“Of course,” was Spader’s confident answer.
“Then shoot the flare!” I ordered.
He pointed the gun topside and fired. A screaming bright arc of light blasted from the pistol and shot toward the surface leaving a bright trail of light behind it. I looked up to see that the missile broke the surface and continued on into the sky. We had done it. We had crippled Saint Dane and thePursuitand opened the door for Yenza and the aquaneers to defend Grallion.
But we had done something else, too.
A few seconds later I saw four splashes next to the ship. Four divers had just hit the water, and they were coming after us. Yeah, you guessed it. The raiders saw our flare.
“Uh-oh,” said Spader. “Hadn’t thought of that.”
“We can’t get back to Grallion,” I said. “They’ll get us for sure.”
“Then let’s give ‘em a chase,” said Spader as he grabbed his water sled.
We both powered up and sped off along the ocean floor headed for… I didn’t know where. We flew over the bottom, inches from the coral, looking for a place to hide. It was a good thing that Spader and I had played all those games underwater, because my skills at handling the water sled were pretty good. Without slowing down, I looked back and saw the four raiders were right after us. They had water sleds too. I wondered if one of them was Saint Dane.
As we flew along the ocean bottom something caught my eye off to our right. Something was swimming alongside us, shadowing us. I only caught a quick glimpse because whatever it was, it darted below the coral. But what I saw didn’t make sense. It couldn’t have been a person because it was moving too fast. It might have been a big fish, maybe even a quig, but quigs were gray and black. This thing was green, like the water. Weird.
“The kelp!” shouted Spader.
I forgot about my strange vision and looked ahead to see the beginnings of the tangle of red sea kelp that grew from the coral reef and stretched up to the surface. If we could get into that dense jungle, we might have a chance of losing the raiders.
“Stay close,” commanded Spader. “Don’t want to get separated in there.”
We hit the dense kelp but didn’t slow down. The slimy leaves whipped at us as we sped by. Imagine running full tilt through a wet field of corn. That’s what it was like. For a moment I thought we were home free, but it didn’t last long because a second later, we popped out of the far side. Bad news. The kelp forest wasn’t anywhere big enough to hide us. We had to keep going.
And that’s when it happened. It was just a slight movement. I wasn’t even sure what it was at first, but a moment later it hit me. It was my ring. It was getting warm and the gray stone was starting to glow. That meant that we were getting near the gate. I looked up ahead and saw the shelf of rock where the quig had nearly gotten us. It was the rock formation that held the gate to the flume. I knew instantly that it was our best and only hope. Spader was going to have to learn about being a Traveler sometime. I couldn’t think of a better way to do it and save our butts at the same time.
“Follow me!” I shouted to Spader and changed my direction toward the rock overhang. Spader didn’t question. He followed. The thought of running into a quig flashed through my head, but right now it was the least of our worries. When we were just about to shoot under the rock ledge, Spader yelled, “Stop!”
I did. He glided up to me and said, “Don’t want to get trapped under there, mate. They’ll have us for sure.”
I looked back toward the kelp forest in time to see the four raiders break out of the vegetation and spot us.
“Do you trust me?” I asked.
“Well sure, mate, but — “
“Then c’mon!”
I hit the throttle and shot under the rock ledge. I did a quick look back to see if Spader was following. He was. For a change I could take the lead and he believed in me enough to follow. Now all I had to do was deliver.
The rock ceiling looked different, but only because the last time I was here I was going the other way. But that wasn’t a good excuse for being lost. I had to find the gate. The raiders had already gotten to the rock ledge and were still coming fast. All they had to do was follow our bubbles and they’d have us. I could only hope that I’d find the gate before I hit the dead end of rock.
I started to panic. I was lost. I didn’t know where the gate was. This rock ledge was huge. We could swim around here for hours without finding it. What was I thinking? I had led us into a trap. I had to calm down and think. Where was it?
The answer hit me instantly. I had been in such a rush to get in here that I wasn’t thinking straight. There was an easy way to find the gate. It was my ring. I swept my hand out in front of me and saw that the stone would dim or grow brighter, depending on the direction I pointed. I carefully judged when the ring was shining brightest and that told me our course. It was like following a compass. I took off in that direction and seconds later, I saw it. The round hole in the ceiling was only yards ahead. I aimed my water sled toward it and gunned the engine.
A quick thought went through my mind. Maybe I shouldn’t be leading the raiders to the gate and the flume. But I reasoned that it didn’t make a difference. If it was Saint Dane behind us, he already knew about the gate. If it wasn’t Saint Dane, then it wouldn’t matter if the raiders found it. The flume didn’t work for non-Travelers. No, this was the right move for all sorts of reasons.
I broke the surface inside the cavern and looked around quickly. It was exactly the same as we had left it. A moment later, Spader broke the surface next to me and looked around in wonder.
“Hobey, mate! How did you know about this?”
I pulled off my air globe and tossed it onto the ledge. I threw my water sled there too. There was no time to explain things to Spader. The raiders would be here in a second. So I yanked off his air globe and threw it and his water sled to the side. The two of us floated in the middle of the pool, treading water.
“I hope there’s another way out of here,” he said.
I laughed at that. I actually laughed.
“Spader,” I said. “You have no idea… but you soon will.”
I glanced up at the opening to the flume. I counted on the fact that we didn’t have to climb up the sheer rock face to get there. We didn’t have time.
“I’ll ask you again,” I said. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course, mate, but you better come up with something quick or we’re going to have our own natty-do right here and — “
“Zadaa!”I shouted.
The flume came to life. The familiar bright light shot from the opening. The jumble of musical notes grew closer. Spader looked up in awe.
“Hobey, Pendragon,” he said softly. “Where did you say you were from again?”
The water around us started to swirl. The light from the flume grew bright and the two of us were pulled up, together, out of the waters of Cloral.
A second later, we were on our way to see Loor.
END OFJOURNAL#6
“Why did he go to Zadaa?”huffed Courtney. “Why didn’t he bring Spader here to Second Earth? This is his home!”
Mark knew the answer. Loor was a Traveler. She would be able to help Bobby explain things to Spader. Things were getting hairy on Cloral and Loor was the kind of person you went to when things got hairy. Mark felt that Courtney should have realized this, but her jealousy toward Loor was clouding her thinking. Not that he’d point that out to her. No way.
Courtney stood up angrily and shoved the pages back at Mark.
“Well, if Bobby Pendragon thinks his new friend can help him better than we can, thengood luckis all I have to say!”
“C’mon, Courtney,” said Mark softly. “You know he did the right thing.”
Courtney looked as if she wanted to argue, but backed off. She knew.
“Yeah, well, whatever,” she said with a pout.
Mark now faced a dilemma. He had to tell Courtney about Andy Mitchell. He made a dumb mistake by leaving the page in the boys’ bathroom and because of it, Mitchell knew about the journals.