Alice: The Girl From Earth - Булычев Кир (читать книги полностью .TXT) 📗

“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.”