Irina Dovase
PLANET OF PARADOXES
Series "the Man who could do everything"
? Седова Ирина Игоревна, 1978-2018
? Sedova Irina Igorevna, translation, 2019
PLANET OF PARADOXES
REBELLION
SUMMER OF LIFE
CONTRACT FOR THREE YEARS
MARRIAGE ON TYERRA
AVENGER - CHEAT - THE PRICE OF SILENCE
GOLD OF LAKRO
Dovase, Irina
The Planet of Paradoxes (fantastic novel)
Her profession is to plant forests where there is no water or air... will she Get a job or not? A girl from the world of free enterprise gets to a planet where she can have whatever she wants. But she doesn't know about it, and no idea about what an exciting, awesome adventure ahead for her...
Part I
RYABINKA
The Mysterious Route Map
"Ryabinka, ow!" rang a clean melodic voice. It was impossible to guess that the voice belonged to a small thin old woman.
"This fidget has just disappeared again," grumbled the old woman, going out on the porch.
That old woman lived alone in a roomy, and for her even in a huge old house in the middle of a vast forest. It was a reserve and she was its Keeper. Her house stood on a sunny glade, but in addition to this lovely place she had to watch over cedar groves, a birch copse and lots of other coppices and woods.
The old woman was a hereditary forester, and loneliness did not depress her, because she used to the absence of people. Once she had a large family, but her children and grandchildren grew up one by one; they graduated from colleges and dispersed all over the world. They all became biologists and did not forget the old Verba (that was the name of the lady), sending her greeting cards for holidays, letters, and coming to visit.
During their living near her she taught them all that she knew. She tried to develop their curiosity and delight of living among the magnificence that surrounded them since their childhood. To tell the truth, the old Verba was proud of her "kids." She was glad that her children and grandchildren knew the history of their family and the language of their ancestors.
They did not call their native planet "Tyerra", but they called it "Zemlya", and their names were generic: Dojd, Veter, Zarnitsa, Irga. It was time when the habit of naming children by words that once had some specific meaning in one of the ancient languages of Tyerra, was quite common. There was no need that most people who spoke Hingr and other new dialects did not know the meanings of those words, but for old Verba the sounds of her native language were like music.
Ryabinka was the old lady"s youngest granddaughter, she was her favourite. When she was born, her parents were students. Leaving the baby to her grandmother, they flew away and did not return. They were from the astronauts, whom the Space took forever.
Ryabinka replaced to the old Verba her missing son. Now she was a student as well, she was studying at the High Biology Space School. She came to her granny for two days only and had to fly to a distant planet Liska, where she did her pre-graduate practice work.
Although Ryabinka said that her practice had started quite well, grandma's heart ached with anxiety, and the sudden arrival of her granddaughter without any warning seemed strange too. The students have not got enough seeds to plant - well, that's understandable, it happens... But since when do trainees have to deal with supplies?
"Oh, she"s holding something back... She"s got into trouble..."
Those were the old woman"s thoughts while she was looking for a familiar blue coverall at the edge of the forest.
"I'm here, granny!" heard she Ryabinka"s voice from above.
"Why!" the old woman clasped hands and look up, "What are you doing in the attic?"
"I'm conducting archaeological digs. I have found so many interesting things!"
"Couldn"t you find another time to go through old papers? Get down here, my naughty!"
A low slim girl of twenty-two ran out in the meadow. The girl was dressed in a blue coverall of homespun linen, decorated with a wide border with geometric patterns on the edges. The jumpsuit was of a very comfortable style, with two straps on the sleeves and trousers.
"You my poor darling," sighed grandma, viewing Ryabinka from head to toe, "How pale, just bones and skin. The belt is fastened with the third button..."
Ryabinka looked at her suit - the belt was fastened correctly, in the latest fashion.
"It is not a paleness, granny, but a special composition for skin lightening. For lashes to look longer, and lips brighter."
"And why did you curl your hair and smeared it with blue paint?"
"Not blue, but black with tint. I want to be beautiful, can you get it, grandma?"
The old woman threw up her hands. Indeed! - the girl standing in front of her was extremely beautiful without any makeup. The singularity of her face could not be spoiled with any make-up product and no hairstyle. Large specially curved green eyes, a neat nose etched in memory and singled their owner out from any group of other girls immediately. Her mouth was a bit too big, but it did not ruin the impression.
