Suiting the action to the word, Mr. Lillibulero found himself a comfortable chair across the room. Robby sat down in a chair opposite. For a long moment, neither one of them said anything, and the distant sound of the Vandals was the only thing to be heard.
“Uh ” said Robby, hesitantly, after a little while. “Is it all right to talk while thinking? Because I—"
“Y’have the floor,” said Mr. Lillibulero, courteously. And then, seeing that Robby looked somewhat puzzled, he explained, “I mean, talk as much as y’want.”
“Well, I just wanted to mention,” said Robby, “that they’re trying to bum down the door from the second level, or something.”
The little man popped to his feet, hurried over to the door and examined the cherry-red spot that had blossomed on its metal surface near the doorknob. He put his palm close to it,nodded, and then came back to sit down again.
“ ’Tis only an ordinary welding torch,” he said to Robby.“And th’door’s made of a cerametal compound—which, in case y’dinna know, is a material developed originally for rocket nose-cones to take the great heat of travel through the atmosphere. They’ll not cut through it with that.”
“Oh!” said Robby, suddenly remembering, “I maybe got a message out myself a while ago.” And he told Mr. Lillibulero about his trick with the video-phone on his father’s desk.
“Well done, Robertson,” said Mr. Lillibulero, when he had finished. “Though I’d not count too greatly on rescue in the nick of time. ’Tis something that happens more often in books than in real life.”
“I guess so,” said Robby. He wriggled uncomfortably on the chair, “I’m—uh—sorry about the—well, you know—”
“The what?” asked Mr. Lillibulero.
“The Octopus,” stammered Robby.
“What octopus?”
“The octopus in the tunnel. I mean, I knew there was an octopus in there—”
“Octopi,” said Mr. Lillibulero, sternly, “have never been one of my terrors . . . ah!” he said, breaking off sharply and fixing Robby with a penetrating eye. “You thought perhaps they might be?”
“Well, you see—” said Robby, going rather red in the face.
“Say no more,” said Mr. Lillibulero. “There was no harm done. As it happened, when I got to a certain point in the tunnel, there was no octopus, but a hole dug by the sea badger. I swam down it until some long distance away I came out into open sea again. The Martian beast must have been attempting to tunnel until he came into another cave, hoping for food, as he would have found it on his own world.Finding nothing, he dug down to the sea he knew was there.When I came out the other end of the tunnel, I did not know where I was, and so had to come back by the same way as I went, to make sure of finding you.” He looked closely at Robby. “However, when I got back to where I’d left you, y’were gone.”
“Well, I thought ”
“Y’need not tell me what y’thought,” said Mr. Lillibulero. “Perhaps we’ll both be happier wi’me not knowing.”
“Oh, no!” cried Robby. “What I mean is I thought you had been trapped by the sea badger and that it was all my fault for not telling you about the octopus. I thought something had happened to you. And if I’d told you, you wouldn’t have gone in after the sea badger.”
“Ah, indeed?” said Mr. Lillibulero, in a sharp, jagged voice. His eyes were quite shiny. He stood up and walked over to the communications main board, where there was a box of tissues left by Robby’s mother. He took a couple and blew his nose vigorously. “Well, Robertson,” he continued, returning to his seat, “y’r feelings do y’credit. We’re none of us so perfect as we’d like to be, and it may be I’m wee bit unreasonable myself sometimes. As for what I did, y’may put y’r mind to rest, it being my duty to follow th’beast at th’time, no matter where it chanced to lead me.”
After which he cleared his throat very fiercely, glared at Robby, and seemed about to say something more. Then, abruptly, his expression changed and he went over to the door.
“What is it?” asked Robby, following him.
“I’m afraid it’s our luck running out,” said Mr. Lillibulero. He pointed to a spot of white in the centre of the glowing red patch on the door. “They’ve found something hotter—possibly a pressure torch—and they’ll be able to cut through after all.” He crossed the room to the communications board and began feeling the weight of microphone stands and a heavy brass ash-tray he found on a table. Finally,he unscrewed the base of a table lamp and held it in his hand.
