“Yeah? What if they come down to our level?”
Spader reached behind his back and pulled out his large, silver knife.
“Let ‘em,” he said with confidence.
“Whoa, did you bring that knife to Zadaa?”
“Didn’t think I’d go someplace strange without my trusty, did you?”
“You gotta understand something, Spader,” I said nervously. “Maybe I didn’t explain this and if I didn’t, it’s my fault. But you can’t bring things from one territory to the next. It’s like… like… an infection. Believe me, I made that mistake and it was a disaster.”
“It’s just a knife, Pendragon,” he said dismissively. “Couldn’t do no harm.”
With that he popped on his air globe and dove into the water. This was bad. Spader said he would learn from me, but the first thing I tried to tell him, he blew off. This was going to be tough.
But there was nothing I could do about it now, so I popped on my air globe and followed him under. I didn’t want him to get too far ahead of me. After all, he had the knife. We both skimmed the bottom, traveling side by side with our water sleds. I kept glancing around, looking in the distance for the shadowy killers. And it wasn’t just quigs that worried me. When we left for Zadaa there were four raiders after us. I had a brief hope that maybe the quigs ate the raiders, but that would have been hoping for too much. When we broke out into open water from under the rock overhang, I felt even more vulnerable. I kept glancing around, checking our backs. At one point I thought I saw a shadow moving several yards off to our right. I was about to tell Spader, when the shadow suddenly twisted and shot away. There was definitely something there all right. But if it was a quig, or a raider, it had decided to leave us alone.
Once we had traveled a few minutes I began to relax. As Spader said, the sharks only hung around that reef. I stopped worrying about getting eaten and began to worry about what we might find back on Grallion. When we left, we had just jammed up the raiders’ battle cruiser and signaled to the aquaneers that the big guns wouldn’t fire. The question now was, what had happened after that? Had the aquaneers boarded the cruiser? Had the raiders boarded Grallion? Had there been a battle between the good guys and the bad guys? Most important, was Uncle Press okay?
At least one answer came to us quickly. As the water sleds sped us closer to Grallion I saw something in the distance that wasn’t there when we left. At first I didn’t know what it was because we were so far away. It just looked like a dark mass. But as we got closer it began to take shape, and it was big. Really big. Spader recognized it for what it was first.
“Hobey-ho!” he exclaimed. “They had a natty-do all right!”
We sped closer, and that’s when I saw the eight long tubes sticking out from the huge mass. Though the proof was right before my eyes, I could barely believe it. The long tubes were cannons. The dark mass… was a sunken ship! It was the raiders’ battle cruiser. A minute later we glided and slipped right by the immense hulk. It was lying on its keel, tipped to one side. Being that close to something so big always took my breath away. It reminded me of the video footage I’d seen from the wreck of theTitanic. But this ship had only been on the bottom for a short time. It hadn’t rusted out yet.
Whatever happened topside after we jammed up its guns, it was pretty clear that the raiders had gotten their butts whipped. Now I wanted to get to Grallion as soon as possible to hear the victory story.
We drove our water sleds past the huge sunken ship and continued on to Grallion. We stayed underwater the whole way and didn’t surface until we had slipped into the dock area where we had launched the skimmers.
An aquaneer was on the dock, tinkering with an engine. He saw the two of us surface and his eyes grew wide.
“Spader?” he said with. awe. “Spader!” The guy jumped up and started yelling for joy. “They’re back! They’re alive! Hobey-ho, Yenza, they’re back!”
We were greeted with a hero’s welcome. The aquaneers mobbed us on the docks and all but carried us topside. I got smacked on the back so much, I ended up with black and blue marks. No kidding. But I didn’t care. This was great. When we got up into the sun, I took a quick look around to see there was absolutely no hint that a battle had taken place here. That’s because it all happened on the water, and on the raiders’ cruiser. The aquaneers took turns telling us what happened.