However, being accustomed to consider herself ugly from the very childhood, Ryabinka missed the sudden flowering of her beauty. And no wonder for the girl who decided to replace the personal life with the business success. During all the years in the High Cosmic School she feasted on knowledge, has been carrying out public work and was elected the head of the group during practical sessions. She got used to perceived as a mockery all the compliments to her appearance.
"I'm 22 years old," she said angrily.
"You should think about your qualification, not about eyelashes," one could hear the condemnation in the voice of the old woman.
"I think," sighed Ryabinka, as she wanted love, true, sincere, real; "Don't worry, granny, I don't like my new appearance myself, but natural pigment won"t recover earlier than in six months. Well, bye!"
Oh, if only the old forester knew where her beloved granddaughter was going to take off! She would howl of desperation, grabbed Ryabinka hands and legs, but kept her from hasty travel. Just think! To turn off the route, reliably programmed in the computer memory of the starship for to visit a planet, the coordinates of which were inscribed on an ancient route map, lying number of years in the dusty attic of the old house!
Of course, Ryabinka flew for seeds for planting not on behalf of her authorities. But how could she admit that without those seeds her thesis task would become a failure. That her situation was worse than ever: she wouldn"t graduate with honors. And without first-class degree she won"t have guaranteed job after qualification. This meant that very soon she would have to look for some job on her own. So it made sense to do a little detour to run recon.
It seems plain madness, but that's the way it worked: if the coordinates of that planet have not been highlighted in a red oval, if Ryabinka did not know from her Star Atlas that there were no planet in that place of the Galaxy, the idea would not even have appeared in her head. And if the place had not been so close to Liska, the project would have been postponed to a better time.
But everything matched together: the need, the route and desire - well, who on earth would have resisted? Ryabinka kissed her grandmother, shouldered her travel bag with all sorts of things that could prove useful and hurried to the spaceship. She didn't like long goodbyes.
That's all. Start. Bye, grandma. Goodbye, Tyerra!
The ship lowed to the ground and touched it gently. While Ryabinka was tuning the devices on close inspection, a small cloud of steam, that arose when hot nozzle gases encountered with colder atmospheric, dissipated. On the screen there appeared a hilly valley covered with low green vegetation. A pearl mist lay around. The planet was already living with its own life and it needn"t any human intervention of the person of Ryabinka"s profession.
Ryabinka saw it at once.
Meanwhile the obedient metal hands stretched out from the ship, cut the grass cover and, having enclosed a piece of sod in a small container, pulled it into the on-Board laboratory. The test results shocked Ryabinka. Both the soil composition and the biological characteristics of the grass were up to the Tyerra standards. Even the atmosphere was breathable. One didn't have to wear a spacesuit!
Ryabinka opened the access hatch and looked out. Around her spaceship there spread the most common for Tyerran mid-latitude meadow. She shut the hatch behind her and jumped to the ground. On closer examination, the meadow was completely like on the Earth: wheatgrass, buttercups, chamomiles, sagebrush here and there, and willow herb blooming in full. Our heroine moved on. Very disappointed, she reached the edge of the valley, and couldn"t keep an exclamation: a birch grove opened in front of her. It was like a dream: white trunks, veiled by a light haze, and a lone birch against their background.
"Maybe I made a mistake and now I"m not on That Object but on Tyerra again?" that sudden idea directly hit our cosmonaut-girl; "Oh no, it can't be so!"
When she reached the first tree, she touched the bark that was white with black specks, knocked lightly on the trunk and walked along the birch forest. She heard a bird trill. Ryabinka tried to recognize the voice, but she could not determine the bird. Soon she began to come across unfamiliar plants: she saw a flower, similar to lily of the valley, but with plantain leaves, then a bush with large yellow berries which looked poisonous. It was getting interesting.
"What a nice place! It is almost like in grandma"s reserve. This corner is quite similar, nobody would find the difference. My imagination tells that when I reach the hill, I"ll see the lake behind it. And just behind the lake there would be the cedar grove."
Ryabinka imagined such panorama and laughed: she loved pine nuts.
"Hey, who's dabbling?" rang out an angry voice; "Have you nothing to do?"
