“There was a small female child.” The Fat Man insisted. “I saw her. Didn’t you see her?” He asked Verkhovtseff, who just stood there, shrugged, and looked like he was sleeping with open eyes.
The man in black who had gone into the Pegasus after the Blabberyap Bird returned; he carried the bird, grasping it around the legs; the bird’s head swung back and forth and nearly reached the floor.
“Ah, you found it.” The Fat Man was delighted. “Rip off its head.”
“What?” The other man asked.
“The head, I say, the head; rip it off. We don’t need it any longer.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” I was horrified. “You can’t kill the Blabberyap bird. It may be the very last Blabberyap bird in existence.”
In desperation the Empathicator turned blue and rushed toward the Blabberyap bird on its thin legs, hoping, evidently, to set the bird free. But Veselchak U had noticed and burst out laughing.
“And as for you!” The Fat Man said, turned somewhat gracefully for such a fat man, and tripped the Empathicator with one leg.
The Empathicator collapsed and turned black from shame.
“Well,” The Fat Man said, “Why are you wasting time. I’ve already told you we no longer need the bird. Rip it’s head off.”
I don’t know if the Blabberyap understood the Fat Man or not, but, held firmly in the hand of the black clad pirate, the bird began to recite in an unknown voice:
“The Blabberyap bird is protected by the laws of the planet Blooke as an extremely rare and interesting creature. The hunting of the Blabberyap bird is forbidden, and violators of this law will suffer fines and social disgrace.”
“Your goose is cooked anyway!” Veselchak U roared. “And our hands are full enough without him!”
Suddenly something completely inexplicable transpired. The man in the black uniform lifted the Blabberyap bird high in order to grasp its neck, but as soon as he reached out his hand he suddenly lost his balance and fell with a crash to the floor, shouting from surprise, and released the Blabberyap bird. The Blabberyap clutched the air with its wings and flapped its way to the ceiling.
“Shoot!” The fat man shouted, grabbing for his pistol. Shots rang out. One or two blaster bolts almost hit the Blabberyap bird, but it twisted and turned in the air and vanished into the distance, to the cavern’s darkened end.
The men in black started to run after the Blabberyap bird, but Veselchak U stopped them.
“There’s no where it can run to now. Let it go, idiots! You, why did you fall?
“I didn’t fall.” The man in the back uniform said. “I was pushed.”
“Silence!” The fat man shouted to everyone; his jello cheeks shuddered. “Stop your excuses or I’ll push you down myself and then you won’t get up ever again! Don’t bother to chase after him. The bird’s lost in the tunnels now, and we don’t have too much time. we have other business.”
The fat man turned to the silent, dead starship that was the Blue Gull, and asked aloud, as though the ship could hear him:
“You hear me?”
The ship didn’t answer.
“Okay, so don’t say anything.” The fat man said. “It doesn’t matter. I know you can hear us. You’ve been sitting there and observing, thinking, what did I drag the Pegasus in here for? I dragged it in her to force your surrender now.”
Veselchak U walked closer to the Blue Gull and continued.
“You’ve held us off for four years. For four years you’ve hoped your friends would save you. For four years you haven’t believed that no one knows where you are. You’ve lived on the hope your rotten bird would make it to Venus. I kept thinking that you were going to die in your own cage. But today everything’s changed. Today you’re doing to open your ship’s airlock and surrender what belongs to me by right. Are you listening, Captain?”
Nothing answered the fat man back. His voice traveled around the cavern and was reflected from the distant walls. The echo died down, and the fat man let out a sigh.
“Where is that girl?” He muttered. “The girl would be really useful…”
Doctor Verkhovtseff stood a little bit off and looked at the ground. Two other men in black uniforms stood off to one side and held their pistols ready to fire at any moment.
“I know you can hear me, Captain.” Veselchak U began again. “You burrowed into your hole, planning to sit us out. Well look out your ports. Here we have three people from Earth: an idiot professor who gads about the Galaxy collecting animals, as though he couldn’t think of anything better to do; another strong and silent type Captain, and an idiot engineer with a red beard.”
Although I heard everything that was going on around me, in reality my thoughts were still filled with worries of Alice? Where could she have vanished to? Where was she hiding?
“You’ve put sand into the machinery for too many years now.” The fat man continued, looking at the Blue Gull. “But this day is mine! This day you will surrender the formula to me. Are you listening?
“He’s not saying anything.” The fat man said in another voice, almost a whisper. “He’s thinking. Now we hurry him up. Too bad the girl managed to get away. It would have been a lot easier with the girl…”
He pulled a large handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his sweaty forehead with it.
“Listen, Captain.” He said. “You have three minutes to open your airlock and give me the formula, or I’ll give the order to kill our captives. But not right away. No, not right away. The first thing I’ll do is cut off the idiot professor’s ears. My peeve is greatest with him. He refused to give me the Blabberyap bird. He…”
“Wait up, fatso.” The voice of the Second Captain came over the ship’s exterior loud speaker. The voice was familiar; I had heard it a few times when the Blabberyap Bird had perfectly duplicated unknown voices.
“Then you are alive still.” Veselchak U said.
“There’s no place for you in this Galaxy.” The Second Captain continued. “They will find you, they will capture you, where ever you may hide. Your best chance is to take my advice and surrender…”
“Shut up!” The fat man shouted “You have nothing to offer me! Thanks to you and your friends I’ve lost nearly everything, but this last thing I won’t surrender. The galaxion will be mine!”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, pirate.” The Second Captain said. “Of course you wouldn’t know what shame is…”
We did not understand very much of what they were talking about. What was clear, was that the Second Captain had something and the Pirate was very interested in obtaining it. But he could not obtain it, he could not seize it. I had never heard the word ‘galaxion’ before, but it was clear that the Blue Gull’s Captain did not want to surrender it.
“Don’t waste my time.” The fat man said. “Your quaint ideas and notions are of no interest. Shame is only for the weak. We, the strong, have no need for it. Now, are you going to surrender the formula for galaxion?’
“I have to speak with these people first.” The Second Captain said.
“No.” The fat man answered. “You won’t be speaking with them. You’re trying to gain time, trying to deceive me. Open the lock now and give me the galaxion formula and I promise to set you and these people free. Someday. But if you do not do what I want you can listen to their screams for days and days. That’s what having shame and a conscience will get you.”
“That won’t happen, fat man.” The Second Captain said. “Since I landed on this planet four years ago you’ve tried to think of every possible means of getting the formula for absolute fuel from me, and nothing has come of it. Nothing will come of it today. Do you know what I will do?”
“What?”
“I’ll blow up the Blue Gull. I’ll die, but you will never get the galaxion formula. If you ever got your hands on it you’d create so much misery for the Galaxy’s inhabitants it would take a decade to set everything right.”