D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

“Does this work like a submarine?” I asked.

“No,” Loor said. “We must sink to the bottom.”

I didn’t like the sound of that, but Loor seemed to know what she was doing. She toggled a few switches, and I heard what sounded like a burst of air bubbles being released. I could feel that we were sinking. Loor must have been taking on water so that we would drop down. Gulp. As we sank, the sphere gradually righted itself. We were heads up!

“I’m turning off the inside lights,” Loor said.

A moment later we were back in black. It didn’t last long. Loor hit the switch that turned on the outside lights. I felt like I was back in the hauler submarine on Cloral, with Spader. There wasn’t much to see through the windshield, though. The water was too murky. No sooner had I gotten used to the sensation of floating in this big sphere than we gently landed on the bottom.

“We’re treads down, right?” I asked.

Loor gave me a quick look, as if to say, “Give me a break.”

She hit the throttle and the dygo crawled forward. It didn’t feel much different from when we were on dry land. We had an unobstructed view through the windshield in front, which meant that the drill was behind us.

“Ido not know which way to go,” Loor said.

“We’ve got to find the stairs,” I replied. “Keep going until we hit a wall, then we’ll follow it like we were trying to do on the surface.”

Loor pushed the sphere forward. We crawled along slowly. It wouldn’t be smart to crash into a wall. A minute later the headlights reflected off a rocky surface directly in front. We had found the wall.

“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s go right. Keep the wall in sight. Eventually we have to hit the stairs.”

Loor carefully moved the dygo along. She turned the whole sphere so that the window faced the wall, but the treads were ninety degrees the other way. We were actually moving sideways. For the first time I began to think we actually had a chance of getting out of this. We had been moving along slowly for a few minutes when suddenly the wall disappeared, and we were faced with nothing but water. “This is it!” Saangi exclaimed.

Loor spun the dygo so the window faced the direction of the treads. She was about to turn the whole vehicle so we could move forward into the opening, when I realized something.

“Stop!” I shouted.

“What is the matter?” Loor asked.

“Can we look down from here?” I asked.

Loor spun the sphere back so the window faced the open water. She then tilted the whole sphere so the window gave us a view down. What we saw made each of our hearts beat a little faster.

“That was almost a very big mistake,” Alder said.

What we saw was…nothing. The stone floor did not continue. It ended. We were not in front of the stairs. We were on the exact opposite side. It was the edge of the platform where we had launched the boat for Kidik Island. If we had gone forward, we would have toppled off the edge and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. We all let out nervous, relieved breaths.

“At least we know where we are,” I said. “We need to go in the opposite direction.”

Loor spun the dygo sphere a hundred and eighty degrees, lined up the treads, and followed the compass thing on the instrument panel to send us in the opposite direction. We still had to move slowly because visibility wasn’t great

“What kind of air supply does this thing have?” I asked.

“There is no air supply,” Loor said. “The vents are closed to keep out the water. When we use up the air, we suffocate.”

“Oh. Just checking.” I suddenly felt more urgency to find the stairs.

While Loor drove, Saangi worked the headlights. She could direct them to scan in several directions. After driving for a few more moments, Saangi announced, “There!”

Up ahead and above us, we saw what looked like the top edge of an opening. We were passing out of the launch area, hopefully into the cavern at the base of the grand stairway. Loor pressed on. Alder and I leaned forward, desperate to see something that would tell us where we were.

“Look to the left,” I said to Saangi. “That’s the direction the stairs would be if-there!”

Through the floating particles, we could make out the bottom of the giant staircase. We had made it! We didn’t celebrate. We were still far from safe. Loor turned the dygo. Saangi scanned the stairs with the light until she found one of the ramps that cut through the steps. Loor directed the vehicle toward the ramp and in no time we were climbing up. The treads were on a steep angle, but Loor kept the sphere upright so it felt kind of like rising in an escalator.

I want to say that I was relieved, and I was. But all we had done was get to the next hurdle. There was plenty more to worry about, not the least of which was the time bomb that was ticking beneath us. Had the floodgates collapsed? Were we going to find that Kidik was flooded? I didn’t know how much air we had left in the dygo, but I didn’t think it would be enough to get us to the surface. I was already feeling the effects of the air running out. It was harder to get a breath. All we could do was keep moving, and hope.

We climbed the stairs, higher and higher. I was trying to calculate how deep we had been underwater, which would be a good indication of when we should break the surface. That is, if there was a surface to break.

A minute into our climb, the windshield of the dygo cleared. We were out of the water. Kidik was still dry. It meant the floodgates hadn’t been destroyed yet. Loor instantly opened the vents, and Saangi cracked open the hatch to let air rush in. Man, it tasted sweet. I didn’t mind that it was tunnel air. I took in a huge lungful. I exchanged a smile with Alder. We had come so close to disaster, but were still going. As Loor said, if we were alive, we were not done.

When we reached the top of the stairs, we were met with more good news. The lights of Kidik were still burning. Only the lights at the bottom of the stairs had gone dark, probably because they were underwater. Up here, we could still see. At least for now. Loor drove the dygo away from the top of the stairs and stopped the vehicle on the edge of the main street. Nobody said it, but we all needed to get out, if only for a few seconds. We needed to get our bearings back. Saangi pushed open the hatch, and we all crawled out of the vehicle that had saved our lives. It felt good to be on solid ground again, even if it was in a deserted city miles underground. I stretched my legs, enjoying the feeling of standing on two feet.

“They were here,” Loor said.

“Who was?” I asked.

She was looking at the ground. Sure enough, the fine sandy ground was covered with footprints that hadn’t been there when we came in. There looked to be thousands of them.

“The Batu invasion made it to Kidik,” Loor declared.

“Where do you think they are now?” Alder asked.

“Fleeing for the surface, I hope,” Loor said. “If they saw the rising water, they may have realized the danger.”

“So they might survive this after all?” Saangi asked.

My first thought was that Saangi was right. The thousands of Batu who came down into the underground might have dodged a very big, wet bullet. It all depended on where they were, and how much longer the floodgates would hold. If they survived, Saint Dane would lose.

That was my first thought.

My second thought was that we were still in the depths and a time bomb was ticking. I was about to point that out when the ground rumbled. It felt like a short, sharp earthquake. We looked at one another. Our sense of victory was short lived.

“Could that be?” Alder asked.

Another short earthquake rumbled the ground. This one was so strong, it nearly knocked me off my feet. “Back in the dygo!” Loor shouted.