The girl ran up the hill and froze in surprise. Just in front of her, indeed, there spread the lake, and behind the lake there was visible the high dark forest. Knee-deep in the water there stood a swarthy guy of twenty five. And water flowed over his black curls and clothes.
"Is it you who is having fun?" he asked angrily.
Ryabinka felt a shiver in her legs and leaned against the birch tree behind her. The words she heard were not said on Hingr... The guy was talking in her native language! He not only knew it, but he spoke it to her, to a stranger. Ryabinka immediately felt her in the high antiquity, because in Tyerra her native language almost disappeared after all Indo-European dialects merged into a single conglomerate. In her family the language of their ancestors was preserved as a relic, and it was a pleasant surprise to discover that somewhere in the Universe there is a place where people speak it. It was so interesting that Ryabinka almost forgot why she had come here.
"A lost expedition! That would be a brouhaha when I get back! However, this guy is a terribly rude fellow," those thoughts momentarily flashed in Ryabinka"s head.
"Have you lost your mind?" continued the stranger.
Now his large blue eyes did not flash fire, but there was so much metal in his voice that Ryabinka was completely taken aback. Everything that she could do was to babble, barely picking up the words:
"Me... I accidentally,"
Now her vivid imagination was powerless to help her in explanation what her fault was.
Then she thought that the fellow might feel cold, and that was the reason why he freaked out. So she took off her jacket and handed it to him.
"Oh, thank you very much," said the guy quite calmly, throwing the jacket over his shoulders; "You yourself designed the pattern on the edge? You see, I'm an artist. And the fabric, it is not quite standard."
"Last year's pirouette of fashion we had on Tyerra, but I can"t part with it. Besides, it"s made of natural linen," chattered Ryabinka, adjusting her pronunciation under articulation of the fellow. She did it quite instinctively.
"Sorry, at Tyerra - where is it?"
"Well, on the Earth."
"You're a joker," laughed the guy; "Pirouette, linen... Does everybody on your Tyerra like to speak in riddles?"
Ryabinka nodded mechanically, thinking to herself: "It seems, he does not believe that I am from Tyerra. Perhaps it"s for the best. And then..."
Ryabinka didn"t try to guess what could happen if the fellow knew where she was from. But to her surprise she didn't want to argue about anything. Her modest look made the right impression. The stranger's face no longer resembled a cloud in a stormy sky, and he said softly:
"May I give you a present?"
Ryabinka heard a thousand times from her grandmother that it was dangerous to accept gifts from strangers, but to change the route of the spaceship was also a contradiction to all rules.
And she nodded in agreement.
The stranger scratched behind his ear. He put his left hand into the pocket and pulled out a shiny hairpin with a red stone.
"May I?" he asked.
He leaned toward Ryabinka and placed the hairpin at her right temple. An unusual sign of attention embarrassed our adventurer-girl.
"You shouldn"t do it," she said blushing.
It seemed that the stranger didn't hear her.
"I wonder why we've never met here before," he said, as if he had seen Ryabinka a thousand times elsewhere.
It was getting funny.
"I came here by accident," she explained; "Looking for a job. I'm a space landscaper."
"Have you ever been to Dolingord?"
"Never."
"Then you must go there. There are such places!... In short, it is worth seeing!"
The guy turned and walked along the shore of the lake. Having walked a few steps, he stopped, turned around and asked in surprise:
"Why aren't you going? Martin will be awfully glad! You'll see!"
It was impossible to get the reason why some Martin was supposed to be happy of seeing an unknown girl. But the strange fellow didn't intend to explain it. He behaved as an old friend who accidentally met his schoolmate in a random place after long years of separation. It was clear that he took Ryabinka for someone he had met before.
But she again did not disabuse him. She glanced at his thin, slightly stooped figure, and finally thought that it would be a good idea to find out at least who she was talking to.
"Your name... Can't remember..." she said.
"Elmar. Why are you speaking with me in such a strange manner? We"re alone here. Yes, it is not often possible to meet the ours somewhere. Your name is..."
"My name is Ryabinka," she decided to take that chance.
But if she thought that the guy would stop pretending to be her old friend, she was wrong. Elmar was slightly surprised - and that was all.
"Ryabinka? A strange nickname," he said; "But, you know, it suits you.
