The Lost City of Faar (39 page)

I don't know how long we were digging. It could have been hours. I tried to focus on the job and not think about the worst, which was that we were too late for Uncle Press and the Faarians.

Finally, with one final tug from the hauler, we pulled over a huge chunk of dome and revealed the doorway to the hangar.

“Yeah!” I shouted.

“Hobey!” added Spader.

It was unbelievable that we had gotten this far. But our victory celebration was short-lived because almost immediately our thoughts went on to the next step. We had no idea what we were going to find beyond that door.

“Uh-oh,” said Spader ominously.

I hated “uh-oh.” Nothing good ever happened after “uh-oh.”

He pointed to a gash that was cut in the wall that must have been made by a falling piece of dome. The gash was so big, it went right through the wall. That meant that as soon as the rising water got high enough, it would have flooded the hangar. We could only hope that the Faarians had their swim-skins, and that they could buddy-breathe with Uncle Press. If not, the hauler hangar was now a tomb.

Spader gently touched the throttle and the hauler eased closer to the door. I shone the headlight on it so we could see exactly what we had to deal with. The door itself was bent. I hoped that didn't mean it was jammed or anything.

I reached for the joystick of the mechanical arm and was about to go after the door handle, when something caught my eye. It was a flicker of movement. I quickly looked to see that it had come from the gash in the wall. Something was moving in there!

“Don't stop now,” said Spader with excitement. He'd seen it too.

I had to force myself to keep calm. We were too close now for me to blow it by doing something dumb. So I slowly moved the mechanical arm over to the handle and grabbed on. I tried to tug it open using just the arm, but it wouldn't budge.

“Back it up,” I said to Spader.

The engines of the hauler began to whine. But the door still wouldn't budge. Spader throttled up. I could hear the engines strain, but the door wouldn't move.

“I'm going to really gun it,” said Spader. “If the door pops, release it quick or—”

Crack
!

The door gave way. I instantly released the trigger and we went sailing backward. Spader threw on the water brakes and stopped us before we slammed into anything from behind.

“Go back, go back!” I shouted.

Spader reversed the engines and we moved right back to the hangar and to the now open door. I shone the light on it, hoping that whoever was inside would see it and know that this was the way out. We hovered there, and waited.

“C'mon,” I begged. “C'mon!”

“We saw something move in there, right?” Spader asked.

“Yeah, I thought that—look!”

Something moved inside the open door! I held my breath. Was someone still alive in there, or was it a floating corpse?

Then a Faarian in a green swimskin poked his head out of the doorway. He was alive! He held his hand up to shield his eyes from our bright light and looked around the sunken city in wonder. He then gave a wave, and with a kick, began swimming to the surface.

I couldn't stop smiling. We had saved at least one of the Faarians, but were there more? And what about Uncle Press?

One by one, more Faarians in swimskins began to float out
of the door and swim to the surface. It was kind of eerie. They were like green ghosts floating up and out of a grave. Then again, this wasn't a grave. This building had saved them from being crushed and drowned—or drowned and crushed. It wasn't a tomb at all; it was their lifeboat.

I kept waiting to see Uncle Press. Since he didn't have his air globe, I expected to see him emerge from the doorway while buddy-breathing with one of the Faarians. But after counting fourteen swimmers, there was no Uncle Press. I started to get nervous again. Could all the Faarians have survived because they had swimskins, but Uncle Press have died because he didn't have the right gear? That wasn't fair. But still, nobody else was coming out! I was all set to put on my air globe and figure out a way to get out of this hauler to go look for him, when a knock came on the outside of the bubble. I turned to my right and came face-to-face with a Faarian in a swimskin. “Ahhh!” I jumped again.

Since the skins completely covered their heads, they were kind of creepy looking. Imagine Spider-man as a frog, and you'd pretty much have a Faarian in a swimskin.

This guy clung to the bubble of the hauler and was pointing at something.

“What does he want?” Spader asked.

