by Zoë Ferraris
“They’re heading for the end of the walkway!” Emma said.
Up ahead, they had to turn left to get out of the marina and into the bay. It was a narrow channel. If the men made it to the end of the walkway in time, they would easily be able to leap onto the Markab.
“Hurry!” Emma cried.
Herbie gunned it harder, and the Markab shot forward.
Emma watched the men run, their long legs pumping furiously. She could already tell that they were going to reach the Markab. She lifted the harpoon gun, hoping it would scare them—she already knew she couldn’t bring herself to shoot them. She braced herself against the railing, but her arms were trembling as the Markab approached the turn.
The men had almost reached the walkway’s end. Three more steps and they’d launch themselves over the short gap from the pier to the boat. Emma tried to steady the gun.
“Emma, hold on—!”
Herbie’s words were cut off by a tremendous boom that sent thunder through their bodies. Emma fell to the deck. It hit the two men like an explosion, throwing them onto their faces. The Markab groaned against the force.
“What was that?” Emma cried, scrambling to her feet. Herbie was up just as quickly, grabbing the wheel and righting the boat’s course.
He revved the engine again and steered out of the marina, heading straight into the bay. Emma looked around frantically but saw no sign of an explosion.
“Did we lose them?” Herbie asked.
“I think so!”
They reached the spot where they usually stopped the engine and let out the sails. Emma switched off the stern lantern just as Herbie shut the engine down.
“The engine’s too loud,” he explained. “They’ll hear us.”
“Yeah.”
“But don’t let the sails out yet.”
“We can’t sit here,” she said. “The currents will drag us out to sea.” Already the tides were pushing them so that the Markab was facing the Golden Gate Bridge. The great structure rose ahead of them, glowing reddish orange in the night.
“We’d better put our life jackets on,” he said.
“Yeah.”
As they did, Emma’s mind was racing. “Those guys had logos on their coats. I think they showed the constellation Virgo. I’m getting the idea that everyone belongs to a constellation.”
“Well,” Herbie said, “it would explain why the kidnappers were talking about Draco.”
She took Dad’s binoculars and went to the railing. “Those men must have come in on a boat,” she said. “Where is it?” Looking around, they saw no other boats on the bay.
“And I don’t understand where that explosion came from,” Herbie said. “Uh…actually, Emma?” He pointed over her shoulder, and she spun around.
Beneath the bridge, there was a green flash of light. Slowly, more flashes appeared, like sparklers flickering. They seemed to be rising up from the water.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Some kind of luminescent kelp?” Herbie offered.
“Um, no…look up there.” She pointed upward, where the same green flashes began flickering on the lower part of the bridge’s towers and beneath its roadway. The sparklers grew more numerous and brighter until there were thousands of them. The tiny lights appeared to be forming a massive circle beneath the bridge.
“Okay,” he said, “maybe not kelp.”
Emma ran to the mast.
“What are you doing?” Herbie asked.
“I want to get closer!” She let the mainsail out and the wind gave a kick.
Ahead, the lights were growing brighter. There were no other ships nearby—nobody else was foolish enough to navigate the outgoing tides in such a bitter wind. But Emma and Herbie barely noticed. They were gaping at the great circle of lights.
As they watched, something seemed to form in the top edges of the circle. It wiggled like the same jelly that was covering their bodies, and it spread slowly downward like a rippling wall until it reached the bay waters. The wall was tinged a faint green, trembling with energy and motion. Behind the wall, they could just make out the silhouette of a giant ship.
Emma was dumbstruck. “Herbie, do you see that?” she cried. “Is that…?”
“Yeah,” Herbie said. “It’s a ship. And it’s coming in!”
They watched in amazement. The ship was an outline, blurry around the edges, but they could see her great masts and wide, square rigging. She was enormous, and with every yard they drew closer, she became larger still.
The ship cut through the jelly wall with surprising majesty. First her bowsprit sliced through like a knife tip, and then the crisply edged bow with a magnificent figurehead trailing down both sides—a pair of hunting dogs, carved with such artistry that they seemed to be coursing alongside the ship. On the starboard side, the wood beneath the railing was painted red and carved with images of fighting dogs. The name Arcturus Venture stood out in bold white on her bow. She rode high in the water and sailed ahead with fierce determination—yet she must have been a hundred years old. When her mast came into view, with its old-fashioned ratlines hanging down from solid timber, they saw sailors on board scrambling about to reef the sails and slow the great vessel before she went crashing into Alcatraz.
“Herbie,” Emma said, “I don’t think this is a game!”
Herbie grabbed the wheel and began to take the Markab around, but when Emma looked behind them, she saw the two men from the pier. They were flying across the waves as if they were windsurfing. Each man was standing on some sort of flat object, but neither was holding a sail.
“They’re behind us!” she cried.
“Where do we go?” he shouted.
If they made to starboard, the great ship would cut them off. To port were shallow waters where the Markab would be grounded. Herbie had no choice but to keep them sailing straight ahead.
“I think that’s some kind of portal or bridge!” Emma said, pointing to the massive wall of jelly beneath the Golden Gate.