“ ’Tis a poor sort of club, but necessity is the mother of invention,” he was beginning to explain to Robby, when the whole station seemed to explode with sound. The floor under their feet shivered, the walls rang, and the noise of great blows against metal jarred their ears. Robby and Mr. Lillibulero stared at each other. And then, without warning, the little man dropped flat and pressed his right ear against the floor under their feet.
“ ’Tis coming from below all right!” he cried at Robby over the noise. “At the base of the building, I’d say.”
“Maybe it’s—” Robby shouted, but his voice was lost in the noise.
“What?” cried Mr. Lillibulero, bounding to his feet.
“I say,” yelled Robby—and the noise suddenly ceased, so that he found himself shouting in a quiet room. “I mean,” he went on in a lower voice, “maybe it’s the sea badger. I took a lot of Martian plants from our experimental tank and made a trail up to the station. I figured he was hungry and—”
“And the beast’ll be trying to dig its way in right now!”snapped Mr. Lillibulero. “Listen t’them outside there!”
They could hear Vandal voices raised in excitement and alarm.
“Overside, all of you!” the voice of the Captain was roaring. Somebody objected. “Well, out of the third-level lock then, if you can’t get up to the platform! Rig the nets! I want that Martian, like the two in there, dead or alive."
The tremendous banging began again. And for several minutes nothing could be heard.
“Back to the door! Bum it through!” was what came through to their ears when the sea badger paused again. “The others can get the Martian.”
“Laddie!” snapped Mr. Lillibulero. “Now’s our chance. Follow me!”
He was up the steps to the platform above in a flash, and had the locks on the hatch shoved back before Robby caught up with him. He shoved upward. Bang, went the hatch, up and open. And the two of them tumbled out on to the floor of the surface platform.
They emerged, it seemed, into the midst of a horde of Vandals. There were not merely two or three of the big men on the platform, armed to the teeth, there were six, or eight,or maybe even a dozen.
“Never mind me, lad!” cried Mr. Lillibulero, throwing himself among them. “Jump, Robertson! Over the side!” Robby grabbed a lung, raced and plunged. The soft water closed with a cool shock around him. He dived deep, intending to baffle his pursuers by slipping round the station and away. But to his dismay, he found himself surrounded by Vandals (there were, in fact, twenty-three of them in the water at the time, as he found out later), all with swimming lungs and shark knives.
They dropped the large underwater net they were rigging and turned, as one, to close in on Robby.
Balthasar
Balthasar had spent a restless night since he had watched Robby go with the Vandals into the station. There was no good reason for this. Here was the station as it always had been, and there was Robby inside it. But, somehow, Balthasar did not like it. He swam past the window of Robby’s bed-room and saw Robby inside. Robby waved to him, but still Balthasar felt uncomfortable. He even went so far as to swim down to the third-level lock and push the button that signalled that he wanted to be let in.
A Vandal, thinking it short-circuited when he heard it ring, had shut off the sounding bell. But nothing happened. After getting no response at the lock, Balthasar surfaced several times at the edge of the platform, clacking his hard lips together and giving the hoarse,
squeaky little cry of the dolphins. But only a Vandal standing alone on the platform stared at him rather foolishly each time he came up. The man made Balthasar uneasy, and the dolphin dropped back into the obscurity of the dark waters.
No, there was nothing wrong that he could see. But still Balthasar sensed that there was trouble about.
He cheered up considerably when he saw the little man Robby had befriended swim stealthily up to the platform and sneak down the ventilator scoop when the Vandal guard’s back was turned. But just after that there was a lot of noise from inside the station that made him uneasy again.
And then, a short while later, he was thrown into sheer panic when he saw the sea badger approaching.
Balthasar was afraid of the sea badger. It was strange. It was different. Who knew what it might not do? Balthasar expected the worst from it.
And almost immediately his expectations were justified.For the sea badger, which had been quietly eating its way along the sea bottom up to the station, suddenly went berserk.