Just before the deadline that Zy Roder had given them for firing his guns again, Yenza quickly passed an order to every aquaneer. She said they were to attack soon as they saw a flare fire from beneath the water. The aquaneers thought she was crazy, but they followed orders. Sure enough, they saw our flare and went after the raiders with everything they had. They sent several boats loaded with aquaneers to swarm the cruiser and caught the bad guys completely by surprise. ThePursuit’sbig guns were useless and the raiders weren’t prepared for close-in fighting. Before they could rally to defend themselves, the aquaneers had boarded the cruiser and had little trouble taking command.
The only bad thing was that so many of the raiders escaped on small speedboats. Worse, their pilot, Zy Roder, had escaped as well. Yeah, Saint Dane got away. When I heard this, I glanced to Spader. I could tell that this news had tweaked him. He knew that Roder was really Saint Dane, and I’m sure he hoped to hear he had been captured. No such luck.
The aquaneers then scuttled the battle cruiser so no one could use it in anger again. While listening to them recount their victory, I split my attention between the aquaneers and Spader. I wanted to see Spader’s reaction to what had happened. What I saw, I didn’t like. This wasn’t like the time at Grolo’s where he was the center of attention, telling tales and buying everyone sniggers. No, if Spader was happy about the victory over the raiders, he didn’t show it. He listened to the group intently, then after they finished their story he gave them polite congratulations. The old Spader would have jumped up and shouted: “Hobey-ho! Nobody challenges Grallion! Sniggers are on me!” But not this new Spader. This was a darker Spader, and it had me worried.
That’s when I saw a welcome sight behind the group of ecstatic aquaneers. It was Uncle Press. He smiled and waved me over. I ran to him and the two of us hugged.
“You’re becoming a legend around here,” he said with a chuckle. “Next they’ll be writing songs about you.”
“Trust me, I wasn’t all that heroic,” I said. “I almost bought it down there.” It sounded modest, but I meant it.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
I gave him a quick rundown on our trip to Zadaa and our meeting with Loor. I explained how Spader was getting up to speed on being a Traveler, but he wasn’t handling it well. I said how his one and only concern was to get revenge on Saint Dane, and it was going to be hard to hold him back. I also told Uncle Press about the most important discovery of our trip: the symbol and the half of a map that might lead to the Lost City of Faar, as the legend referred to it. Uncle Press agreed that Faar, if it indeed existed, would be a perfect target for Saint Dane.
Spader then broke away from the celebration and joined us.
“Saint Dane got away,” he said with no emotion, though I knew he was burning up inside.
“Don’t worry,” said Uncle Press. “We’ll see him again.”
I had been thinking a lot about what our next move should be, and it was as good a time as any to throw it out there.
“I think we should go to Panger City,” I said.
Spader shot me a surprised look and said, “No. Leave my mum out of this.”
“I’m afraid your mum may already be in it,” I said, trying not to sound too harsh.
“Why? How?” Spader demanded.
“Spader’s dad gave half of the map to Osa to give to Spader. That means the other half is still out there somewhere. We didn’t find it with Spader’s dad, so I’ll bet you anything it’s with Spader’s mum.”
Spader reached into his pocket and pulled out the half map. Uncle Press took it and examined it.
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“These numbers on top,” he said. “They could be partial coordinates.”
Spader grabbed the map back angrily.
“I don’t care about your fantasy games. Leave my mum alone.”
“You don’t get it,” I said urgently. “Maybe this whole Faar thing is a fable and we’ve got nothing to worry about, but if it isn’t and Saint Dane is trying to find that lost city, then he’ll want this map. If your mum has the other half, she’s in trouble.”
This hit Spader hard. I couldn’t have shocked him more if I had thrown ice water in his face. I hated to do it, but he had to understand what was at stake here. He looked at the half map, then jammed it into his pocket.
“Yenza,” he said. “She’ll give us a boat. We can be in Panger City by nightfall.”
He took off running toward the aquaneer barracks. Uncle Press watched him run off and then said, “He’s hurting.”
“This is bad. When he finally comes face to face with Saint Dane — “
“We’ll worry about that when it happens. Right now let’s get ready for a treasure hunt.”