“I know it’s a bridge!” he snapped back.
“No, not the bridge. The other thing—the goo! If we keep going straight, we’re going to have to go through it!”
“We can’t!” he cried. “We don’t know what that is! We should head to Sausalito. I’m going to try to cut behind the big ship and—”
But the Arcturus was bearing down on them. As if to shake any misconception that the ship was too old-fashioned to pose a threat, twelve wooden panels slid open on her bow, like a dog baring its teeth, and a quartet of sleek silver cannons slid out of each with a screech of metal.
“Look out!” Emma screamed.
The frontmost cannons fired in symphony, making four loud ka-booms. Emma and Herbie ducked as the projectiles tore low overhead, blowing ruthlessly into the marina behind them. Boats and buildings erupted in massive explosions that sent thirty-foot fireballs into the sky.
“Those weren’t cannonballs!” Herbie cried. “They were missiles! Who are these guys—the navy?”
Emma focused on the water. Their only hope was to skim past the ship’s starboard side. If they stayed low and close enough to avoid the cannons, they might stand a chance.
“Herbie, we have to—”
“I know, I know!” He crouched by the wheel, steering closer to the Arcturus’s side.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! The shots gave them a terrible jolt. Emma gripped Herbie’s sleeve. “Are they shooting at us?”
“Yes!” he screamed. “They probably fired their missiles to force us into the range of their rifles!”
Emma couldn’t make out the sailors, but she saw their white rifles glinting near the railings, tiny flashes of light exploding with each shot. When a bullet whizzed past, she yelped and crouched lower.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Emma turned just in time to see a flash of green light hit Herbie square in the chest. He went skidding wildly backward and crashed into the mast as the air around him erupted in a ball of smoke. The wind blew the
smoke away, and incredibly, in the space where he’d been stood a large green iguana.
“HERBIE!” Emma shrieked. The lizard gave no indication that it recognized her. It darted in a quick circle, looking baffled.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK! The shots all happened at once. She ducked behind the mast, but she could have sworn she saw dozens of bright-green bullets flying out of the sky. One of them hit the iguana in the rear, and with another loud pop and a poof of smoke, Herbie was kneeling on the deck, wet and cold and shaking violently.
“Herbie!” She pulled him down. He was still covered in the glistening skin. “Are you okay?” He didn’t seem able to speak.
She scrambled back to the wheel and saw that they were fifty yards from the bridge.
Herbie was staring at his hands in mild shock. Emma looked at the Arcturus again. It was heading rapidly toward Alcatraz. In a minute or two, once the big ship was farther away, it would be easy to swing the Markab toward Sausalito. They could dock at Fort Baker and make a run for the guard station there.
Then she looked back at the space beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, still glittering with green luminescence. What on earth was that glowing green jelly? She had never seen a ship like the Arcturus sail in from the open sea like that. She had a strong feeling that it had come from somewhere else—some kind of portal into another dimension. It was probably foolish to plow straight into a giant wall of jelly, but the Arcturus had just done it with no ill effects. The closer she sailed to the wall, the more certain she was that something extraordinary lay beyond it. Through the jelly screen she could make out a strange tunnel-like place. The waves were higher on the other side, and it looked like it was raining. She squinted, trying to get a better look, but the jelly wall was rippling and she couldn’t be sure what she was seeing. Maybe she was imagining it….
But what if I’m right? she thought. What if this is not a game, and beyond that wall is some other place? Some sort of answer to why my parents were kidnapped?
Shouts came from the deck of the Arcturus, men calling to bring the ship about.
Emma glanced at Herbie, who was still staring at his hands. Gripping the wheel, she made a decision. She aimed the Markab straight for the center of the bridge. Thirty yards later, the world began to bend into a narrow tunnel that went straight from the Markab’s bow to the water. The sky seemed to be caving in. The front of the boat slipped away, into a thread of light that was not a thread anymore but a giant black hole sucking them into its darkness. Emma tried to resist, but everything fell away—the railing, the benches, the captain’s wheel. There was nothing to grab on to, and before she knew it, she was falling.
She fell helplessly, her eyes wide open, her body protected by the gooey skin. An unbearable pressure was squeezing her from all sides. She wanted to scream, but it felt as if her whole body were being pressed flat. Then the light disappeared altogether, and they plunged into blackness.
With a violent jolt, Emma was back on her feet, her hands still gripping the Markab’s wheel. The ship was flying forward at incredible speed. Everything seemed louder now. She heard the wind whipping the sails, the crash of water on the hull, and a mysterious clattering. Looking down, she saw that her jelly skin was slipping away. She had the strangest sensation of lightness, as if she could have floated right up into the sky.
Tipping at thirty degrees, the Markab was getting battered by towering swells. She had to fight to stay on course. The air was icy cold, and rain whipped down like hail. It was hard to see, but from what she could tell, they were in an ocean, fighting gales and high waves.
Well, I was right, she thought. This is not the Pacific!
Looking back, she saw a sheer wall of jelly suspended oddly above the sea. It was the bridge back to Earth. Through the wall she could just make out the fires burning at the marina, and the lights of the city beyond. There was no sign of the Arcturus—it must have been turning around.
