by Kir Bulychev
“Are you listening?” Another voice came from the darkness at the end where the Blabberyap bird had headed. “Throw down your weapons.”
The pirates slowly got to their feet; their pistols clattered on the stones.
I raised my head and saw Doctor Verkhovtseff, in a space suit without a helmet on, come out from behind one of the landing struts.
In astonishment I turned back to the other side.
The second Doctor Verkhovtseff, in his hat, raised his hands and fell to us knees.
From the other side of the pirates came the First Captain. Just like he was in the monument on the Three Captain’s Planet, only alive, sunburned, and in the blue uniform of a captain of the Deep Space Fleet.
From out of nowhere flew the blabberyap bird and, fluttering its wings, it alighted on the Captain’s shoulder. Then, from out of the darkness, came Alice.
.
Chapter Twenty-One
At that time…
Alice had vanished at the very moment when we found ourselves to be captives, and what happened was that no one in the cave paid the slightest attention to her disappearance, not even me.
How she was able to accomplish this I only managed to learn later, however I am going to describe everything in order, what happened to Alice while we were captives, and how it was that the First Captain and Doctor Verkhovtseff (that second Doctor Verkhovtseff) found the entrance to the cave and were able to save us.
What had happened was this. Alice had been given as a gift an invisible hat while in the bazar in Palaputra. She was given it by the Dwarf who sold non-existent fish, the one who said they just could not be seen.
At first Alice decided that this was a joke the hat was so light that it weighed almost nothing at all. But when Alice returned to the ship she found herself alone in her room and began to examine the stamps that she had bought, and she found something in her bag. It was almost completely weightless and invisible. It was then that Alice remembered about the invisible hat and decided test it and so she put it on her head. And Alice became invisible.
At first Alice wanted to run to me or Poloskov and boast about the hat, but then she remembered that, in the view of science, invisibility is a fairy story, and she decided that if she told us that an invisibility hat really existed, we wouldn’t even want to look at it and would not believe her.
She put the invisible hat to one side until the return to Earth, because such a hat would really prove most useful in school. If you were late for a lesson then you could always enter the class and seat yourself at the right spot anyway because no on would see you. You could even take a peek into the best student in class’s notebook (Although Alice would certainly never have done any such thing.)
Alice always carried the invisibility hat with her in her shoulder bag, and when the lights had come on in the cavern and the Fat Man and his cronies appeared Alice quietly slipped the invisible cap on her head and vanished. But she did not leave the cavern. She expected that they would confine us somewhere and she would be able to steal the key and set us free.
She moved to one side and listened to everything the Fat Man said. She would have made no move except that the pirate had come back with the Blabberyap bird dangling from his legs and the Fat Man gave the order to kill the Blabberyap bird, because the pirates no longer needed it, and then Alice knew she would have to act.
Alice crept over to the pirate on tiptoes and tripped him. The pirate fell, the Blabberyap bird got free, the shooting started, and the Blabberyap bird flew off.
What should she do now? Alice then thought: “The Blabberyap bird will fly away. It did fly out of here before. The Second Captain released it from his ship and the Blabberyap found its way out of the cavern. That means, the Blabberyap already knows how to get outside.” So Alice hurried after the Blabberyap. She was thinking that as soon as she saw where the exit was she would immediately come back to us, free us from this prison and lead us to freedom.
At first she was running in the dark. The light from the main hall penetrated into the long corridor only weakly. The Blabberyap bird flew ahead, and Alice could see him no longer she was following him by hearing, by the flapping of his wings. As soon as they had gotten well away from the pirates Alice called out to the bird in a low voice:
“Blabberyap, wait up!”
The Blabberyap bird heard her voice. At that very moment they came to the next hall in the underground maze; it was lit up, smaller than the first and filled with a small black space ship. But Alice forgot she was invisible and did not remove the cap. The Blabberyap bird made a circle over Alice, shaking its uncertain crown, and flew further, into a low tunnel which was hidden behind some protruding rocks. Alice forced her way into the tunnel as well. It rose sharply toward the surface, and far, far away she could make out a white circle daylight.
