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 jit 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.