Ryabinka shrugged and followed him on the narrow path along the shore. The behaviour of that strange guy could confuse anyone. Meanwhile, the birch forest was over, and the travelers found themselves in the magnificent pine forest. And once again Ryabinka noticed how similar that forest was to her grandmother"s. There were enough big trees in one and a half human girth, that stood not close to one another, and undergrowth surrounded them in the same way. And among low rare grass there was an anthill which looked exactly like the one she had seen five days ago.
Elmar bent down, picked up from the ground a few long brown pine needles joined in bunches of five, and said thoughtfully:
"These plants have very interesting leaves. How do you call them?"
"They're cedars!" said Ryabinka in surprise, because his ignorance amazed her. "Have you never eaten pine nuts?"
"Nuts? You mean the ones that are hanging up there?"
"Yes, in the cones," agreed Ryabinka graciously.
Elmar asked nothing more. He frowned and, hurrying a couple of steps, stopped.
Martin and his house
Ryabinka drew up level with him, and in front of her in a deep hollow there opened whether a town or a large settlement. It was a wonderful sight! It seemed that the town was very close, Ryabinka even saw people in the streets. But it was impossible to understand in what order the buildings were. Small houses were not located along the bottom but disposed here and there quite independently of each other. They climbed on the slopes and jumped on cliffs. Narrow crooked streets ran around them like paths, and drowned in the sea of vegetation. No one house repeated another. The first was round, another looked like hexagon, the third resembled a mushroom, and the fourth was like nothing at all. And roofs of mixed relief crowned them. It seemed that the inhabitants of that strange village had nothing to do but to devise, who would build a more unusual home.
Elmar touched Ryabinka"s sleeve:
"Martin's house is over there."
"Where?"
"Do you see that bright rectangle with a cubic superstructure? Found it? Haven"t you? Look at the roof with three little round towers. Count three houses to the left and one up. It is just there where the alley of blue tulips is. Come on!
He took Ryabinka"s hand, helping her down, and in a few minutes they plunged into the maze of streets. They turned to one side and then to another, and she wondered how Elmar managed not to lose the direction. Rebellious vegetation, the types of which our cosmoflora specialist could not determine even roughly, astonished her. Sometimes it stood like a blind wall and then suddenly broke letting observe facades and windows, also of fanciful forms. There was even the windows that looked like enormous flowers and windows reminding animals.
The travelers passed the alley with high blue tulips and found themselves in front of the house, where instead of windows Ryabinka saw two wide limpid wavy lines around the perimeter. A small courtyard, framed by a hedge, was entirely covered with a carpet of vegetation.
When Ryabinka and her guide stepped on the terrace before the entrance the doors moved aside softly as inviting to come in.
Ryabinka hesitated. One thing was walking in the open air with a random fellow traveler, and quite another was going with him into an odd unknown closed quarters. If only she thought she was more attractive, she would never risk to find herself on her own with two guys. But she thought to herself:
"If you are looking for a job you should be able to make acquaintance. You have nothing to fear. Nobody will attack you."
"Come in," said Elmar, touching her sleeve.
The doors shut as the guests entered the hall. Elmar passed his hand over the wall and said softly:
"Hey, doctor, look whom I brought to us!"
Before Ryabinka could react, a side wall moved, as if it split in the middle, and a tall, slender blond man of about twenty-seven appeared in its breach.
"The our!" said Elmar meaningly; "Here"s on vacation and doesn't know anybody. Her name is Ryabinka."
"Oh!" said the blond hair; "Where did you find her?"
The blond hair had a pleasant open face, light-skinned and clean, where one could notice movable eyebrows, surprisingly dark. His lashes were dark as well, and it was hard to expect a trick from a man with the look like his.
"The girl was daydreaming a little," said Elmar, "I was sitting and painting. Then a sudden splash - and I found out myself in water with water around."
"It is very good, that dreamy girls roam the groves not every day," said the blond hair reproachfully.
They said it like they meant it. As if that lake appeared at Ryabinka"s wish. And Elmar continued, pointed at his friend:
"His name is Martin. He's terribly absent-minded too. Last year he wanted to imagine a costume. Would you believe? He forgot to turn off his mind and could not understand why he did not succeed..." Elmar's little mustache twitched slyly.
"And you? Have you forgotten, how you almost let around your Studio a fire snake? It was two months ago only," answered their host.
