They crawled out from beneath the carousel and Purr rubbed Alice’s legs with his strong hands. Her legs had fallen asleep and felt numb, and it was impossible to walk. But then it became far worse; the blood circulation was returned to her legs, they woke up, and it felt like thousands of needles were sticking in them.
“Well, can you walk.” Purr asked.
“I can walk.” Alice answered.
No, when so much had been endured, she understood that any price would be worth paying to get home.
They set off.
They crossed the darkened forest again, came out into the wasteland and walked around a pit and large mountains of trash, and entered a new district of the city. Until the last houses were left well behind they walked slowly Purr ran forward, checking to see if there was anyone, and only then did Alice follow after.
It was already two in the morning when they came out onto the line of the railroad. The rails glistened in the light of the planet’s moon.
They walked out onto the path that ran along the line of the tracks, and headed right in the direction of the capitol. Alice tried to imagine how the astronaut Tolo’s mother must be cursing her, telling her son how Alice had wormed her way into her trust. She even thought she could hear the old woman’s voice: “I even fed her an apple! If I had known I would never have fed her anything! And that cat of her now that was something suspicious….”
It was almost dawn before they were able to clamber onto the open car of a freight train that had slowed to a near standstill by a siding.
And with the first light of the sun, tattered and torn, worn out, scarcely alive but terribly happy, they descended to the ground in the outskirts of the provincial town. They had only one more step to make, and the time machine would snatch them back and return them to the archaeologists’ camp.
And Alice suddenly understood that it would be very difficult for her to make this final step.
“I’m afraid.” She told the little archaeologist.
“I am too.” He said. “I understand.”
“What if we go back and everything’s the same as it was before. If we failed.”
“I know.” Purr said. “Don’t even mention it.”
He had lost his tail again somewhere on the road, too far back for them to go and find it. The two of them were silent for a while.
Then Alice bent down and picked up the little archaeologist, holding him against her chest in her hands like a pet cat.
Something clicked. A vague mist enveloped her and she seemed to be carried away, falling, falling…
And then she was standing in the Time Machine’s cabin.
18
Behind the transparent wall Gromozeka was waving his tentacles. Beside him was Petrov. Richard was bent over the controls.
Alice stood in the time machine’s cabin, unable even to stir.
The door did not open.
Gromozeka raised one of his tentacles, pointing, showing that she had forgotten to press one of the buttons.
“Of course,” said Alice. “The button.”
She pressed the green button. The door slid to the side. Alice let go of the little archaeologist and Purr fell onto the floor.
“We have them.” Gromozeka said. “Blast off.”
“We have blast off.” A voice shot back from one of the speakers.
The engines started to howl, the time machine’s control room shuddered, and Alice felt her weight increase as moment and then return to normal as the gravitational stabilizers started kicked in.
“What’s going on?” Purr asked finally.
Gromozeka stretched out his long tentacles and enfolded Alice, and she suddenly saw that smoking tears were crawling down his broad green face.
“My daughter,” He said. “Dear one! Thank you!”
“For what?” Alice managed to say.
“Everything’s al-al right.” Petrov said. “Everything’s all right. But it was a.. a… It was a crime!”
“The victors do not get taken before the courts.” Richard said. “And you know that very well, Mihail Petrovich.”
“I am guilty.” Gromozeka said, still not letting Alice free of his tentacles. “I am willing to take whatever punishment the courts demand.”
“What happened?” Purr grew insistent.
“Everything happened.”
“Then why are we moving?”
“We are flying.” Gromozeka said. “Departing.”
“Why?” Alice was surprised. She was so comfortable in Gromozeka’s embrace she could no longer feel her own feet.
“Because as soon as you and Purr transposed into the past I ordered the whole camp struck.” Gromozeka said.
“To chase after us?”
“Nothing of the kind. I knew that you were going to try to go into the past that night, and you know my attitude toward that. I did not interfere.”
“So you weren’t sleeping.”
“I had to make certain you didn’t forget your sweater.”
“And I really tried not to make any noise!” Alice was disappointed.
“I did everything I could. I explained to you the actions of the vaccine spray, I made you take shots anything and everything under every sun we know, I asked Purr to go into the past with you. There was no way I could send you alone.
“So you knew I was going to go too.” Alice turned to her companion and stroked him like a cat.
“I knew.” The little archaeologist said. “And other than me, there was no one who could have accompanied you. I was the only one small enough. I had the tail made up earlier. I trust I proved worthy?”
“You did. You know, Gromozeka, he was able to get me free after they captured me.”
“He did? That is excellent. You can tell us all what happened later. But we were very worried. We kept thinking that you might have gotten caught and we would have to send a rescue party into the past.”
“So why are we on a ship?” Alice asked.
“Because as soon as you were in the past I ordered the entire camp and the time building taken down. None of us knew what would happen here over the course of a hundred years. What if a new city appeared where the domes were? Or artificial lake?”
“Talk about doing things in a rush!” Richard said. “We took down the whole camp in six hours, de-established the station and loaded the time chamber into the last ship. And then we had to wait.”
“Was it worth it?” Alice asked. “Can I have a look?”
Gromozeka lifted Alice up to one of the ports.
The ship had already reached a great height, and Coleida filled half the sky. The whole face of the planet was swept with points of light like strings of glowing pearls; the lights of its cities, homes, industries.
“Everything happened in the second half of the day.” Gromozeka said. “We were standing by the ports looking out. We all know at what time the space ship would return. We were standing and counting the minutes. We could hardly believe it, really, that you had made it to the space ship…”
“And suddenly the field we were in was green.” Richard interrupted. “Just like that.”
“And the old ruined city turned into sky scrapers.” Petrov said.
“And the air was filled with birds.” Gromozeka said. “And we knew that Alice had killed the Space Plague.”
“But didn’t the locals notice you?” Purr asked.
“We’d buried the ship underground and covered it with camouflage netting. And we were lucky. The field was never built on. Now that we’ve taken off, of course they’ve noticed.”
And at that moment a voice came over the loudspeaker:
“This is your captain speaking. We’ve just made contact with one of the orbital traffic control satellites serving the planet Coleida. They are asking us what ship this is, where are we flying, and why we did not warn traffic control of our departure?”
“Tell then that we are setting course for trier watch satellite.” Gromozeka said. “Let them wait. We’ll tell them everything.”
19
When Gromozeka was walking down the corridor of Coleida’s guard satellite with the re- dressed and washed Alice, Alice asked the Chief Archaeologist: