D. MacHale - Black Water

Yorn took the paper, gave it a quick look, and smiled. “Could it be?” he asked.

“Ithink so,” Kasha answered. “What?” I demanded to know.

“It’s a map,” Yorn answered. “From what Seegen wrote, I’d say it’s the route to Black Water.”

“Yeah!” shouted Boon.

I was so surprised, I couldn’t breathe. We had a piece of information that Saint Dane was desperate to get his hands on. Or should I say, his paws on? He tortured and killed a gar trying to get it, and here it was, right in our laps.

“There’s something else in the box,” Yorn said.

Kasha pulled out a roll of pages that were tied together with twine. She unfurled the pages and read,”Journal Number One-Eelong.”

“Seegen’s journal!” I exclaimed.

We were now complete. We had the benefit of knowing everything the previous Traveler discovered; we knew where Gunny was; and we were a couple of steps ahead of Saint Dane. For the first time since I landed on Eelong, I felt as if we had a fighting chance. But there was one important question that needed to be answered.

“Kasha,” I said. “Where do you stand?”

Kasha thought for a moment, glanced at her father’s note, and said, “I’ll get you to Black Water, Pendragon.”

This is where I’m going to end this journal. I’m feeling better now, though the experience of being a caged animal will stay with me forever. I’m going to use those memories to give me the strength I need to help save the gars from Saint Dane. They’ve suffered enough. Tomorrow, Kasha, Yorn, and I will leave for Black Water. We’ve decided that Boon should stay in Leeandra to watch what happens with Saint Dane and the Council of Klee. Hopefully he’ll find out more about their plans for the gars.

I’ll close this journal by saying I hope Kasha’s head is in the right place. I’m going to have to rely on her if things get tough, and based on history, thingsalwaysget tough. It goes with the territory, so to speak. By the time I write to you again, I’ll have news about Gunny. Good news, I hope.

Please be well. Think of me. And though I know I don’t have to remind you… do not use the flume. There’s no telling what will happen if you do.

END OF JOURNAL #17

“Please be well. Think of me. And though I know I don’t have to remind you…do not use the flume. There’s no telling what will happen if you do.

Mark lowered the pages of Bobby’s Journal #17 after having read it aloud to Courtney and Spader. Everyone looked pretty grim.

“Did we make a mistake by coming here?” Mark asked solemnly.

“No!” Courtney said with confidence. “Bobby doesn’t know the whole story. What about all those dead tangs at the farm? It all fits. It’s the poison from Cloral! I’ll bet Saint Dane is trying to find Black Water so he can use the poison there, too.”

“What do you think, Spader?” Mark asked.

“I think Courtney’s right,” he answered.

“Thank you!” Courtney shouted in triumph.

“But I’m not sure if bringing the antidote from Cloral is the right thing to do,” Spader added.

“How can you say that?” Courtney said quickly. “The rules have changed. Saint Dane told us that himself. If he’s mixing the territories, why can’t we?”

“Well,” Spader said thoughtfully. “Because he’s the bad guy.”

Courtney couldn’t argue with that. Instead, she grabbed the plastic bag with the sample of Seegen’s fur in it. “What about this?” she asked Mark. “We brought this from Second Earth. Aren’t we mixing things from the territories too?”

“I was going to destroy that,” Mark said sheepishly.

“Sure, after you were finished with it,” Courtney shot back. “I think things really have changed. Saint Dane ruined his first territory and it’s somehow made him stronger. Mixing the territories may be dangerous, but letting him win again might be worse.”

“And what about the acolytes traveling?” Mark asked. “Bobby thinks it’s wrong.”

“He doesn’t know for sure,” Courtney answered. “But I’ll tell you whatisfor sure: Saint Dane is about to wipe out the gars. He’s got the klees behind him and he’s got the poison. What do you want to do? Go home and wait for Bobby’s journal to tell us how he lost again, and Saint Dane’s powers have gotten even stronger? Or maybe Saint Dane will stop by to tells us in person, right before he starts messing with Second Earth.”

Mark looked to Spader. Spader’s eyes were trained on the floor. Mark saw that his jaw muscles were working as he clenched his teeth together. Finally Spader stood and took the plastic bag from Courtney and said, “We’re not doing anything until we know for sure. Come with me.”

A short while later the three of them stood in the agronomy laboratory on Grallion. They were with Ty Manoo, one of the agronomers who was responsible for accidentally creating the deadly poison that threatened to spread a plague across Cloral. They watched the pudgy little scientist as he busily prepared a microscope slide from the strands of Seegen’s fur.

“It was such a noble idea,” Manoo explained. “We set out to make a fertilizer that would double the growth rate of our crops. It would have insured a bounty of food for all of Cloral for generations! But something went terribly wrong.”

The others knew exactly what went wrong. Saint Dane.

“The fertilizer ended up mutating the molecular structure of everything it touched. The crops became poisonous. It was horrible!”

Ty Manoo was short and bald, with an elflike face. He was a nervous guy, who constantly licked his lips when he spoke. He was licking overtime now. He didn’t like talking about the poison he was partly responsible for creating.

“If it weren’t for the good people of Faar who created an antidote to counteract the effects, well, I’d hate to imagine what would have happened.”

“Saint Dane would have destroyed Cloral, that’s what,” Courtney said under her breath.

“Excuse me?” asked Manoo.

“Nothing,” Courtney answered.

Manoo finished the slide and slipped it into a microscope. It didn’t look anything like a Second Earth microscope. The contraption was round like a volleyball, and shiny silver. It had a flat base and a square window on top to peer down on the magnified image. Manoo looked intently down through this window while slowly spinning the sphere to focus it. “This is a waste of time,” he said. “Every trace of the poison was destroyed soon after…”

Manoo fell silent. Mark thought he actually saw the color drain out of his face.

“What?” Spader asked.

“Where did you get this?” Manoo asked numbly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Spader said quickly. “Is it the poison fertilizer?”

“It… it can’t be,” Manoo stammered. “It’s impossible.”

“But is it?” Courtney demanded.

Manoo looked at them with a mixture of fear and confusion. “Say something, Manoo,” Spader said firmly.

Manoo said sheepishly, “There was a problem-“

“Problem?”Spader shouted. “I never heard about any problem!”

“It’s not certain,” Manoo said quickly. “All the fertilizer was destroyed. All of it. But there was a discrepancy. A mistake-“

“What kind of mistake?” Spader asked, losing patience quickly.

“It was a clerical error. Nothing more.”

“Hobey, Manoo! Tell us!” Spader demanded.

“When we did an inventory, the numbers didn’t add up,” Manoo said nervously. “There were ten tanks of the poison that couldn’t be accounted for. We figured somebody wrote the numbers down incorrectly.” Manoo fell silent. The horrible reality was sinking in for him that the numbers weren’t wrong.