Secrets of the Deep

by Gordon R. Dickson

  He took a deep breath, opened the door and stepped through into the corridor, closing the airlock behind him. He turned to the right.

  And there, standing at the head of the stairs he must descend to reach the room where Mr. Lillibulero was prisoner, stood three men in slacks and short-sleeved work shirts.

  They were so busy talking together that they did not see him. For a moment Robby was tempted to duck back into the airlock and make his own escape. Then something that was half courage and half stubbornness stiffened his back. He clumped forward.

  The men at the stairway, hearing him, turned to face him.Peering ahead as best he could through the small eye slits in the ghost mask, it seemed to Robby that the faces of the three men were simply blurs. At any second he expected them to recognize him and try to recapture him.

  Then the blurs cleared and Robby saw that the three men had all shrunk back. He had forgotten the fear Red Carswell inspired in all the men he controlled. And with the sight of them shrinking away from him all of Robby’s courage came bounding back. His shoulders stiffened under the old-fashioned doublet, his boot heels thumped the floor. As he got close he even began to imagine himself as a sort of combination of Carswell and the Spanish Captain. As he came up to them, he swaggered a little and glared from inside the mask.

  Then he was past them all and thumping down the treads of the stairs, the metal tip of his scabbard tapping on the metal steps.

  He reached the level below and turned toward the room called the brig. Then he noticed that another doorway was open, and in it stood the muscled, bald man named Hice, chatting with a man Robby did not recognize. Hice looked sharply at Robby as he marched forward. But after his suecess with the three men on the stairs, this did not disturb Robby. He sneered inside the mask and clumped on, not even bothering to return the bald man’s stare, and came at last tot he door behind which Mr. Lillibulero was locked. Robby peered in through the small, wire-screened window.

  He saw a bare room with a table, a double-decker bunk,and the shape of a small figure lying huddled under a blanket.The excitement that had been filling Robby with the success of his masquerade went out of him with a rush. Fear flooded in. Mr. Lillibulero had seemed unconscious when Robby had seen him carried in. What if the little man was still unconscious or helpless, unable to walk? How would Robby get him out?

  He reached down and fumbled with the bar that locked the door. Luckily, it was designed just to be slid aside, and this Robby did. Leaving the door ajar behind him, he clumped hastily to the blanket-wrapped figure on the bunk.

  “Mr. Lillibulero ...” he whispered urgently, “Mr. Lillibulero...”

  There was no answer. The shape under the blanket did not move.

  “It’s me, Robby . . .” Robby whispered desperately. He reached out to lift the blankets, a cold feeling forming in the pit of his stomach. But his hand never closed on the blanket.

  “I thought so!” boomed a hoarse voice behind him. Robby spun around.

  Facing him were Hice and the man he had been talking to in the corridor. In Hice’s hand was a sonic rifle, pointed at Robby. Without letting go of it, he stepped forward and with his free hand grabbed the mask of the Spanish Captain.

  Roughly, he yanked hat and mask off to expose Robby beneath them.

  “Just as I thought!” he said, chuckling. “It had to be the boy. No one else is small enough to get into that outfit. And it couldn’t be Red, walking like that. Well, we’ve got you now, Sonny, you and your police friend, both.”

  Behind the two men, who were together blocking the way to the corridor and Robby’s last hope of escape, he saw the cell door swing closed. The crash of its closing was like the final crash of a safe door slammed and locked. On the heels of it came the sound of another voice behind the two men.

  “I wouldna be too sure about that, if I were you,” said the voice of Mr. Lillibulero.

  The Mask Hides—Who?

  Robby and the two men stared at each other. The voice had certainly not come from the blanketed shape on the bunk.Then everything seemed to happen at once.

  Robby reached out to lift the blanket. But what he uncovered was not the figure of Mr. Lillibulero. It was a couple of pillows rolled up in another blanket to look like the shape of a man. Robby turned on discovering this. He was just in time to see the two men also spinning around to face the real Mr. Lillibulero, who had been standing behind the door since Robby had entered the room.

