Валериан и его жёны - Тамара Савельева

began his career on his home planet Earth, of course. He had just finished the school for gifted children with the view of becoming an astronaut, when he met his first “true love” in a small provincial town Miseraburg. Her name was Paulina and she was adorably beautiful. The same naive and gullible she was. But Valerian was also too young and credulous, so he fell in love and postponed his high school attendance for the nearest twelve years. Just then he realized that a family life was not a subscription to free catering and regular sex but a very expensive ticket to hard jobs and sleepless nights. Valerian was working shifts while Paulina was pregnant every four years and staying home. Neither her idleness, nor children were a problem, but her addiction to shopping. Paulina visited all sales within the radius of fifty miles from home every weekend. She was a well-known customer of every shop in the town. That woman randomly ordered items from various TV-shops lying on the sofa, from different on-line magazines sitting at the hairdressers’, and only distant-space-traders were not paid with her attention because she had been skipping IT-lessons at school and could not use any modern communication technologies. And guess who paid her bills? Oh, you are so smart to say that it was her husband!

When Valerian sold most of his gold medals obtained for intelligent and sport achievements, his mother’s jewelries, his valuable Birthday and Christmas presents, his collection of bikes and finally the pearl of the range – Harley Davidson Liberator 1942 – he decided to stop that insanity and divorced. By any means his first wife got a house, children and alimonies, and a prisoner of household received a testimonial of freedom in common parlance called the Bill of divorce. With that certificate and some survived elements of his brilliant portfolio Valerian left continental Miseraburg for London. For the last two hundred years, the whole island has been used as an academic area for astronauts training; and challengers from all over the globe, full of hopes and ambitions, arrive over there for studying at a couple of dozens specialized universities. Valerian had a job to become a student of the Trans Galaxy High School wherein he spent another six years of his miserable life.

Except for the days of practice on board the real spaceship based in the territory of the university, their everyday routine was rather dull. Boys and girls could have classes and afterward activities only within the limits of their prescribed schooling premises and residual campuses. Due to the huge distances, it was quite a problem to manage travelling to other academic divisions. They simply did not have enough time. As for flights, the air transportation is strictly regulated both because of safety requirements and fuel price. So, after some period of study they were all bored with each other and dreamt of the world outside the borders. Perhaps that was the main reason for young people to spend considerably much time in social networks and dating sites. By the final academic session, most of them had probable friends, partners and acquaintances throughout the galaxy of Milky Way.

After graduating from the Trans Galaxy High School, Valerian set off from Earth to his first place of job on Urania, a smaller planet in the nearby star system with rather more primitive social state than Earth. There on him found a girl, after their preliminary acquaintance by means of Love Site, and immediately started the second matrimonial adventure. Laurina was full of enthusiasm and secrets. In the beginning, Valerian admired her mysterious manner to hide something behind. He had to admit that every person of over thirty years old might have some snows of yesteryears, and never asked questions hoping that she would do the same. But sooner or later it should have been happened according to the Murphy’s Law and it did. Laurina as the representative of a more primitive Uranian society had a strong desire to move to the Earth. The inhabitants of our planet will surely ask “Why?” because we know all the problems of overpopulated postindustrial world persuading us to leave the homestead. But you should be born beyond to understand that for Uranians the Earth is attractive with its supermarkets, facilities, entertainments, etc. and a highly esteemed lifestyle. Well, after four years of their marriage, Laurina got a new passport with the terrestrial citizenship and after a while began to spill the beans.

One day, when Valerian came home after a twelve-hour watch and sat at the dinner table next to saying “Hello!” to his three children on Earth by video-phone, Laurina opened the kitchen door and let two teenage boys and a girl in the dining room. Without giving any background information, she introduced her three kids to the “husband”, declared that she was pregnant with the fourth one, announced that her baby’s father is not Valerian and claimed for a divorce. To say that he was surprised is to say nothing. After a month or two Laurina departed from Urania together with her children and her real husband, who, by the way, was patiently waiting during the whole period of his wife’s marital affair for the particular result. So much disappointed, Valerian begged his boss for a mission on a faraway planet, and at last got it on the Selenia. Soon after the transfer he met a nice local woman with a poetic name Landila. She was widowed and lost all her family members, one by one: a father, a brother, the only son, a mother and a cat. Landila canalized all her energies for pleasing Valerian because he had become her last love. After five happy years together, she died of cancer, and he dispersed her ashes over the biggest river of Selenia according to her last will.

Devastated with the mourning, Valerian decided to move further through the galaxy. This time he leased a big ship, bought a patent