“Bring him in! Bring him in!” barked a voice from within the office. Robby was thrust into the room.
He found himself standing before his father’s desk. Behind the desk was a short, angry-looking man with a jutting chin, freckles, and a red beard.
“Well,” he said, staring at Robby, “well, well. Where’re your people?” The last words shot out as from a gun.“P-people?” gulped Robby.
“Your father? Your mother?”
“They’re gone,” said Robby faintly.
“Gone? Gone where? Gone when?”
Robby falteringly explained that his mother was taking a holiday and his father had left the day before.
“You’d better tell me the truth!” said the red-bearded Vandal Captain, leaning over the desk to shake a finger in Robby’s face. “You’re sure they’re gone?”
Robby nodded.
“Where’ve you been all this time?”
“In the water,” said Robby, “swimming.” Just then he happened to catch the eye of the fair-haired boy, who had come round to stand behind the Captain. The boy gave him a horrible grin over the Captain’s shoulder, and drew one finger slowly across his throat. Robby’s heart flip-flopped, and the Captain, probably warned by the expression on Robby’s face,turned around in time to catch the other boy in the act.
“Jones!” roared the Captain. The boy shivered, all the sly fun going out of his face. The Captain jerked his head back to Robby and his gaze rested on Robby’s swimming trunks,lung, and mask.
“Lock him in his room!” he roared. “Everybody out! I want the water around this station searched with a magnifying glass!”
Robby was hustled out and down to the living section on the floor below. The door to his own room slammed behind him, and he heard the click of the lock.
He fell on his own bed and tears sprang to his eyes. He did not know what the Vandals were going to do with him, or if they would ever let him see his father and mother again. But in spite of his fears, he slept from sheer exhaustion.
Robby woke with a start. Bright green undersea daylight poured in the big window of his bedroom. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. The bed was rumpled, the covers thrown back, and his lung and mask were lying on the floor. Vaguely, he remembered waking up in the night-time, after having fallenasleep on the bed, and taking them off. A bump on thewindow made him look up.
Balthasar was swirling around outside, trying to get his attention. Robby gave the dolphin an automatic wave and got up.
He dressed himself in shorts and a striped T-shirt. It was good to get out of his swimming trunks which felt as if they had almost grown to him after a night and a day of continuous wearing. Once dressed, Robby became conscious that he was very hungry. The Vandals had evidently not taken the trouble to wake him up for dinner.
He went over and tried the door, but it was locked. He pounded on it, and shouted a few times, but nothing happened. After a moment, he had an idea. He walked to the phone beside his bed. He knew he could not call out of the station. Mr. Lillibulero had said the communications were jammed. But he thought he might be able to raise someone inside the station.
He pressed the first in a row of buttons that were lined up below that blank grey screen on his phone, but the foot-square area of it did not light up. In rapid succession, he tried the buttons for the various rooms, starting at the top of the station and working down. It was not until he pressed the button for the library-office that the screen suddenly lit up,and he saw the jutting chin and red hair of the Vandal Captain staring at him.
“Who’s that? Oh, it’s you!” said the Captain. “What’re you doing, using the phone?”
“I’m hungry,” said Robby.
“Oh? We’ll see about that!” said the Captain, and broke the connection from his end. Robby sat back from his own phone, feeling quivery inside, wondering if it might not have been better to go on being hungry rather than arouse the Captain.
After several minutes, however, the door to his room was unlocked. It opened to show the fair-haired boy who took Robby sullenly up to the kitchen and stood over him while he cooked himself bacon and eggs.
“Now,” said the fair-haired boy when Robby was finished and the dishes put in the disposal unit, “Captain wants to see you.”
He took Robby up to the library-office and pushed him in,closing the door behind him. Robby found himself alone with the Captain who was sitting at the desk. The Captain looked up at Robby and smiled.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “Sit down.” Robby came forward and eased himself into a chair beside the desk, facing the Captain. The Captain was showing two rows of white teeth in his red beard, but somehow Robby did not feel that his smile was genuine.
