How do you do it? The yellow Gentrian asked before departure, blinking all three eyes frequently.
"It was just an accident," calmly lied Lupo, who had done this trick many times since he was a child. A couple of hours later, next to the winning spaceship Lupo, there was a second similar car. Several thousand microscopic turbines flashed greenish light for a moment, and the alien ship disappeared over the horizon.
Did everything go smoothly? The first Gentrian asked dispassionately when he found himself alone with his fellow tribesman on an intergalactic ship.
"More than that," replied the second, "this earthman thinks he could deceive me.
The silvery bottom of the spaceship silently pressed the spreading branches of blue grapes, and the warm wind carried the tart aroma of fresh juice through the streets of a small village. Lupo has adored the ancestral vineyard of his parents since childhood, gorging on sweet berries until his stomach cramps. The door leading inside the spaceship quietly retracted under the threshold of the entrance, and Devega deftly jumped down to the wet ground. In one motion, he plucked a massive bunch of grapes and ran to his parents' house, singing a cheerful song along the way.
What is this Lupo? Mom asked timidly, looking at the shiny hull with apprehension, when her son led her to the aircraft.
Well, I told you, Mom, something like an alien dish.
I'll tell you one thing, son, when your father returns from the city, and that will happen one of these days. He will give you a good thrashing for spoiled bushes.
"Mom," Lupo said with a pleading smile, "I promised, everything, will change soon. Lupo did not want to wait for his father. He had not been the same youngster for a long time, whom a parent could previously drive around the yard with a stick. And yet, somewhere inside, I was afraid of my father's reaction. The dashboard glowed with a pleasant turquoise color, and many protrusions—buttons—reacted to the light touch of Lupo, changing the color shade. The portholes of the ship were on the sides, and it was impossible to look into them without looking up from the levers setting the course of the spaceship. Going over in memory the load of knowledge necessary for control, Lupo remembered the possibility of automatic flight. Having typed the necessary combination of taps, Devega leaned his face against the transparent window, admiring the myriad stars frozen in weightlessness. Some of the cosmic bodies were slowly floating along the hull of a small ship. Other shapeless objects flashed by, barely perceptible to the human eye, disappearing without a trace into the immeasurable blackness of the universe. Several times, giant asteroids passed at the very edge of the outer skin of the spaceship, and then Lupo bounced deep into the head compartment. Soon, Devega realized that the Hetaerians' technique, without undergoing failures, maneuvered quite well between any space obstacles.