It began to attack the station—Balthasar’s station—with Balthasar’s Robby inside!
Balthasar’s first, automatic action was to streak around the station and down to the lock button to sound the alarm. After jabbing at the useless button for several frantic seconds, he shot away to peer in Robby’s bedroom window. But Robby was not there. He whirled around the station, staring in all the windows. But Robby was not to be seen.
In absolute desperation, Balthasar dashed down to join battle with the sea badger itself. It was now inside the station,but to Balthasar’s annoyance the Vandals were hanging a net over the hole where it had forced its way in.
There was only one thing to do, and that was to tear through the net. Balthasar slipped up to the surface to blow and fill his lungs with air. As he started down again, Robby plunged into the water from the station platform.
Robby’s dive had taken everybody by surprise, including the Vandals in the water. Nevertheless, they dropped their net with no great alarm, knowing that there was no way he could escape them.
And then Balthasar hit them.
There is a reason why sharks and such creatures are not eager to tangle with dolphins. Even a small dolphin can flash himself through the water at forty miles an hour or better, and when he hits, he butts hard, with all the weight of his body,into the shark’s soft side and belly. Also, he bites and twists as he hits, and his teeth, while not so terrible as the shark’s,are not so small that a shark can take much of that sort of treatment and survive.
Balthasar burst into the midst of the Vandals like a lion into the middle of a flock of sheep. Luckily for them, he was more interested in getting to Robby as quickly as possible than he was in dealing out any damage on the way. Consequently, he merely bounced them aside, not injuring them too badly. He swirled to a stop before Robby, who grabbed thankfully at his reins, and they headed out again.
Once more Balthasar tore through the Vandals, and this completed the rout. The frightened Vandals swam desperately for safety—most of them for the platform, but a few for their own ship.
Those scrambling back on to the platform joined the Vandals trying to grab Mr. Lillibulero, but Mr. Lillibulero was so small, so quick, so limber and spry, that he continually managed to wiggle out from their grasp.
It had only been a minute or so since Robby had dived overboard. Mr. Lillibulero, however, was still free, and since panic is contagious, the battle ended then and there. Suddenly, all the Vandals could think of was to get away from whatever terrible peril now pursued them. And the fact thatnone of them really understood what he was running away from made no difference at all.
Meanwhile, Robby, who had turned round after Balthasar had pulled him off to a safe distance, rose to the surface, saw what was going on, and came sweeping back to see if he could help Mr. Lillibulero.
He approached to find Mr. Lillibulero in control of the platform. Some Vandals were bolting for the interior of the station, while others were still clambering out of the water. But just then, looking beyond, Robby had a flashing glimpse of something more, something large and silver, coming quickly up to the station.
“A sh . . .’’ he started to yell, and then a wall of sea waterstopped him as Balthasar plunged into a wave. Robby bobbed up immediately, shaking the water from his mask microphone.
“A ship! Mr. Lillibulero!” he cried. “A ship!”
Robby and Balthasar set off at top speed in the direction of the oncoming vessel.
Balthasar was fast, but the ship was faster. It slid across the surface on a cushion of air pushed out by thousands of tiny jets in its flat bottom. It was the Mexican government patrol boat under the command of Lieutenant Vargas.
The patrol boat reached the station and came to a skillful stop alongside. Robby and Balthasar were close behind.
Coastguards men in neat uniforms leaped from the deck to the platform as Robby scrambled out of the water and was grabbed by his own worried father.
“Your mother,” said his father about half an hour later,“your mother should be here in a couple of days, at the most. After we pulled the other sea badger through, she went to visit your aunt Sophie. What she’ll say, I don’t know. Probably it’ll be my fault for not checking sooner to see if all was well. Did you watch the temperatures on experimental tank number seven?”