“Well, well,” said the Captain, still smiling. “I’ve been looking round here.” He waved his hand at the filing cabinet that held his father’s personal business papers and records.“So you’re young Robin.”
“Robertson,” mumbled Robby.
“Don’t they call you Robin for short? Well, now,” said the Captain, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk,“Robertson, that was too bad about your not getting any dinner last night. That Jones can’t remember a thing. But then he’s not good for much, anyway. I can see just by looking atyou, you’re several times as smart as he is.”
There seemed to be hardly anything to say to this, so Robby did not reply.
“If I didn’t realize you were a bright one, I wouldn’t waste my time talking to you like this, of course,” said the Captain.“But I think there’s some hope of your understanding things. I don’t like the thought of a bright boy like you having to live with all the wrong notions people spread around nowadays.”
He winked at Robby.
“You know, all those stories about Vandals?” He laughed.“Yes, I can see you do. Well, now, I’m going to tell you something that will knock you right out of that chair you’re sitting in.” He pointed a freckled finger at Robby. “Some of those stories are true!”
He sat back and nodded seriously.
“It’s a fact!” he said. “Now, what do you think of that?” Robby was feeling bewildered. So far the Captain had carried on the conversation all by himself, and none of it seemed to make much sense. But he saw now that the Captain had finally stopped and was waiting for an answer.
“I don’t know,” he managed, finally.
“Of course you don’t,” said the Captain. “How could you? How could you tell the true stories from the false ones? Lots of well-educated people—even your father and mother,I’ll bet—haven’t any way of telling the true stories from the lies. Yes, Robin,” he said, leaning forward again, “there are some Vandals who do terrible things. But there are others,”he paused and tapped himself significantly on the chest of his blue zippered jacket, “who are simply working for the good of all men. You understand me?” He paused.
“You mean you’re different?” said Robby.
“Judge for yourself,” said the Captain. “If a thief broke into your house to take your things, that would be bad, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Robby, wondering where this was leading.
“But if a policeman saw the thief in there and had to break in himself to arrest the thief and protect you, that would b egood, wouldn’t it?”
Robby thought. And nodded.
“But what if it wasn’t a policeman who saw the thief, but just a public-spirited private citizen? Wouldn’t it be just as good if he broke in and stopped the thief?”
Robby squirmed. What the Captain was saying sounded right. But something about it still seemed wrong.
“But what if it wasn’t really a thief he saw?” said Robby, after a long moment. “Maybe he ought to just go get a policeman, anyhow, because ”
“There isn’t time,” interrupted the Captain. “Let’s say the policeman isn’t on duty where he should be, or some such thing. What then?”
“Well,” said Robby, doubtfully, “I guess . . .”
“Of course, you see the point now!”
said the Captain.“Public-spirited people must come to the rescue of their neighbours. And that is exactly what we’re here to do now—protect the people of our world against the Martians.”
“Oh, but the Martians can’t hurt us!” said Robby. “I’ve taken care of them in the tanks downstairs for a year, now,and—”
“How do you know?” broke in the Captain, thrusting his chin at Robby. “How do you know they can’t hurt the world? What if they got loose in the seas, and multiplied? And then came out on the land and overran the land? What makes you so sure they mightn’t chase us right off the face of the earth?” He sat back, and his voice became smoother and less loud. “No, no, Robin—the thing to do is destroy the aliens before they destroy us.” His eyes lighted up. “The world will thank us for it, some day! But we need your help.”
“Me?” Robby stared at him.
“Yes,” said the Captain.
He got to his feet. “Just a moment while I lock the door.There are spies everywhere.”
