Abador was thrown to the platform as well. I got up and helped the old man to his feet, but he pulled away from me and shouted, “Go! Now!”
“You can’t stay here! Let me take you out.”
“Pendragon, my place is here,” he said with absolute authority. “If the worst comes to pass, and Faar is in danger of being destroyed, I must be here to transpire.”
He glanced back at the podium. I now understood, sort of. That podium was the last resort. He said how they had planned for this day, and if all else failed, he needed to be at those controls. I still feared what “transpire” would do, but if this was his destiny, it wasn’t my place to challenge him. No, I had said all I could and now it was time to go.
“Good luck, Abador,” I said. “I know you’ll do the right thing.”
“Thank you, Pendragon. You have helped an old man see things more clearly.”
There was nothing else to say, so I turned and ran off the platform. When I got to the edge I looked down on Faar and saw what the alarm had set in motion. Hundreds of Faarians were streaming along the paths, flowing out of the mountain like ants from their hill. They were all pulling on their green swimskins, ready to hit the ocean. There were men and women of all ages. Many helped the elderly and the very young to pull on their skins. There was no panic; there were no fights. I wondered if they had practiced this before, like a fire drill. They were going to get out in an orderly manner, and that was good.
Then something happened that wasn’t good. It was a very small thing that didn’t mean much to me at first. But a few seconds later the horrible reality hit me like a shot to the gut. It was something that I felt on my arm. It was a little tickle that I scratched without giving it a second thought at first. But then I lifted my arm up and saw it for what it really was, and my heart sank.
It was a drop of water. Nothing more, just a single drop of water. But then, another drop fell on my arm. Just a drop. No biggie, right? Wrong. I slowly looked up and realized with horror that this single, innocent drop of water came from the dome overhead. That could mean only one thing.
The dome that had protected Faar for hundreds of generations was starting to crack.
CLORAL
AsI stood on the steps of the council platform I looked up at the glittering dome that had kept the oceans of Cloral away from Faar for hundreds of generations. What I saw looked like rain. The droplets glistened in the light as they fell. Believe it or not it looked beautiful, like thousands of small, glittering diamonds falling from the sky.
But these beautiful gems brought some seriously bad news. If the dome were cracked and letting in water, where would it stop? Could the pounding that Saint Dane was delivering weaken the dome? If that was the case, then the pressure from the millions upon millions of pounds of water might eventually crack it — like an eggshell. That image was too horrifying to even imagine. I could only hope that the alarm was sounded early enough so that Faar would be evacuated.
And the explosions continued. Saint Dane’s attack was relentless. The entire mountain shuddered with each new blast. I couldn’t imagine what kind of weapon he had that could destroy something that had been rock solid for centuries. Then I thought of Spader and Uncle Press. I didn’t yet know of the disaster that had happened in the hauler hangar. The only thing I could do was stick to the plan. So I ran for the tunnel that would lead us out of Faar and to my rendezvous with Uncle Press and Spader.
It was getting treacherous. Enough water was now falling from the dome that the pathways were getting slippery. Since many of these paths were right on the edge of humongous cliffs, I had to be careful or a simple slip would meansplat. So I moved quickly, but carefully. Soon I joined the flow of Faarians headed for the tunnel, and safety. It was still orderly, but people kept looking up at the falling water and I could tell they were on the edge of panic. Still, they held it together and kept moving toward the tunnel.
Then, just as I was about to enter the tunnel, I saw something that totally lifted my spirits.
“Hey!” I yelled.
Spader was coming out of the tunnel, carrying the other two air globes. It was a struggle for him because he was working against the tide of people flowing in the other direction. I stepped to the side of the path, out of the stream, and waited for him. When he finally got to me, he was all out of breath and excited.
“Where’s Uncle Press?” I asked.
“It’s a tum-tigger down there, Pendragon,” he blurted out. “They launched one hauler and then there was an explosion. They can’t open the doors to launch the rest.”
Oh, yeah, things were getting worse. Faar was on the verge of collapse, and the haulers weren’t on their way. Saint Dane was winning.
“Press is still down there,” he said. “I think we’ve got to get him out.” We both looked up at the dome. The water was coming down harder now. Whatever cracks were made by the explosions were getting bigger.
“Let’s go get him,” I said, and we both ran along the path back into the mountain to get to the aerovator.
It wasn’t easy. There were hundreds of Faarians moving in the other direction. We tried to be respectful, but ended up having to push our way through. Now was not the time to be polite. When we finally got into the mountain and to the tube with the aerovators, we saw a pretty huge Faarian guy directing traffic. He was making sure that as each aerovator arrived, everyone got off quickly and kept moving toward the escape tunnel.
Another aerovator arrived and people flooded out. As soon as it was empty, we tried to jump into the car. But this big guy grabbed us both and pulled us back.
“No passengers,” he said firmly.
“But we’ve got to get down to the hauler hangar!” I shouted.
“Don’t you hear the alarm?” the man said. “This is an emergency. These lifts can only be used for the evacuation.”
This guy was big and he wasn’t kidding around. There was no way Spader and I could push past him and force our way onto the aerovator. But we also couldn’t take the time to run all the way down to the bottom of the mountain. We were stuck. I had to make this guy understand how important it was that we get down there, so I grabbed him by the arm and forced him to look right at me. When I spoke, I tried to do it slowly and calmly.
“Listen to me,” I said. “There are people down there who are in danger. It’s really important that we get to them. We have to use this lift. Please let us pass.” I didn’t act all frantic or threaten the guy or anything. I just tried to get across how important this was. At first, I thought he was going to shove me out of the way, but a strange thing happened. He kept looking at me and I sensed that he was relaxing. It was totally weird. He went from being a brick wall in our way to a puppy dog. He then stepped out of the way, leaving the path open for us to enter the aerovator.
“I understand,” he said softly. “Good luck.”
Spader and I walked past him, not sure what had just happened. But we weren’t about to question it. We got on the aerovator, I grabbed the controls, and we headed down.
“What was that about, mate?” Spader asked. “It’s like you hypnotized him or something.”
“I have no idea,” was all I could answer. I was just as confused as he was. The only thing I could think of was the way Uncle Press had done the same thing to Wu Yenza back on Grallion. She was all ready to throw us out of her office, until Uncle Press talked her out of it. I was thinking now more than ever that the ability to get through people’s toughest defenses might be a special Traveler ability, like understanding all languages. This was something I was going to have to learn more about, no doubt about it.
But that would have to wait, for we were almost at the base of Faar’s mountain.
“We’ve got to get them out of there,” I said. “This place is going to get very wet, very fast.”
“They’re all working on the water doors,” Spader said. “I’ll bet they don’t even know what’s going on out here.”
The aerovator hadn’t even stopped moving when the two of us jumped out and ran through the tunnel to get out of the mountain and reach the hauler hangar. One thing I noticed right away was that there were no more Faarians evacuating down here. That was good. Maybe it meant that the city was nearly empty. I could only
