I looked up ahead and saw that Spader had a pretty decent head start. Uncle Press was intense at the controls, but I could tell by the look on his face that he was enjoying this. I didn’t blame him. I was too.
“What is Grallion?” I asked.
Oddly enough, I didn’t have to shout. The engines of the skimmer weren’t loud like a powerboat. Instead they gave off a steady, solid hum. Rather than the loud drone of an engine, most of what I heard was the hull flashing across the water. The water was amazingly smooth too, so we shot across it like ice skates on glass.
“Grallion is the habitat where Spader lives,” said Uncle Press without taking his eyes off our adversary.
“What’s his deal?” I asked.
“He’s what they call an aquaneer. All the habitats have a crew that keeps them moving safely over the water. It’s an important job. Spader’s good at it. He’s a good guy, too.”
“Yeah, but is he the Traveler from Cloral?”
“Look!” he shouted.
He pointed ahead of us and there on the horizon I saw our destination. At first it was just a hazy gray smudge that could have been an island. But the closer we got, the more I saw that the outline was too regular to be an island. No, this thing was man-made. And it was big. This was Grallion.
Uncle Press gunned the throttle and easily caught up to Spader. I then realized what his strategy was. We had to lay back until we saw Grallion. But now that we knew where it was, the race was really on.
“You’ve got too much drag!” taunted Uncle Press at Spader. “We’ll beat you at three-quarters!”
“But you’ve got the extra weight, mate!” Spader shot back. “Even up!”
Both guys gunned the throttle and the skimmers charged forward even faster. We hadn’t been at full speed up till now. Unbelievable.
To be honest, I was less concerned about our race to decide who was going to buy sniggers than I was about our destination. Mark, remember the time we went to Manhattan on that school trip to visit the aircraft carrierIntrepid! It was pretty impressive, right? Well, imagine approaching theIntrepidon the water in a rowboat. Can you picture that? Takes your breath away, doesn’t it? Well, now multiply the size of that aircraft carrier by about four hundred and you’d have Grallion.
I kid you not, this was a floating island. As we sped toward it, I kept thinking that we’d be there any second. But we weren’t. With each passing moment this monster barge kept on getting bigger and bigger. It was about four stories high, but that’s not where the size was. This thing they called a habitat spread out before us for what seemed like a couple of miles. Because we were approaching head-on, I couldn’t tell how far back it went, but if the front end was any indication, this thing was the size of Stony Brook.
“We’ve got him now!” exclaimed Uncle Press with glee.
I looked over to Spader’s skimmer to see we had pulled ahead by a few feet. Apparently the drag from his equipment caboose was a little bit more than the extra weight that I added to our skimmer.
“There’s the marker buoy!” Uncle Press said, pointing ahead.
I looked to see there was a buoy floating about twenty yards off from the habitat. Beyond the buoy I saw that at the water line there was some kind of seagoing entrance to the barge. The opening was large enough to pilot small crafts inside. I could even make out other skimmers in there, along with a few small boats of various shape and design.
“The buoy marks the safety zone,” added Uncle Press. “Once you pass it, you’ve got to slow down. That’s our finish line.”
We were only a few yards away from victory. I didn’t know which excited me more, knowing that we were about to win or looking up at Grallion as it loomed over us. Spader wasn’t giving up though. He coaxed a little more power out of his skimmer and pulled to within a few feet of us. This was going right down to the finish line. And…
We won! We passed the marker buoy first. With an exuberant “Yes!” Uncle Press killed the engine.
But Spader didn’t stop. He kept on full throttle, headed toward the water dock. All we could do was watch him in wonder.
“Maybe he is crazy,” I said.
Uncle Press gunned the engine and followed him in, though at a safer speed. What I saw in the next few seconds was amazing. As I told you before, Spader jammed into Grallion at full throttle and full speed for these skimmers were fast. I saw a handful of dock workers go wide-eyed and scramble out of the way in anticipation of the nasty crash that was sure to follow.
Spader didn’t flinch. He drove his skimmer right toward the dock. In seconds he would be mush. But with only a few yards to spare he hit the water brakes and spun the skimmer — later he called it autorotating — into a complete 360 that killed all his speed. With a rush of water caused by his turn, he slid sideways and barely kissed the dock. Without missing a beat, he jumped out, turned back to us, made a deep bow and said, “You lose, mates.”
We pulled up slowly in our skimmer. All I could do was applaud. Forget anything they’ve ever shown on those network stunt shows, this was hands down the most amazing thing I had ever seen.
“Oh, no,” Uncle Press called out to him. He was trying to sound angry though I know he wasn’t. “We all play by the same rules. We passed the buoy first.”
“But the race was to Grallion!” answered Spader. “That buoy isn’t Grallion. Almost doesn’t count.”
Spader was laughing. So was Uncle Press. Maybe this trip to Cloral was going to be fun after all.
“Spader!” came an annoyed voice from above the dock.
We all looked up to see a woman wearing what looked like some kind of uniform standing on a catwalk above the dock. She looked ticked.
“Wu Yenza,” Uncle Press whispered to me. “Chief aqua-neer.”
“Spader’s boss?” I asked.
“Yeah, Spader’s boss.”
“Uh-oh.”
Yenza looked to be in her thirties. She had short black hair and was in pretty good shape. I guess all aquaneers had to be in good shape. She wore a black outfit that was similar to Spader’s, but it had long sleeves with yellow stripes near the cuff that gave it a kind of military feel. I’d go so far as to say she was kind of hot, in an older woman way.
“Now, Spader!” shouted Yenza. She then stormed off.
Spader turned to us and gave a little shrug. He didn’t look all that nervous about the slamming he was sure to get.
“Let’s call it a tie, right, mates?” he said with a smile. “Sniggers on me at Grolo’s, soon as I can make it!”
With that he turned and bounded up the stairs that led off the dock and into the bowels of Grallion — and to deep trouble for him.
“He’s doomed,” I said.
“Nah. He’ll get yelled at and told never to be so reckless again. But they won’t do anything to him. Everyone likes Spader. He’s the best aquaneer they’ve got.”
We maneuvered the skimmer to the dock, tied it up, and stepped onto the floating platform.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said.
“What question was that, Bobby? You’ve got so many.”
“Is Spader the Traveler from Cloral?”
Uncle Press didn’t answer right away. He busied himself getting our air globes and fins out of the skimmer. I knew he wasn’t ignoring me, but the fact that I didn’t get a simple yes or no made me nervous.
“Yes,” he finally answered. “Spader is the Traveler from Cloral.”
“Iknewit!” I shouted.
“There’s just one thing. Spader doesn’t know it yet. He has no idea that he’s a Traveler. We’re going to have to tell him.”
Uncle Press grabbed our gear and walked toward the stairs. I stayed there a moment, letting those words sink in. Here I had just met a guy who seemed to love everything there was about life — abouthislife — and we now had the job of telling him that it was all going to change. In my short time of being a Traveler, that was the hardest thing I had to deal with — finding out that my life wasn’t what I thought it was, and having to leave it behind.