He went over to the door of the office to lock it, and Robby, glancing at the desk he had just left, had a wild idea. Sitting on the desk, he saw his father’s video-phone. It looked, and almost was, like all the other extension phones spotted about the station. But Robby knew that this one was different in one small way. It was connected, not only to the regular telephone centre in the communications room upstairs which the Vandals had jammed, but also, by a special switch, to a government cable for official and top-secret calls dealing with the research animals. Robby glanced at the Captain. His back was still turned.
Hurriedly, Robby reached behind the phone to flip the cable switch. Then he pushed a button. Now every word he and the Captain said would go out over the special cable.Robby could only hope that there was somebody at the other end to hear it and understand the situation he was in.
“There!” said the Captain, with satisfaction. “Tricky locks you have here.” He sat down again and became suddenly brisk. “One of the most dangerous of the Martian monsters escaped recently from where some misguided scientists were examining it. We captured the monster, but it got away from us again. It’s somewhere in the vicinity of this station, and we believe you may have seen it. Have you seen anything that looked like this?”
He passed a drawing across the desk to Robby. Robby took it. It was a picture of the sea badger all right, but the artist had made a number of changes in the Martian’s appearance.Only the shape of the body was the same. Instead of the bony plates in the mouth, the drawing had dragon-like fangs, in-stead of the big digging hands, savage claws. The monster was shown crouched and snarling over a small, shrinking human being, a fierce expression on its face.
“Ah,” said the Captain, who had been watching Robby closely. “I see you have. Perhaps you have also seen an Intelligence Bureau agent, a little man about your size?” Robby said nothing.
“I see,” said the Captain, at last. “Robin, it wouldn’t be very wise of you to refuse to help us find those two. We’re good friends to those who are friends to us, but we can be pretty terrible to our enemies.”
“You can’t make me!” burst out Robby, desperately.
“Yes, we can,” said the Captain, “but I don’t think we’ll have to.” He turned halfway in his chair and pointed out the undersea window. “Is that dolphin a pet of yours?”
Beyond the glass, Balthasar—as he so often did—was swirling and turning in the hope of luring Robby outside for a swim.
“I imagine you’re pretty fond of him,” said the Vandal Captain, all the smiles and pleasantness gone from his face now. “Unless you help us find the monster and that agent, as I know you can, I’ll arrange to have that dolphin netted and—”
He broke off. At first Robby could not understand why. Then he saw that the Captain was listening. He sat motionless at his desk, and his face under the freckles had gone quite pale. Robby listened, too.
After a second, he heard a voice. It was a voice distantly singing—and it sang a song that Robby had heard before.
“Lilli-bu-ler Lero, lero—
Lilli-bu-ler—
Lero—”
Rescued and Trapped!
Where the song was coming from, Robby could not tell. He looked at the ventilator above the desk, he looked at the video-phone on the desk. He looked at the door of the closet—and he looked back at the Captain.
But the Captain had evidently made up his mind where the song came from. Slowly and quietly, he was sliding open a drawer of the desk, and, as Robby watched, he rose silently to his feet. On tiptoe he approached the door of the office, laid his hand on the lock, and noiselessly slipped it off. He put his hand on the knob of the door, ready to jerk it open.
And, in that second, the screen of the ventilator suddenly twanged and sprang outwards into the room. Frantically, the Captain spun round, but before he could duck, the steak-sauce bottle—the one with many-coloured rings—came whiz-zing from the ventilator opening and shattered against his forehead.
The Captain fell to the floor. And Mr. Lillibulero leaped lightly out of the ventilator opening.
“Now, Robertson,” he said. “Quickly!”
He snatched open the door of the office, led Robby out, and locked the door behind them. He led the way out into the corridor at a run, past one startled Vandal, and up the steps to the top level.
“Hey!” cried the Vandal behind them. But they were already up the stairs, into the top level of the station, and Mr. Lillibulero was securing the heavy inter-level door. Robby turned to see a Vandal coming from the communications room and two more approaching from the opposite direction.
“Lock the top door, laddie!” cried Mr. Lillibulero. “Pay no mind to these others. Leave them t’me.”