"Oh, don't, don't talk about it! I"ll tell everything myself! You see, Ryabinka, we have just shot a film about the arrival of the natives. How brilliantly you would be perfect for the lead role! I wish we'd met earlier!"
"That's why Elmar invited me here," thought Ryabinka; "He need an object for his movies. Is he going to offer me jumping naked in front of them?"
To hear that she was considered a round fool was a kind of a blow to Ryabinka. Rather offended, she forced to say:
"I couldn't act in films. I have no time. To spend."
Ryabinka watched one guy and then another and compared them. The comparison was clearly not in Elmar's favour. His friend was much more handsome. His elongated and narrowed eyes made especially irresistible impression. They looked brown from afar, but coming closely one noticed that only the stars coming from the pupils were of this colour. In bright light those eyes became gray.
"He's an amazing guy. And so smart," thought Ryabinka; "Elmar is interesting too but..."
She knew what the "but" meant quite exactly. Ryabinka did not like artists, literary critics and other people of art. She did not respect them, considering worthless and empty. She was sure, they were engaged in nonsense when there is so much useful work around.
She was not so radical to the artists who applied their skills for some practical needs, but movies differ, and her feeling to participants of the performances of a certain kind could be nothing but disgust. That was Ryabinka"s opinion. Really, have known the reason why Elmar was interested in her, Ryabinka felt disappointment. She wanted the boys to like her - and that was stronger than anything, stronger than all the arguments of reason, and even stronger than usual caution. But one thing was to be admired, and quite another when you are considered as an object for a vulgar movie.
Something must have reflected on her face, because the host depicted a very natural surprise:
"Why, so what are we wasting precious minutes? I guess our guest is hungry of course. I'll go to the dining room and get the plates."
"What would you like first?" asked Elmar, when he sat down on a soft chair near the table.
"I don't know."
"All for the better," rejoiced Martin, leaving the kitchen with empty plates in his hands; "I'll regale you with a brand new dish. It"s Mariye"s last invention, so be ready to appreciate.
He placed the plates, touched his right ear and a portion of the steaming meat, cut into slices emerged on each plate. It was like a trick. Ryabinka smiled.
"Like it?" noticed her smile Elmar; "Mariye is a cook that you would seldom meet. Mariye"s his sister. She's a builder. And what about your famous grapes, doctor?"
"Grapes will be for dessert."
The meat was cooked really excellently. After dinner, Martin led his guests into a garden and disappeared. Ryabinka didn't notice where he went. Her attention was caught by a pergola, entirely covered with grapes and an incomparably beautiful bindweed. Its big orange bells with black stripes, were framed with a pinkish corolla, dense bristle of stamens and long brown fringed pestle in the middle. Each stem had not only blossoming flowers and buds but bolls with seeds as well.
To get a better look, Ryabinka pulled a sprout and touched one fruit. Its dry membrane crumbled to dust, and a handful of small hedgehog-like seed spilled right into Ryabinka"s hand.
"What a strange flower!" exclaimed Ryabinka. She sighed and put the seeds in the pocket of her jacket.
Elmar shrugged and went into the pergola. When Ryabinka looked there, he was already sitting on a folding chair near the window made in grapes. Before him there stood a board on a stand.
"Are you starting a new picture?"
"I'm painting".
"I don't see any paints or brushes."
"Right you are, it"s better to put a couple of tubes nearby."
He put his hand into his pocket, took out a box with paints and a brush and put them near the cardboard.
"And what are you painting?
"Your grove."
"Indeed?"
No grove could be seen on the cardboard; shapeless, fuzzy spots were on an entire sheet.
"I paint not just trees but a scenery for the film."
"And what's your film about?
"It"s about the first settlers. You see, in our film there is an episode where Ol remembers That Earth. Two episodes only but I'm stuck. Where must I take the content if it is absent? I was ready to cry! You really helped me with those cedars of yours. You see, I once heard this word, and knew that it was some kind of trees that existed on Ol"s homeland not imagined by him for some reason. Nobody knew how those cedars should look like!"
"And what about the birch grove? Weren"t the seeds of birch trees brought by the first expedition?" asked Ryabinka gently, hoping to find out the answers about the place where she had appeared. Now it was only clear to her that it was not Tyerra.