CLORAL
Uncle Press and I followed Spader to the far side of the aqua-neer barracks. As we got closer, we heard yelling coming from the building. “I warned her, yes I did! I saw this coming but no one believed me!”
It was coming from Wu Yenza’s office. When we peeked in the door, we saw Yenza behind a desk, looking stern, as usual. Spader stood to the back of the room, listening. All the hubba was coming from two agronomers who stood in front of Yenza’s desk. They were the same man and woman I had seen outside the pilot house on Magorran shortly after the crash. They were arguing then, and they were still arguing now. At least now I had the chance to hear what it was all about. The man was a short, balding guy with an elfiike face named Ty Manoo. In another life, he could have easily gotten a gig in Santa’s workshop. The guy paced, flailed his arms for emphasis, and spit when he talked.
“We set something in motion that must be stopped!” he shouted.
The woman didn’t seem all that worried. Her name was Po Nassi. She was tall and slim with sharp features that reminded me of a sly cat. She stood with her arms folded, looking bored, as if Manoo were nothing more than an annoying kid.
“You are overreacting again,” she said while rolling her eyes.
“Overreacting!” Manoo shot back. “There are hundreds dead on Magorran! We were attacked by raiders! What kind of reaction would you suggest?”
“What is the problem?” asked Spader.
“The problem is we caused the poisoning on Magorran,” Manoo spit out.
Whoa. New development. Uncle Press and I looked at each other and entered the office. It was time to get involved. Yenza saw us and stood up. She looked kind of flustered, like she was losing control of the situation and from what I saw of Yenza, she did not like to lose control.
“Spader, get your friends out of here,” she ordered.
“No,” Spader shot back. “They’re here to help us.”
“I don’t want to cause a panic,” Yenza argued. “Until we find out exactly what happened, we don’t need rumors circulating.”
Uncle Press spoke to Yenza in a calm, controlled voice. “If I may, Commander. Pendragon and I have come from a long way off because we heard there might be some… difficulty here. We won’t spread rumors; we won’t cause a panic. Our only goal is to help see you through this crisis.”
Yenza looked into Uncle Press’s eyes, and I could see her relax. It was kind of creepy, actually. Uncle Press’s soothing words had taken the fight out of her. It reminded me of the quiet way that Loor’s mother, Osa, had a calming effect on people. It was almost hypnotic. I wondered if this were some kind of Traveler trick and made a mental note to ask about it later.
“They already helped save Grallion once,” Spader added. “They’re friends.”
Yenza looked us over. Finally she sat back down and said to the agronomers, “Tell them what you told me.”
Immediately the little guy, Manoo, took over.
“It was an experiment,” he started. “The population of Cloral is growing. The demand for food is always getting greater.”
Nassi didn’t want to be left out and added, “We calculated that at the present rate, there was a good possibility the day would come when the demand for food would be greater than the supply. So we set out to perform an important service.”
“We started looking for ways to increase plant growth,” Manoo continued. “We figured if we could get crops to grow bigger and faster, we’d never have to worry about having enough food. We experimented with fertilizers and crossbreeding and found ways to change the very cell structure of plants. But it was wrong!”
“It wasn’t wrong!” countered Nassi. “It’s a work in progress!”
“But we were changing nature!” cried Manoo. “I tried to tell them we were headed for disaster, but no one listened.”
“That’s because we were successful!” Nassi argued.
“Successful?” shouted Manoo. “We changed nature! We created plants that grew faster but turned poisonous!”
Manoo was a mess. He wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve and continued.
“It was the fertilizer,” he said. “We created a fertilizer that affected the normal growth cycle of plants and changed their genetic structure. It was incredible. Plants grew seven times faster and yielded twice as much fruit. We were all so excited that we wanted to share the discovery with everyone. But we moved too fast. We didn’t test the results.”
“It was only recently that we discovered an unfortunate… side effect,” Nassi said, trying to sound casual, as if it were no big deal. “Some of the mutated crops became poisonous. We never actually used the fertilizer on Grallion’s crops. We’re safe here.”
