D. MacHale - The Lost City of Faar

“Pendragon, if it moves in the water, I can drive it.”

“Okay,” I said. “But can you get it out of here?” Spader gave me a “don’t ask dumb questions” look, and ran for the hauler.

“Get our gear, then go over to those levers,” he instructed as he climbed up onto the bubble.

As Spader lowered himself into the bubble, I ran to get our air globes and water sleds. I grabbed them all, then threw each up to Spader, who stood with half of his body out of the top of the bubble.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Four levers,” he said. “One floods the chamber, another empties it, third opens the hatch, fourth closes the hatch. We don’t have to flood the chamber because we’re already on top of water. The pressure keeps the water out. All we have to do is open the hatch, and we’re gone.”

“Okay, which lever opens the hatch?”

“Hobey, Pendragon. I don’t knoweverything!’

He then slipped into the bubble and started powering up. This was the old Spader, the one I knew before his father was killed. It felt good.

I went to the four levers. None of them were marked. There was only one way to figure out which was the right one. I had to call upon all my Traveler experience and special powers to figure it out. It’s called…

“Eenie, meenie, miney…mo\I pulled on “mo” and with a grinding screech, the floor began to move. The hatch door was sliding open! Go, mo! Unfortunately, as soon as the hatch began to open, it set off an alarm. A shrill, blaring horn blew, which said only one thing: “Someone is trying to escape in the hauler.” My guess was at least one of the raiders would come to find out who it was.

“Better hop in,” Spader shouted.

I ran across the moving floor and leaped on to the bubble craft. I dangled my legs down into the cockpit and was just about to drop in when Spader said, “Hold on, mate. We gotta release first.”

He was right. The floor hatch was now all the way open, but the hauler wasn’t free. The craft was suspended from two hooks that kept us dangling over the water below.

“So how do we release?” I asked.

“I’d say you should swing that lever right there.”

Sure enough, there was a lever right over my head. I grabbed it, pulled it toward me and — whoa! The hauler fell free and splashed down in the water. I lost my balance and fell into the globe, right in Spader’s lap.

“Thanks for droppin’ in, mate,” Spader said. “Close ‘er up, please.”

I stood up and pulled the bubble closed over us. With Spader in the left pilot’s seat and me in the right, we were ready to go.

That’s when the door to the chamber flew open and two raiders jumped in with guns.

“Dive, please,” I said.

“Right!”

Spader hit four toggle switches, air bubbles hissed through the water around us and we began to sink. The raiders shouldered their rifles and took aim. All I could hope was that the bubble on this hauler was strong enough to take a direct shot from a water rifle. I didn’t have long to wonder. The raiders opened fire on us. I ducked, expecting the bubble to shatter to pieces. But it didn’t. Their water bullets splattered against the clear shield without leaving so much as a scratch. Score another one for the genius of the people from Faar.

We were now almost submerged. The raiders had stopped firing and watched us helplessly as we sank below the surface. Then, just before the water closed over us, someone else entered the tank room. It was Saint Dane. For an instant I actually thought I saw a look of worry on his face. That’s the last image I saw of him, then we slipped underwater.

Spader took control of the vehicle like he had been a hauler pilot his whole life. We descended well below the submarine, then he hit the throttle and we left the dark shadow behind.

“What about the big guns?” I asked. “The ones they used on Faar. They can blow Yenza’s boats out of the water.”

“They can, but they won’t,” Spader answered. “They only fire when it’s submerged. Yenza knows what she’s doing, all right. She nailed that control tower so they can’t submerge again. Saint Dane made a big mistake. On the surface, he’s no match for my mates. There’s only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s going to be over too fast. I want to join up with them and take a couple of shots at Saint Dane myself before the natty-do’s all done!”

I looked back at the dark submarine. If Spader was right, the battle above was as good as over. Yenza would handle the raiders, and with a little luck, Saint Dane would go down with his ship. I was no longer worried about what was happening up there. My thoughts were elsewhere entirely. So I reached forward and killed the engines.

“Hobey, mate, what’re you doing?”

“You really know how to pilot this thing?” I asked seriously. “Don’t get all macho aquaneer on me. I want the truth.”

“This is a fine piece of machinery,” he said, looking around. “It’s way more advanced than anything I’ve ever seen. But that just makes it easier. All modesty aside, I can move this little beauty through a mile of kelp and not break a single leaf.” My mind was working hard, figuring the possibilities.

“What are you thinking, Pendragon?” Spader asked. “You think we should start dumping this cargo over some of the farms?”

“Good idea, but no,” I said. “We can do that later. Right now, I got something else in mind.”

“What?”

“I want to go after Uncle Press.”

Spader’s eyes opened wide with surprise. He hadn’t expected me to say that.

“Hobey, mate!” he said in awe. “Do you know how dangerous that would be? You’re talking about finding our way down through that submerged city; poking through who knows what that’s floating around in there waiting to get us all tangled up and trapped. Then if we’re lucky enough to make it to the bottom we’d have to dig through the pile of rubble that’s covering the door with a mechanical arm we’ve never used before and for all we know can’t even lift that kind of weight. And it’s all on the chance that Press and the others are still alive down there. Do you know that’s what you’re asking?”

“Uh… yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

“You’re crazy!” he said. A moment later, he smiled. “I like that.”

“Then why are we still here?”

Spader fired the engines back up, banked hard to the right, dipped the nose, and we were on our way back toward the coral reef for one last visit to the city of Faar.

Descending into Faar wasn’t exactly like diving into the unknown. We had just come from there. But to say that things had changed a little would be a major understatement. We sort of knew the geography of the place, but now that it was underwater it would be like traveling through the dangerous insides of a giant sunken ship. The whole space would be filled with water and that meant stuff would be floating all around.

Still, I didn’t think we had a choice. There were a dozen Faarians down there who could still be alive, and Uncle Press was with them. We had to give it a try.

Spader drove the hauler back toward the coral reef that was the dome over Faar. He kept making slight maneuvers he didn’t need to so he could get used to the controls of the hauler. Smart idea. Better to get totally familiar with the craft out here in open water than down in the murky depths.

As we approached the coral reef, I looked for the hole that Saint Dane had blown open. It would be our doorway into Faar. It wasn’t hard to find. There were long, parallel lines dug into the reef that must have been caused by the huge volume of water that was pulled across it as it was sucked toward the hole. It was like a road map. All we had to do was follow it.