SNAP! One of the ropes holding the boom burst free. The boom swung wildly and the Markab slowed, coming down from its tilt.
“Herbie!” she cried. He was lying on the deck, staring blankly at the sky. She noticed his jelly coat was gone too. “Are you okay? Can you talk?”
“Y-y-yeah.” He looked pale and scared, and his jaw was shaking with cold. “Where are we?”
“We went through the jelly bridge,” she said.
“That w-w-was amazing. Did we just go through some k-k-kind of space-time warp?”
“I don’t know. Can you get up?”
He gazed up at her wearily. “I’m not sure, I—”
“The boom is loose!” she said.
At that he leapt up, racing aft to grab the lines. She left the wheel to help him, for the boom—the arm beneath the mainsail—was such a heavy, dangerous thing that it took both of them to wrestle it still and secure it.
“How long were we in that tunnel thing?” Herbie asked.
“It felt like a few seconds,” she said. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. Something hit me. It felt really weird…. ”
“I know. You turned into an iguana,” she said.
He was horrified. “I did not!”
“Okay, maybe it was a gecko.”
He looked back at the jelly bridge. “Where are we?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “But I don’t think we’re on the ocean. It doesn’t look the same.”
“No, no, we’re not,” Herbie said. “I mean, we went through something. I think we’re in a different dimension.”
“Whatever it is, we can’t go back,” she said.
“What? Why not?” Herbie spun around.
“That ship will blow us apart,” she said. Pulling open her collar, she looked down at the Pyxis hanging there. It was still glowing a faint blue. “They’re going to know where we are—if they have those detector things. We can’t hide. We have to try to outrun them.”
The rain was pouring down so hard now that she could barely see. Emma was more deeply tired than she’d ever been. She clutched her jacket to her chest and nearly choked as the wind lashed her hair into her mouth.
Herbie was below, icing the large bruise on his chest where the strange green bullet had hit him. Emma had to remain topside to keep the Markab safe.
The boat raced forward, desperately trying to outrun the navy. It was a brutal journey of pounding through waves, wiping rain from her face, and trying not to freeze up from the cold wind and water. She kept checking her collar. The sight of the Pyxis’s light glowing faint blue made her feel all the more urgent.
As the minutes ticked by and the navy failed to materialize, she slowed the boat a bit. She had no idea where they were. All her attention was focused on the waters, but the rain had turned into a solid sheet, and she couldn’t see what was ahead. She didn’t know, for example, if this body of water had an edge—a bank of some kind—and if she was going to go nailing right into it. What if it had sharp rocks, or reefs, or cliffs? Anything could come looming out of the darkness.
It seemed to take forever, but eventually the rain stopped. The air turned bitterly cold. Around her, she could see nothing but a great expanse of sea, its waters rippling a deep, dark black with whitecaps combing the currents. There were no islands or rocks, just choppy seas and leagues of water spread to every horizon.
As the clouds cleared, she saw that the starlight was incredible—flickering lights crowded every inch of the sky. In some places it was so clotted that it looked like spilled milk. But when she looked directly upward, she got a shock. The stars were tearing off behind her in long white and blue streaks, their tails like meteorites. It made her think that they were traveling at warp speed.
“Uh…Herbie!” She looked into the cabin. “HERBIE!”
He came topside, looking frantic.
“Look up,” she said.
He gaped at the stars, but when he noticed the ones zooming away behind them, he stumbled in amazement. “OH! What is that?”
“
Herbie…” She could barely talk. “Are we in space?”
It surprised her that he didn’t object—that instead he turned to her, looking stunned. “I think we’re in a wormhole,” he said. “I mean, it would explain all those lines on the chart…why all the stars are connected like that…but that would mean we’re on our way to another planet…. ” He winced, shut his eyes, and shook his head. “No. No, that’s crazy. You don’t just sail into a wormhole.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’d get ripped apart by the forces of gravity and space-time.”
“Well, we were wearing that gooey meteorite stuff.”
He stared at her for a moment.
“And it’s gone now,” she pointed out. “And the bridge we went through was made of the same stuff. Maybe it was there to protect us or something.”
She had never seen Herbie looking quite this intimidated, and it worried her a bit.
He went below into the cabin again. She watched him root around for more ice.
Turning back to the water, she suddenly felt a small burst of excitement. This wasn’t the Pacific Ocean—this was outer space! And every crazy thing she’d seen might not have been crazy after all. The jelly skin and the strange sailors and the Pyxis glowing blue, not to mention Herbie turning into an iguana. These things belonged to a world she’d never believe existed had she not seen it for herself. She thought about the Arcturus—not about the sailors, but the ship: a grand, old, glorious ship that had come from outer space. As she was silently marveling at a sky shot through with billions of stars, it thrilled her to realize that the universe was immense.
Then, with a pang, she thought about her parents and wondered why they hadn’t told her anything.
For the first time all evening, she spotted something ahead. She aimed the Markab for it, and as they got closer, she saw an old sign attached to the top of a wooden buoy. It said:
ALPHA DELPHINI, IF YER LUCKY.
100 NICKS.