back, leaning with one hand on the branch of a stone bush.

"They're not at all old." Alice said.

"You are correct, little girl." Doctor Verkhovtseff answered. "They had already won fame and glory when they were quite young."

We entered the shadows of the trees and walked down the broad path that led to the base. The base turned out to be an enormous establishment but mostly fille with cases, containers, and instruments.

"They've started to send the in the museum exhibits already." The doctor said, as though apologizing for the clutter. "Come with me to my den."

"It looks just like the Pegasus at the start of our voyage!" Alice exclaimed.

And in fact the passage through the base to Doctor Verkhovtseff's living quarters was in some ways like walking though our ship when it had been filled with packages, cargo, and all sorts of equipment.

Doctor Verkhovtseff's sleeping and working quarters turned out to be in a small store room between containers, filled with books and microfilms; there was scarcely room to place a folding cot which was covered with papers and films.

"Sit down, why don't you; make yourselves at home." The doctor said.

Other than to the occupant it was completely clear that there was nowhere here to find a place to sit. Verkhovtseff brushed a pile of papers onto the floor. The pages flew end over end, and Alice bent down to gather them up.

"You're writing a novel?" Poloskov asked.

"Why would I write a novel? Oh, yes, of course, the lives of the Three Captains are far more interesting than any novel. It would be worth while in order to describe them as examples for future generations. But I have absolutely no literary gifts whatsoever."

I thought that Doctor Verkhovtseff was just being modest. After all, it had been he who flew to the researchers on Arcturus Minor in order to find the plans of one of the Captains' ships.

"And so," the Doctor said, "how might I prove useful to my honored guests?"

"We were told that you knew everything there was to know about the Three Captains." I began.

"We-el," Verkhovtseff even turned red from embarassment, "that is a clear exaggeration."

He placed his hat down on a pile of books; the hat tried to slide off, but the doctor caught it and placed it again in its former spot.

"The Captains explored a great many otherwise unknown planets." I said. "They encountered remarkable animals and birds. We were told they left notes and observations in their diaries and logs. Our expedition is searching for unknown animals from other planets. Would you be able to help us?"

"Ah, that's why..." Verkhovtseff grew pe