Elmar stared at her with his wide-opened blue eyes, then he waved his eyelashes in bewilderment, and laughed:
"Are you joking? The local birch grove cannot be relict. It's one of the late plantation."
Something began to clear up in Ryabinka"s head. A missing expedition indeed. One of the members of the crew was Ol by name. It's funny that the route map she had found on a dusty attic of her grandmother's house had been signed by the same name.
"I guess that birches on the Earth are of no much difference from your birches," she said soothingly.
"Yours, ours! Of course, all birch forests are similar, both on Earth or Zemlya. But That Earth, from which our ancestors came, cannot be similar to any other planet, can it?"
"Well, you can draw multistoried cities with houses made of glass and concrete... like anthills..."
"Hm... That"s authentic... Why don't you eat the grapes? You wouldn"t find in the whole Dolinniy the grapes that would be sweeter than from Martin's garden! Choose on the South outside, there"s the best."
Ryabinka obeyed the reasonable advice and began to treat herself to the grapes. Something got clear; the expedition had arrived directly from Tyerra and the landing was forced. Communication with the center had been lost; and that happened in so ancient time that local people start calling Tyerra "That Earth", because "Zemlya" for them is the name of the planet where they are living. The word "Tyerra" said nothing to Elmar because the accident happened in the days when it did not come to common use yet."
"Who am I for these guys now? Tyerranee or native?"
Ryabinka was ready to laugh.
She paid tribute to the grapes and returned in the pergola. No less than five sketches lay on the floor around Elmar, and a blank sheet of cardboard on a stand indicated that the sixth was destined to appear. Elmar was sitting scowling his face, his legs crossed, and thoughtfully shook his foot.
"Damn him!" he exclaimed angrily.
Just at this minute the sky cleared and a beam of sunshine broke through the thick cloud cover. It sparkled only for some moments but its appearance became a revelation for the artist. And when Ryabinka looked at the cardboard again, it wasn"t empty any more. There was a grove, yes, wondrous earth grove appeared on the sheet! It seemed to arose there by itself, without participation of the artist!
"You are a real magician," she whispered.
Elmar turned to her his satisfied face.
"Am I? Oh no, it"s you a fairy. May you be one of them?
A tender moment of beauty
Smiled to us and faded.
Maybe it"s caused by you
coming from dreams of fairies,
When your green eyes glared."
"Great!" Ryabinka couldn't help admiring; "Did you compose this impromptu? Right now?"
Elmar glanced away and said:
"It's a lyrics by one poet. And now Mariye"s coming back!"
Through the openwork of grape leaves Ryabinka saw a small descending aircraft.
"Remember, Mariye Can Not."
The News
Ryabinka did not understand what was the thing that Mariye was not able to do, but she nodded docilely and followed Elmar, who led her for some reason around the house. Then Elmar put his finger to his lips and tiptoed to the porch.
"Who wants to enter our house unnoticed?" rang out a low pleasant voice, and in the doorway Ryabinka saw a girl with golden fair hair.
As on Ryabinka"s taste, Martin"s sister looked a perfect beauty. She was well-built neither tall nor low, of healthy complexion, and wore a long, loose-fitting dress with a drawstring waistband. She looked like the beautiful Helen, who had caused the Trojan war. Her lively almond-shaped brown eyes under smooth arches of eyebrows looked smiling and illuminated her face with an elusive victorious light.
"We wanted to arrange a surprise!" said Elmar portraying indignation."
"Is the guest upset?" exclaimed Mariye as if sympathetic, but there was laughter in her eyes.
"My dear sister, I do not see masterpieces of your culinary art!" said Martin getting behind Mariye, "We almost died of hunger here without you!
And Martin winked at Ryabinka merrily.
Mariye disappeared in the kitchen. Ryabinka wanted to follow her, but she was not allowed.
"Don't bother her," said Martin shaking his head; " Poor girl has so little reason to cook! Let"s go into the living-room instead.
Ryabinka had no choice but to obey. However, she didn"t resist much. She already liked being here and she felt that her new friends liked her as well. It was only liking, not more, as it can be among the humans without any dirty hints. These guys were very nice people, both of them. They were so easy-going that Ryabinka forgot about his suspicions and that the day couldn"t be endless. Sometimes something flashed in Elmar"s eyes, but that light was not able to make the girl nervous. The boys had a good time in talking and so did Ryabinka in their company.