Alice was getting ready to clamber up the tunnel when she suddenly heard a weak groan.
The groan came from another tunnel, a tunnel as black as a moonless night. Alice approached the tunnel carefully. The groan was clearly audible, but Alisa had no flash light on her person, that had been left behind in the big cavern, and she had to go in blind. So she counted her steps. On the thirteenth step her hand knocked against a a metal grating.
Again she heard the groan.
“Is there anyone in here?” Alice asked in a whisper.
Evidently, the source of the groaning did not hear her.
“Wait.” Alice said. “I have to get my friends free first, then we’ll come back for you. You and any of Doctor Verkhovtseff’s prisoners.”
There was no answer.
Alice turned back. There was no time to waste with the unknown when there was no way of knowing what the fat man might do.
Returning to the first tunnel, Alice looked inside once again. The bright point the exit from this underground cavern had vanished. Alice did not realize that the short night had come and was frightened that she had mistaken some sort of tunnel for the exit. Or perhaps she was lost. Perhaps the Blabberyap bird had flown out another tunnel. And Alice, although she was very worried about me, and Poloskov and Zeleny, decided to expend another minute and make certain whether this was an exit for not. If this was a dead end, then she would lead us here and keep the pirates from capturing us again.
The path was difficult. The tunnel turned out to be slippery water dripped from the ceiling and did not evaporate. To Alice it seemed that she had spent an whole hour in there but the tunnel never came to an end. She had decided to turn back when suddenly the darkness began to lighten up, and it turned out that Alice had almost made it to the exit, she just had not seen the exit in the darkness.
The last meters of crawling were more difficult than anything else; dirt kept falling down from the roof of the tunnel and she had to force her way through the large masses of roots. Alice almost started to cry, deciding that she would never be able to make her way to the surface, to the sun and the clean air. For a moment she almost forgot about us, about the pirates, about everything in the world; all she dreamed of was getting free of the surrounding dirt.
But there was one last jerk and Alice realized she had succeeded the tunnel was behind her. She had left the gloomy cavern with the pirates and their prisoners.
Overhead was the blue sky with its quickly moving yellow star; a second star had already reached its zenith and begun to turn the world hot. Two insects similar to terrestrial beetles had gotten into an argument of some kind right in front of Alice’s face and they were dive bombing each other, beating each other with flashing wings, completely ignoring Alice, who looked at the bugs and thought sadly that it was time to go back down into the cavern. And so she lost far too much time. At the very least she now knew which way to run to get out of the caverns.
Alice looked around for the last time, ran her hand through the thick grass, but then saw, quite close by on the top of a hill, the very same space ship which Doctor Verkhovtseff had flown to the Pegasus before the Zoo ship had lifted o
ff for the pirate’s boobytrapped field.
“Glad I saw where they landed that thing.” Alice thought. “Or we could get out of the cave and end up back in their arms. They’re certain to have left guards at their ship”
Alice was almost ready to go back to the tunnel when she saw the Blabberyap bird sitting on the steps that had descended from the ship and pecking at the closed lock with its beak.
Alice almost shouted: “Blabberyap, come back here!” but did not have time, nor would the Blabberyap bird have heard her.
The airlock rolled open and Alice could see a tall young man, someone Alice had definitely seen before, but where? The Blabberyap Bird flew up and landed on the man’s shoulder.
“Old friend!” The man exclaimed. “How did you find us?”
The moment Alice saw the man with the Blabberyap bird on his shoulder, she understood who he was. This was the First Captain. The Captain had come to their rescue! But how had he learned where to search? Alice jumped down from the end of the tunnel and rushed toward the ship. What mattered was that the Captain was here. Everything was all right now.
