“Pipe down all that,” he said. “If you insist on singing and yelling, we can open up with gas in here. Tear gas, sleepy-drowsy, or vomit fumes.”
“You don’t suppose they’d have anything a little groovier, do you?” said Andy to Charlie, but Mai hushed him and stepped up to the Thrush.
“You aren’t going to tell us we have to give up the right to freedom of expression,” she said. “You aren’t saying we can’t sing, and be free. These are the things souls are made of, and you can kill our bodies, Arnold,” she said, shaking her head mournfully at him, “but you should never try to crush our souls.
“Singing does no harm, anyway. You’ve got good, sturdy walls, and that ugly little fat thing in the water has the best insulation in the world around him. We’re singing for us, and none of you in there has to listen to a note of it. Would you stifle pure, innocent fun? Are you some kind of superior beings, judging us and destroying our kind of art?” Before he could answer, she changed the subject and placed both hands on his shoulders.
“Arnold, what’s really bothering you is your poor nose, and I want to apologize for what I did to you out there on the boardwalk, when you jumped us from behind.” Arnold looked puzzled, trying to figure out why she was apologizing.
“You were just doing your job, protecting Mr. Porpoise’s funhouse from us. I only turned and bit your nose because I was surprised, that’s all. Really, it wasn’t because I was mad at you. You’re another person, with reasons for what you do, and you need food, warmth and love just the same as we do. We aren’t angry with you; in fact, we love you. We need to love you.”
“We do!” said the two boys, catching the rhythm of the spell Mai was weaving. Arnold tried to shrug off her hands, but she kept putting them back on his shoulders. Illya judiciously refrained from comment on the need to love Arnold.
“We love you because we see the real you. Everybody has an inner self that needs to find another person and love them. Were all like that, and were trying to find you right now.” She stepped closer, and Arnold stepped back. She pulled him towards her, trying to kiss his eyes, and he broke and jumped through the circular door.
“Look here. I’m going to lock this door, lock the door on the other side of it, and turn off the monitor in here. Sing anything you like, but lemme alone with that love stuff.” And he was gone, and the three kids hugged each other and Illya in a burst of stifled laughter at the routing of the dangerous little killer.
They rolled into song with new gusto then, singing purely for the sound of their own voices. Mai’s soprano led the others, and Illya added his second tenor whenever he wasn’t concentrating heavily on the switches and knobs of the console. Their exuberance carried through Silver Dagger, Green-sleeves, and more innovations with the verse-form of “Where have all the flowers gone?” before Illya had to concede that the spaceship console probably wasn’t going to show him the way out. He spun the dials one final time and muttered, “Napoleon found a way out of here.”
“You bet,” said Charlie. “Out of here, and into the drink, and all the way to the beach. But he looked like he must have traveled by way of a meatgrinder. Man, I hope you don’t find us the same way out.”
“Don’t knock it,” Andy answered. “If Arnold decides to come back and play some of his gas games we won’t be real happy with the world at all, at all.” The two took up humming the background to the old Greek song Mai was singing. Her fingers deftly rewove the flower coronet that the fight with Thrush had crushed. Of her audience, only Illya understood the words to the song, and as he examined the floor and walk of the Spaceship Room, inch by inch, he found himself joining in on the chorus.
“You’re good, Illya,” Mai said, breaking off the song. “Granted it’s not too swift being prisoners and all, but I’m glad to meet you. You know any more old songs?”
Illya straightened up from his fruitless search; his mind fled back to his childhood in Russia, the warm springs of Georgia, and the old Russian ballads filled his memory. The look of expectant pleasure on Mai’s face filled him with wonder. There was much to be said for a girl who could get excited over learning a folksong while faced with almost sure death.
He taught the three flower children the words of an old Russian lullaby. Charlie and Andy immediately went into a minor key harmony on the ancient tune, while Mai’s pure soprano soared two octaves above to carry the melody. Illya wasn’t sure that the song would put many babies to sleep, but he had to admit that their rendition was beautiful. The four continued singing, as Illya continued his search for any sort of doorway. Occasionally, one of the three would extend the doggerel of “Where have all the Thrushes gone?” to include another, even more improbable, continuation.
Every last inch of the Spaceship Room was finally inspected and probed, and no way out. Illya started to crawl into the adjoining alcove to the tune of When the Saints Go Marching In. The angled floor of their prison became perfectly horizontal in the alcove, and Illya stopped to inspect the juncture closely.
“This floor is steel!” he exclaimed, interrupting a complicated roundelay concerning porpoises. The three flower children rushed forward. “Keep singing!” the Russian commanded. “Keep Arnold and his crew at bay. This may be our ticket out.”
The flower children took up their favorite doggerel with gusto, and Illya continued to test out his theory. The hairs on the back of his hand stood up and he snatched it back from the electric field. There was no telling just what that floor was charged for, whether to trigger a trap, or fry him on contact. His eyes detected that the wooden planking
painted on the alcove floor had one subtle flaw. Two of the planks weren’t split by just a painted crack. That crack was real, and the floor was really two slabs of steel, side by side.
“Keep on singing; I think I’ve found it,” he said, as he searched his pockets for something to trigger the device. Finally his jacket was elected, his pockets being empty. He rolled the jacket into a ball, and, standing well back, tossed it into the alcove. The four prisoners watched it bounce from the far wall and descend to the floor. The floor snapped open to reveal a field of knives, and a figure in black.
The jacket fell into the knives, half in the ocean and half held up out of it. For many heartbeats no one said a word.
Chapter 12
“I’m all right, Doc/’
NAPOLEON WOKE UP with the driver shaking him. They were drawing up before the tailor shop that fronted for U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Del Floria came out to pay the fare and helped the wounded agent inside.
“I need a big dose of first aid,” said Napoleon, indicating the lacerations on his body that were starting to bleed again. “But I also need a change of clothes, Del. And I must speak with Mr. Waverly immediately.”
While he passed behind a curtain into the old brownstone and headed for the Medical Department, he knew the tailor was setting wheels in motion to have the U.N.C.L.E. personnel ready for him at every stage. He arrived at Medical to be stripped and examined by two doctors who operated without any sign of curiosity about the strangeness of the damage he’d survived. They probed each wound for pieces of wood and dirt, and pronounced him ready for the Mediclean unit.
“You can certainly be glad the bug-chaser is in working order tonight,” said one. “You’re riddled with splinters, and ordinary methods would probably just made a good cut at
stopping infection. In a few days when it showed up, you’d have to go through everything over again. There aren’t any serious wounds, however, and you’re ready to get in.”
With a little help, Napoleon stepped into a tiled chamber and watched the door close behind, making a perfect seal. The little room was like a man-sized bullet, with barely space enough for him to move around. Overhead, the tile arched up to a dome, giving him space to raise both arms full over his head.