you adjust your buoyancy so you won’t sink to the bottom, or shoot up to the surface. When everything is perfect, it’s called “neutrally buoyant.” It makes swimming feel like flying. But I wasn’t sure how this little belt was going to keep anybody neutrally buoyant.
“It’s automatic,” Uncle Press explained. I think he was reading my mind again. “It takes on water for weight, or creates oxygen for lift, depending on what you need. I told you, these guys are pretty advanced.”
I took his word for it and threaded the strap through the belt loops on my new pants. I was really eager to get in the water and try out these new toys. This was like old times with Uncle Press, only better. Yes, so far I really liked Cloral. It was a major improvement over Denduron. It was warm, the clothes didn’t suck, the local fruit was pretty tasty, and from what Uncle Press told me, this was a territory that wasn’t at war with anybody and had advanced enough to create some pretty nifty gadgets. I was actually jazzed about getting out of the cavern and starting to explore.
That is, until I saw Uncle Press doing something odd. As soon as he finished dressing in his local outfit, he took one of the extra pairs of Cloral pants and tied a knot on the end of each leg.
“Grab a bunch of fruit,” he ordered.
I started grabbing off pieces of fruit from the vines. Uncle Press took the pieces and stuffed them into the pant legs he had just tied off. I figured maybe he was using the pants as a makeshift bag to carry some fruit to the surface. That was cool. I liked the stuff. He filled the pants up until they looked like a lumpy pair of legs, then yanked down a piece of vine from the wall and used it as a rope to thread through the belt loops and tie off the waist.
“Hand me one of the water sleds,” he asked.
Okay, now he lost me. What was he doing? I gave him one of the two purple sleds and he tied the other end of the vine that was holding the pants together to the handles. There was now about a three-foot length of vine between the water sled and the pants full of fruit.
“You gonna tell me what you’re doing?”
“We’ve got to swim out of here,” he explained. “Put on fins. We’ll use the air globes to breathe. We’re only about sixty feet down. There should be a skimmer waiting for us on the surface.”
“A skimmer?”
“It’s like a speedboat. Very fast. Easy to maneuver. You’ll love it.”
“Courtesy of the acolytes?”
“Exactly.”
“What’s with the fruity pants?”
“No big deal. Just a little quig bait.”
Uh-oh. That was it. Fun time was over. He punctuated this last comment by digging down under the rest of the Cloral clothes and pulling out a nasty-looking speargun. I knew this was going too well. There were quigs lurking outside. If you remember, quigs were the nasty beasties that Saint Dane used to guard the gates to the flumes. On Second Earth they were wild dogs. On Denduron they were prehistoric, cannibal bears with spiny backs. On Cloral they could only be…
“Sharks,” I said flatly. “You’re saying there are giant sharks swimming around out there waiting for us to pop out in our spiffy new rubber outfits?”
“You saw one yourself, on Denduron.”
I did. In the mine shaft flume on Denduron. I still remember its demonic, yellow quig-eyes as it rode the wave of water toward us. The memory made my knees buckle. The tropical vacation was over.
“Don’t worry,” said Uncle Press. “I’ll send the water sled out first. Our smell is already on these pants. If there are any quigs around, and I’m not saying thereare, mind you, they’ll chase the smell.”
“You think they’ll be dumb enough to go for it?”
“They’re vicious, not bright,” he answered with confidence. “We’ll have plenty of time to get to the surface and find the skimmer.”
He handed me the speargun, which I took gingerly.
“You don’t expect me to use this, do you?”
“Just hold it,” he said. He then took another small piece of vine and looped it through the handle of the water sled. With a quick tug, he tightened it down so that it pulled the trigger, then tied a knot to keep it in place. The trigger supposedly kicked over the engine, but it wasn’t making any noise.
“Why didn’t it turn on?” I asked.
“I told you, it needs water for power.”
Uncle Press knelt down next to the pool. He first placed the loaded pants into the water. They floated off to the length of the vine that was attached to the sled. Then with both hands on the sled, he lowered the purple engine underwater as well. As soon as the slits were underwater, I could hear the low whine of its motor kick to life. The trigger was pulled all the way so it was on full power. The little sled nearly yanked Uncle Press off the ledge. He had to struggle just to hang on to it.
“Told you,” he said with a laugh. “This thing has some giddyap.”
He was enjoying this way too much. He then released his grip and the sled jumped out of his hands. The vine attached to the pants snapped tight, and it was gone in an instant, dragging the pants o’ fruit after it.
Uncle Press then sat down to put on his swim fins. I put the speargun down and did the same, quickly. I wanted to be up and out of the water before any quigs realized they were on a wild-fruit chase and came back looking for meat. Uncle Press then picked up one of the clear globes and tossed it to me.
“Let’s go,” he said with a smile.
I think he was actually looking forward to this. He was crazy. I put the globe over my head and it immediately began changing into the shape of my face. I developed instant claustrophobia and had to tell myself that it was going to be okay.
It worked for Uncle Press. It’ll work for me. Either that or it will smother me and I’ll die right here in this fruit-filled underwater cavern. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It would definitely be better than getting chomped on by Jaws.
“Breathe normally,” instructed Uncle Press. “It’s easier than using a regulator from a scuba tank.”
Breathe normally. Yeah, right. We were about to dip into shark-infested waters and he wanted me to breathe normally. Maybe I should try and stop my heart from pounding out 180 beats a minute while I was at it.
“I’ll use the water sled,” he said. “It’ll be faster than swimming. When we go under, get on my back and hold on to my belt with your left hand, tight.”
“What do I do with my right hand?”
“That’s for the speargun.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m not taking that responsibility. No way.”
“Just hang on to it,” he said, trying to reassure me. “Nothing’s going to happen. But on the off chance it does, we’ll stop and you can give the gun to me. Okay?”
I guess that made sense. If the choice was between having a speargun and not having it, I’d certainly rather have it. So I reluctantly reached down and picked up the weapon. The gun was made of what looked like bright green plastic. The spear that was loaded in the gun was actually clear, like glass. But it looked pretty lethal just the same. I’m guessing it was made from the same hard material as our air-globe helmets. I felt the tip. Oh, yeah, it was sharp. I had held a speargun once before, in Florida. So I knew how to be safe with it. But to be honest, I never shot anything. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I never even liked fishing with a rod and reel, let alone a high- powered weapon. Okay, so I’m a wuss.
“Once we submerge,” Uncle Press instructed, “we have to swim under the rock ledge for about thirty yards. We won’t use the water sled until we get out from under the ledge. Then we’ve got to travel about a hundred yards along the reef to where the skimmer is anchored. Understand?”
I understood all right. I understood that I didn’t like Cloral anymore, no matter how nice and warm the water was. But I didn’t say that. Time was wasting. Uncle Press grabbed the other water sled and slipped into the pool. I jumped in too and immediately felt the belt tighten around my waist. This thing really did work automatically. I found that I didn’t have to tread water to stay afloat. The belt had compensated for my weight and kept me hovering in the water comfortably. I would have been really impressed, if I wasn’t ready to puke out of fear.
“Is that decoy really going to lure the quigs away?” I asked hopefully.
“In theory.”
