Voyagers: Escape the Vortex (Book 5)

by Jeanne DuPrau

  This time Ravi spoke the words loudly, clearly, and with space in between. “Anna…and…Cheetah…thrown in LAKE. She could…DIE. COME RIGHT NOW!”

  Dash still didn’t understand—a lake?—but he got the main message. The Omega team needed rescuing. “Coming!” he shouted. “As fast as we can! Coordinates, Ravi!”

  Ravi sent them, and Dash entered them in his MTB, and then he made a quick call to Chris. “Ignore my previous message. We’re not ready for pickup,” he said. “Emergency.”

  “What? What do you mean, emerg—” Chris said, but Dash cut him off. No time to talk now.

  Carly had run out of the cave and was standing next to him, hopping with impatience. “What’s going on? What happened to them?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Dash. “But Ravi sounded totally serious. Anna fell in a lake, I think.”

  “How do we know this isn’t another trap?” Carly asked.

  Dash shrugged. “I guess we don’t. But we’re the kind of team that helps when someone’s in trouble. So we need to check it out. We’ll just have to be careful.”

  “Yeah, okay,” said Carly. Both of them looked at the snow-covered Streak. “It’s not like it doesn’t run.”

  Dash agreed. “It’s just that we’ll freeze to death riding in it without the roof.”

  “We’ll have to take turns driving,” Carly said. She got to work, brushing the snow off the seats and the dashboard. “I’ll go first. While I’m driving, you crouch down behind the seats with TULIP. Put the blanket over both of you. When I get so cold I can’t go on, we’ll trade.”

  “Sounds good,” said Dash. His weariness vanished. Nothing like an emergency to jolt a person into action. He loaded TULIP into the Streak, and he and Carly dug around the runners to free them from the snowbank. Carly plugged the coordinates into her MTB and jumped into the driver’s seat, and Dash climbed into the back and hoisted the thermal blanket over himself and TULIP like a tent.

  “Ready,” he called, and Carly started the motor.

  Though they went at top speed, stopping only to change places when one of them got too cold, it took Carly and Dash nearly fifteen minutes to reach the cliff from which they could see the herd of ice crawlers moving slowly around a range of low hills, creeping up slopes where locusts swarmed, curling up, and rolling down. Around them, high white cyclones of snow locusts formed, whirled, and dissolved. To the east was the strange, swirling lake. Its waters looked like pure liquid silver.

  “There’s Ravi,” said Dash, who was driving. He pointed at a dark spot by the lake shore. And in the lake, he saw another dark spot, riding with the current, around and around and around. “And there—look, Carly! The Cheetah. With Anna inside.”

  Carly peeked out from under the blanket. “It’s a giant whirlpool! She must be terrified. How will we ever get her out of there?”

  “We’ll find a way.” Dash gunned the Streak, and they sped down the slope.

  Piper slipped through the engine room door. The room was huge, bigger than a football field. Stacks of crates full of supplies were stored here, along with tarp-covered vehicles and other equipment to be used on the different planets. The light was dim, and the ceiling was very high. There was a smell of motor oil and the constant low roar of the machinery that made the Light Blade run.

  Piper saw that the Light Blade’s transport ship, the Clipper, was parked near the docking bay doors. That worried her a little. Would there be room for the Cloud Cat to come in? She flew closer to the little transport ship and scoped out the space. It would be okay, she thought—just might need some careful maneuvering.

  She checked her mobile tech. She had two minutes to find the switch that opened the outer door of the docking bay so that Gabriel could fly in. That shouldn’t be hard.

  Piper made her way around the edge of the room, past a tower of fuel packs, a row of recycling bins for parts they might be able to repurpose, and some piece of complicated equipment she didn’t recognize. She felt along the wall where the switch should be, and there it was, just a little lower than the one in the Cloud Leopard.

  She checked the time again. He should be here any moment. She flew to the rear window and hovered there, waiting. Her heart thrummed with excitement.

  That was when she heard the pop and thud sounds of someone coming through a portal. Uh-oh. She floated quietly to the top of the tower of fuel packs and peeked over.

