“Right away.” The fat man muttered. “Just a moment…it’s already done.”
He pressed a button with fat trembling fingers, and at last the stone plate rose a few inches from its spot and moved to one side.
The road to the surface was opened again.
“To your ships!” The First Captain said. “We’ll lift the Pegasus first, and after it’s flown to one side will raise the Blue Gull. I’d like to ask the crew of the Pegasus to take their places.”
It had started to rain. Enormous drops fell through the circle of light and loudly struck the stone floor.
The fat man pressed yet another button and a narrow stairway rose from the floor and extended to the edge of the white circle where it locked itself into place with metal claws.
“Quite satisfactory.” The Second Captain said. “Verkhovtseff, please accompany the professor in leading the prisoners up to the surface. The rest of us will wait here a while.”
Poloskov and Zeleny took their places aboard the Pegasus, retracted the stairs and closed the airlocks. Everyone else moved to one side and watched the Pegasus gently rise into the air, cut off the sky for several seconds, and then exit the cavern.
“Well then,” The First Captain said, “Are you certain that everyone is here? We’ve forgotten nobody?”
“That’s all.” I said.
Verkhovtseff led the two pirates up the stairs and I went over to the fat man.
“No more pirates?” The Captain asked Veselchak U. “There’s no one else on your ship?”
“I swear by all that is holy that no one else remains here! You can leave in good conscience.” Veselchak U said. “Completely clear. We can blow up this cavern and the damnable Ratty’s ship and nothing will remain of this pirate’s lair. I take it that is your intention?”
“It certainly is.” The Second Captain laughed. “Just one more look around my prison. To think I spent four years confined here…”
“Wait!” Alice suddenly shouted. “He’s still lying!”
“Who?” The First Captain asked.
“The Fat Man. He’s lying. When I was running after the blabberyap bird, I heard a groan.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Captive Underground
“That can’t be…” The Fat Man groaned and cut off.
“Where are the captives?” The Captain asked. From the way he asked it there was now no doubt the Fat Man would answer everything.
And the Fat Man immediately minced his way toward the tunnel. He was muttering.
“I quite forgot… That was all Ratty’s idea. I always told him…. I was always against it…”
“I’m sorry, Captain.” Alice said, hurrying after us. “I would have certainly remembered, but so many things were going on I forgot. But I would have remembered.”
“Don’t worry, kid.” The First Captain said and stroked the top of her head with his enormous hand. “You did great, and no one can blame you for anything. It’s these pirates that we’ll have a strong talking to.”
“Ah, here it is.” The fat man said. “Let me turn the light on now. Everything will be fine. How could I have forgotten. It’s all Ratty’s fault.
The light fluttered into existence and we looked down a small chamber that housed a pirate ship; the other end turned into a longer tunnel partitioned off not far from the entrance by a thick metal grating. The fat man ran to the grating and tried to push the key into the keyhole with unwilling fingers. The First Captain and seized the key from him and pushed the grating aside; the grating slid into a niche in the wall.
“I could have… I mean…” The fat man muttered, but no one was listening.
It wasn’t surprising the fat man didn’t want us to see that tunnel; both sides were lined with rooms stuffed with loot, precious gems, and other trophies.
“No,” I said, glancing into one of the rooms as we went, “We can’t just blow up this place; there must be enough wealth hidden here to build a hundred cities.”
“Stop a moment.” The First Captain said.
We all stopped, listening.
Far away, from somewhere below, we could make out an almost inaudible groan of pain.
We hurried in that direction. The door to one of the rooms was locked.
“The key!” The Captain ordered.
The fat man already had the key in his hand.
The room turned out to be a stairway landing; a narrow stairway led downward, the steps cut into the rock. At the end there was yet another grating. The Captain aimed the light of his flashcaster forward and we saw something sitting behind the grating on a pile of rags on the floor; chained to the wall. It was a Fyxxian, huge eyed and fragile.
The Fyxxian was dying. One glance was enough to tell me that. He was at the edge of extinction. Even more, they had subjected him to torture.
“I’ll kill him now!” The First Captain said; he was looking at the fat man.
“Seva…” The Second Captain whispered. “Don’t you recognize…”
“That can’t be!”
And the First Captain suddenly pulled on the steel grating with such force that the metal groaned and tore from its slots in the walls. He hurled the steel wreckage to one side hurried to the dying Fyxxian, picked him up, and carried him to the exit in his arms.
“Who is that?” Alice whispered a question.
I shook my head. I did not know.
The fat man had wormed his way beside us. He held his tears back for a second and answered:
“That is the Third Captain. They are thinking he died long ago.”
And immediately, as though remembering something very important, the fat man started to hurry down the corridor after the Captains, braying:
“It was allo his doing! It was all Ratty’s fault!”
The Third Captain was unconscious. The First placed him on the floor and turned to me:
“Professor, tell me.” He asked. His voice trembled. “Is there anything we can do?
“I don’t know. I doubt it.” I said. I bent low over the Fyxxian. They had been killing him with hunger and torture.
“They’ve been doing this to him for four years.” The Second Captain said. “And we were so certain that he was long dead! If it hadn’t been for Alice we would have left him here! He never told them anything, Professor; please, do whatever you can to save him!”
“You don’t have to ask me.” I said. “First thing, we’ll need nutrients. Alice dear, run to the Pegasus and bring the portable Auto-Doc.
Alice shot down the corridor like an arrow.
“I’m with her.” The First Captain said.
“Don’t!” Alice shot back over her shoulder. “I know where to look you don’t.”
“Listen to me, Third.” The Second Captain said. “Listen. Don’t give up. Just a little while longer, hold on! You can’t give up when we’re almost made it. Where here for you…”
Suddenly the Fyxxian opened his eye. It was very hard for him to do it because his body had already died; only his brain still fought with death.
“It’s all right now.” He whispered. “It’s all right. I didn’t say anything. Thank you for coming, my friends…” He closed his eye and his heart stopped.
I immediately began to apply artificial respiration to the Fyxxian, but it did not help. The situation was hopeless; I had no surgical instruments, no diagnostic machinery, not even a robot doctor. I was in the same position was a doctor from a hundred years ago.
“I’m going to have to take a really big risk.” I said to the Captains. “I’m afraid there’s no way out of this.”
“We believe you, Professor. The Captains answered me.
Then I took out my knife and made an incision into the Third Captain’s chest, placed my hand around the stopped heart and began to massage it. It seemed like hours passed; my hand became numb, and I did not see it when Alice ran up with the portable medical kit, instrumentation and drugs. The First Captain himself made the injection into his friend’s vein. I do not know which helped more, my efforts or the First Captain’s application of drugs, But the Third Captain’s heart shuddered once, again, and then it was beating.