Alice: The Girl From Earth - Булычев Кир - Страница 25

I pulled the netting back and ran my hands through the water of the empty aquarium when the dwarf started to shout anew:

“He has released all of my fish! He has let them all escape! How could I have suspected he would remove the net from my aquarium? I am pennyless! Now I am ruined!”

The surrounding crowd murmured and grumbled and growled in twenty languages and looked at me with severe condemnation.

Even Alice said,

“How could you, papa?”

“Don’t you people understand?” I addressed the crowd that had surrounded us, “There never was anything inside the aquarium, ever!”

“And how would you know that?” A tiger striped, white moustached inhabitant of the planet Ikes asked me. “What if he’s right? What if there are invisible fish that cannot be caught? How can we prove that he is not telling the truth?”

“That’s right.” An Audity supported him. “Why would someone fly here from another planet with an empty aquarium?”

“So he can sell its non-existent contents every day.” I said.

No one at all was listening to me.

And so I was forced to pay the sad dwarf for ten rare fish. The dwarf hadn’t even waited for my rapid surrender and was deeply moved, overcome with gratitude, and promised me that were he ever to catch another invisible fish he would certainly bring it to me. And when we were getting ready to leave, he said:

“Little girl, permit me, I have a small gift for you.”

“Of course.” Alice said. “I would be delighted.

“Take this.”

The dwarf reached inside his pocket and withdrew his empty hand, his palm cupped as though it contained something, and showed it to Alice:

“This,” He said, “is an invisible hat. Take it, but don’t be afraid. I love giving good people priceless gifts. But you must be careful. The hat is woven of such a fine thread that it weighs nothing and cannot even be felt.”

Alice thanked the scoundrel and pretended to place the gift in her bag, and we went on.

Suddenly I found that an incomprehensible creature had gotten itself underfoot. It looked like a furry ball on sticks and was about knee high. The being’s remarkable coloring ranged from bright red to whitish speckles, like a toadstool.

“Hold him, Dad!” Alice shouted. “He’s running away.”

“I’m not so sure.” I said, finally putting my wallet into my pocket. “Maybe that’s not one of the animals but the collector chasing after an animal that’s got away. If I grab hold of him he’ll call the police complaining that I insulted him because I didn’t guess he was sapient.”

But at the same time I caught sight of a fat, two headed snake in a shining, flowing space suit who was chasing after the red sphereoid in pursuit.

“Help me!” He shouted. “The Empathicator’s fled!”

The red ball tried to hide itself behind my legs, but the snake extended one of a hundred thin extensors attached to its side and grabbed the fugitive. The later immediately changed color from red to yellow and braced itself on its straight little legs.

“Pardon me,” I said to the fat snake. “Just what is this animal.”

“Nothing interesting.” The snake said. “We have lots of them on my planet. We call them empathciators. They can’t talk, so instead tey change their color in accordance with their moods. They have a lot of very interesting shades. Do you have any sugar cubes with you?”

“No.” I said.

“Too bad.” The snake answered, but found a cube of sugar somewhere else.

On seeing the sugar the sphere showed purple highlights.

“He’s happy.” The snake said. “He is a pretty boy, isn’t he?”

“Very pretty.” I agreed.

“We constantly expose them to new sensations on purpose, in order to get unusual colors. If you’d like I can hit him? He’ll become a superb shade of black.

“No, don’t.” I said. “Would you be able to sell him to us for the Moscow Zoo?”

“No.” One of the snake’s heads answered, at the time the other was silently hanging down. “Perhaps we can do an exchange?”

“But I don’t have anything to trade?”

“We’ll take one of these, this little creature here.” The snake said and pointed a dozen or so extensors at Alice.

“Can’t be done.” I said, trying not to get angry, in as much as I had myself only recently taken a sapient being for a non-sapient bird. “This is my daughter.”

“Foo! What a horror!” The snake shouted angrily. “I shall call a Trade Supervisor immediately. This is absolutely forbidden!”

“What is forbidden?” I asked.

“It is forbidden to deal in one’s own progeny. Giving them in exchange for animals is also forbidden. Didn’t you bother to read the Rules posted at the entrance to the Bazar. You are a monster and a barbarian!”

“Nothing of the sort.” I broke out laughing. “I would have as much success selling Alice as she would me.”

“That would be worse.” The snake shouted, clutching the colorful ball of the Empathicator to its side; the Empathicator, evidently, had become terrified and turned white with red chevrons along its back. “A daughter selling her own father? What is the universe coming to?”

“Honestly,” I implored, “we are not selling each other. On Earth, in general, it is not accepted for parents to sell their own children, or for children to sell their parents. We just came here together to buy some rare animals for our Zoo.”

The snake thought about it a while and said:

“I really don’t know enough about your species to know if I should believe you or not. It’s better to ask the empathicator. He is that sensitive.” He bent both heads to the Indicator and asked him:

“Can this strange being be believed?”

The empathicator turned emerald green.

“As strange as it may sound, he affirms that you can be believed.”

Then the snake grew quiet and said in quite a different tone:

“But you do want me to give you to them?”

The empathicator turned gold like the rays of the sun.

“He wants it very much.” The snake said, his voice drenched with emotion. “Take him before I change my mind. And yes, this booklet “Feeding your Empathicator, and keeping him in the best color.”

“But I don’t know what I can give you in return.”

“Nothing.” The snake said. “I did, after all, insult you with my suspicions. If, in return for the Empathicator, you will agree to forgive me, I will be delighted, at least until evening.”

“Not really,” I said. “I wasn’t at all insulted.”

“Not in the least.” Alice said.

Then the snake rippled the mass of its extensors and the Empathicator’s globular body flew into the air and landed in Alice’s hands. The Indicator remained gold, except along the spine where blue ripples ran up and down as though they were alive.

“He is satisfied.” The snake said and quickly crawled away, not listening to our protestations.

The Empathicator jumped down from Alice’s hands and walked beside us, rocking back and forth on thin straight legs.

Coming toward us was an entire family of Audities. A large male with ears larger than an elephants, his wife, and six small children. They carried a canary in a cage.

“Look.” Exclaimed Alice. “Isn’t that a canary from Earth?”

“Yes.”

“This is not a canary.” The father Audity said severely. “It is a bird of paradise. But it is not at all what we had really wanted to buy. We were searching for a real Blabberyap.”

“And not found one.” The little Audites said in chorus, raising a storm with their ears.

“There isn’t a single Blabberyap.”

“That is astonishing!” The Audity woman said. “Why in the past year the Bazar was half filled with Blabberyap birds, and now they have quite vanished. Do you know why?”

“No.” I said.

“We don’t know why either.” The Audity said. “So we had to settle for a Bird of Paradise.”

“Papa,” Alice said when they had gone, “We need a Blabberyap bird.”

“Why? I was amazed.

“Because everyone needs a Blabberyap.”