I did not bother to disabuse my friend; I suspected the old woman had not once in her life imagined, yet alone encountered, an astroarchaeologist. She had simply never seen anyone like Gromozeka before.
“Listen,” Gromozeka said, “I have an idea. I can help you.”
“How?”
“Have you heard about a planet named The Three Captain’s World?”
“I read about it somewhere, but I don’t remember where or when.”
“That is superb.”
Gromozeka leaned closer, placing one of his heavy, rather warm tentacles on my shoulder, straightened the shining plates that formed the globular, almost balloon-like belly, and began:
“In Sector 19-4 there is a smallish, uninhabited planet. It used to be it did not even have a name, just a numerical code. Now space men call it the Three Captain’s World. And do you know why? There, on a flat, stony plateau they have erected three statues, placed there to honor three space captains. These were great explorers and noble people. One of them was born on Earth, the second on Mars, and the third Captain was born on Fyxx. Hand in hand these Captains strode the constellations, landing on planets everyone else thought were impossible to land on; they saved entire worlds threatened by danger. They were the first to defeat the jungles of Eurydice, and one of them wounded a Dragonette Major. They sought out and destroyed a nest of space pirates, although the space pirates outnumbered them by twenty to one. The descended into the methane atmosphere of Golgotha and recovered the Philosopher’s Stone lost there by Kursak’s convoy. With it they destroyed a poisonous volcano that threatened to exterminate the population of an entire planet. You could spend weeks recounting their achievements…
“Now I remember.” I interrupted Gromozeka. “Of course I’ve heard of the Three Captains.”
“To-to,” Gromozeka grumbled and drank from his can of Ex-Lax. “How quickly we forget our heros. Shameful.” Gromozeka reproachfully nodded his soft head and continued. “Some years ago the paths of the Captain’s diverged. The First Captain was lured onto the Venus Project.”
“That I know about.” I said. “That means he’s one of those who are changing the planet’s orbit.”
“Yes. The first captain always loved grandiose projects. And when he learned that the decision had been taken to shift Venus’s orbit further from your sun and change the period of its rotation so that people can settle there, he immediately offered his services to the project. And this is glorious, in as much as the scientists had decided to turn Venus into a very large space ship and there is no one else in the Galaxy better suited than the First Captain in dealing with the celestial mechanics of a world-ship.”
“And the remaining Captains.”
“The second, it is said, died somewhere, whereabouts unknown and when unknown too.
“The Third captain set off for the Andromeda Galaxy and will not return for many, many years.
“What I wanted to say to you, is that the Captains encountered many strange, rare, even miraculous beasts and birds. Their notebooks and diaries would surely provide invaluable information.”
“And where are they?”
“Their notebooks and records are maintained on the Three Captains’ World. Right beside the monument which was erected by subscriptions from the grateful inhabitants of some seven hundred planets there is a laboratory and memorial center. The full time resident archivist is a doctor Verkhovtseff. He knows more about the Three Captains than anyone in the Galaxy. If you drop in there, you will not regret it.”
“Thank’s Gromozeka.” I said. “Perhaps you’ve had enough Ex-Lax? Didn’t you once complain to me that it had a bad effect on your heart?”
“What can I do?” My friend threw up his tentacles in horror. “I have three hearts, anyway. Ex-Lax has a precarious affect on one of them, but there is no way I can remember which one.”
We spent another hour remembering old friends and adventures the two of us had both, however precariously, survived. Suddenly the door to the corridor opened and a crowd of humans and off-worlders appeared. They were carrying the members of the Earth soccer squad on their hands and other appendages. A band was playing; there were shouts of triumph.
Alice jumped out of the crowd. “Know what?” She shouted when she saw me. “Those mercenaries from Mars didn’t help the Fyxxians one bit. It was three to one! Now there will be a match on a neutral field!”
“And what about the Third B.” I asked maliciously.
“They never made it.” Alice said. “I’d have seen them for sure. I guess the Third B was caught and sent back. In potato sacks! Serves them right!”
“You’re a dangerous person, Alice.” I said.
“She is not!” The outraged Gromozeka cut in. “You have no right to insult a helpless child so! I will not give her to you to be insulted again!”
Gromozeka embraced Alice with his tentacles and lifted her to the ceiling.
“No,” he repeated again agitatedly. “Your daughter is my daughter, ad I will not allow it.”
“But I am not your daughter.” Alice said from above. Fortunately, she was not the least bit frightened.
But the same could not be said for the engineer Zeleny. At that very moment he came into the corridor and what did he see but Alice beating at the tentacles of an enormous monster. Zeleny did not even notice me. He threw himself at Gromozeka, his rusty beard like the banner on a charging Medieval knight’s lance, and tore into my friend’s round belly like a madman.
