“Stop!” Gromozeka fumed. “I have yet to finish my bargain with the Professor. Let your daughter go for twenty-six days.”
“No.”
“For twenty-two.”
“Not on our life.”
“You are a hard man, Seleznev. Not even my little bouquet of flowers yesterday can move you. Eighteen days, and not a minute less.”
“Why for so long?”
“The flight there takes two day. Then two days return. And two weeks on the planet.”
“Okay.” I said. Four days travel time, five days on Coleida, and one day for a fudge factor. Ten days in all. I will go to the school myself and ask for Alice to be permitted to return from break three days late. And not another word on the matter.”
“Alas.” Gromozeka agreed. “But the ship might be delayed en route. What if it has to avoid a meteorite swarm?”
“I will not hold meteorite swarms, novas, or other natural disasters against you.”
“Alice,” Gromozeka turned toward my daughter. “You understand it all? You’ll get the instructions from me tomorrow. But now, my dear temporalists, I must tell you how lucky we were that this cruel Professor has agreed to send is marvelous daughter with us. Hear my recounting of the story of how Alice found the Three Captains and saved the Galaxy from the space pirates.”
And Gromozeka set about to detail for the temporalists our flight in the Pegasus in search of exotic and rare extraterrestrial animals, and how we found the Second Captain. His retelling was so far from the truth that I did not bother to interrupt and correct Gromozeka but just told Petrov and Richard:
“Scale it all back about ten times. And you, Alice, go to your desk and do your lessons, or else you’ll end up believing Gromozeka’s tales of your own feats of daring do.”
“I haven’t yet begun to do daring do, Papa.” Alice said, but she behaved herself. “Good night. I have my homework to do. I’ll see you in space.”
When Gromozeka finished his story of Alice’s Labors the temporalists began to discuss their own work on Coleida, what else they would need to take to Coleida, and did not depart until after midnight.
And when I was going to bed I asked Gromozeka:
“Tell me, you old scoundrel; why did you insist that Alice go along?”
“A mere trifle; I thought it would be good for the child…” Gromozeka said.
“I do not believe you. But as to what I can do…”
“I will look after her myself.” Gromozeka said, making himself comfortable and turning into a large shining sphere. “Not one little golden hair will be missing from her beautiful little head when she returns.”
And four days later the ships with the disassembled time machine aboard took off from Earth and headed toward Coleida. Alice went with Gromozeka on the first ship. As to what happened on that planet, I only learned two weeks later, when Alice got back. What happened is this…
5
The ships landed on Coleida early in the local morning. By the time the locks were open the guard on duty at the field camp’s com center had already managed to awaken all the archaeologists and they, pulling on their clothing on the run, hurried to where the ships had landed in a dusty field tracked over by the robots and excavatory machines.
“I’ll go out last.” Gromozeka said to the temporalists and Alice. “You are our guests and I a mere archaeologist. They already know we’re bringing the time machine and will be delighted to see you. Alice, dress more warmly; I promised our father that you would not catch a cold. On the other hand, a cold or sickness that needs microbes will not threaten you; there are no microbes on Coleida.”
“Why not?” Alice asked.
“Because on Coleida there is nothing at all that is alive. Not people, not animals, not planets, not flies, not microbes. Space Plague eliminates everything alive.”
Alice was the first to exit the ship.
There were some thirty-five archaeologists in the expedition. Not one of them was from Earth. There were Lineans, Fixxians, Ushans, and other scientists. Other than their profession, they had nothing else in common. Among the crowd that came to greet them were archaeologists without legs, some came on two legs, some on three, and some on seven, some on tentacles, some on wheels, and one archaeologist could boast one hundred forty-four legs. The smallest of the archaeologists was about the size of a cat, and the largest was my friend Gromozeka. The archaeologists displayed a varied assortment in the number of hands, eyes, and even heads as well.
And all of the heads were turned to the ship’s airlock, and when Alice stopped in the lock and waved to her new friends, they began to wave their arms and tentacles in answer and started to shout at her in dozens of different languages.
The crowd of archaeologists was even more demonstrative at the appearance of the temporalist researchers, but when Gromozeka appeared in the lock they went wild, clapping Gromozeka with the hands (and tentacles and feelers and wheels) and dragging everyone toward the camp of tents that sprouted like a multicolored soap bubble garden at one end of the field. Along the way one of the archaeologists, the very smallest and most fragile, was nearly trampled to death, but, was able to spy him out beneath the feet (and tentacles and feelers and wheels) of the others and dragged him, battered and nearly suffocated, back into the air.
“Thank you, my child.” The archaeologist said as he curled himself into a ball in Alice’s arms. “Perhaps I shall be able to return the favor some day. My friends have gotten quite carried away.”
The little archaeologist was light green in color, and fury; his round face was dominated by a single purple grey eye.
“I am the Galaxy’s leading specialist in the decipherment of ancient and dead languages.” He said. “Not one Cyberbrain or computer can compare with me. If my companions had managed to crush me, it would have been an enormous loss for science in general and for our expedition in particular.”
Even at such an extreme moment the little archaeologist was thinking about his work, and not about himself.
Alice brought the battered little archaeologist, who was called Purr, to the largest of the plastic domes where the others had already gathered, and with Petrov’s help sought out the expedition’s doctor, a gruff inhabitant of the planet Cromanyon, who bore a strong resemblance to a garden watering can on legs. When the doctor said the little archaeologist was not in any danger, Alice turned her attention to the discussions going on among the researchers.
It turned out that the members of the expedition had not sat on their hands (and tentacles and feelers and manipulators) while their team leader had flown off to Earth for the time machine. They had finished excavating a medium sized city, en toto, with all its houses, streets, markets, factories, movie theaters, and the railroad station.
And after lunch at the long dining table, during which Gromozeka regaled his friends with his adventures on Earth, the archaeologists took their guests on a tour of the dig.
A hundred years had passed since the city had died; the winds, rain, and snows had tried to wipe the city from the face of the planet, and to a great extent they had succeeded. But the buildings made of stone still stood all the same, if without their roofs, and with windows like the gaping eye sockets of fleshless skulls; weathered, the pavements lined with rows of thick tree stumps, still remained in place. Best preserved was the old castle on the hill above the town; its thick stone walls had stood a thousand years or more and would endure the assaults of the wind and rain for far longer.
The excavators were smearing dried wood with preservative, setting fallen bricks and mortar back into place in half fallen walls, carefully gathering up the century’s accumulation of filth and dust from the street and on a bright, clear day the city may have appeared rundown, old, but clean and almost alive. As though its people had departed not all that long ago.