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In fact Alice would rather have changed where she was sitting, but that would have meant admitting to herself and to the others that she was afraid of the old man, which she was not going to do. And anyway, the flight would take less than two hours. And when one of the assistants passed out doughnuts and soft drinks Alice even broke the doughnut in two and offered half to the old man.
“Don’t feel shy.” She said. “Take it. I can’t eat it all.”
But the old man robot shook his head:
“You go ahead and eat, pumpkin. I had cabbage soup this morning, not all that long ago.”
Alice realized the old man was lying. Robots do not eat cabbage soup or anything else. But certainly this robot was programmed to think of himself as an old, old, man, not as any sort of robot, so he could play a role in a film.
Alice had not finished eating the doughnut when the flyer came in for a landing. It arched between low forested hills and flew straight toward a blue, even bluer than the sky, sea. Over the shoreline itself, between two high grey cliffs, the flyer froze in place and slowly descended to the landing spot nestled right next to the water.
“This is it.” Herman said. “We were here last week. Isn’t it paradise?”
On the small hill they had erected a tent, a small dome out of light plastic. An almost black ski
“How did it go?” Herman asked.
“I have all the camera positions chosen and marked. We can begin any time.”
“Great work! But we’re going for a swim first. Alice, come with me, and don’t go off on your own. You might drown.”
“And how could I drown? I can swim under water as much as I want…”
“And all the same, your father made me responsible for you. Is that clear?”
“It’s clear.”
“You can leave your bag here.”
“No, I’ll take it with me.”
“Whatever you want.”
Vasya showed the film makers down the path to the water, but the robots set about constructing a temporary camp. The water was warm and delicious, and Alice was even more sorry that her father did not take her to the sea on sundays.
The old man in woven straw shoes came down to the beach with the film makers and sat down on the shore.
“Isn’t it hot?” Alice shouted to him from the water.
“Don’t swim too far, pumpkin.” The old man robot said. “Some fish might find you tasty. The whale fish.”
The robot was already used to Alice, and Alice was used to him and no longer frightened.
The old man looked around, scratched his head, and started to remove his shoes.
“Hey, old man!” Herman called to him. “Stop that. Put them back on. You’ll overheat your extremities and there’s no workshop here.”
The old man sighed and obediently put the shoe back.
“Poor old man.” Alice said.
“I agree, but what can I do? The clothing on him is his insulation. But he is convincing, don’t you think?
“Very convincing?” Alice agreed, and dove. Under the water she opened her eyes, and was so frightened she opened her mouth to scream, swallowed water and shot like a bullet back up to the surface. She almost went back down again but Herman caught hold of her and lightly tapped her on the back while she coughed the water out of her.
“What was so frightening?” He asked.
“A face…” Alice said. “Such a frightening face I just couldn’t….”
At that moment the water in front of them exploded and the laughing snout of a dolphin appeared on the surface.
“Hey, get away!” Herman shouted at him. “You’re frightening the kid!”
“He was joking.” Alice said; she had already gathered her wits. “It was my fault for not recognizing him.”
“He’s one of our regulars, and friendly.” The sunburned Vasya said.
“Ruslan in Moscow says hello!” Alice shouted as the dolphin swam away.
“I’d say we’ve had enough fun.” Herman said. “Time to go to work.” He swam toward the beach.
“How was the water?” The old man-robot said to the swimmers.
“Superb!” Alice answered.
Herman hopped up and down on one foot, trying to expel water from one of his ears. When he was successful, he said to Alice:
“You’re on your own, for the moment. You can go for a walk if you’d like, but just don’t get lost.”
“Walk along the paths.” The old man said. “Don’t brave the forest. Should Baba Yaga catch hold of you, she will take you to the Blue Mountains, fit you into a kettle and eat you with butter.”
“What kind of butter?” Alice grew interested.
“With what kind! What kind? Why, with sunflower oil butter, of course!”
Toward evening the sea had become quite flat and shiny, as though covered with an oil slick. The lazily rolling waves foamed white only at the edges of the shore itself, like the brocade edge of a table cloth. The shore was covered with enormous grains of sand and very tiny sea shells, so thin and fragile it was pointless to try to collect any. But on the other hand there were very beautiful stones in the water and in the belt of sand wet from the receding tide. Some of them were transparent and rounded by the waves until they were like beads, while others were many-colored and still retained the irregularity of pieces of real stone, although their corners were polished. Found in the sand as well, but in fact not very often you were more likely to encounter them very far to the East in the Caucasus mountains were flat stone cookies, grey and brown. They were very useful for skipping on the waves since they could be made to jump many times.
When Alice gathered two handfuls of stones, she found what she was doing very boring, and she began to throw a few stone cookies to see if she could make them reach the horizon. But the flat stones weren’t the very best and after two or three jumps they were swallowed up by the water, raising a column of thick, shimmering water. Finally, Alice was able to locate a stone petal hardly thicker than a coin and quite round. That one should have jumped all the way to the horizon. Alice took aim, threw the stone, and it obediently jump across the even water. Once, twice, three times, four, five… On the ninth time it vanished beneath the waves anyway, and immediately thereafter a dolphin jumped from the water in the same spot. It promptly dove right back, but Alice grew frightened that she had hit it and decided to throw no more stones.
She walked further along the shore in search of the most beautiful stone. She walked for a very long time. The shore curved inward to form bays several times, but she never found just the right stone. Then Alice decided to walk up into the foothills.
Here, far from the resorts and vacation houses, it was silent. From time to time flyers, like varicolored flies, flew by over head, the grasshoppers chirruped, a scorpion crawled out from under some rock, saw Alice, and quickly hid itself.
Alice walked up to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the sea. The ocean appeared flat, less a sea of tides and breakers than a mass of blue jell-o. Not far from the coast she could make out a small island. It was almost flat, if you ignored the big pile of rocks that rose like a finger from the shore or the roofless, windowless ruin of a house. A barge had run aground right beside the big pile of rocks. Some tiny figures were slowly moving along the shore beside the barge. Their movements were odd, very slow and somehow unhuman. Probably they were specialized robots, but what were they doing: cleaning the bottom of the boat? Building an anchorage?
Alice walked further along the shore. She found herself in a grove of freshly planted trees. Around her stretched row after row of pines only a little taller than Alice herself. When Alice had become an adult these trees would also have grown and become enormous. She would have to make certain she returned here then to take a look at this forest.