“But, we had already sent a sample of the fertilizer to the Agronomy Society. We only wanted them to study it, but they were so impressed they immediately began manufacturing it and sending it all over Cloral!” shouted Manoo.
Yenza jumped to her feet. “You’re telling me that a fertilizer is being used all over Cloral that turns crops deadly?” she screamed, trying to control her horror.
“Yes!” shouted Manoo. “What happened on Magorran is just the beginning!”
This put a whole new spin on things. Could it be that Saint Dane wasn’t responsible for the poison crops after all? Was he simply taking advantage of the situation? The creation of this killer fertilizer seemed to be the turning point on this territory, but it looked to be the people of Cloral who brought it on themselves.
“The Agronomy Society is on Panger City,” Spader said. “We’ve got to get there and stop them from sending out more fertilizer.”
“That’sexactlywhat we have to do!” squealed Manoo.
“Give us a speeder craft,” added Spader. “We can be in Panger City before nightfall.” Spader was being very clever. Stopping the fertilizer was critical, but the main reason he wanted to get to Panger City was to protect his mum. There was a whole “two birds with one stone” thing happening.
“I’m going too!” added Manoo. He then turned to Nassi, stuck a finger in her face and spit out, “You are too. I’m not going to take full blame for this.”
Nassi shrugged and said, “Fine, whatever you want. I don’t mind taking the credit. Once we perfect the process, we’ll be heroes.”
“But right now, we’re killers,” Manoo said angrily.
This got a reaction from Nassi. Up until then she was only looking at the problem as a science experiment. Being called a killer was a whole ‘nother ballgame. She actually looked shaken.
“I’ll go,” she said, cowed.
Yenza came around from behind her desk heading for the door.
“Meet me at the stern dock in two pecks,” she ordered. “I’ll prepare a speeder. We’reallgoing to Panger City.” Then just before she left the office she turned back and lifted a finger.
“Do not mention this to any
one,” she commanded sternly. “Any of you. If Grallion is safe, there’s no need to cause panic.”
She then left. Nassi and Manoo followed after her, leaving us alone with Spader.
“Is it possible?” he asked. “Could Saint Dane have nothing to do with this?”
“It’s possible, but it doesn’t matter,” answered Uncle Press. “He may not have started it, but he’ll take advantage of it.”
“And there’s still the stuff about Faar,” I added. “How does that fit in?”
“Hopefully we’ll find out on Panger City,” answered Uncle Press.
Forty minutes later, or two pecks, depending on where you come from, the six of us were at the dock, ready to leave for Panger City. I stood with Uncle Press, Spader, and the two agronomers, Nassi and Manoo. The speeder we were going to take was a coolio-looking powerboat that looked about forty feet long. It was painted the same sea-green color as the raiders’ battle cruiser. It had a cabin up front that was big enough to hold a galley and some bunks. The wheelhouse was on top of the cabin. Wu Yenza was already there, powering up. The deck was large, with seats along the rails. It kind of reminded me of the dive boats Uncle Press used to take me on. But unlike dive boats, this baby looked like it could do some serious haul ass.
We all boarded and Spader cast off the lines. Yenza powered up the engines, which as usual weren’t all that loud. These water-powered engines were great! Yenza then expertly guided the boat away from the docks of Grallion and out into open water. Moments later, once we had passed the marker buoy, Yenza hit the throttle and this boat showed us why it was called a speeder. I was nearly thrown over by the sudden surge of power, in seconds we were flying over the water like a seagoing jet.
Like the skimmers, the ride was smooth and pretty quiet. The only way I could tell we were moving so fast was from the wind whipping at my face. When I stood up I had to lean forward or it would have knocked me back down.
The two agronomers kept to themselves during most of the trip. They stayed in the cabin up front and argued. What else was new? They had pads of paper where they scribbled out equations and formulas. I assumed they were trying to figure out how to undo the harm done by their mutant fertilizer.
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