“He died. Everyone knows that.” Verkhovtseff answered.
“We were told he vanished without a trace.”
Doctor Verkhovtseff shrugged his narrow shoulders.
“But you could find the First Captain?” I refused to give up. “He’s still alive?”
“Yes, he’s working somewhere off in space.”
“On the Venus Project? But there must be thousands of people working on it.”
“It would appear you yourself know how to contact him. There is really nothing else I can help you with.”
“Then I can only thank you for your hospitality. Although, in fact, we thought our encounter would go differently.”
“I also thought the same.” Verkhovtseff said.
“Perhaps, when you’ve finished writing the novel, you can send me a copy?”
“I am not writing any novels! I don’t know how! Whoever told you such a thing?”
“I’m talking about the novel you told the researchers on Arcturus Minor was you reason for visiting them a month ago when you asked about the construction of the Blue Gull.”
“What do you mean?” Doctor Verkhovtseff waved his arms furiously. “What about the Blue Gull? What researchers? I haven’t been there for at least six months!”
“Fine, fine…” I said, seeing how disturbed the Doctor became. “We didn’t want to embarrass you.”
“Think nothing of it.” Verkhovtseff said. “If you come this way again, drop in; I’m always glad to see visitors. Especially your enchanting daughter.”
He reached out a hand to stroke Alice on the head, but Alice stepped to one side and the Doctor’s hand hung in the air.
“Well, don’t forget.” He said, stopping beside the monument to the Three Captains. The Sklisses on Sheshineru and the mystery of the Empty Planet.”.
“Thank you doctor.” I answered. “We won’t forget.”
Chapter Six
The Wander Bushes
The Doctor stood for what seemed to be forever at the feet on the enormous stone Captains and twisted and turned his hat in his hands. The golden rays of the setting sun illuminated him, and it seemed he was also a statue, merely much smaller than the rest.
“Waaait!” The long cry suddenly reached us.
We turned
The Doctor was running in our direction, his feet sinking into the sand.
The Doctor reached us, and spent the next two minutes trying to get his breath back, continuingly starting with one or another sentence, but the air in his lungs was insufficient to allow him to finish.
“Boo…” He said. “Bu..”
“Butterflies?” She asked.
“Nah… No. Bushes. I…for-got to tell you about the bushes.”
“What bushes?”
“I was standing right by the bushes and forgot to even mention them.”
The Doctor pointed at the monument. Even from where we stood some distance away it was clear the sculptor had illustrated an enormous, splendid bush at the feet of the Third Captain, carefully carving its leaves and branches out of the stone.
“I thought that was just to make it pretty.” Alice said.
“No, its one of the wander bushes! You mean to tell you’ve never even heard of the wander bushes?”
“No, never.”
“Then listen, please. It will only take two minutes. When the Third Captain was on Aldebaran’s seventh planet he got lost in a desert. There was no water, no food, no nothing. But the Captain knew that if he did not make it to the base his whole ship’s crew would die, because they were all sick with a fever contracted in space and the vaccine was only at this one abandoned, empty base in the foothills of the Sierra Barracuda mountains.
“And then, when the Captain’s strength was exhausted and he had lost his way in the sand, he heard a distant singing. At first the Captain was certain it was a hallucination, but despite that he gathered the last of his strength and headed in the direction of the sounds.
“After three minutes he had crawled in among the bushes. The bushes in those places grow around small springs, and before sand storms their leaves stricking against each other producing melodic sounds. It appears the bushes are singing. So, in this way, the bushes in the Sierra Barracuda mountains lead the Captain to the water by their singing, gave him the chance to survive a terrible sand storm, and save the lives of eight other astronauts who were dying from a cosmic disease. To commemorate this event the sculptor chose to add a bush to the statue of the Third Captain.
“Therefore, I think it may be worth your while to look in on Aldebaran Seven in the area of the Sierra Barracuda, to find the bushes. Also, the Third Captain said that the bushes are covered with enormous, softly iridescent flowers in the evenings.”
“Thank you, Doctor?” I said. “We will certainly try to find these bushes and bring them to Earth.”
“Do you think they can grow in pots?” Alice asked.
“Certainly.” The doctor answered. “But in truth I have never seen the bushes myself and they are very rare. They’re only found at springs in the very center of the desert that surrounds the Sierra Barracuda mountains…”
…The Aldebaran system lay not far off, and we decided to search out the bushes, if possible, to find out what their singing sounded like.
For eighteen times our landing boat cris-crossed the entire desert, and only on the nineteenth pass did we see a flash of green in a deep hollow. The boat spiraled down over the sandy valleys, and we made out bushes surrounding a spring.
The bushes were low, just up to my belt, and possessed long, leaves that were silver on the inside and thick roots which came out of the sand easily. We carefully dug out five of the bushes, choosing those which already had buds, transferred them to a large box filled with sand, and brought our trophy back to the Pegasus.
That very same day the Pegasus took off from the desert satellite and headed on its way.
As soon as acceleration had ended I began to ready for the survey camera, because I hoped that glowing flowers would soon blossom on the bushes, and Alice went and got paper and crayons in order to draw them.
It was then that we heard the low, harmonious singing.
“What’s that?” The engineer Zeleny was surprised. “I didn’t turn on music. Who turned it on? Why won’t they let me get any sleep?”
“That’s our bushes singing!” Alice shouted. “Does that mean we have a sand storm heading our way?”
“What?” Zeleny dismissed the idea. “Where would we get a sand storm in space?”
“Let’s go take a look at the bushes, Papa.” Alice insisted. “We’d see what’s up.”
Alice ran off toward the hold, but I held back a few seconds to grab and load the camera.
“I’ll take a look too.” Zeleny said. “I’ve never seen singing bushes before.”
I suspected that in fact he wanted to take a look out the nearest window because he was afraid we were in fact due for a sand storm.
I had just finished loading the camera when I heard a shout. I recognized Alice’s voice.
I threw down the camera in the crew’s lounge and hurried down the ladder way toward the holds.
“Papa!” Alice shouted. “Just take a look at that!”
“Save yourselves!” Zeleny roared. “They’re walking!”
A few more steps and I had run up to the double lock doors to the cargo hold. In the open doors I collided with Alice and Zeleny. More precisely, I collided with Zeleny who was holding Alice. Zeleny looked frightened and his beard blew wild, like from a wind.
On the other side of the airlock door leading to the hold stood the bushes. The sight was utterly terrifying. The bushes had extracted themselves from the sand and were moving heavily and slowly on their short, deformed roots, advancing on us. They were walking in a half circle, shaking their branches, the buds had opened and reddish flowers now glared at us like hostile eyes from amid their leaves.
“To Arms!” Zeleny shouted at the top of his lungs and handed Alice to me.