Of course, she remembered why, in fact, she crossed the threshold of the house near the alley of blue tulips. But after Ryabinka found out that on the planet the work on greening landscapes is still in progress, she recalled grandmother's recommendation "problems of future should be left to tomorrow" and... And what else? The conversation flowed smoothly from one subject to another. It was the usual chatter, natural but interesting.
By the way, Ryabinka found out from the chatter that there was no obscene in the film Elmar had spoken of. And Martin did not look like a butcher cutting people into parts for pleasure; although he told about medicine enthusiastically, but he wasn"t crazy about it. As for Ryabinka, she was very careful in her words, and when she spoke about Tyerra she portrayed the facts of Imperial life as her fantasies. So, who in the whole Universe would have guessed that all this could end so absurdly!
"Our guest haven"t informed us yet about herself," suddenly said Mariye leaning out of the kitchen.
"Neither have you," answered Elmar immediately. "Like me."
"Oh!" Mariye's voice changed in some strange way. She stared at Ryabinka with such interest as if she met her just that seconds. Ryabinka even felt uncomfortable because of that attentive and cunning gaze.
"I mean, we haven"t told about ourselves either," said Elmar reproachfully.
And from this hasty excuse something seemed to hang in the air. Ryabinka felt even more embarrassed. She instantly recalled that she was taken for someone and had been brought to that hospitable house near the alley of blue tulips by mistake. Explanations were inevitable!
Elmar pointed at Martin and added:
"Martin is a doctor. A surgeon. His surname is Fot. He's not married yet. Neither am I. And the Film Studio where I work is in Otkrytiy."
Mariye looked at Elmar incredulously and went back again. Martin got up, closed the door, and, coming up to Ryabinka, said in a low voice:
"You should keep your eyes open with my little sister. She knows that Elmar and I are the mighties."
"The mighties?" asked Ryabinka in surprise. So that's who she was taken for. She was considered to be a person of the ruling class of this planet!
That is why she couldn"t guess, why those two guys are so elegant. Why they behaved so free and, at the same time, without any impertinence! "I wonder what they will say when I open that I"m an astronaut? And the girls on Liska will just burst with envy when I tell them what guys are in the Universe."
Meanwhile the two friends got silent, gazing at her in fright.
"Who did you bring me, you, Dull Paper-smearer?" said through his teeth Martin, when he came to; "A Brainless Rhymer! Is this your present?"
He pointed to the barrette in Ryabinka"s hair.
"Mine," agreed the artist sadly; "Little souvenir. For memory."
"And what will she answer if they ask her where she takes these souvenirs from?"
"She"ll tell she has found."
"Especially if she would be questioned by the Security Council. Well, will you advise her to say she has taken it off a corpse?"
Ryabinka couldn"t help smiling.
"The barrette turns out to be a symbol of power, it shows that I'm from elite," thought she; "I wonder why Elmar pinned it on me. And what was the reason he supposed I was similar to them?"
The two guys quietly quarreled among themselves, not paying attention to either her presence or smile.
"No corpses," said Elmar; "She will says that hairpin has been given to her by a friend. That is me, Elmar Kensoly.
"Kensoly?" said Ryabinka rather surprised; "What a coincidence! I"m Kensoly too."
The guys glanced at each other.
"Who are you studying for?" said Martin in a more peaceful tone.
"I"m cosmo-forester."
"In the forest... who?"
He was interrupted by Mariye's head popped in the door.
"Hurry up! Turn on the TV! They're transmitting such a news!" exclaimed she in excite.
Elmar pressed a button... He did it in time.
The violet screen of the rectangle in the corner of the room turned into image, and in five minutes Ryabinka got all the reasons to feel pleased that she had told nothing about herself.
"An important government message," said a voice from the screen; "In the region near Dolingord there appeared a new unplanned lake surrounded with trees of unregistered breed. That is not all. Quite nearby, behind the birch grove, there was found an aircraft, having trappings that was designed for space flights. We asked the Security Council to comment on the report."
The face of a grey-headed man:
"There has never been such a case on our planet. Soon we'll hear whether our astronomers have watched anything; but there's almost no doubt that the ship belongs to a resident of That Earth."