Gromozeka snatched up Zeleny with his free tentacles and draped him over one of the ceiling lights. Then he carefully lowered Alice and asked me:
“Did I become too demonstrative?”
“A little.” Alice answered for me. “Put Zeleny down on the floor.”
“He shall not throw himself on archaeologists.” Gromozeka said. “I do not want to take him down. Ave, we shall see each other in the evening. I have remembered that I must spend the rest of the working day in the base warehouse.”
And, craftily winking at Alice, Gromozeka pushed off on all his tentacles in the direction of the airlocks, leaving behind him a more than faint whiff of Ex-Lax in the corridor.
We got Zeleny down from the chandeliers with the help of the soccer team, and I was somewhat angry at my friend; as talented a scientist and true a friend as Gromozeka may be, he was raised very badly and his sense of humor sometimes takes strange forms.
“Where are we headed for?” Alice asked when we were walking toward the ship.
“Our first task,” I said, “Is to get our cargo to Mars and the researchers at Arcturus Minor. And from there we’ll go directly to sector 19-4, to Three Captains Base.”
“All hail the Three Captains!” Alice said, although she had never heard about them before in her life.
Chapter Four
The Vanishing Tadprowlers
The investigators on Arcturus Minor met the Pegasus with a brass band, figuratively if not literally. As soon as we had eased our way down onto the metal plates of the landing field they smartly marched out into the constant rain to greet us, followed by the all-terrain vehicle. The pre-fab landing field was still staggering under our ship’s weight; rusty water bubbling with the products of plant decomposition still splashed in the cracks between the plating. They were all in space suits with top hats on top of the closed helmets, the trumpets and bassoons were flat plastic cut-outs, and two of the researchers carried a large plate with the Key to the Planet.
And when we came down to the wet metal strips of the space port they decorated our helmets of our space suits with leis and awarded Alice with the keys to the research station.
Our arrival was an excuse to have a feast in the close confines of the base dining hall. We were treated to fruit salad concentrate, dehydrated duck and artificial ham sandwiches. The engineer Zeleny, who also worked as the Pegasus’s chef, responded in kind and managed to place on the table real apples, real sliced pears with real currants and, best of all, real rye bread.
Alice was the principal guest. All the researches were adults; they had been forced to leave their children at home on Mars, the Earth, and Ganymede, and they depressed without real children. Alice answered all their questions, honestly trying to be far more stupid than she was in reality, and when she returned to the ship she confided in me:
“They were hoping I’d be a pretty little doll; the kind who wouldn’t cause them any trouble.”
The next day we transferred all the cargo and packages we had brought to the research base, but, unfortunately, it turned out that the research team couldn’t invite us to go hunting local animals: the season of storms had begun, all rivers were overflowing their banks and travel around the planet was nearly impossible.
“Would you like us to get you a tadprowler?”
“Why not?” I agreed.
I had occasion to hear about various of the local reptiles, but so far I had not encountered a tadprowlers.
About two hours later the researchers brought us a large aquarium, on the bottom of which dozed meter long tadprowlers, who resembled giant salamanders. Then the researches dragged a large container of water plants up the gangway.
“This feed will just get them going.” They said. “Look, the tadprowlers are very voracious and will grow quickly.”
“Shouldn’t we make the aquarium a bit larger?” I asked.
“An Olympic sized pool might even be better.” The base chief answered.
His people even now were dragging yet another container of food for the tadprowlers up the gangway.
“Just how quickly do they grow?” I asked.
“Pretty quickly. I can’t really put it more precisely.” The base chief answered. “We don’t hold any of them in captivity.”
He smiled mysteriously and started to speak with someone else.
I asked the head of the research team:
“And you’ve never had a chance to spend any time on the Three Captains’ World?”
“No.” He answered. “But once Doctor Verkhovtseff came to visit us; that was about a month or so ago. I really have to say that he struck me as being an enormous crank.”
“How so?”
“Why would he need the design schematics of the starship “Blue Gull?”
“I am sorry, but why is that strange?”
“It’s the Second Captain’s ship, the one that vanished without a trace four years ago.”
“But why would Verkhovtseff need information on that ship?”
“Why indeed? I asked him about it. It turns out he is up to his ears in writing a book about the exploits of the Three Captains, a documentary novel, and he can’t continue his work without knowing how that ship was constructed.”
“Are you saying the ship’s special?”
The base commander almost laughed condescendingly.
