Andrei Lubensky

“ Here the Elemoont fell to thinking, "If you take twelve from infinity it comes out so many numbers as they exist after twelve, here you are!"
"But still how many?" interested the Cat. (Existence of such huge quantity of numbers was a great surprise for him) .
"I don't know," confessed the Elemoont.
"You can't subtract twelve from an infinity?" was amazed the Cat, "If I subtract twelve from twelve tiger–mice it will be zero."
"But if you subtract twelve from infinity the result will be an infinity all the same," said the Elemoont. ”

“ So many tiger–mice are never being."
"What's that got to do with tiger–mice? I'm talking about an abstraction," said the Computer
"A quintillion quintillions abstractions! It's beyond human understanding!" muttered the cat.
"All right, we have looked into a quintillion," said the Elemoont, "And a quadrillion, how many is it?"
"Possibly they count the square moons by quadrillions," remarked the Cat.
"No! The quadrillion is an ordinary number and it equals a thousand trillions.
"Things are going from bad to worth," muttered again the Cat, "But how many is a trillion?" ”

“ It's a familiar word!" was pleased the Elemoont, "My grandfather told me that there was a milliard lunatics on the Moon."
"Wait a little with your lunatics," stopped him the Cat. "And how many is a milliard?"
"A milliard equals one thousand millions. A million is one thousand thousands and a thousand is a thousand!" concluded the Computer.
"And how many kilometers must we fly?" asked the Elemoont. "Can you tell us now?"
"Yes, I can," answered the Computer. "You must fly a quintillion kilometers to the star which you selected. You must fly along ordinary kilometers, along its length." ”