Robby darted towards the steps leading up to the surface platform overhead. The Vandal from the communications room made a wild grab at him, but Robby ducked under the man’s arm like a greased eel and was up the stairs in a moment.
He grabbed for the lock to the surface hatch and shot it closed, expecting any moment to feel heavy hands upon him. But they did not come. When Robby turned round, he saw why. The Vandal had gone to help the others against Mr. Lillibulero.
It was one of the strangest fights that Robby had ever seen.The lightest Vandal there weighed almost twice as much as Mr. Lillibulero, and there were three of them.
But it never pays to underestimate an opponent. On a certain paper in a certain filing cabinet in a certain top-secret office, there were listed (unknown to the Vandals) certain abilities of Mr. Lillibulero. And this list, in addition to mentioning a host of other things he was good at (pistol, rifle, bow and arrow, knife, boomerang) carefully noted that Mr. Lillibulero was highly proficient in the arts of boxing, wrestling, judo (and jujitsu), savate (including chausson, or jeu marseillais) and karate.
The first Vandal that reached him found himself flipped head over heels, to land on the floor so hard that all the wind was knocked out of him. The second Vandal was tripped up, and the third, falling over the second, ran headlong into a right cross to the jaw that felled him in his tracks. The second Vandal, struggling to his feet, met a judo chop on the way up, and lay down again.
The combat was over.
Robby helped Mr. Lillibulero tie the hands of the Vandals behind them. Meanwhile, fists could be heard pounding on the two doors—the one to the level below, and the hatch to the surface platform above. But those doors had been built to withstand all the power of the sea in case it should break into the station and one level needed to be sealed off from an-other. They held.
"By the time Robby and Mr. Lillibulero had finished tying up the Vandals, they were all conscious again, but quite unhappy. Mr. Lillibulero got them on their feet, marched them into the equipment room, and locked them in a small closet.
“Now,” said Mr. Lillibulero, turning to Robby, “to get off a wee message to the proper authorities.”
In the communications room he sat down before the main board. In front of him were
controls for the regular video-phone connection to the mainland, a bypass on the International Fisheries official teletype, short-wave equipment for communicating with ships at sea and aircraft, and an automatic distress signal.
Mr. Lillibulero went to work on these controls. After a second he sat back and looked at them all.
“Hmmm,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” Robby asked.
“The matter, Robertson, now that y’ask,” replied Mr. Lillibulero, “is that yon Vandals are still jamming the communications. I had hoped they’d have quit when they found no one here earlier. But they’re still at it.”
“You mean we can’t call out?”
“I mean that.”
Robby stared at the little man, feeling his stomach sink. He had been so glad to see Mr. Lillibulero, he had somehow jumped to the conclusion that now everything would be all right. It came home to him with a shock that things might not be all right, after all. In fact, they might be even worse, judging by the noise the Vandals were making, shouting and pounding on the door. It might be that the Vandals would be angry enough to do something desperate, once they had succeeded in breaking down one of the doors.
“But can’t we do anything?” cried Robby.
“There are,” said Mr. Lillibulero, “a number of things we might do. Most of them, however, such as running around in circles and tearing our hair whilst bemoaning our lot, would hardly be of much sairvice to us. On the other hand, there are two excellent things we can do.”
“What?” said Robby.
“We can wait. ’Tis always good tactics when y’find y’rself losing to delay th’end as long as possible. There is no telling what may turn up, even in th’most hopeless situations. Also we can think. Dunking is the gr-reat ability of man—that which separates him from the poor beasts of the animal kingdom. I would advise any person,” said Mr. Lillibulero, with kindling eye, “I would advise him, when in a tight spot, t’think first and act afterwards, because there is no telling what he may think of if he gives himself the chance. Therefore, Robertson, let us sit down, make ourselves comfortable—and think while we wait.”
Secrets of the Deep Page 7