  All in that one instant, as Robby turned, he saw the two men swiveling around, Hice raising the sonic rifle, and Mr. Lillibulero coming quickly out of the comer of the room behind the door. Mr. Lillibulero reached Hice and took the rifle away with so easy a motion that it seemed almost as if Hice had handed him the gun. At the same time, Hice took a step backward and blundered into Robby who was hurled onto the bottom bunk. He huddled there, glad to be out of the way.

  In taking the rifle from Hice, Mr. Lillibulero had been forced to turn his back on the other man, who now grabbed the little agent of the International Police. Mr. Lillibulero twisted like an otter, rammed the butt of the rifle into the stomach of the man holding him, and knocked him to the floor.

  Meanwhile, Hice recovered his balance, and jumped forward on top of Mr. Lillibulero.

  The bald man was one of those thick-shouldered, chunky men who look as if they were born with a lot of muscle and who win every fight they enter. And he was twice as heavy as Mr. Lillibulero. When he jumped at the little man, Robby saw Mr. Lillibulero go down as if he had been struck by a truck. Robby held his breath.

  Hice, unlike the Vandals and the Tropicans Mr. Lillibulero had fought in the past, was plainly an experienced fighter. He was fast and vicious.

  But neither speed nor viciousness nor even muscles, Robby saw then, were the most important requirement for winning a fight. The bald man was an experienced fighter, but he was an experienced amateur, while Mr. Lillibulero was a professional. The little man had studied hand-to-hand combat all his life, was always in perfect training, and it was impossible to ruffle him. Mr. Lillibulero went down before the rush. However, he did not stop there.

  Neither did Hice. In fact, he kept right on going. He seemed to fly through the air across the room as if he had suddenly grown wings, and crashed head-first into the wall.

  Mr. Lillibulero had used the principle of jujitsu, first in-vented by the unarmed Lama monks of China to protect themselves from armed robbers on desolate roads. This principle was to use the effort of the opponent to undo the opponent. Instead of standing firm to take the shock of the bald man’s jump at him, Mr. Lillibulero had fallen gracefully on his back with his legs stiff and his feet in Hice’s stomach. So that Hice had found himself not stopped as he had expected, but carried forward with the speed of his own jump against the wall, knocking himself out.

  As for Mr. Lillibulero, he rolled on over and back up onto his feet in the same smooth motion, not even short of breath.Like all experts, he had made the whole thing seem easy.

  The two men lay still. Hice was unconscious. The other man was not.

  “And now, Robertson,” said the little man snappily, “if y’would not mind interrupting y’r cosy nap on the bunk there, I suggest y’let me wear that costume for a while. It’s barely possible I can give a somewhat more effective imitation of Red Carswell than yourself.”

  Robby scrambled off the bunk and began to get out of the costume while Mr. Lillibulero tied and gagged the two men with strips of blanket.

  “Now,” ordered the little man, picking up the costume,“if y’ll take a look outside in the corridor to see if all is clear, I’ll take over y’r masquerade as ghost.”

  Robby was only too glad to let Mr. Lillibulero do so. He had enjoyed wearing the costume when he thought he was fooling Carswell’s men. But one time of having the mask jerked off him was enough. He slipped out into the corridor, and saw it was empty.

  “It’s all right. There’s no one out here,” he called softly back to Mr. Lillibulero. A low-pit
ched chuckle was his only answer and a moment later the besworded figure of the Spanish Captain stepped out of the room, closing the door behind him, and turned to face Robby. Robby stared. Mr. Lillibulero, he found himself thinking, must be an actor too.Even the way the figure stood and the cold glitter of the eyes behind the slits in the mask were as Robby remembered them when Carswell had brought him into the airlock of the tug.

  “What are you going to do now?” whispered Robby. “Arrest Red Carswell?” He had been hoping to make the masked figure answer in the reassuring tones of Mr. Lillibulero, but he was disappointed. The reply came in the flat whisper of Carswell.

