“To Saint Dane!” shouted the really old guy, who had been asleep and drooling. He jumped out of his chair, holding up his goblet. I couldn’t believe he could move that fast. Or move at all.
“Saint Dane!” the others cheered, and jumped to their feet. Even the old guy who had just questioned their plan took his glass and raised it with the others. Whatever was about to happen, there was no stopping it now.
Teek touched me on the shoulder and led us back out of the ventilation room. Once we closed the door, I asked, “What the hell were they talking about? What’s going to happen?”
“Follow me,” Teek said, and led us farther into the building.
“That group of bozos was the elite?” I asked. “How did they get to be in charge? Eeenie, meenie, miney, mo?”
“As I said,” Teek answered, “they are descendants of the original Rokador who discovered the underground.”
“So, they get to be in charge because of their ancestors, not because they’re any good at it?” I asked.
“That’s one way of putting it,” Teek said.
“That’s the only way of putting it,” I shot back. “There were a couple of kids in there! I’ll bet Saint Dane had a real tough time convincing them to do…whatever.”
I had to calm down. This was their show. The way the Rokador chose to rule themselves was none of my business-no matter how idiotic it was. I was more concerned about this big decision they had made. No, more like the big decision that Saint Dane maneuvered them into making.
Teek led us to the end of a long corridor, where a door stood out from all the others because it was made of steel. He stopped and turned to us. “We must be careful. There will be Tiggen guards inside.”
“What’s in there?” I asked.
Teek didn’t answer, but he opened the door and entered. I shot Loor a quick, nervous look. Were we about to see the nightmare that Bokka told us of? We followed Teek through the door and found ourselves on a narrow, steel catwalk that looked down onto a cavernous room. It was freaky at first, because I thought we had been running around the basement of this building. The room we had just entered dropped down another bunch of stories. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Digging holes is what these guys did best. Once I got my wits back, I tried to understand what I was looking at.
It was some kind of machine room. There were dozens of giant vertical silver cylinders lining the walls of this huge cavern that were connected by massive horizontal pipes. The center of the room was taken up by a single, huge horizontal pipe that ran the length of the room. This pipe had to be twenty feet across, with thick seams that were bolted together by thousands of fat rivets. The bottom half of the pipe was below the floor, so only the top half showed. Built onto the top of this pipe was a long platform. On the platform was the complex instrument panel that controlled the machinery. There were countless flashing lights, along with small dials and gauges. Three Rokador were on the platform, monitoring the gauges and making occasional adjustments to the small silver handles that controlled…whatever. As we watched, two more Rokador climbed the ladders to the platform and manned their own stations. The place had an energy to it. A physical energy. You could feel it. There was a low, steady hum. It felt like…power.
“This is the center of our world,” Teek said. “It is the master control station for the rivers of Zadaa. From here we channel all the water, and create our power.”
Hydropower. Of course! That’s how the Rokador kept the lights on. They used the flowing water to create power.
“So, all the water can be controlled from here?” I asked.
Teek nodded and motioned for us to follow him to the far side. We snuck across the catwalk and left through the steel door on the other side, finding ourselves in another tunnel. Teek made sure the door was closed, then turned to us and said, “When the Tiggen guards returned to Kidik, we learned why the engineers had been closing down the satellite stations throughout the underground. We were told it was because of the drought. The truth was that they wanted all control to be here. It is how they plan to defeat the Batu.”
We didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. He wasn’t finished. He wanted to talk. I think he needed to talk. That was fine by us. We needed to hear. Teek looked tired, and sad. He took a deep breath and continued, “This is the plan Saint Dane brought to us. When the Batu attack, we will wait until they are on our doorstep to be sure that most of the Batu are in the underground. When the first wave of warriors reaches the shores of the Kidik Ocean, we will release the water.”
Loor and I shot each other confused looks. “Explain what that means, please,” Loor said quickly.
“It means we will flood the underground,” Teek said with a shaky voice. “Every living thing beyond this island will be trapped, and drowned.”
Loor fell back against the stone wall, stunned. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Saint Dane’s evil plan for Zadaa had finally been revealed. He had found a way for one tribe to destroy the other. There wasn’t going to be a war, there was going to be a slaughter.
“Every single Ghee in the underground will be killed,” Loor said, numb. “Thousands will perish.”
“Xhaxhu will belong to the Rokador,” I said. “That’s the nightmare that Bokka talked about.”
“But it isn’t,” Teek said softly.
“Of course it is!” Loor shouted. “Why else would the Rokador wipe out so many Batu? You want the city. How can they make such a cruel decision? The Rokador used to be our friends!”
Teek was in tears. “There’s more,” he said.
“More than this?” I shouted. “More than genocide?”
“Yes,” Teek said. “I promise you, we did not know. Bokka, me, and most of the Tiggen guards. We weren’t here. We didn’t see it. We knew the elite were preparing for war, but we didn’t know why. It wasn’t until we returned that we saw the truth.”
“The truth,” Loor said. “Bokka said we needed to know the truth. What is the whole truth?”
Teek wiped his tears and said, “I will show you.”
We followed him through several more corridors until we had reached the far side of the large building. Teek stopped at a door and said to us, “Outside this door lies the truth, and the horror.” He took a deep breath to prepare himself, then walked out. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to see what was beyond the door, but I had to.
We followed him onto a balcony that looked out over a vast, flat field. It must have stretched out a mile in front of us, and almost as far to either side. The only reason we could see it so well was that the entire field was covered with small, round white stones. Thousands of them. I’m guessing they were about a foot in diameter. They were equally spaced in perfect rows for as far as I could see. On each stone was a small light. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this. There didn’t seem to be anything horrible about this place at all.
I was wrong.
“It started slowly,” Teek said. “There was no warning. By the time there was serious concern, it was too late. We are not like you. We do not live our lives exposed to the elements. We do not have the same resistance to disease as you.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Teek looked out at the sea of stones and said, “We were hit with a virus that caused a sickness. A deadly sickness.”