“I see you haven’t a clue…” He said. “The ships of the Three Captains were all made specially to order, and then each of them was more or less re-built by the captains themselves by their own hands. And these were astonishing ships! Equipped for all conceivable circumstances. One of them, the Everest, the First Captain’s ship, stands today in the Paris Astronautics Museum.”
“Then why doesn’t Verkhovtseff just call the Paris Astronautics Museum?” I was retorted.
“Because each of the three ships was different!” The research chief answered. “Each of the Captains was unique, and so was each of their ships.”
“So I guess we’re off to Verkhovtseff.” I said. “I gather you can give us the coordinates of his base?”
“With pleasure.” The Chief answered. “And give him our greetings while you’re at it. And don’t forget to transfer the tadprowlers to your pool.”
We said our farewells to the hospitable researchers and departed.
Before I dropped off to sleep I decided to examine the tadprowlers.
It turned out their similarity to salamanders was only superficial. They were covered with a tough, shining mass of scales, and they had enormous sad eyes with long lashes, short tails split in two and ended with thick, coarse brushes.
I decided would move the tadprowlers to the pool in the morning there was nothing that could happen to them overnight in the aquarium. I threw the tadprowlers two pieces of water plants and turned off the light in the hold. A beginning had been made the first animals for the Zoo were aboard the Pegasus.
In the morning Alice awakened me.
“Papa,” she said. “Wake up.”
“Anything happen…”
I glanced at my watch. It was still only seven O’clock in the morning ship’s time.
“Why have you gotten up so early?”
“I wanted to take a look at the tadprowlers. I’ve never seen anything like them on Earth before.”
“What of it? For that you have to awaken your elderly father? You should have turned on the robot. Let him get breakfast ready; we have to reason to hurry to get up.”
“Your breakfast can wait, Daddy!” Alice shot back very impolitely. “I’m telling you, get up and come look at the tadprowlers!”
There was something in her voice that made me very apprehensive.
I got out of my bunk and, without bothering to get dressed, ran to the hold where the aquarium had been placed. The sight which awaited me was tremendous. The tadprowlers, as unbelievable as this may sound, had more than doubled their size over-night and now no longer fit into the little aquarium. Their tails stuck over the sides of the glass and now hung down almost to the deck.
“That can’t be!” I said. “We’ll have to ready the pool immediately.
I ran to awaken the engineer Zeleny.
“Come quick; the tadprowlers have grown so much I can’t even lift one up.”
“I did warn you.” Zeleny said “It’s all going to be like this. Why in heaven’s name did I ever agree to work on a wandering Zoo? Why?”
“I don’t know.” I said. “Come on.”
Zeleny put on a coverall and let himself be dragged, grumbling, to the hold. When he saw the tadprowlers he gasped, scratched his beard, and groaned:
“Tomorrow they’ll occupy the entire ship!”
Fortunately for us the pool had already been filled with water. With Zeleny’s aid I transferred the tadprowlers. They turned out to be not quite as heavy as they looked, but they twisted and squirmed from our hands so much that when we had dropped the third and last of them into the pool we were bruised and covered with sweat.
The Pegasus’s pool wasn’t very large four by three meters and only two meters deep but the tadprowlers found it comfortable. They began to circle around inside, hunting for fish. It took little intelligence to realize they were famished certainly these creatures, evidently, were intent on setting the Galactic record for speed of growth.
While I fed the tadprowlers half the contents of one of the crates of water plants were consumed at once Poloskov appeared in the hold. He had already showered, shaved, and was dressed in uniform.
“Alice tells me your tadprowlers have grown a bit.” He said, laughing.
“Not enough to be worth mentioning.” I answered, pretending that such wonders were anything but unusual to me.
Then Poloskov looked into the pool and gasped.
“Crocodiles!” He said. “Real crocodiles! They could eat a man in one gulp”
“There’s nothing to fear.” I said. “They’re vegetarians. The researchers should have warned us, though.”
The tadprowlers swam on the surface of the water and opened thier enormous, hungry maws.
“They want to eat again.” Zeleny said. “Pretty soon they’ll come hunting us.”
Toward supper the tadprowlers had reached a length of two and a half meters and had entirely consumed the first crate of water plants.
“They could very well have warned us.” Zeleny groused, referring to the researchers. “They knew what was going to happen and were thinking: let the specialists sweat some.”
“Naw, that wasn’t it.” Alice spoke up; the researchers on Arcturus Minor had given her as going away presents: a model of an ATV carved from wood, a chess set made from the bones of an excavated parallelepiped, a small paper knife carved from the core of a petrified tree, and a number of other interesting items which they had made themselves over the long evenings to maintain their sanity.