  “You overestimate my abilities,” it said. “It’s well to keep a sense of your own limitations. And not even Mr. Lillibulero can capture a vessel this size, single-handed. Suppose we concentrate on escape?”

  “It’s easy,” whispered Robby. “Up those stairs—”

  But the costumed figure, without waiting to be told, had gone on ahead. Robby followed, uneasily. How, he wondered, could Mr. Lillibulero know the way out if he had been unconscious when carried in? However, Robby hurried after the figure, which was now moving with that swift, gliding walk of Carswell’s.

  They reached the foot of the stairs without encountering anyone, but when they reached the level above they found themselves facing not only the airlock, but the three men Robby had met earlier at the head of the stairs, now standing just before the inner door of the airlock.

  The costumed figure headed toward them with Robby following hurriedly. The three men looked puzzled. Robby had fooled them on the way down. But now the shape of the Spanish Captain was heading out of the ship, taking with him the boy that they must know had been locked up below. They did not move out of the way as Robby and the Spanish Captain approached.

  “Mr. Carswell—” began one of them hesitantly, as the costumed figure stopped before them. Robby felt himself shrink up inside. But an icy whisper replied from the shape before Robby.

  "Did I ask you to speak to me?”

  It was the voice of Red Carswell in a stifled rage, as Robby had heard it when he had helped Mr. Millen stand up. It silenced the crew member as if a gag had been shoved into his mouth. He and the other two blundered into each other,getting out of the way. A moment later Robby and the costumed figure were alone in the airlock, the door closed behind them.

  Robby put his hand to the water lung around his throat,ready to push it up. The costumed figure was getting another water lung from the locker. Robby watched with a sinking feeling.

  It was impossible. Mr. Lillibulero had not been out of Robby’s sight for more than a few seconds while he put on the Spanish Captain’s costume. But how could he have known the way to the airlock and exactly where the water lungs were kept?

  Right now, Robby wanted to know, one way or another, if it was really Mr. Lillibulero or whether somehow Carswell had changed places with the little man in the few moments Robby was alone in the lower corridor.

  “Mr. Lillibulero . . .” Robby began hesitantly. The face with the black mustache swung swiftly toward him.

  “Don’t talk to me about that friend of yours,” answered the voice of Red Carswell. “I’ve got other plans for you now. Lillibulero’s locked up where he can’t get out. And you won’t be seeing him again!”

  Mac Roars Aloft

  At the sound of Red Carswell’s voice coming from the mask of the costumed figure, Robby froze. The water was mounting up around his waist in the airlock, but he was so stunned by the thought that it might be Red Carswell instead of Mr. Lillibulero in front of him, that he did not even move to pull his water lung face plate up over his nose and mouth. The man in the costume stared at him for a moment and then reached up to lift the mask and put on the water lung he had found.

  Beneath the lifted mask, Robby saw the familiar features and piercing green eyes of Mr. Lillibulero, one of which winked at him reassuringly. A moment later the water lung was in place and the mask was down again, but Mr. Lillibulero pointed at the intercom phone grill beside the inner door of the airlock. It was still switched on as Robby had left it earlier, and a little red light was burning above it to signal so.

  Abruptly, Robby understood. The three men they had passed were still just outside in the corridor. With the phone on, they could hear every word he and Mr. Lillibulero said. Robby had forgotten the phone and had addressed the little man by his right name. It could have meant disaster. Mr. Lillibulero, by thinking quickly and answering as Carswell, had managed to cover up Robby’s blunder.

  Overwhelmed with relief and embarrassment, Robby followed the little man’s lead in putting on swim fins and pulling up his face plate. A moment later they swam out into the open water—to nearly be battered against the hull by Mac, who had apparently been hanging around outside all this time.

  Together, the three of them swam toward the cargo bag holding La Floridana. Light still came from around the edges of the flap in its side. Pushing aside some gray snappers and other fish that had been attracted by the underwater light, Mr. Lillibulero unhooked the fastener at one comer of the flap and swam inside.

