The Casebook of Skasis Fane: Wishful Thinking pt5

  Felix nodded and poured a handful of water onto the gills of the grey-tailed merman named Kiuni – that very one whose column was in cracks. The flat discs responded with twitching and flapping, revealing the wide holes underneath, then the merman inhaled and blinked in confusion.
  “Stay still, Kiuni, okay?” Felix asked: the merman tensed, preparing to another attempt of ripping the wires holding him in place. Or destroying the column: he could, Skasis saw it well. Biting his tongue in order not to freak out, the kid crouched and began cutting the metal ropes one by one with the laser hankwrench.
  “Felix, you know them, so… is anyone here breath-bonded?” Skasis wondered as soon as this thought rose in his mind.
  “The merpeople believe directly asking about this to be very tactless, mind you,” Felix pointed out, rubbing water into the next merperson’s gills (it was a ginger mermaid with a scarlet tail). “Although it can be seen at times, you just have to be attentive… Kiuni and Ramina surely are, then… Belac and Rana, and then Primetooler and Meiah. I’m not sure about the rest.”
  “At least half of them, so then breath-bond and faith were in the list as well,” Skasis summed up, cut the last wire in half and almost felt sick: Kiuni’s torso and arms underneath were covered in even worse bruises and blood stains than he had seen at the first time. The merman took a deep breath of air and winced in pain, leaning on his fists against the floor.
  “When we get them all into the water, they’re gonna heal better than here. They’re quick healers,” Felix assured.
  “I’ve already made sure of it,” Skasis replied, now cutting the wires holding the next merperson. “Okay, we almost solved the tailed problem, but what about legged one? You’ve seen that I got Bene, Ahita and Wim out, but I doubt we’re gonna leave them here.”
  “And we’re not,” Felix stated. “At least we can get them onto the rocks, and then…”
  Skasis didn’t know what was going to take place ‘then’, so he silently continued his work. Almost all merpeople did not resist being almost operated on like that (except for the mermaid with short silver hair and red tail with white stripes along it, who attempted to smack Skasis with her tail at first, but stopped her rebellion as soon as she spotted that Kiuni was free, so the kid assumed that this was Ramina), but this wasn’t going to last for long.
  “Huh? Whaa? What? Eli?! Kiuni? Yung?! What the…”
  “Shush!” Felix prayed, having almost stuffed his fist into the mouth of the merman whom he had just woken up – the one with chin-length black hair, bristled chin and cheeks and grayish blue tail, the ending fins on which were brownish red. “It’s no time to freak out, Primetooler! Do whatever you want, but be quiet, okay?”
  “Whatever I want? In a room filled with dead?!” Primetooler shot out after Felix pulled his hand out.
  “No one’s dead here, including Meiah,” Felix nodded at Skasis, who was now working on the ropes around the petite blond mermaid with lime green tail – close to Skasis’s hair shade. “But if you go on screaming, I guarantee that EVERYONE including you will be dead in a blink of an eye.”
  Primetooler opened his mouth to reply, but then must’ve realized that Felix was right and resentfully pursed his lips. Until the work was done, he was keeping silent, but Skasis did hear him mutter something very similar to ‘step aside, two legs’ while cutting his wires.
  “What kind of name is Primetooler, anyway?” Skasis hummed – half to himself, half to tease the wayward merman.
  Finally the procedures were over, and the kid felt really uneasy – even more uneasy than before, while meeting the merpeople for the first time, because now two dozen eyes were observing him with wariness and a faint twinge of hope.
  “There. Hey everyone, can you move around?” Felix asked, returning the empty helmet to Skasis. Most merpeople decided to check the named motion by balancing on their tails and performing curious snakelike motions. Some of them were wobbling, but eventually almost all of them finished up in half-standing positions, as far as it was possible. “Great. Just some more minutes, and you’re going to be outta here.”
  “How do you know? And who’s that weed-head?” Primetooler asked, hands on what would be hips if he had legs.
