Guybrush opened his eyes.
It felt like centuries had passed. Wally was on the floor beside him, out cold. The air tasted strange. And it was freezing.
The door at the top of the stairs opened.
The air supply, or what remained of it, whistled past Guybrush's face in a blistering cold gale. There was a figure up at the top of the stairs, clad in a spacesuit. The figure's face was hidden behind the black mask of his helmet.
The spacesuit had transparent legs. Guybrush took a while to work this out. At first he thought he was hallucinating. Then he thought maybe the figure had only put on the top half of the spacesuit. But no: the legs of the spacesuit were transparent. Guybrush could see a pair of bare feet, thin yellow calves, and hairy thighs.
Eventually it dawned on Guybrush that there was no more oxygen. He fainted.
The next day...
Guybrush woke.
He was in a plush bedroom, lying down on a four poster bed. The room, and the bed, were entirely unfamiliar. He was enclosed in four metal walls in a strange place, and yet Guybrush didn't feel worried.
He got up and walked out into a thin featureless passageway. Where on earth was he? Fluorescent light strips ran down the passage ceiling, filling the passage with harsh yellow light.
Guybrush came to another doorway. Inside was a circular couch, and on the couch was Wally.
Wally looked up. "Mr Brush!" he said. "You woke up! I was a bit worried for a while."
"Er, thanks," said Guybrush. He looked around the lounge. "Do you happen to know where we are?"
"Um, no," said Wally.
"And come to that," added Guybrush, "why aren't we dead? And whose place is this?"
"I believe I can answer that," said a voice behind them.
Guybrush nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned, to see an old man standing proudly in the doorway. This old man, unlike most old men of Guybrush's acquaintance, wore a long dirty leather jacket, dirty flying goggles, and mechanics gloves. To go with this, he wasn't wearing any pants.
It sudden came together for Guybrush. "The Hermit," he breathed.
The Hermit nodded, grinning.
"Who?" said Wally.
"The Hermit," said Guybrush, to Wally. "This man... well, legend has it that he invented the HyperInflatory drive. Flew out into space, and came back with a fortune in rare metals, before anyone had even thought of becoming a space pirate. Then he vanished, just as the first space pirates were jetting off. People said he found a remote area in the heart of the asteroid belt, unreachable by spacecraft, and became a hermit. If it wasn't for him, none of us would even be here today. Wow," he added, talking to the Hermit. "You mean we're inside the arc?"
"You are," said the Hermit, "and it's not unreachable by spacecraft, just very hard to get to."
"But why did you rescue us?" asked Guybrush.
The Hermit sat down. "I'm a curious man," he said. "Nobody's flown past my asteroid in forty years. No-one at all, except for me. Then all of a sudden, your spacecraft turns up. And when I check the radar, it looks like you didn't fly here - it looks like you just materialised somehow.
"So I flew up and checked. And that was strange too. The spacecraft was a Mark IV needlefighter. Old, but very large - three separate storeys. And expensive. The only people who can afford to fly Mark IV are members of the larger pirate gangs. But your ship didn't have any identifying markings. Now I've been out in space a long time, and I've never heard of an independent pirate flying a Mark IV."
The Hermit looked straight at Guybrush. "So I want some answers. Now."