D. MacHale - Black Water

“You’re positive it’s the same poison?” Spader asked.

“I’d know it anywhere,” he answered, licking his lips furiously.

That confirmed it. The Cloral plague was officially on Eelong. Manoo pulled the slide out of the microscope and dropped it on the desk as if it were diseased, which it was.

“Spader, if it wasn’t a mistake, and those tanks are floating around somewhere on Cloral, we must-“

“They aren’t,” Spader said harshly. “You’re holding the last of it. Burn it. The fur, the paper, even this bag.” Spader shoved the plastic bag into Manoo’s sweaty hands. “Burn it all.”

“But what about the missing tanks?” Manoo asked.

“They’re going to stay missing,” Spader said sharply. “What about the chemical antidote? Was that destroyed too?”

“Of course not,” Manoo answered. “Every habitat has its own supply, in case, well, in case something like this happened. I can’t believe it! What should we do?”

“Nothing,” Spader said. “I’ll report this to Yenza. Don’t tell anybody else; we don’t want to cause a panic over nothing.”

“All right, Spader, if you say so,” Manoo whined. “But please, talk to Wu Yenza.”

Spader left the laboratory with Mark and Courtney right on his heels. Once outside he kept walking quickly, passing through a section of the farm that grew luscious-looking yellow-and-purple-striped fruit the size of grapefruits. Mark and Courtney had never seen crops like this, but they didn’t stop to marvel. The time for fun was long past.

“Do we have enough proof now?” Courtney asked, as if she were confident of the answer all along. Spader didn’t answer. “Where are we going?” Mark asked. “I’ve got to tell Yenza,” Spader said.

“The chief aquaneer,” Mark added knowingly. “Your acolyte.”

“What’s the point?” Courtney asked. “This isn’t about Cloral.”

Spader stopped short and whipped around to face the other two. He was upset. Mark saw it in his eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said. “Pendragon was supposed to come find me when he needed my help. That’s what I promised him.”

“What’s the difference?” Courtney said. “He needs your help now. You’re going to give it to him, right?”

“The difference is we’re doing the exact things he told us not to do! Okay, maybe the rules have changed and anything goes now, but Pendragon’s the Jead Traveler. I trust him.”

“We all do,” Courtney said.

“Then what if he’s right?” Spader barked with finality. “What if we’re doing the exact wrong thing?”

It was a statement more than a question. They let it hang in the air because the truth was, none of them knew what would happen if the territories started to mingle, or the acolytes traveled.

“I don’t know,” Courtney said calmly. “ButIdo know that if those are the rules, Saint Dane isn’t playing by them. Yeah, bad guys don’t always play fair, but he’s about to destroy his second territory. He told Bobby that once the first territory fell, the others would go more easily. So I think we have two choices. First one is: You can stay here, Mark and I can go home to Second Earth, and we can all hope that Bobby will figure out a way to stop the Cloral poison from destroying Eelong.”

“It won’t happen,” Mark said soberly. “From what we’ve read, they don’t have the kind of science on Eelong to create an antidote like they did on Faar.”

“Which brings us to our second choice,” Courtney continued. “We can take the antidote to Eelong. Hopefully it isn’t too late. The rules may be broken and two territories will be mixed, but it’s the best shot at beating Saint Dane. The only shot. The real question is, which is worse? Acolytes traveling and mixing the territories? Or Saint Dane winning territory number two?”

The three stood silently for a moment, then Mark said in a soft voice, “You want us to bring the antidote to Eelong?”

Wu Yenza stood on the deck of a large speeder craft that floated gently on the sea. She was giving a final check to the gear that was spread out before her. Yenza was the chief aquaneer of Grallion and carried herself with the kind of confidence needed for the job. She was older, somewhere in her thirties, and in pretty good shape. She had short black hair and wore a black aquaneer uniform like Spader’s, only hers had long sleeves with three yellow stripes on the cuffs that showed her rank. Yenza was fully up to speed on all things to do with the Travelers. After she and her aquaneers helped defeat Saint Dane and his raiders in the battle for the city of Faar, Spader told her all he knew about their mission to stop the evil demon. Realizing the importance of the Travelers’ mission, she agreed to become Spader’s acolyte. And now, standing on an aquaneer craft, she was doing a tech check on three silver cylinders that looked like scuba tanks. But they didn’t hold compressed air. They were filled with the liquid antidote for the poison that threatened Eelong.

“Each of these cylinders has a nozzle,” Yenza explained to Mark and Courtney, who watched her closely. “The liquid inside is under pressure. Opening the nozzle will let out a fine, wide spray. It doesn’t take much to counteract the poison.”

“Got it,” Courtney said.

Spader climbed up from belowdecks carrying three black backpacks. “We’ll each carry one cylinder,” he explained. He slipped one of the backpacks on and Yenza dropped a cylinder into it. Spader tugged the straps tight, pulling the silver cylinder snug against his back. “Just like that. Easy-do.”

Spader and Yenza helped Mark and Courtney slip into their own harnesses, then dropped the silver tanks into them. The gear was light. They could move around easily without having to lean forward and counterbalance.

“You look like a scuba diver,” Mark said to Courtney.

Yenza held up a silver pistol. Mark and Courtney recognized the weapon from Bobby’s description in his journals. It fired a short blast of water that was powerful enough to tear through a wall.

“There’s one for each of you. With holsters,” Yenza said. “I don’t care how tough those tangs are on Eelong, one shot from this will knock ‘em silly.”

“No,” Spader said. “No weapons.”

“Why not?” Courtney asked. “Eelong is a hairy place.”

“So it is,” Spader replied. “But we’re going there to get rid of a poison that should never have been brought in. That’s all. We can’t start using whatever we want from other territories.”

“I–Ihear you, Spader,” Mark said nervously. “B-But it’s going to be dangerous. We might not make it out of the flume tree alive.”

“If we don’t,” Spader said, “then that was the way it was meant to be. We’ll have to take our chances. Still want to go?”

Mark looked at Courtney. He had been having second thoughts about this trip all along. Now he was having third and fourth thoughts.

“Absolutely,” Courtney answered with confidence.

“Mark?” Spader asked.

Mark took a breath, then said, “Yeah.”

Spader said to Yenza, “Please send a message to Yorn through your ring. He’s the acolyte from Eelong. Tell him that Saint Dane brought a poison to Eelong from Cloral and we’re coming with the antidote. He’s got to get that message to Pendragon so we can join up with him.”

“Understood,” Yenza said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to come?”

“No, I’m not at all sure,” Spader answered. “But we’ve already got two acolytes traveling. If it turns out to be wrong, I don’t want to risk sending another.”

“It’s not wrong,” Courtney said defensively.

Spader replied by picking up his water sled. “We’ll soon find out. Ready?”