Alice: The Girl From Earth - Булычев Кир. Страница 24

“Doctor!” I called. “Are you here?”

There was no answer.

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

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

“In a moment, Pa…” Alice answered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But where is the Skliss?”

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

“What do you mean ‘tomorrow.’“

“The illustration does not appear every day on these stamps, only one even numbered days.” The fat man said.

“And what about the second stamp.”

“On the second? There won’t be anything on the second. It’s been cancelled.”

“Then what’s the use of collecting it?” I was astonished.

“That is a very rare stamp. The inhabitants of Sheshineru don’t like writing letters, so very nearly all the stamps from their planet turn out to be unused. But empty stamps are very rare. Your daughter did very well in getting such a rarity.”

Having said that the fat man waved his hand and hurried off into the maze of collectors.

We were almost lost in the maze of subdivisions and separate markets into which the Bazar had been divided. But then, ahead of us, we heard the cries of birds, the growling of animals and the chittering of insects. We came out into a square covered with cages, aquaria, fish ponds, and other enclosures. We had finally found our way to the section of the bazar which dealt with live animals from all over the Galaxy.

Even I, an experienced cosmobiologist, had extreme difficulty figuring out what, exactly, we were looking at. The animals and birds were so diverse, and their keepers, handlers, buyers and sellers were just as diverse, that I began our journey with a gross error. I walked up to a dark blue avianoid who stood on three, two meter long legs. A chain stretched from his master an alien completely unknown to me who resembled a multicolored sphere. I asked the sphere how much his beautiful bird cost, and it was the bird who answered me in superb InterGal:

“I am not for sale. But if you desire I can sell you the multihued little sphereoid. And I trust you will not insult me again.”

It turned out I had erred as to who was holding whom on a chain. Around us the traders and collectors burst into laughter, which made the avianoid even more annoyed and he pecked me on the head with his long beak

I backed away quickly; the avianoid appeared to be gathering his anger and getting ready for a second blow.

“Papa.” Alice said. “Come here. Look, how interesting.”

I tore myself away from a display of crystal bugs which we had long wanted to get for the Zoo and turned to her.

Alice had stopped in front of a large, empty aquarium. A little stool stood beside it. On the stool sat a dwarf.

“Look, papa, this man is selling such interesting creatures.”

“I don’t see anything at all.” I admitted. “The aquarium is empty.

The little fellow sighed sadly and wiped away a tear.

“You’re not the first.” He said. “You’re not the first.”

“What is it you have in there?” I asked politely. “Microorganisms.”

“No, that’s a horrible idea!” The dwarf said. “I’m going. I can’t stand it any more.”

“Papa,” Alice whispered so loudly that she could be heard ten meters off, “he has invisible flying fish. He told me so himself.”

“Invisible.”

“The little lady is right.” The dwarf said. “All I have are rather ordinary, invisible fish.”

“That is very interesting.” I said. “And just how do you go about catching them?”

“With nets.” The dwarf said. “Invisible nets. The fish fly around all over and they crash into the invisible nets, and I take them home.”

“And could I hold one?” I asked.

“Hold?” The dwarf was totally amazed. “And just how would you hold one?”

“With my hands.”

“But you won’t be able to hold it?”

“Why?”

“Because these flying fish are very slippery. They slip away the moment you touch them. Don’t you believe me?”

I did not answer. Then the dwarf threw up his hands and exclaimed,

“Oh, all right. Take a look, as much as you want, let it be on your head! Do whatever you want. Diminish me, insult me!”

The dwarf raised the edge of a large net from off the aquarium, grabbed me tightly by the hand and put my hand into the aquarium.

“Well? He shouted. “Is that proof enough? Don’t you understand you’re not going to catch anything!”

My hands felt only the empty water. There were no fish in the aquarium at all.

“There is nothing here.” I said.

“Well, there, you see it?” The dwarf turned to the crowd of curious onlookers who had gathered, tears pouring forth. “He is convinced that the fish are so slippery they can never be caught, yet he does not want to admit it.”