“Thank you.” Alice said. “What’s new?”
“A lot.” Said the small archaeologist. “And if you eat our soup, I’ll tell you some of it. And if you eat everything, I’ll tell you nearly all.”
“Then I’ll have the fruit salad and you can just tell me what’s most important.” Alice said.
“But the small archaeologist laughed, blinked his enormous single eye, and Alice had to start from nothing. But at the same time Purr told her what was going on.
The archaeologists found the newspapers that Petrov brought from the past most useful of all. From the papers they were able to determine how the murderous virus of the Space Plague had managed to get to the surface of the planet Coleida. It turned out that a week before the town fell ill first space ship, launched by the Coleidans had returned successfully to the surface. It had made several orbits of the planet and then circled around the planet Coleida’s small moon. The flight had been uneventful, and thousands of Coleidans, living in this hemisphere of the planet had gone to the space port to welcome back their first astronauts. On the evening of the same day the astronauts were supposed to speak at an enormous public gathering in the main square of the capitol. But they never made it to the meeting; they had fallen ill with a mysterious disease. The newspaper’s reporting on that day was both short and vague. But after several days, when the families of the astronauts, and everyone who had been a the space port to welcome them home, were reported to be sick as well, it became clear that some terrible infection had fallen on Coleida from space. Three days later, the sickness had spread to the entire planet.
“As you can see, Gromozeka was right from the very beginning. Without a doubt, this is Space Plague.” Purr said at the end of his story. “Our specialists have been pouring over the holos that Petrov took and now there can’t be the slightest doubt of it.”
“That’s terrible.” Alice said. “Isn’t there any way we can help them?”
“How do you help people who died a hundred years ago?” The little archaeologist was surprised. “There’s nothing that can be done. Here, finnish eating your fruit salad and get some sleep. And I’ll look in on you tomorrow.”
“Thanks.” Alice said. “But what are the temporalists going to do now?
“The temporalists are readying their machine for the next flight. They are aiming for the very day when the astronauts returned. They want to determine conclusively that this was indeed how Space Plague infected Coleida. We have to find out as much as we can about the disease to make certain other planets can be protected against it. And so, tomorrow, Richard will make a time jump into the past one week earlier than the one today.”
Purr made a fancy bow and ran off, his padded little feet making almost no sound on the floor of the tent. He was in such a hurry to read his newspapers and magazines that he completely forgot the powerbarrow.
The little steps had hardly managed to die away when the flap of the tent was pulled aside again, and Gromozeka himself entered.
“Who was with you?” He asked. “Why did they bring a barrow?”
“That was little Purr.” Alice said.
Gromozeka had brought a tray with supper.
“And where did you get the fruit salad?” Gromozeka asked strogo.
Alice drank down the last of the sauce from the salad and said:
“Purr brought it, but I also had the soup.”
“Oh, my my my my my!” Gromozeka was flustered. “And here I cornered the cook into getting you the tastiest morsels. Don’t you think you might possibly have a few more bites to eat? Just for your Uncle Gromozeka’s health and peace of mind.”
“No more, please.”
“Alice, you really, really need calories.” Gromozeka said.
“No more than ususal.”
“More.” Gromozeka said. “Far more. I came to have a very serious talk with you, scientist to scientist. How are you feeling now?”
“Better.”
“A lot better, or not a lot better?
“Somewhat better. I could even get up…”
“Don’t get up.”
Gromozeka absent mindedly placed the tray with supper on the floor and used his two freed tentacles to tie the tent flap in place. Then he poured the bowl of soup down into his own maw, and said:
“We must not waste good food. I will leave you the fruit salad.”
“Thanks.”
“Alice,” Gromozeka began festively, “You know that everyone thinks I am a naive and rather direct being.”
“Not everyone.” Alice said.
“Well, there are always bad people everywhere. Well, I am, in fact, honestly, really a naive and rather direct being, but I am also able to look into the future, and not just into the past like so many of our friends. Tell me, why did I bring you on this expedition?”
“To give me a birthday present.” Alice answered, although she knew fully well that was not the only reason.
“Right!” Gromozeka roared. “But not only for you. The present the present is you!
“The present is the flight to this planet. The present is a chance to look over our excavation and have a chance to meet my colleagues. The present is to be there days late for school, because in the final analysis this is not a gift as much as a little crime, although that does not concern me too much. You may, if you want, take your seat on the freight ship the day after tomorrow and go home. And we will remain friends. But I do not think that you will, because I know your father, I know you, and I think that you will want to help me.”
“Of course I do.” Alice said.
“When I was heading for Earth I had a lot of time to think.” Gromozeka said. “And I thought this: here we have a planet, Coleida, which died from the Space Plague. And were we, the archaeologists, who had flown here to look at the bones that were left behind a hundred years later. We look, and that’s all. Then we take the bones and trash to a museum and write on them:
“‘DEAD CIVILIZATION.’“
“And then you decided to go to the Time Institute.”
“Consider, that I had already come to a decision. Consider I had already decided to turn to the Time Institute. To turn to them, but nothing yet had been decided.
“We would only know where the bones were and where to search. That was all. Something would have to be done, but what, I hadn’t yet decided. And then I arrived at your house as a guest and sat and talked with you. And then I went to the Time Institute and came to a convinced them to bring their machine here to our dig. And then I made my decision and therefore bought vast quantities of flowers and returned home with them. I knew what would have to be done.”
“About what?”
“Remember, Alice; weren’t you surprised at the size of the houses and beds and tables when you entered the town for the first time?”
“They’re small.”
“Not just small! They are your size.. And remember what Petrov said when he described carrying the newspaper kiosk attendant to the hospital.”
“I don’t remember.”
“He said that everyone looked on him with suspicion because he was twice as tall as any other inhabitant of the city. What are we to do with this datum?”
Alice kept silent. She hadn’t the faintest idea of what conclusion to draw.
“My first step was to get the time machine.” Gromozeka continued. The second step was to determine if they had, in fact, died of Space Plague. The third step was to convince the temporalists to visit the very day when the space plague landed on the planet Coleida. And the forth step?”
“Of course!”
“A-ha! You have already guessed! The fourth step is to send Alice there. If, naturally, the machine is working properly and there is no real danger for Alice. And why would I send Alice there?
“So I can…”
“Correct! So you can get to the place and time when the Space Plague landed on the planet and find the means to kill the plague before it gets started. What will then happen? There will be no plague. The planet will live. And archaeologists will have no work to do here. The authorities will literally howl with anger, and at least a billion people will be saved by a single little girl.”