They were standing on the platform, and the coastguards men were herding the Vandal prisoners up from below and on to the patrol boat, where they would be taken under guard to the mainland for trial. The coastguards men had sprayed a soothing gas at them in order to capture them without hurting them, and they were very relaxed at the moment and sleepy, although they would return to normal when the effects of the gas wore off. Before Robby could answer his father, the Vandal Captain came up out of the platform entrance, smiling dizzily. He was led aboard the patrol boat.
“A sad case,” commented his father. “Still, there’s always hope of reform. And who knows? Possibly, there, but for the sake of marine zoology, go I. None of us can afford to look down our noses at any of them. Don’t you think so, Lillibulero?”
“I do,” agreed the little man, who was standing nearby with Lieutenant Vargas. “ ’Tis not easy not to be a Vandal.Each man must take the responsibility of escaping the temptation for himself. Luckily, however, in this case, no harm’s been done to speak of.”
“Fortunately not,” agreed Lieutenant Vargas. “My men have secured the hole by which the Martian entered your experimental tanks. The creature will not be able to escape again. It’s feeding quietly in there now.”
“A thousand thanks,” said Robby’s father politely.
“For nothing,” replied Lieutenant Vargas with equal politeness, looking very trim and military with his white uniform and the neat black moustache on his handsome olive face. “The creature gave us no trouble. We should thank your son for cleverly opening the video-phone line and alerting us that this bunch was here.”
Robby squirmed with pleasure.
“Well, at any rate, the sea badger seems quite happy in there with the other Martians,” said Robby’s father. “Possibly that’s what it needed and wanted all along. A little bit of home. Probably quite gentle and friendly under ordinary circumstances. We’re to keep it, I understand, for further study here. Of course, we’ll rig a tank it can’t break out of. Robby may yet have it eating out of his hand.”
“You should have seen it fighting the killer whale,” began Robby.
“Whatever you do, don’t tell your mother about that!”interrupted his father, horrified. “Not for a day or two, at any rate. Not until she’s had time to get used to having the sea badger around. You know how your mother is.”
Robby nodded seriously.
“And, as I say, she will probably hold me responsible. Of course, to a certain extent, I am. I would have taken you with me, except that my government orders were explicit—to go alone to your grandfather’s and help him try to save the life of the sea badger that was
hurt when the Vandals stole this one.”
“This other Martian, is it well now?” inquired Lieutenant Vargas.
“Quite well, thanks. A rather bad cut on the head, but it’s recovering nicely,” answered Robby’s father.
“The point is,” he went on, “lacking second sight, I had no way of knowing the Vandals would head straight here.And anyway, I left you in the care of Lillibulero, the most capable man in the world.”
“I would not say that,” objected Mr. Lillibulero.
“I would,” said Robby’s father. “I’ve known you for years. I know what you can do.”
“Ah, but you forget what I cannot do,” said Mr. Lillibulero.“For instance, I cannot fight a killer whale bare-handed. No more can I capture half a hundred or so Vandals, nor put a leash about the neck of a Martian sea badger and lead it home. If y’must know, it was not me that brought Robertson alive and well through the last day and night, but Robertson and myself that somehow brought each other through.” He cast a grim but approving eye on Robby. “Was that not so, Robertson?”
“It sure was, Dad!” burst out Robby, excitedly. “If it hadn’t been for me, no telling what might have happened. I mean, I knew about the shoals here, around the station, and where to look for the sea badger. I rode Balthasar after the killer whale and saw the sea badger and knew it was around for sure. I left the video-phone off the hook and switched on the secret cable line. I left the trail of food for the sea badger. I did it. If it hadn’t been for me . . .”
Robby saw all three men looking at him with an embarrassed expression, and all at once he seemed to be sitting once more in his father’s office with the red-bearded Vandal Captain opposite. Once again he heard the Vandal Captain talking about right and wrong—and twisting them around to put himself in the best position. And now Robby heard himself doing the same sort of thing. He gulped.
“That is—I mean . . .” he said quickly, “it was really us.What I mean is . . .” and he looked at Mr. Lillibulero, “it was mostly him.”
Secrets of the Deep Page 8