  It was Colin. He walked toward the Clipper, putting on a helmet as he went. He opened the door of the cockpit and climbed in.

  A shock went through Piper. Colin must be going to pick up the crew on Tundra! This would ruin everything! According to the plan, Gabriel should be out there in the Cloud Cat any second, and if Colin took off now, the two would meet head-on.

  There was no time to wonder what might happen then, because it was happening as she watched. The door slid up, the Clipper rolled into the bay, the door slid down. She heard the outer door going up, coming down. She waited a minute, then another minute—and then she sped to the window and looked out. There was the Clipper, heading down toward Tundra. The Cloud Cat was nowhere in sight.

  —

  Gabriel, standing next to the Cloud Cat, checked his MTB. Time to open the inner door of the docking bay. He flipped the switch on the wall just to the right of it, and the door slid upward from the bottom, rumbling and clanking.

  All right. Now to fire up the ship, roll it through the inner door, close the inner door behind him, open the outer door—and off to the rescue!

  He climbed the short ladder to the cockpit and settled himself in the pilot’s seat. He strapped himself in; he put on his helmet. The control panel, sensing his presence, flashed a yellow light. Okay. Now the prep routine—setting coordinates, making sure gauges were at correct levels, activating read-outs. Gabe pressed buttons and swiped touch screens, his eyes focused on the task.

  He estimated that it would take less than four minutes to travel to where the Light Blade was stationed. He had told Piper to open the outer door at exactly thirteen hundred hours. By now, she would have escaped from the training room, and so, since she was away from SUMI, he would have no way to communicate with her. Everything depended on their timing.

  There. Finished and ready. He looked up—

  Straight into the eyes of Chris, who was standing beside the cockpit window, looking at him with a big question on his face. “What’s going on?”

  Gabriel opened the door. “I’m going to pick up Piper.”

  “No way!” said Chris. “Not now! I need this machine to go get Carly and Dash from Tundra. They just called. There’s some kind of emergency.”

  “Chris, I have it all planned!” Gabriel objected. “It will take twenty minutes, maybe less. It’s critical!”

  “Not as critical as getting the team. I don’t know what’s going on, but it could easily be a life-or-death situation.”

  “But Piper is waiting—” Gabe began.

  Chris shook his head firmly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But she’s been waiting for weeks. Another hour or so won’t matter. Come on, Gabe. Be reasonable.”

  Reluctantly, Gabe climbed down from the cockpit and Chris took his place. “But we’re going for Piper the instant you get back!” Gabe called up to him.

  “Right,” said Chris, strapping himself in.

  Gabriel watched as the Cloud Cat rolled through the inner door, and then he turned and pitched himself into the nearest portal. There was a slight chance that Piper hadn’t yet left the training room. He had to try to reach her and tell her to stay there a while longer. Otherwise, she’d be hanging out in the Light Blade’s engine room, counting down to the moment she’d open the docking doors. And when she did, he wouldn’t be there. He didn’t want that to happen.

  In the training room, he ran for STEAM’s console. He entered the connection code and the code that would put SUMI into sleep mode. Then he spoke into the transmitter. “Petunia! Are you there?”

  He waited. No answer. “Pe
tunia! Speed Devil Supreme calling! Please respond!”

  Again—nothing but silence. He was too late. Piper had escaped her captivity, and unless something had gone wrong, she was waiting for him in the engine room. And he was about to let her down.

  Ravi ran up to Dash and Carly as they coasted to a stop. “Quick!” he shouted. “She’s getting pulled farther and farther down! What can we do?”

  Dash got out of the Streak. He had been thinking about this very question as he drove down to the plain. It wasn’t hard to zero in on a solution, since as far as he could tell, there was only one solution. “Somehow,” he said, “we have to throw a line to Anna, have her attach it to the Cheetah, and then haul her out—without dumping her into the lake in the process.”

  “R-r-r-right,” Ravi said. He was so cold that his whole body was shaking and his skin was deathly pale.

  “Is her radio still working?” Dash asked.