  “THAT is Skasis Fane, and I would’ve never found you if it were not for him,” Felix replied. “Come on, I don’t think we have much time left.”
  The merpeople coped with the first patch of the way relatively evenly, though some of them could not move properly on their own: the stronger supported the weaker. But when they reached the way to the ‘first floor’, a holdup appeared: how could one cover the ladder without legs? Skasis decided to use the only way which seemed sensible to him: as the strongest, Kiuni got down the ladder using his hands only, Skasis joined him there, and Felix stayed up, having begun helping the rest get down while Kiuni and Skasis were assisting them at the ‘first floor’. By the time when the last merperson reached the bottom level Skasis was huffing and puffing, though the feeling of delight with himself helped him stay alert.
  “Your friend quite a murderer, Eli,” Primetooler commented upon the sight of three humans bunched up in the farther end of the place.
  “They are merely sleeping, but if you do not help us, they will be quite dead,” Felix replied in annoyance.
  “Talk of dead all the time,” Primetooler murmured.
  Ulg, accompanied by Ina, was patiently waiting at the pond, hiding behind one of the rocks surrounding the edge of solid ground. It was clear that they both were relieved to see all of their missing pals alive and fine (well, almost fine), though Ina, unlike her breath-bonded friend, was doing her best to hide it.
  “No one there,” Ulg informed, pointing downwards. “No fish, no nothing.”
  “Got it, Ulg. Bring everyone back home, and I’ve got more business here, okay?” Skasis asked.
  “WE’VE got more business,” Felix pointed out. “I’m not going to abandon them here.”
  Skasis released the breath he did not realize he was holding when the last head vanished under the water surface:
  “At least half of the mission is almost over… Hey Felix, why weren’t they talking, except for that… Primetooler?”
  “Ah, that’s his special talent,” Felix replied, unfolded his wings and soared up, grinning with satisfaction: finally his ability to fly was returning. The landing was a bit rough, though, but it did not bother him much, for he was used to such landings. “Most merpeople get unable to speak when staying out of water for too long. Their vocal cords are built in such a way that they can talk underwater as well as out of it, and the moist acts like oil for gears. So, when they get too dry, their voice function reduces. But not in Primetooler’s case. His vocal cords are more humanlike, therefore he is able to talk above the water with no problem. The Honoured Liar of this planet, that’s what he is, that Primetooler.”
  “The Honoured Liar here is me!” Skasis exclaimed, having finally spotted a gaping hole in his impromptu plan. “How am I going to help your pals get up to the surface? They’re gonna drown before…”
  “Knock it off, Fane, I’ve spent enough time with merpeople to learn about their special talents,” Felix interrupted, knelt before the pond and lowered his face into it, letting bubbles out of his nose and mouth. Skasis didn’t hear what he was saying (who would speak like that anyway?), but when he stood up, the water surface was broken by two heads: one brown, the other black. “I’m really sorry, guys, but we’re gonna need your help. Klowbi, I’ve heard that you’re able to make water-filtering air bubbles. Is that true?” Klowbi, the black-haired merman with a spiral-tipped straw on the top of his head, gave him a thumb-up. “Great! How long will it take you to make three such bubbles in order to fit… me?”
  Klowbi performed a sequence of gestures to his neighbor, the brown-haired merman with a short stubby beard, bulging blue eyes and long arms, who understood and spoke for his pal:
  “Thirty tail-swooshes per one bubble be fine?”
  “Em… yes, just fine. Thanks.”
  “Not less, Eli, not less,” the second merman added, and the duo was gone again.
  Skasis waited until the distance from the pond was enough not to hear anything and only then asked:
  “Tail-swooshes?”
  “No watches under the sea, sorry,” Felix shrugged. “One tail-swoosh is around five seconds, I’ve counted. Two and a half minutes per one bubble, if so.”
