Alice: The Girl From Earth - Булычев Кир. Страница 14

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.