“He's trying to tell us something,” I said.

The Faarian was pointing to something inside the hauler, behind my head. I spun around and saw that perched on a hook behind my seat was a pair of headphones. Spader had a pair behind him as well. I pointed to the headphones and looked at the Faarian. He nodded.

Spader and I both shrugged and put the headphones on. We then looked back to the Faarian and heard a familiar voice say, “What took you so long?”

It was Uncle Press!

“Yeah! All right! Hobey-ho!” we shouted. Spader and I were over the moon. I guess the Faarians had an extra skinsuit in the hangar.

“How did you end up with this hauler?” Uncle Press asked.

“Long story,” I answered.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“Faar is underwater,” I said. “Saint Dane blew a hole in the dome. But the entire city was evacuated. As far as I know there was only one casualty—the old man from the Council of Faar. What about the other haulers? Were they launched?”

“No, they're all still in there,” Uncle Press said. “The outside doors were buried.”

That was horrible news. The underwater farms of Cloral couldn't be saved. Saint Dane was still going to win.

“We should get out of here, mates,” said Spader. “Find something to hang on to, Press. We'll give you a ride.”

Uncle Press couldn't get inside the hauler because we were watertight. He would have to hitch a ride to the surface. He found a spot behind the bubble and grabbed on.

“Watch out,” I said. “There's a lot of junk floating around.”

Spader pushed the throttle, lifted the nose and we began our final ascent from Faar. We had to go slowly because we didn't want Uncle Press to get swept off. Besides, we weren't in any hurry. It gave me time to fill him in on all that had happened since we split up. The hard truth hit him the same as it did me. We had totally failed. The underwater farms were still producing poison crops, Faar was destroyed, and Cloral was on the verge of chaos. Even if Yenza had a complete victory over Saint Dane topside, it wouldn't matter. The damage was done.

The three of us fell silent during our final stage of the ascent. I wanted to take one last look around at the city that died trying to be the salvation of Cloral. The last chapter in the legend of the Lost City of Faar was a tragic one. And no figure was more tragic than poor Abador, Senior to the Council of Faar, who died trying to fulfill his destiny. Whatever transpire was, it would never happen. Instead it would be just one more unexplained mystery in the myth.

That's when a thought came to me.

“Stop,” I commanded.

“What?”

“Stop right here,” I said.

Spader stopped our ascent and we hovered in midwater.

“What's up, Bobby?” asked Uncle Press.

“Faar is dead. There's nothing we can do to save it. And there's nothing we can do to bring the rest of the haulers up to save the crops, right?”

“Yeah, that's about how the day has gone,” said Spader. “What's your point?”

“My point is there's nothing else to lose.”

“You getting philosophical on us, or is this leading somewhere?” Uncle Press asked from outside the hauler.

“I think we should take it all the way. We should complete Faar's destiny.”

“Which is . . .?”

“Transpire,” I said sharply. “I say we finish what Abador couldn't.”

Uncle Press said, “But we don't even know what that is. You said yourself it might be a self-destruct mechanism.”

“So what?” I shot back. “If that's the way the Faarians wanted it, then I think they deserve to end things the way they planned. It can't make things any worse for Cloral, right?
Abador said they had been preparing for this moment for generations. Who are we to deny them?”

I looked to Spader for an opinion. He only shrugged.

“Why not?” he added.

I looked outside the bubble to Uncle Press, but it was impossible to read any expression on his face since it was covered by a green swimskin.

“Do you know how to do it?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“Then you're right. There's nothing to lose,” he said. “Let's do it.”

“Get us back to the Council Circle,” I said to Spader.

Spader took control and we started moving again. In a few minutes we were once again hovering over the platform and looking down at Abador's hand that, tragically, had fallen only a few feet short.

“You have no way of knowing this, old man,” I said to Abador. “But we'll finish it for you.”

“What do I do?” asked Uncle Press.

“You see that blinking yellow light?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“There are three other crystal switches. One of them must be the control to transpire.”

