“How so?”
“And what if he likes you?” Alice said. “What if he wanted to please you?”
“Never! He knows that if he wanted to do something I’d like he could dust my computer!”
They came out onto a small flyer landing spot right above the sea itself. Below it the land fell away in a small cliff several times a man’s height tall, and below that the waves whispered and hissed as they washed back and forth on the narrow line of tiny stones.
“We’re here now.” Alice said.
“One minor problem.” Svetlana said. “If there are more extreme conditions, we’ll wait for them here. I gather there are storms, high winds, and earth quakes in the area?”
“Maybe.” Alice agreed.
She went over to the precipice and peered out to sea. Directly ahead of her was the small island with the barge. The awkward figures were all walking up and down the coast.
“Make yourself some tea?” Svetlana asked.
Alice turned.
Alice nearly fell down from astonishment. Svetlana was sitting in a light folding chair at a small table. There was a tea service on the table. An enormous stripped umbrella had been unfurled over the table.
“How did you do that?” Alice was amazed.
“Very simple.” Svetlana was pleased with the effect. She motioned to the closed suitcase. “Everything came from the Minimizer. Want to see?”
Alice walked over to the suitcase and looked inside. In the suitcase lay a number of toys. Svetlana squatted beside the suitcase and rapidly extended her hand inside it, and Alice saw how the hand grew smaller and smaller. Svetlana grabbed a small piece of orange plastic from the suitcase, pulled it out and threw it to one side. Her hand immediately became just as large as it had been, and the piece of plastic turned itself into an inflatable boat large enough for several people. Svetlana’s next move was to pull a pump from the suitcase and attach it to the boat, and after several minutes the boat was completely inflated.
“Did you invent this?” Alice asked, captivated.
“Any object which falls within the minimization field is shrunk to one forty-sixth its original size,” Svetlana said, “not only in size but in weight as well.
“That’s marvelous!”
“Our invention will be invaluable help to any expedition.” Svetlana said, not without pride in her voice. “You can take with the minimizer more than you could possibly fit into a whole truck.”
“To other planets!” Alice said.
“And for tourists.” Svetlana said. “Not to mention travelers, or people who have to move house.”
“But the testing phase isn’t ended.” Svetlana said. “So far the minimizer is extremely expensive and there is only this one copy, which, like me, should be at the North Pole, except Nikitin sent me here!”
“I’m very pleased that you came here instead.” Alice said. “I’m very happy to meet you!”
“The same.” Svetlana said.
Alice was about to boast to Svetlana that she also had in her possession a one of a kind instrument, the mielophone, which enabled you to read someone else’s thoughts, but then she remembered, she had taken the mielophone without her father’s permission and grew ashamed.
Meanwhile, Svetlana reached into her suitcase for a thermos and poured the two of them cups of lemon tea, and asked:
“And why did you conclude that he didn’t want to get me angry?”
“Who?”
“Nikitin, of course! I was so furious with him…. But if he didn’t want to anger me, that means I was furious at him for no good reason?”
“Doesn’t he like you a lot?” Alice asked.
“Alice!” Svetlana was shocked. “You’re not yet old enough to be talking about such things!
“Why? I’m already twelve years old, and I can talk absolutely about everything.”
Svetlana shrugged her shoulders, looked out to where the sea met the sky, and said:
“Speaking truthfully, as men go, he’s all right. And not a bad experimenter. He does have positive qualities.”
“Then you were angry at him for no reason. Now he’s sitting in Moscow, disturbed because you were so put out, and waiting for when you’re going to shout at him
“You’re exactly right!” Svetlana said. “I should be informing him that I’ve set up. That the experiment has begun. And quite successfully too. Hand me my pocket com.”
“I’m afraid it’s broken.” Alice said, handing the pocket-com to the woman. “You threw it too hard.”
“Oh what he’s putting me through,” Svetlana said, and pressed various buttons one after the other, shook the device, and even hit it a few times. But the unfortunate instrument stayed dead.
“Oh well,” Svetlana said. “They shouldn’t make things so shoddy; a light blow and it’s trash. Now what do I do? How can I notify Nikitin that our experiment has begun? Tell me, how?”
“Well, you can go down to the film company’s camp. They have their own com equipment. You can call Moscow from there.”
“You’re right. That’s brilliant.”
“I can show you where it is, it isn’t far, only about two hundred meters down that trail.”
“I think not? What am I if I’m not able to find it? What’s your movie director’s name?”
“Herman. And what will I be doing?”
“You’ll be sun bathing or swimming; that’s what you came here to do. And you can keep one eye on my equipment at the same time.”
Alice agreed, and Svetlana quickly headed off down the path.
Alice sat for a while in the arm chair beneath the umbrella. Then she want back out into the setting sun. She stretched out on the grass at the edge of the landing spot. The sun was still warm, but it was the softer sun of evening. Svetlana still had not returned. The silence was complete; from the sea came thin, almost mosquito voices…. And Alice herself did not notice when she dropped off to sleep.
She was awakened by someone approaching hre. The steps were so heavy they made the ground shake.
Alice opened her eyes, but at that moment an enormous, heavy metallic fist smelling of machine oil and rust, clamped itself on her face. Alice tried to beat it away, trying to get out of its grasp, but something had clamped her legs to the ground and her hands crawled over metal.
“Do you have the wire?” She heard a low, scratchy voice.
“Aye, aye, sir.” A second voice, scratchy like the first but higher pitched, said.
“Tie it around the prisoner’s legs.”
It hurt a great deal. Alice’s legs were tied with wire, which cut into her ankles. Then her hands were tied behind her back as well. And although the metal hand that forced Alice’s head on the ground covered nearly all her face, Alice was able to make out that what had fallen upon her were two metal beings, certainly robots, but never before in her life had she seen such rusty, coarsely made and terrible robots anywhere.
And iron finger forced a gag into her mouth, a dirty rag. Now Alice could twist and turn and fight back as much as she wanted, but she was bound hand and foot and totally powerless to do anything.
Alice was only able to turn her head and watch how the two robots roamed the camp, examining Svetlana’s remaining things. Naturally, Alice was hoping that Svetlana would return and free her. But suddenly Alice grew frightened; Svetlana suspected nothing. She might find herself a prisoner too. The robots were clearly insane! Alice had never heard of insane robots, but she couldn’t think of another explanation.
“A tool for the seating of human beings.” She head the voice of the first robot.
“Worthless. Leave it.”
“Human clothing, constructed from the hides of a animals.”
“Unnecessary.” That was the voice of the second robot.
“A boat! An inflatable boat. A mechanism of transportation!”
“Take it. We need transport mechanisms. The steel container is a poor means of attack.”
“A small portation mechanism.” The first robot. It picked up the suitcase.”