Alice was still a few steps from the ship and was trying to shout, but couldn’t because she was out of breath, when the second person emerged from the airlock and stood next to the Captain,
It was Doctor Verkhovtseff. But he was not dressed like the Doctor Verkhovtseff down in the cavern beneath then; this Doctor Verkhovtseff was in a space suit with a pistol in his belt.
Alice stopped, as though she had run into a wall. She did not understand it at all. The traitor had been somehow able to be simultaneously at two places at once. One thing she did understand: the First Captain was also in great danger, yet he knew nothing about it, not even that Doctor Verkhovtseff was really a pirate.
“Captain, be careful! Danger! Verkhovtseff is a traitor!” Alice shouted.
The Captain and Verkhovtseff looked around for her voice, but they could not see her. She was still invisible.
“Who said that?” The Captain asked.
“Verkhovtseff was just in the underground cavern!” Alice shouted. “He’s a pirate. They’ve captured the Second Captain and our crew.”
“What crew?” The Captain was mystified, still trying to determine just where the child’s voice came from.
“The crew of the Pegasus.” Alice said. “Be careful, Captain!”
“And who are you?” The Captain asked.
“Alice.” She answered, not taking her eyes off Verkhovtseff for an instant.
But Verkhovtseff never went for his blaster, he never tried to jump the Captain from behind, and the Captain was also completely at ease in the Doctor’s presence.
“You’re mistaken, little girl.” The Captain said. “Doctor Verkhovtseff hasn’t left our ship for the last three days. The two of us came here to help you and Second. It’s some other person down below in the cave, someone who’s made himself up to look like our friend Doctor Verkhovtseff. You’re not in any danger here.”
“And what if you’re just made up to look like the First Captain?” Alice asked.
“I’m not made up to look like anyone but myself.” The Captain answered. “You know what I look like, and look at the Blabberyap bird. He knows me too. Bird’s aren’t that easy to deceive. Blabby, you know me?”
“‘Hurry, Captain.’“ The Blabberyap bird said. “‘The formula for galaxion is hidden in the cabinet with the samples of industrial materials. If anything happens to me, get the formula and give it to the Galaxy. It’s very important. Third died for it.’“
The Blabberyap bird spoke in the Second Captain’s voice.
“There. Is that proof enough?” The First Captain said. “Do you believe now? You can come o ut. We’re wasting time. How did you get to the surface. And where are you hiding?”
Alice walked right up to the edge of the steps.
“I’m here” Alice said. “I crawled after the Blabberyap bird.”
“I don’t understand this at all.” Doctor Verkhovtseff said. “Where is that girl? What is, she invisible or something?”
“Of course I’m invisible.” Alice said. “Oh, why don’t you understand? How else could I have gotten away from the pirates?”
And then Alice took off the invisible cap, and even the First Captain, one of the most famous people in the entire Galaxy, gasped from surprise.
Alice’s yellow jump suit was covered with dirt and her sleeves were torn, her face was scratched and her hair was a tangled mess.
“‘Alice, do you want Soya-Bix for breakfast tomorrow?’“ The Blabberyap bird spoke in Professor Seleznev’s voice.
“Smart girl!” The First Captain said.
And they ran to the trap door, because there was not a minute to waste.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Fat Man Lies
“The handcuffs fit.” The Second Captain said. “These are such miserable beings that it’s impossible to trust anything they say.”
“I give you my word that I will not attempt flight.” The fat man said cheerfully.
“You will.” The captain answered with certainty.
At the same time Doctor Verkhovtseff briskly walked straight up to his doppleganger. The image was remarkable. If they had asked me I would have said the real Doctor was the one in the hat; that he was the one we met the first time on the Three Captain’s World.
“Well, impostor,” The Doctor in the space suit said, “show us your real face.”
“I don’t understand you at all.” The Doctor in the hat said, backing up.
Zeleny, who had been standing right behind him, pushed him forwards to meet his double.