  “Off and on,” said Ravi. “I know she’s alive—that’s all. And I radioed Colin to come. He might be able to help.”

  There was no time to talk about how this had happened. Dash figured it might have something to do with the enormous crawler that was gliding away from them, moving swiftly for a beast of its size. All the crawlers, in fact, seemed to be moving away from the lake, probably scared by the alien beings that had come among them.

  Dash shouted into his radio, “Carly—we need the rope!”

  Carly, warm from her time with TULIP, moved fast. She hopped out of the Streak, opened the back hatch, and rummaged around until she found the coil of rope that was part of their equipment. She carried it out to Dash and Ravi. “I don’t know if this will be long enough. She’s pretty far out there.”

  “We had a rope too,” Ravi said sadly, “but it’s on the Cheetah.”

  Dash took a moment to assess the problem. It wouldn’t be easy to cast the rope far enough. Impossible, in fact; they’d have to tie a weight to the end. And their timing would have to be exact, because they were aiming for a moving target. And Anna would need to figure out the plan, or her radio would need to be working well enough for them to explain it.

  And the Streak would need to have the power to pull her out.

  And they’d all have to survive the bone-cracking cold for however long this rescue effort was going to take.

  A lot of tough requirements.

  “Carly,” he said, “find a rock, about this big, long and narrow.” He put his hands about six inches apart. “Ravi, get in the Streak behind the seats—TULIP’s back there. Stay close to her and warm up. I’m going to drive right to the shore.”

  Dash could see that the power of the lake’s circular current was going to be hard to pull against. He would need to give the Streak as much help as he could. He drove slowly along the edge of the lake. The shore was icy and sloped steeply down to the silver liquid. If he parked the Streak on the slope and roped the rear end of it to the Omega racer, it would be pulled backward into the vortex. He needed something to brace the rear of the Streak against—a solid snowbank would help.

  Up ahead, Carly beckoned. Dash steered the Streak toward her, and she ran up to him. “Look.” She held up the stone she’d found—it was just the right size, black and heavy and with a rough texture. “And over there”—she pointed—“is a ridge of ice that we could back up against.”

  Dash drove toward it. He looked out over the lake—the Cheetah was on the far side of the funnel now, moving slowly back toward them, a long way below ground level. He could just barely make out Anna’s face in the window.

  Dash brought the Streak to a halt. Ravi, who had stopped shaking quite so badly, climbed out. Carly was already busy tying the end of the rope to the back of the Streak.

  “Here’s how I think we should do this,” Dash said. “First we have to tell Anna to get in the back part of the Cheetah, open the hatch, and get ready to catch the line.”

  “But what if the lake pours in when she opens the hatch?” Carly said.

  “She’ll have to try to balance the snowmobile so it stays on the surface,” Dash said. “If she can’t, then I’m afraid she’s lost.”

  “This is all my fault,” said Ravi. “I should never have listened—”

  “Forget it,” said Dash. “Here’s what we have to do. We wait until the current is bringing her close to us—till she’s not quite right below us, but almost. Then we throw her the rope—I’ll do that. She catches it; she ties it to the Cheetah and alerts us when she’s done. The ice ridge in back of the Streak will keep it from getting jerked toward the lake when she ties on. Once we’re connected, we go forward, pulling. Carly, you’ll be in the driver’s seat.”

  Carly nodded and climbed in.

  “Ravi, try to tell Anna what we’re doing. I’m going to get in position.”

  Dash went to the edge of the lake and gazed out. The Cheetah was moving toward him, being carried smoothly by the circling current. He raised the rock to shoulder height. He waited.

  “Anna says okay,” Ravi called. “I think she heard me, and she’s ready to open the hatch.”

  When the Cheetah was close, Dash heaved the rock. The rope trailed through the air, the rock fell, a hand in a heavy glove reached from the hatch—but before she could grab on, the rock splashed and sank.

  Dash hauled on the rope. “Help me, Ravi!” he called, and Ravi took hold, and they both pulled, reeling the rope back to shore. Dash took hold of the rock and prepared to throw again.