“Okay, which one?”

“Beats me,” I answered. “If in doubt, eenie, meenie, miney, mo. I'm partial to mo.”

“Great,” scoffed Uncle Press, and swam off toward the panel.

He looked at the three other switches: green, red, and white. He first reached forward and pushed the green one. All that happened was that the green crystal started to glow, and the yellow light stopped blinking.

“That must be to turn off the evacuation alarm,” I said.

There were two choices left. From where I sat, the white crystal looked as if it had already been pushed down.

“I think the white crystal raises and lowers the podium,” I said. “It must be the red one.”

“Red it is,” said Uncle Press.

He reached forward, touched the red crystal, and glanced back to me. I gave him a nod, and he pushed it down.

And that's when the party
really
started.

First, the red crystal flashed brightly. That much I expected. The next thing we knew we were surrounded by sound. It started as a low whine, but then grew in volume. It sounded like giant engines were powering to life. Then the mountain rumbled. The waves it sent out from its movement started to buffet the hauler.

Uncle Press shot back to us and grabbed on.

“I think now's a good time to be someplace else,” he said.

“Hang on!” shouted Spader.

He hit the throttle and we began rising again. The monstrous sound grew louder. The hauler was being buffeted so hard that it was making my teeth chatter.

“You okay, Press?” called Spader.

“Get us outta here!” he shouted back.

Then I heard something new. It sounded like cracking, but it was immense.

“Uh-oh,” said Spader.

There it was again. “Uh-oh.” I
hated
“uh-oh”.

Spader was looking up. I looked up too and saw that we were getting closer to the hole in the dome, and safety. But that's not what the “uh-oh” was about. The trouble was, the rest of the dome was cracking! The rumble was sending shock waves through the water that were so strong, we could actually see
cracks traveling across the surface of the dome. But unlike the last time the dome cracked, this wasn't in one single place. Now, the entire dome was beginning to shatter!

“It's breaking up,” shouted Spader.

“Get under the hole!” I shouted back. I figured that if it all came down, humpty-dumpty-style, then our only chance of not being crushed would be if we were under the hole.

“I gotta pick up speed!” shouted Spader.

“I'm okay,” answered Uncle Press. “Go!”

Spader pushed us faster. It was a race to make it out of that hole before the whole world came crashing down on us.

“Come on, come on!” Spader coaxed the hauler on.

I killed the lights because we didn't need them anymore and could use every last bit of power for speed. We then hit the field of floating debris. Pieces of everything hit the bubble. I wasn't worried about the glass breaking. If the raiders' waterguns couldn't shatter it, then I didn't think a chunk of floating junk could. I was more afraid that something would hit Uncle Press.

“We got it!” Spader yelled.

And a second later we shot up out of the hole and into the light of open ocean. Unbelievably, the dome had held. But we weren't safe yet. The sound of the roaring engines was even louder outside of the dome. The water was still vibrating like crazy, and there was something new. All around us were massive jets of air bubbles shooting up from around the perimeter of the dome.

“Keep moving!” shouted Uncle Press.

Spader hit the throttle and we sped away. It didn't matter where we went so long as we didn't stay here. The jets of air shot up all around us, like fissures opening up somewhere deep below and letting off pressure. There was no way to
avoid them. They kept hitting us and knocking us around. This was probably the closest I will ever come to being inside a washing machine.

“Press?” called Spader.

“Don't talk, drive!” shouted Uncle Press.

Finally we got past the fissure jets and Spader was able to put us right. The water just beyond them was absolutely calm. In seconds we had gone from being tossed in heavy seas to floating as calmly as if we were in a bathtub. It was a strange feeling. I wasn't complaining.

“Now
that
was a tum-tigger,” said Spader.

But it wasn't over yet. The roar of the engines, or whatever they were, was still growing louder even though we were out of the turbulent zone. The air fissures had suddenly stopped erupting, and as soon as the bubbles stopped shooting up, the engines whined louder.