The Lost City of Faar

“What does he want?” Spader asked.

“He’s trying to tell us something,” I said.

The Faarian was pointing to something inside the hauler, behind my head. I spun around and saw that perched on a hook behind my seat was a pair of headphones. Spader had a pair behind him as well. I pointed to the headphones and looked at the Faarian. He nodded.

Spader and I both shrugged and put the headphones on. We then looked back to the Faarian and heard a familiar voice say, “What took you so long?”

It was Uncle Press!

“Yeah! All right! Hobey-ho!” we shouted. Spader and I were over the moon. I guess the Faarians had an extra skinsuit in the hangar.

“How did you end up with this hauler?” Uncle Press asked.

“Long story,” I answered.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“Faar is underwater,” I said. “Saint Dane blew a hole in the dome. But the entire city was evacuated. As far as I know there was only one casualty — the old man from the Council of Faar. What about the other haulers? Were they launched?”

“No, they’re all still in there,” Uncle Press said. “The outside doors were buried.”

That was horrible news. The underwater farms of Cloral couldn’t be saved. Saint Dane was still going to win.

“We should get out of here, mates,” said Spader. “Find something to hang on to, Press. We’ll give you a ride.”

Uncle Press couldn’t get inside the hauler because we were watertight. He would have to hitch a ride to the surface. He found a spot behind the bubble and grabbed on.

“Watch out,” I said. “There’s a lot of junk floating around.”

Spader pushed the throttle, lifted the nose and we began our final ascent from Faar. We had to go slowly because we didn’t want Uncle Press to get swept off. Besides, we weren’t in any hurry. It gave me time to fill him in on all that had happened since we split up. The hard truth hit him the same as it did me. We had totally failed. The underwater farms were still producing poison crops, Faar was destroyed, and Cloral was on the verge of chaos. Even if Yenza had a complete victory over Saint Dane topside, it wouldn’t matter. The damage was done.

The three of us fell silent during our final stage of the ascent. I wanted to take one last look around at the city that died trying to be the salvation of Cloral. The last chapter in the legend of the Lost City of Faar was a tragic one. And no figure was more tragic than poor Abador, Senior to the Council of Faar, who died trying to fulfill his destiny. Whatever transpire was, it would never happen. Instead it would be just one more unexplained mystery in the myth.

That’s when a thought came to me.

“Stop,” I commanded.

“What?”

“Stop right here,” I said.

Spader stopped our ascent and we hovered in midwater.

“What’s up, Bobby?” asked Uncle Press.

“Faar is dead. There’s nothing we can do to save it. And there’s nothing we can do to bring the rest of the haulers up to save the crops, right?”

“Yeah, that’s about how the day has gone,” said Spader. “What’s your point?”

“My point is there’s nothing else to lose.”

“You getting philosophical on us, or is this leading somewhere?” Uncle Press asked from outside the hauler.

“I think we should take it all the way. We should complete Faar’s destiny.”

“Which is…?”

“Transpire,” I said sharply. “I say we finish what Abador couldn’t.”

Uncle Press said, “But we don’t even know what that is. You said yourself it might be a self-destruct mechanism.”

“So what?” I shot back. “If that’s the way the Faarians wanted it, then I think they deserve to end things the way they planned. It can’t make things any worse for Cloral, right? Abador said they had been preparing for this moment for generations. Who are we to deny them?”

I looked to Spader for an opinion. He only shrugged.

“Why not?” he added.

I looked outside the bubble to Uncle Press, but it was impossible to read any expression on his face since it was covered by a green swimskin.

“Do you know how to do it?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“Then you’re right. There’s nothing to lose,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

“Get us back to the Council Circle,” I said to Spader.

Spader took control and we started moving again. In a few minutes we were once again hovering over the platform and looking down jit Abador’s hand that, tragically, had fallen only a few feet short.

“You have no way of knowing this, old man,” I said to Abador. “But we’ll finish it for you.”

“What do I do?” asked Uncle Press.

“You see that blinking yellow light?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“There are three other crystal switches. One of them must be the control to transpire.”

“Okay, which one?”

“Beats me,” I answered. “If in doubt, eenie, meenie, miney, mo. I’m partial to mo.”

“Great,” scoffed Uncle Press, and swam off toward the panel.

He looked at the three other switches: green, red, and white. He first reached forward and pushed the green one. All that happened was that the green crystal started to glow, and the yellow light stopped blinking.

“That must be to turn off the evacuation alarm,” I said.

There were two choices left. From where I sat, the white crystal looked as if it had already been pushed down.

“I think the white crystal raises and lowers the podium,” I said. “It must be the red one.”

“Red it is,” said Uncle Press.

He reached forward, touched the red crystal, and glanced back to me. I gave him a nod, and he pushed it down.

And that’s when the partyreallystarted.

First, the red crystal flashed brightly. That much I expected. The next thing we knew we were surrounded by sound. It started as a low whine, but then grew in volume. It sounded like giant engines were powering to life. Then the mountain rumbled. The waves it sent out from its movement started to buffet the hauler.

Uncle Press shot back to us and grabbed on.

“I think now’s a good time to be someplace else,” he said.

“Hang on!” shouted Spader.

He hit the throttle and we began rising again. The monstrous sound grew louder. The hauler was being buffeted so hard that it was making my teeth chatter.

“You okay, Press?” called Spader.

“Get us outta here!” he shouted back.

Then I heard something new. It sounded like cracking, but it was immense.

“Uh-oh,” said Spader.

There it was again. “Uh-oh.” Ihated”uh-oh.”

Spader was looking up. I looked up too and saw that we were getting closer to the hole in the dome, and safety. But that’s not what the “uh-oh” was about. The trouble was, the rest of the dome was cracking! The rumble was sending shock waves through the water that were so strong, we could actually see cracks traveling across the surface of the dome. But unlike the last time the dome cracked, this wasn’t in one single place. Now, the entire