“Don’t let it frighten you.” Poloskov said. “That has to be a hallucination.”
“What do you mean calling me a hallucination!” One little green man was outraged. “You can touch me.”
“Sometimes.” The second interrupted him.
“Give our regards to Alice.” The first said.
And the pair of them vanished, just in time to make room for another.
“Alice is really sleeping?” I asked Poloskov.
“Definitely.”
“Then however did they learn of her?”
“I can’t begin to guess. This must be some sort of madhouse.
The refrigerator was finally empty. No one else had appeared fora while.
“Then let’s close the door.” Poloskov said. “It will be quieter.
I slammed the door of the refrigerator shut.
“Where could they have learned about Alice?” I repeated. “We only landed here an hour ago and no one has been outside.
Poloskov and I remained awake, trying to think of an explanation for the strange phenomena, but we thought of nothing. Several times we checked the bolts on the airlock doors and walked around the ship. It remained empty, quiet, and peaceful.
In any event I spent the night in Alice’s cabin, an uncomfortable situation because the deck cover was hard and I had to share the space with Alice’s plastic swim fins.
Fortunately, I got up before Alice and when my daughter opened her eyes I was already sitting in the side chair and thumbing through “Guidebook To The Inhabited Planets” as though nothing had happened.
“What are you doing in here?” Alice asked.
“I wanted to check on something in your library what do the locals look like?”
“Then why do you look like you spent the night on the floor?”
I flipped the book shut, took a look at myself in her mirror, and hurried off to my own cabin to fix myself up, where, in the process of washing my face, I almost convinced myself that there were no little green men, that it was all a mirage, a dream, a delusion.
With those thoughts in my mind I went down to the hold to take a look in the refrigerator.
The refrigerator was open, absolutely empty not a trace of a pineapple remained with a pensive Poloskov standing in front of it.
“In general, I suppose the locals have learned how to walk through walls.” He said. “Although it goes against all the laws of nature as I understand them.”
“No, those certainly can’t be the local inhabitants.” I said. “Most likely we managed to pick up members of some sort of parasitic civilization while in space.”
Right then Alice came into the hold.
“Good morning, Captain Poloskov.” She said. “Where did you put the pineapples?”
“They stole them.” Poloskov said. “And we’re considering how to punish the thief.”
“Who?” Alice was surprised.
“Little green devils.” Poloskov answered. “Just let me get my hands on them! You can only imagine what they’ll think of me on Rotweiss! They were expecting those pineapples… There’s one, grab him!”
As he spoke a little green man appeared suddenly in the refrigerator; he took one look at the empty shelves sand said, not even looking at us: “Darn it! Too late!” and promptly vanished.
“That’s him.” Poloskov repeated. “And you can’t even catch him.”
“That’s one of the locals.” Alice said. “I looked in the book which Papa left on his chair”.
“You’re certain?”
“Completely certain.”
“Then all the worse for them. I am sending an immediate protest to their government. Is this any way they treat their guests?” Poloskov’s face had turned red.
“Forgive them, Captain.”
“No, that would be unthinkable. Where is the telephone.”
“Captain Poloskov, just think about it.” Alice pleaded. “These are gentle and fine people. They don’t want to steal the pineapples. It just happened. Accidentally.”
“You’re too good hearted Alice.” Poloskov replied. “Over night, just as soon as we landed, they managed to break into our supplies and steal the pineapples. Who knows what they’ll be after half an hour from now?
“Captain,” Alice said firmly, “have you forgotten what I won from our bet? A wish?”
“I remember.” Poloskov said.
“So, my wish is..that you forgive them their pineapples.”
And at that very moment the walls of our ship reverberated with a terrible noise. So powerful it was that it broke through the baffling. We forgot all about the little green men and rushed en mass to the airlocks. Along the way Poloskov managed to hit one of the EMERGENCY buttons and little red lights began to blink in the corridors.
Poloskov opened the upper airlock and we looked outside from the height of three storeys.
The enormous, wan red star had risen. Long grey clouds raced across the sky. The whole field in front of the Pegasus was filled with little green people. They were waving flags, placards, and banners with the words “Hi There! Fine to Meet You!”
“Wel-come A-lis! Wel-come Alice! Hurray! Hurray! Hip Hip Hurray!” as well as other greetings in thier own language which we did not understand.
On seeing Alice their joy knew no bounds. It was as though the sky had come down to earth.
In the blink of an eye several little green men appeared in the airlock, picked Alice up, and before I could even gasp they had vanished with her, appearing at the same moment in the very crush of the crowd. The crowd carried Alice off toward the city whose white towers we could see on the horizon on their upraised hands.
All that remained behind was a little old green man who waited while we hurried down the gangplank to greet us and say:
“Evidently, dear guests, you don’t understand anything at all of what is going on.”
“Nothing whatsoever.” Poloskov said.
“Nothing is going to happen to Alice?” I asked.
“Nothing at all. Permit me to explain?”
“Certainly.”
“Let’s sit down on the grass. The ground is warm and we won’t catch cold.”
We obeyed the little old green man and he told us the following:
Not all that long ago nothing distinguished the planet Sheshineru at all from numerous down-and-out provincial worlds of the Galaxy. But about ten years back a locaal scientist had invented a tablet which permitted travel through time for about one or two years in either direction. At first the whole planet was overcome with joy, everyone began swallowing tablets and traveling where and whenever, but after several weeks the bitter hangover set in.
Someone could set of for the future and learn there that his wife had left him, or that his house had been robbed. Someone else could go into the past in order to set right some utterly bitter error or werong, but discover that he could not set it right, he could only repeat it. If you suspected someone of deception it took little effort to return to a certain day and follow after your enemy; if you suspect that you were going to die from some disease or other, it was equally easy to go into the future and discover if the doctors who said you were healthy were deceiving you. Gradually, people began to fear the future and now no one ever went there. Instead, everyone spent their time in the past. Everyone has some fine memories, and now you could depart into the past in order to live those pleasant moments over again. And you cold go back again, and again and again, endlessly.
“Let’s go into the city.” The little old green man said. “So you can see waht this had led us to.”
We followed him into the city. The city was half empty, trash lay everywhere. The big parade with Alice had already gone on ahead and all we met were a few random passers by on the streets. They didn’t pay any attention to us, but from time to time one of the pedestrians just vanished. Someone else might appear in the middle of the street, think about something for a moment, and then vanish again.
“These people are traveling in time.” Our companion said. The present holds no interest for them The future they fear. No one is working. The government tried to ban the tablets but they are so easy to prepare anyone can make them at home in their own kitchens.”