  He and Ravi waited and watched as the Cheetah traveled around. When it approached, a little farther down this time, Dash waited a bit longer than he had before. Then he heaved the rock.

  This time, two hands reached out from the hatch.

  “She’s got it!” cried Ravi. He waited, listening. Another minute or so. “She’s tying on! She’s ready!”

  “Ready to go,” Dash radioed to Carly, and Carly let up on the brake and moved the Streak slowly forward.

  The rope tightened. Far below, the Cheetah pitched back and forth as it was tugged forward by the current and upward by the rope. After a minute, it settled in one place, stern slanting up.

  “Slow and steady!” Dash called to Carly, and she pressed harder on the accelerator. The engine roared, but the runners skidded. They couldn’t get a grip on the snowy ground. Carly was only managing to stay in one place.

  “I can’t move forward!” she called. “Too slick!”

  “Keep pulling. Steady speed.”

  “It isn’t going to work!” Ravi wailed. “We’re going to lose her!”

  “No, we’re not,” said Dash. “I have an idea.” He was remembering what Carly had said when they first saw Tundra—that creatures here were adapted to live in the cold and wouldn’t have much use for the fireplaces or hot tubs that Gabe was joking about. The idea that had just come to Dash was so wild and risky it didn’t have much chance of working. Still, some chance was better than none. “Ravi,” he said, “tell Anna to untie the rope from the Cheetah. She has to circle the vortex one more time.”

  “She won’t like that,” said Ravi.

  “Tell her we’ll throw the rope down again when she comes back around,” said Dash. “It’s the only way.”

  When Ravi told her to untie the rope from the Cheetah, Anna felt close to despair. “Don’t give up on me!” she radioed. “Please, Ravi!”

  “Not giving up!” Ravi’s voice came through more strongly now. “New plan! Go one more time around, hook up again.”

  So, reluctantly, Anna pulled at the knot that held the rope to the Cheetah’s rear hitch. Her fingers were clumsy in their thick gloves, and stiff from cold. And the knot was tight, because it was being tugged from the other end. It took all the strength she had to pull the heavy cords apart.

  As soon as she did, the Cheetah lurched sickeningly, rocked from end to end, and nearly threw her out through the hatch. But she didn’t lose her grip, and the current swept the Cheetah onward, farther and farther from her rescuers. On the long trip around
the lake, Anna felt terror more than anything, but swirling around the vortex also gave her time to think. About winning at all costs. Never worrying about who she hurt along the way—even on her own team. And about the Alpha team. And how quickly and readily the Alpha team had come to save her. Right now, it was hard to think of them as enemies.

  The Cheetah took a sudden dip, and Anna lurched forward, ramming her hands against the dashboard. She cried out. She was truly frightened. What if the Alpha team couldn’t rescue her? What if she was sucked down into the depths of this horrible lake and her life ended right here?

  At least she would die a hero. But would she really? She’d always tried to do the right thing. A leader had to be hard. But had she been too hard? Leaving Piper on Aqua Gen—had that been a good decision?

  She stared up at the silver liquid that spiraled above her. Now that she was the one in trouble, things looked a little different. The Cheetah plunged and pitched, Anna’s thoughts swirled, and the combination made her feel more sick and confused than she ever had before.

  A wave splashed against the Cheetah’s windshield and broke into droplets like sprays of bullets. Anna flinched. If I get out of here, she vowed silently, I promise to be better. I’ll be kinder. I’ll be stronger. Just please, Alphas, save me!

  —

  When the rope went loose, Dash and Ravi hauled it up. Then Dash shouted directions into his transmitter. “Carly, come a little this direction.” He gestured with both hands toward himself. “Go slow.”

  Carly steered slowly toward Dash. Behind the Streak, the rope slid off the ridge of ice and dragged along the ground.

  “Ravi, get in the Streak—in the back with TULIP,” Dash said.

  Ravi hopped in, and Dash leapt into the seat and strapped himself in. “Now head that way,” he said. He pointed to the ice crawler that still lay a short distance away, twitching slightly, at the edge of the lake.

  “Really?” Carly said. “That’s the one that heaved Anna into the lake.”