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.
“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
