looked like a vast, floating junkyard.
“Now what?” I asked.
Uncle Press pointed to several aquaneers who were leaping on board Magorran. They were led by Wu Yenza, the chief aquaneer. It was a daring jump because even though the decks of the two habitats were only a few feet apart, they were both still moving and grinding against each other.
“Follow them,” said Uncle Press, which was the last thing I wanted to hear. But he didn’t give me time to think. He ran to the edge of the deck, hesitated only a second, then leaped from Grallion onto Magorran.
“Let’s go, Bobby!” he yelled.
Imagine standing on an ice floe as it hurtled down a river and you had to jump onto another ice floe that was going just as fast. That’s pretty much what this felt like. The gap between the two decks was only a few feet, but it felt like a mile. I looked down. Big mistake. I could see through four stories down of twisted wreckage to the frothing white water. Falling would really, really hurt.
“It’s cake, Bobby!” shouted Uncle Press. “C’mon!”
Cake. Yeah, right. I inched as close as I could to the edge without getting dizzy. The deck lurched under my feet. This was definitelynotcake! I waited until Grallion settled, took a breath — and jumped.
I cleared the chasm by a good five feet. Okay, maybe itwascake.
“Now what?” I asked, trying to sound as if I were more in control of myself than I really was.
“The pilot house,” answered Uncle Press. “Let’s find out who’s driving this bus.”
The pilot house where the habitat was controlled wasn’t far from which we boarded. Like the pilot house on Grallion, this was an enclosed structure where the pilot, the first mate, and a few other aquaneers would send the commands that controlled the habitat. Whatever the problem was with Magorran, the logical place to start looking for it was the pilot house.
We took off running, but it wasn’t any easier over here than it was on Grallion. This deck was torn up from the impact as well. The whole habitat shuddered and heaved as it bounced against Grallion. It was like trying to run across a minefield during an earthquake.
The goal was to stop Magorran. I feared that when we got to the pilot house, we’d find none other than Saint Dane standing at the wheel wearing an aquaneer uniform and an evil, leering smile. But that would have been too easy. Saint Dane may have been responsible for this, but he wouldn’t have done something as obvious as piloting the habitat himself. No, Saint Dane didn’t work that way. He was a manipulator. This was an epic disaster that was worthy of him, but the cause of it would be far more diabolical. This was only the beginning. It wasn’t just about two habitats colliding. There had to be something grander at stake. So as much as I feared seeing Saint Dane at the wheel, it was his overall scheme that I feared more.
Before we got to the pilot house, the habitat suddenly stopped shuddering. The aquaneers who boarded ahead of us must have reached the controls and shut down the engines. There was a strange calm. The horrible cracking sound of the two habitats grinding against each other stopped. The drone of the engines stopped. The rush of the water crashing between the two wrecked habitats stopped. The aquaneers must have slowed Magorran because after one last loud, twisting crunch, I saw Grallion pull away. The two habitats were once again separate.
As Grallion drifted away, I saw the extent of the damage, and it was pretty nasty. The entire bow end of the farm barge looked like a car after a head-on collision. Decking was bent and cracked. Geysers of water shot from burst pipes. Pieces of beams and struts floated in the water. The dock area was destroyed along with most of the small boats that were kept there. In a word, it was mangled. I’m sure that Magorran looked the same, though I couldn’t tell because I was standing on it. The big question now was, why had the aquaneers on Magorran lost control? If our aquaneers could stop it so easily, what prevented the Magorran crew from doing the same?
Uncle Press and I reached the pilot house that was about a hundred yards back from the damaged bow. I was glad to see the collision hadn’t destroyed it. It was a solid structure that was probably built that way in case something hairy like this happened. This was the first good news we saw. Magorran could still be controlled from here. The question was, why did it go out of control in the first place? The moment we opened the door, we had the answer. There were two aquaneers from Grallion at the controls. Yenza was at the wheel, the other worked the array of toggle switches for the many water-powered engines that controlled the habitat.
The aquaneer crew from Magorran was there as well. There was the pilot, the first mate, and three other aquaneers. I recognized their rank because they wore the same uniforms as the crew from Grallion. But there was one big difference between this crew and our crew.
These guys were all dead.
It was a creepy scene for obvious reasons, but it was made all the more so because the crew looked so… natural. It wasn’t like there was a violent fight or anything. Just the opposite. The pilot sat in his chair, still looking forward with sightless eyes. The first mate was hunched over a map with a pen still in his hand as if he were in the middle of plotting a course, probably to rendezvous with Grallion. The other aquaneers were sitting on the deck near their stations as if they had simply fallen asleep. But these guys were definitely not asleep. Their eyes were wide open. There was something else. Uncle Press saw it first and pointed it out to me. Each of the poor dead aquaneers had a trace of something on the corners of their mouths. It was dry now, but it looked to have been a trickle of green liquid that had dribbled out of the corners of their mouths and crusted there.
They were dead all right. The mystery of the collision was solved. These guys died at their posts under full power. But the idea of five guys suddenly dying was tough to comprehend. It was then that I was hit with a thought that was even more horrific than the sight in front of me. It was like an alarm rang in my head. I reached out to Uncle Press, grabbed his sleeve and pulled him out of the pilot house.
“This wasn’t a sudden crash,” I croaked out through my dry mouth. “I mean, we saw it coming, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So if we saw it coming, how come nobody else on board Magorran did?”
Before I got all the words out, I saw in Uncle Press’s face that he knew exactly where I was going with this. The crash happened because the pilot and his crew were dead. But somebody else on Magorran should have seen the crash coming and tried to stop it. That is, if anybody else on Magorran were alive to see it. The horrible realization hit Uncle Press just as it hit me. If nobody else tried to stop the crash, did that mean more people were dead? We both did a quick scan around and saw the same thing — nothing. There was no movement. No life. The sickening truth was setting in. There was a very good chance that everybody on Magorran had met the same fate as its crew.
This may have become a ship of the dead.
I turned away from Uncle Press and puked.
(CONTINUED)
CLORAL
Spader!” shouted Uncle Press.
I had my hands on my knees while tossing my lunch. I looked up to see Spader booking across the deck several yards away. He was headed deeper onto Magorran and I knew why. He was going to find his father.
Behind us Wu Yenza came from the pilot house and saw him too.
“Stop right there!” she commanded. “Donotgo onto this habitat!”
Spader didn’t even glance at her. There was nothing stopping him.
“We’ll stay with him,” said Uncle Press to Yenza.
“You are not authorized to be here,” she said sternly.
“We’re civilians,” countered Uncle Press. “You can’t stop us.”
“We can’t protect you either.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Whatever caused this horrible disaster could still be out there. On the other hand, chances are it was Saint Dane, and that bad boy was our department.
“Understood,” said Uncle Press. “We’ll bring him back.”
Yenza wanted to argue, but Uncle Press had already started to jog after Spader. I looked to the chief aquaneer and shrugged. She scowled at me and I turned and ran after Uncle Press.
