“Okay…,” he said with a huge dose of skepticism.
“I saw Uncle Press again. And Kasha. And Osa.”
“They’re dead,” he said flatly.
“The physical beings they were when they were living in Halla are dead. Their spirit continues on in a place called Solara.”
“An eleventh territory?”
“No, it’s way more cosmic than that. It’s been about Solara from the beginning. Saint Dane is trying to control it. To destroy its spirit. Once he does that, Halla doesn’t matter anymore, because he can create his own physical universe. His own Halla.”
Mark frowned. “Uh… what?”
“Yeah, this is where it starts getting complicated.”
“Starts? I’d say we’re already pretty far down that path.”
I shrugged. What could I say?
“You’re serious about this?” Mark asked tentatively.
I nodded. “That was a way simple explanation, but yeah.”
“So why are the exiles so important that Saint Dane wants them dead?”
“Because after all that happened to Halla, after the dismantling of so many societies and civilizations, they’re the last remaining group of people who stood up to Ravinia. To Saint Dane. When they were shot off of Second Earth, it was like they were taken out of the loop. They didn’t experience the downfall of their own world. It was like Saint Dane inadvertently protected them, and now it’s their collective spirit that is keeping him from his final victory. The collective spirit of the exiles is keeping Solara alive. Remember how Saint Dane kept talking about Denduron being the first domino to fall? The exiles are the last domino. If they are destroyed, Solara will be his.”
“So, if the Ravinians hadn’t sent us all into exile, Saint Dane would have won by now?”
“Pretty much. It was the biggest mistake he made. Now he’s trying to correct it.”
“And we’re counting on it to come back and bite him in the butt.”
“Exactly. The Travelers were sent out to find the remaining exiles and protect them. You’re one of them, Mark. Courtney too.”
“Okay, say you find the other exiles. Then what?” “Then we move on Saint Dane here. On Third Earth.” Mark’s eyes lit up. “That I understand.” “I thought you would.”
“You think Elli can convince Nevva to help somehow?”
I rubbed my eyes. It was a point-blank question. I had to give him an answer that was just as direct.
“No. I don’t. Nevva’s hard-core. But who knows what’ll happen when she sees her mother? It might get through to her somehow.”
“Don’t count on it,” he grumbled.
“I hear you, but I’ll try anything. I don’t want to say that I’m desperate but… I’m desperate.”
“Is it worth the risk? Going in there, I mean. You saw what happened to Antonio.”
“I did, and it’s another reason I want to get to Nevva. Antonio said there was an attack coming. If Saint Dane knows where the exiles are, they’re dead and Halla is lost. We need to find out what’s going on and try to scuttle it.”
Mark nodded. I knew he was running Antonio’s final words over in his head. I’d done it a hundred times myself.
“If he’s building more gunships to go after the exiles,” Mark said, thinking aloud, “it means they’re probably here on Third Earth.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Are there really seventy thousand of us?” he asked.
“Saint Dane created a massive flume in the middle of a packed Yankee Stadium that sucked them all inside. Seventy thousand might be light.”
Mark’s eyes went wide. I figured he was trying to imagine the event. I, on the other hand, preferred to forget it.
Mark said, “It’s easier to imagine that whole Solara-spirit thing than to picture Yankee Stadium being sucked down a drain. Yikes.”
We looked at each other, and laughed. It was totally inappropriate, but it broke the tension. For a second it felt like old times, when Mark and I would hang out for hours and talk about anything that came into our heads. It didn’t last long.
Mark clapped his hands on his knees and stood up. “I’ll send my guys out in a chopper at first light. If there are seventy thousand people hiding out somewhere, we’ll find them.”
“I don’t know,” I said skeptically. “It took Saint Dane a while.”
“Yeah,” he said slyly. “But we know where to look.”
He strode for the door, then stopped and turned back, as if he had a new thought. He squinted, which was something Mark always did when he was having trouble understanding something. I liked those small, familiar moments. It meant that beneath that hardened exterior, my friend was still lurking around somewhere.
“The flumes were destroyed, right?” he asked.
“Every last one of ‘em.”
“So how did you and Elli get here? And how are the other Travelers getting around?”
“We don’t need the flumes anymore. The Travelers can go wherever we want, anytime. But we have to be careful, because each time we do, it depletes more of the power of Solara.”
Mark stared at me, still squinting. We stayed like that for a few seconds. I think he went into brain lock. What I had just said went beyond his comprehension. He finally shook his head and said, “Forget I asked.”
“Forgotten.”
He didn’t move. Something else was on his mind. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me any more questions about Solara.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Besides everything?”
Mark hesitated, choosing his words carefully. “I feel like, one way or another, this is it. I mean, it’s finally going to be over, isn’t it?”
“It is. One way or another.”
He nodded. “I’m glad we’re back together, Bobby.” “Me too.”
“Courtney should be here.”
“We’ll find her,” I said with confidence, but absolutely no authority.
He pulled himself out of there. I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes, hoping for sleep to come quickly. As usual, it didn’t. My mind was too full of clashing thoughts, most of which were about what would happen the next day. I’d been on plenty of adventures since becoming a Traveler. My journals are loaded with the tales. It had become a way of life. A crazy way of life, but what can you do? That was the way it was meant to be. This time was different. Of all the things I’ve been through, either alone or with another Traveler, we were always able to take care of ourselves. More or less.
Not this time. Mark and I were setting out on what could be a suicide mission… with an older woman on our team. The closest I’d come to that was with Gunny, but he could take care of himself. Heck, he could handle himself better than I could. Elli was a different story. She was smart and resilient, no question there. But she was fragile. Physically and emotionally. I wasn’t so much worried about something bad happening to her. After all, she was a Traveler. But we were going to have to move fast and react to constantly changing threats. Doing that with an older, fragile woman was going to be tricky.
Making it worse was the fact that Mark would be with us. He wasn’t a Traveler. He could die. Like really die. And he was an exile. I had to make sure that Mark survived the ordeal… while watching out for Elli, and oh by the way, staying alive myself. Suddenly my plan didn’t seem like such a hot one.
Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night.
But I did get to sleep. Finally. My body and my brain needed it. I probably could have slept for days, but all we could afford was a couple of hours. Mark got me up before daybreak.
“Come on” was all he had to say.
I was up and ready to go in seconds. I followed him quickly and quietly, trying not to wake the other guys