  Robby followed, hooking the flap closed to keep Mac hidden outside.

  Inside, in the bright illumination from half a dozen self-contained, portable battery lamps, sealed for underwater use and hung about the scaffolding that enclosed the sunken ship, two men in black underwater suits and water lungs were finishing the job of fastening La Floridana firmly into the cradle of metal tubing.

  Mr. Lillibulero was near the man working at the bow of the eighteenth-century sloop before the two caught sight of the costumed figure of the Spanish captain. Behind their transparent face plates, their faces showed surprise.

  “All right!” commanded the ghost captain. “Turn the ship loose from that cradle. We’re taking it out of here!”

  “But—” the man at the bow looked bewildered.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” said Mr. Lillibulero. The sonic rifle he held swung up to point at the black-clad chest of the man in the bow. The man moved hastily to the nearest section of tubing and began to unbolt it. The other man immediately clutched the length of the enclosing framework close to him and began to unbolt, also. Whether it had been the voice of Red Carswell, the rifle, or both that had convinced them was not clear. But they were doing as they were told, without asking any more questions.

  It struck Robby suddenly that there were real disadvantages in having people so afraid of you that they were afraid to argue if you gave them some peculiar order. It could result in what was happening right now—Red Carswell’s men were helping Red Carswell’s enemies regain the ship the red-haired man had been trying to steal. Robby filed the idea away for future reference.

  If ever he had a crew of men doing things for him, he thought, he would make sure they would always ask questions if the orders seemed funny or wrong. They would not be afraid to speak up. In fact, he would make good friends with them. He would call them Jack, or Bill, or whatever the name of each one was. And they could call him Robby.

  ...Or Rob.

  Meanwhile, the two men were working almost desperately to tear down what they had just put up. Like most things, the metal framework came apart faster than it went together. But it was some minutes before the job was done and they all pushed the sloop out of the cargo bag into open water. Mac swam up, nosing at Robby to see what he was doing.

  Robby waved the sea lion back, pushed with the rest at the sloop and kicked his feet heavily in the water to help get La Floridana out of the cargo bag. But he was not much help.His feet in their swim fins felt as if they weighed twenty pounds apiece, and his whole body was aching to rest. He realized foggily what he had not had time to think about before—that he had been up all the day and probably now most of the night. When the sloop was outside, he merely sat on its watery deck, holding to the railing on the starboard side, while Mr. Lillibulero directed the two men to take a couple of the portable lamps from the cargo bag, and hold them up at th
e front of the sloop to light the boat’s way underwater. Then, as the little man started the electric motors that would drive the sunken ship, and moved to the steering device that had been connected to the two motors amidships,Robby feebly swam back to the costumed figure.

  “I’m tired,” he sighed through his water lung diaphragm to Mr. Lillibulero.

  The masked face nodded, and Mr. Lillibulero pointed to the stump of the mast

  “Sit on the deck with y’r back against that,” he whispered sharply in his own voice. Robby obeyed. Mr. Lillibulero picked up the sonic rifle and loosened the sling by which a swimmer could carry the rifle on his back out of the way while hunting fish and other game underwater. He slid the rifle with the loosened sling over the stump of the mast and down until the rifle lay across Robby’s knees and the sling straps passed under Robby’s arms before going around the stump of the mast.

  Anchored in this manner against accidentally floating away,Robby inched around so that he could see forward and then leaned back against the time- and water-pitted wood of the mast. Ahead of him he could just make out the two dark figures of the men silhouetted against the light of their lamps, reflecting back from the underwater rocks of the reef ahead as the electric motors began to make the sloop gather way. In that light, the rocks seemed to drift toward the ship, the lights seemed to dance, and the dark silhouettes of the two men seemed to shift and swim in the underwater as Robby’s eyes blurred with fatigue. Mac did an underwater loop before him, playing with the moving ship as he followed along.

  And shortly, it all flowed together into one light-streaked pool of slumber like chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream being swirled together in a sundae glass . . . and that was all he could remember of the lights and the underwater rocks.