“It’s because of you we thought the worst of a good man.” Zeleny said. “Because of you we nearly died.”
“That’s right.” Alice said. “We distrusted the real Doctor Verkhovtseff so much that when he flew here together with the First Captain and tried to warn us we got away as fast as we could and fell into your pit.”
“No!” The false Doctor said. “You won’t touch me!”
Veselchak U suddenly started to laugh.
“Someone else’s skin doesn’t fit too well.” He said. “Never fit me fit me pretending to be someone I wasn’t. I’m an honest pirate.”
The real Doctor Verkhovtseff walked up to the pirate in the hat and looked him over. The pirate had no where to go; Zeleny was behind him.
Suddenly Doctor Verkhovtseff reached out to his double and with a jerk pulled off the man’s head, face and chest.
Immediately we saw the image of the Doctor fall from the pirate, and beneath it made out a totally different being, a non-human. Verkhovtseff had evidently found the control to the holographic projector which gave his pirate doppleganger his features and disabled it.
The hat tumbled to one side. The Doctor’s clothing lay at our feet, and out of the pile of rags which a moment before had been Doctor Verkhovtseff arose an enormous insect, a meter and a half in height, with hairy legs, a round, chitinous body, and large and sharp claws. The insect spread its short wings in an attempt to fly away, but Zeleny was able to grab it from behind. The insect turned its head to him, and opened its claws in threat.
“Careful!” The Second Captain shouted. “He’s poisonous!”
Zeleny pulled his hand back and the Second Captain raised his pistol, aiming it at the pirate.
And then the pirate, seeing there was no where to run, suddenly lifted a long, thick tail with a needle end and struck himself in the chest. He immediately fell, his thin arms spread out.
“He stung himself!” Alice exclaimed. “Just like a scorpion.”
“Scorpions never sting themselves.” I answered. “That’s just a fairy tale. Only rational beings know what death is.”
“It’s all a fake!” The fat man said suddenly. “I want to help you, really I do; I know him better than anyone else. He’s the chief pirate. He’s made us obey him; he’s the one who thought up all our crimes. His name is Ratty; he’s from the dead plan
et Crocrys. Some time ago the Crocrysi killed each other off in a war and the last of them hid themselves in caves. But he didn’t kill himself. He loves himself too much to do that. He’s just unconscious. He’s thinking that you’ll leave his body here and he will wake up and get away. He’s done that before. Kill him.”
“Why would we want to kill him?” The First Captain said. “He has a date with a court.”
He went over to Krys, who still lay in a pile of clothing, bent down and picked up the light body and handed it to the captive pirates in black uniforms.
“Carry him back to the Pegasus.” The Captain said. “And lock him in a cage. Do you have any empty cages, Professor?”
“Alas, yes. More than one. We’ve gathered far fewer animals than we were counting on. I’ll go to the ship with the pirates and make certain the cage is solid enough.”
“And then we can carry him to a planet where they’ve been searching for him for years, and we’ll let them judge him.”
“That’s right!” The fat man said. “That’s what you want to do with him. He was the one who came up with the idea of impersonating Verkhovtseff. He flew to the base on Arcturus Minor as a fake Verkhovtseff; he was hoping to find the plans to the Blue Gull there so he could open it. As the fake Verkhovtseff he was the one who sold the worms in Palaputra and destroyed all the Blabberyap birds so that the one we were hunting would not be able to reach the First Captain with his request for help. It was he who forced me to give the Professor the diamond backed turtle, and as the fake Verkhovtseff he contaminated the robot’s lubricating oil. He had no mercy! Take him away! Let the courts deal with his betrayer and trickster!”.
“Quiet down, Veselchak U.” The Second Captain said “You can’t hope to avoid punishment for your owncrimes by blaming it all on your partner. The courts will try you too. I’ve chased you across the whole Galaxy. You’ve committed far too many crimes to exculpate yourself by a new betrayal.”