We went and got Alabaster and told him about the collapse. He looked worried for a little bit but he went and got a long rope and we lowered it down into the crevice. We saved Weasel but we couldn’t the bottom of the chasm well enough so we had no idea if Dave was alive or not. This led to long conversations about various combinations of cranes, helicopters and rope ladders. Weasel even suggested that we lower down a heart monitor and then have one of us climb down and check Dave’s vital signs.
Plittereeg, Alabaster and I agreed that this was definitely a last resort. As we walked out of the ship Weasel continued to hop up and down supplying ideas.
“Or we could lower a television down, or we could lower a lamp down, or a maybe a laundry basket. . . ” Weasel continued on with ridiculous ideas as we walked towards the crater. The Plittereeg did something that, even with his vast array of tricks, seemed to be unaccomplishable. He shut his eyes, concentrated, and his right index finger shot off of his hand like a rocket, became pointed in midair, and hit the wall of the crevice on the other side, leaving a gooey strand of flesh behind. Plittereeg demonstrated how strong this was by swinging down into the pit. He continued to jump down farther and farther until we could no longer see him.
He came up holding Dave having formed a platform with the bulb on his left second finger (because he only has two fingers and one thumb). He hoisted Dave up through the walls and tunnels of the great pit. He set Dave down on the ground and kneeled down to feel his heartbeat.
“It’s beating,” he said, “but only very slowly. We don’t have much time.” The next few hours went by like a blur. Checking Dave’s vital signs, darting out of the room to grab a breathing mask of a bottle of pills, standing amidst the blur of figures running past and worrying about Dave filled all the time. The moment the blur stopped going past was when Plittereeg asked me if I would come with him to the ashes left behind by the giant larval insect and take samples of it for Alabaster to turn into medicine.
Plittereeg used yet another of his amazing tricks to contain the ashes- the bulbs on all the fingers on his right hand swelled and then mushed together to form a kind of large orb. His hand rounded out until it looked like part of his wrist. A line appeared around the diameter of the orb. Plittereeg flipped the lid open and began to collect the ashes.
After we were finished collecting the ashes we went back down the crevice and attempted to salvage the moon buggy. This was hard work, but at least the pickles were easy to collect. Plittereeg formed a container on his back and became our self-assigned container for collection.
After climbing back out of the chasm, we went back to the space ship. Me and Plittereeg ran as fast as we could back to the space ship. We dumped the salvaged parts into a bin and hurried back outside to continue our mission, but trouble was afoot. (dun, dun DDDUUUUUNNN!!!!!!!)