it.”
“Unless Bobby and the Travelers stop him first, right?” Courtney asked hopefully.
Mark didn’t answer. He looked at the journals thoughtfully, then reached for the top one. “Let’s just read, okay?”
Courtney took a breath to calm down, then said, “Let’s try something different this time. We’ll read out loud to each other.”
Mark was secretly relieved. He was a faster reader than Courtney and always had to wait for her to catch up. This was the perfect solution.
“Yeah, that sounds good,” he said, and handed her the journal. “You first.”
Courtney took the journal and cracked open the cover. “We left off where Bobby and Spader flumed to Veelox, right?” she asked.
“Right,” answered Mark. He sank back into the couch, put a hand behind his head, got comfortable and said, “Go for it.”
Courtney turned to the page where they had left off the day before, and began to read out loud.
“A second later we were swept up by the light and sound and pulled into the flume. Next stop… Veelox.”
FIRST EARTH
Flying through an interstellar tunnel across time and space was never a normal experience, but making the trip with somebody along for the ride kicked it a couple of notches higher on the strange meter.
“I could get used to this!” declared Spader as he did somersaults and flips, looking like an astronaut pulling zero g’s.
I had to hand it to the guy-he knew how to have fun. Me? I was more interested in kicking back and looking out at the stars beyond the crystal walls. Whatever. To each his own.
We had only been sailing for a few minutes when the flume dumped us off again. Spader had been flying headfirst and barely had time to spin around and land on his feet. Once the light from the flume was sucked back into the tunnel and the musical notes left us, we found ourselves standing in…
Nothing. Seriously. It was pitch-black. I couldn’t see an inch in front of my face.
“Whoa, Veelox is dark,” Spader declared.
“Yeah, no kidding. Let’s wait a second for our eyes to adjust.”
They didn’t. We stood there for two minutes, but the place stayed just as inky black as when we landed.
“Get behind me/’ Spader ordered protectively. “I’ll walk with my hand out until I hit-“
“Stop right there!” a voice boomed at us.
Uh-oh. We weren’t alone. This had never happened before. Was it Saint Dane? Could the quigs on Veelox talk? Was unseen danger hurtling toward us at this very second?
“Back up,” I said softly to Spader.
I took hold of his arm and was about to pull him back into the flume and get the hell out of there, when a light suddenly appeared, hovering in the air over our heads.
“You seeing this, mate?” Spader asked, his voice sounding shaky.
“Yeah,” I answered, just as shaky.
The light grew larger. It was all soft and watery at first, but then suddenly snapped into sharp focus to reveal…
A girl. Actually, not a full girl. A girl’shead. No kidding. Just a head. It was big, too. It floated over us like a huge Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.
“Who are you?” the head demanded.
Her voice was loud, as though amplified. The girl-head looked normal enough. She had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. Her eyes were blue, and she wore small, wire-rimmed glasses with yellow-tinted lenses. I’d even say she was cute, for a monster head, that is. She didn’t look dangerous, but then again, a giant floating head didn’t exactly look normal, either.
“I’m Bobby Pendragon,” I said to the head, trying to sound head-friendly.
“And my name’s Vo Spader,” Spader added. “Who are you?”
“I’ll ask the questions!” boomed the head.
I felt like I was standing before the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. With any luck, there’d be some befuddled old man hiding behind a curtain pulling on levers to control the big thing.
“Where do you come from?” demanded the head.
“I’m from Cloral,” answered Spader. “My mate here is from Second Earth. Do you have a body to go with that head?”
The head suddenly dipped down toward us. We both hit the floor. For a second I thought she was going to take a bite.
“I said I’ll ask the questions!” she roared.
“Sorry, mate,” yelled Spader. “No worries. I’m with you now.”
The head floated back higher without taking a chomp. Spader and I exchanged worried looks.
“Why did you come here?” asked the giant blonde girl-head thing.
“Spader and I are Travelers,” I said. “We followed someone here. His name is-“
“Saint Dane isn’t here now,” the head announced.
Whoa. The head was a couple of steps ahead of us… no pun intended.
“Uhh, sorry to disagree,” Spader said. “But he definitely came here from Cloral.”
The big head rolled her eyes like we were annoying her, and said, “I didn’t say he wasneverhere. I said he’s not herenow. Weren’t you listening?”
Spader and I shot each other looks. This was getting even stranger. We were talking to a big, floating, obnoxioushead.
“Watch,” the head said impatiently, as if she were talking to a couple of naughty children. “This happened a few minutes ago.”
The head then disappeared. Just like that. It faded out like a movie. I began to wonder if it had really been there or if it were some kind of projection. We were in the dark again, in more ways than one. But not for long.
Another light began to grow. At first I thought the head was coming back, but what appeared right in front of us was another image entirely. It looked like the mouth of the flume! It was like a 3-D movie projected in space. Very cool. That started to explain the giant head. My guess was these guys on Veelox had some hot technology going on.
Spader backed off. “What is this, Pendragon?” he asked nervously.
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “I think it’s like a movie.”
“Oh,” Spader said. “What’s a movie?”
The image of the flume then came to life. Bright light shone from the mouth and the musical notes told us that somebody was about to arrive. And then this strange movie took an interesting turn.
Saint Dane stepped out of the flume.
“Hobey!” shouted Spader in surprise.
“It’s okay,” I assured him. “It’s just pictures.”
Saint Dane stood in the mouth of the projected flume. This may have been a hologram movie, but it sure looked real. His long gray hair cascaded over the shoulders of his dark suit, and his piercing blue eyes cut through me as if he were actually standing there. Saint Dane even gave us a wave, as if he knew we were watching him.
Even though I’m still trying to understand where we fit into this whole Traveler picture, there are a few things I know all too well. Mostly they have to do with our mission and with the guy who was standing before us in a hologram-Saint Dane.
Halla is in danger because of him. Halla is everything-every territory, every person, every thing, and everytimethat ever existed. I know, it doesn’t make total sense to me, either, but that’s what I’ve been told. Saint