  Let’s hope we will cope during this time, Skasis prayed to himself. Felix distracted him from his suspicions once again:
  “Klowbi’s talent is separating air and water. He has specific glands close to gills. They create some kind of a cover-up which also extracts oxygen from the water. Special biologic mixture, if you ask me… But, as you see, he cannot speak, partly because of that. Saw this spiral on his head? This is a sign that he lacks something important, in his case – speech. Thank goodness Yung knows the sign language.”
  I should learn it as well, Skasis told himself. The place remained eerily silent, making him wonder what the Master was doing in the secluded area – the kid was sure that he was still there because the room with glass columns remained in its state, as well as the three legged beings next to the wall.
  “Ladies first,” Felix commented and lifted Ahita up. “I don’t think you’re strong enough to carry them all, Skasis. Leave it to me.”
  Skasis was about to reply, but his throat froze for a second, the feeling of being paralyzed spreading down his body. Oh dear. Felix froze as well, still half-bent over.
  Of course, it was Inf, his expression stably remaining ghastly bored, but his eyes being the brightest shade of scarlet. He dragged his feet to Felix, and Skasis saw that there was a hole in the back of his head – a small creepy round hole. The kid didn’t want to think why it was there.
  Inf almost lazily curled his fingers around Felix’s throat, and the latter one’s lips moved again.
  “No worries, kids. The Master is trapped as the victim of his own plan. He cannot even move, I’ve fixed the paralysis effect on him.”
  “How the heck did you pull that off?” Skasis shot out.
  “For you it should be easy. He was about to transfer his consciousness into me, I caught the peak moment of his wish and reversed it. The effect was so strong that he is now not better than a statue even when I am away.”
  “You sure?” Skasis arched his brow.
  “Perfectly. After all, you did rebel against him, didn’t you?” Inf gazed at Ahita, whose head was hanging to the side. “Hmm, you could make sure of it by yourselves.”
  Skasis gasped and was released. However, Felix wasn’t, although Inf removed his hand from his throat.
  “Hey, what about me?” Felix exclaimed, and his face screwed: Inf must’ve used the freezing (to be exact, anti-motion) power once again. “Fine, I’ll say nothing more.”
  Inf glared at him and gestured Skasis to follow. The trip wasn’t long: at first they returned to the room where the merpeople had been kept, and then Inf walked directly to the glass container where he had been held. Behind it, another space was located – the pipes and tubes all led here, to this almost empty place which did not have any furniture apart from another tall glass column surrounded by an octagonal panel with loads of switches and buttons.
  “It’s a TARDIS,” Skasis realized. “It was a TARDIS all along. This is why it’s bigger on the inside. And sharks…”
  “Clever kid.”
  This sounded in Skasis’s head, and he spotted the Master, frozen in an unnatural pose next to the panel.
  “Maybe you will let me go?” the Master asked telepathically. The scarlet lights in Inf’s eyes shrunk. “Okay, it backfired again… And what are you gonna do with me?”
  “I’m gonna call the Time Detectives, and they will take care of you,” Skasis replied, thoroughly articulating. “I’m only concerned what to do with Inf.”
  “He already thought of a name for himself? Wow, that’s an indicator,” the Master replied with an obvious grin in his voice. “Inf. Infinity. Infection. Information.”
  Skasis silently sent the message to Maddie and, having paid one last glance to Inf, walked out of the room. Felix was already released: he was pulling Bene to the pond.
  “There you are,” he said, having spotted Skasis. “What happened?”
  “My work mates are going to pick the Master soon. He’s paralyzed. And we’d better get out of here. This place will be gone soon.”
  “How do you know?”
  “The control panel. The indications were critical, and this means that this whole place is going to be warped somewhere else.”
  “What?!” Felix shrieked. “What about Inf? We cannot leave him here!”
  “As long as you cast a shadow, I will be there.”
  This was said by Felix’s mouth, much to his astonishment, although Inf was nowhere to be seen.
  “Okay, convinced…”