“More adrenalin!” I ordered.
Alice handed the ampule to the Captains.
“He’s an immensely strong Fyxxian.” I said. “Anyone else in his place would have died.”
I pulled the robot pocket surgeon from the medicine chest and a minute later the small device had resealed all blood vessels and sewn up his chest. We very carefully carried the Fyxxian to the Blue Gull where he could be placed in the ship’s Auto-Doc and get real treatment. It was there that Doctor Verkhovtseff joined us, and, after half an hour, I was able to say that the Third Captain’s life was out of danger.
We left the Second Captain keeping watch by his bed and went down into the cavern to rest ourselves. The First Captain went with us.
The fat man sat on his haunches at the entrance under Zeleny’s gaze.
“Is he going to live?” Veselchak U asked with a timid smile, as though they were talking about his favorite brother.
“Yes,” Verkhovtseff answered curtly, “Despite your doing everything to see that he died.”
“No, not, you have us all wrong.” The fat man oozed. “That was all Ratty’s doing. You have no way of knowing what sort of corrupting role he has played in my life until now, how he has dragged me into desperate adventures by deception and lavish promises? What do I need with riches and power? I’m happy to live and let live; I have all my heart desires. But Ratty? He needed power. Like other people need soup and sandwiches Ratty fed on power. If he wasn’t able to exercise power over someone it didn’t matter who, anyone would do then the day was wasted. And he wanted power over whole planets, over the whole Galaxy. What was that to me. I just wanted to have a little fun. I’m really a very harmless sort of being; I’ve just had the misfortune of falling under Ratty’s baleful influence.”
We turned away from the fat man and he continued to talk, addressing Zeleny now, as if he really wanted to convince us that he was no more than a jolly, harmless lamb.
“Oh well,” Doctor Verkhovtseff said, laughing until his face consisted of thousands of fine lines, “at last the Three Captains meet again. Like in the good old days. For a while you were consigned to history pardon me, to the historical reliquaries, but now…”
“Yes.” The First Captain agreed with him. “Everything will be just like in the Good Old Days.”
And I, looking at him, realized he wasn’t all that old. Perhaps he could even go back into space again, all the more now that the Venus Project was coming to an end.
The First Captain guessed my thoughts. “I’m going to have to get used to it all again. While I was flying here I realized just how much I’ve forgotten.”
“But you’re planning to go back into space anyway, right?” Doctor Verkhovtseff was delighted.
“We will have to change the name of the planet and museum.” The Captain continued without answering the Doctor’s caisson directly. “Now it’s rather awkward. We’re alive, healthy, not really famous for anything in particular, and our stone copies stand in a museum as if we had died ages ago.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The End Of The Voyage
After a couple of hours the Third Captain had improved enough for us to be able to take him up to the surface. Afterwards the Captains extracted the Blue Gull from the underground world as well. The concrete slab which had covered the entrance to the pit they left in place.
Now three starships stood around the field where the mirror flowers had been smashed to smithereens. The Pegasus, the Blue Gull, and a service tender from the Venus project which lacked a name and only possessed a long alphanumeric ID string.
“Da,” Alice asked, “Can I go down to the forest?”
“Why?”
“I want to find an intact mirror. There’s no way we can show our faces back on Earth without a new bouquet.”
“Just be careful.” I warned her. “You’re not in your yellow jumpsuit now and the Crockadee won’t mistake you for one of its chicks if you’re in blue.”
While we readied our ships for their return to space I let the Skliss have the freedom of the meadow. The Skliss jumped about heavily on the grass from joy, clicked its hooves high above the ground, fluttered its wings but point-blank refused to fly.
“That must be the happiest cow I’ve ever had the chance to see.” Doctor Verkhovtseff mused. “But keeping a whole herd of them would be rather awkward.”
“They told us from the start they were difficult to herd.” I agreed. “Given that they can fly over deep rivers if there’s forage on the other side.
The fat pirate was still sitting on the ground beside the Pegasus; he had convinced us that he had an old, bad heart that demanded fresh air. No one wanted to argue with him and, let alone hold a conversation, especially after the Third Captain had told how it had been Veselchak U himself who had tortured him in a vain attempt to gain the secret of galaxion.
“Zeleny!” I called. “Would you look after the cow while I feed the other animals; just make certain the Crockadee doesn’t carry her off.”
As I looked up I saw still another starship descending on this planet.
Now, that really was too much! This wasn’t a planet as much as a space port! Where had this one come from?
In the end I came to the conclusion that it was reinforcements for the pirates and desired to raise the alarm, but then I realize the ship was in trouble.
The pilot wasn’t flying straight, but was twisting and turning from side to side oddly, and along his tail stretched some sort of greyish mass which acted as a break and prevented a normal landing.
At my cry everyone came running from the ship and looked up at the new arrival.
“Turn on the transmitter, Zeleny!” Poloskov called.
Zeleny hurried to the Pegasus, hunted through the emergency frequencies and turned the radio on full so that those of us outside the ship could hear.
“Incoming ship!” Zeleny called. “What is going on? Are you in trouble. Reply!”
A very pleasant, very feminine voice answered: “I’m in no trouble worth mentioning, no. So long as I can hold on to this thing little else matters.”
“Now that voice is familiar.” I said. Somewhere I’ve heard it before.”
“When we were lost near the empty planet.” Alice suggested.
“Hold it.” The First Captain cut us off. “I could swear that’s my wife Ella.”
The Captain turned white and rushed into the ship to join Zeleny at the com console. A moment later we heard his voice:
“Ella, is that you? What’s going on?”
“Who’s speaking, please? The woman’s voice asked firmly. “Is that you, Seva? Why aren’t you on Venus? You know how worried I get when you gad about the cosmos.”
The Second Captain laughed.
“She can never get used to the idea that her husband is a space explorer.” He told me. “Even though she herself has circled the Galaxy.”
“That doesn’t matter.” The First Captain said. “Have you forgotten your ship’s in trouble? Do you need assistance. What is that thing you’re hauling?”
“Can’t you see it?” Ella sounded surprised. “It’s a living gas cloud. I’ve only been chasing after it for the last three weeks. I caught it in a force screen net, but now it’s trying to break out and get away. So I have to set down on the first planet that I came to strengthen the net field. Seva, darling, you wouldn’t by any chance have a ship of your own on hand?”
“Of course I do.” The First Captain answered. “And don’t hurry in landing, not while that thing. is fighting you. You might crash.”
“Everything will be all right. Just get up here and we’ll land it together.”
The First Captain hadn’t yet finished his conversation with his wife before the Second Captain was on the ship’s bridge; three minutes later they had the starship into the air where Ella was fighting with the obstreperous living cloud that was known across the space ways as a legend, but which no one had managed to capture alive.