Welcome to my life as a Traveler, phase two.
In those last days on Cloral, I knew what my next move had to be, but I was putting it off because, well, I was scared. Things were different now. I was alone. It was a whole new ballgame and I wasn’t sure if I was good enough to play in it.
When Saint Dane flumed out of Cloral, he was headed for a territory called Veelox. I knew I had to follow him, but the idea of going after him alone was about as appealing as setting my hair on fire. All things being equal, I think I’d rather have set my hair on fire. So I made a decision that I hope I don’t regret.
I asked Vo Spader to go with me. Don’t get me wrong, Spader is a great guy. He’s the Traveler from Cloral, after all. He saved my life more than once; he’s an incredible athlete; he’s about as brave as can be; and most importantly, he’s my friend. So why should I be worried about asking him to come with me?
It’s because his total, blind hatred of Saint Dane is dangerous. Saint Dane caused the death of his father and for that, Spader wants revenge. Big time. Hey, I don’t blame him. But there were a few times on Cloral where Spader got so completely wrapped up in Saint Dane-hating that he nearly got us all killed. Truth be told, Spader’s anger toward Saint Dane is one of the reasons Uncle Press is dead.
Since then, Spader promised me he would control himself, and his anger. I can only hope that when we come face-to-face with the demon again, and I guarantee we will, Spader won’t do anything stupid. These were some of the conflicted thoughts that were banging around inside my head as I finished my last journal.
“Hobey-ho, Pendragon,” Spader said as he strode into my apartment the morning of our departure.
Spader had almond-shaped eyes that looked sort of Asian. They turned up slightly and made him look as if he were always smiling. The truth was, most of the time hewassmiling… when he wasn’t obsessing over Saint Dane, that is. His long black hair was still wet, which meant he had been in the water. Spader spent a lot of time in the water, playing traffic cop with the boats and barges that came and went from Grallion. He loved his job, and his life there. At least he loved it before he found out he was a Traveler. Things had changed a little since then.
“It’s time,” I said.
“For what?” was his quick response. ”Cloral is safe. Uncle Press is gone. And I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to go after Saint Dane.”
Spader gave me a devilish smile. “Now you’re talking, mate! I’ve been waiting to hear those words for weeks! What if the trail’s gone cold?”
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I answered. “Uncle Press always said that time between territories isn’t relative.”
Spader frowned. “You lost me.”
I had to laugh. This didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me either, but I had to trust Uncle Press.
“Look at it this way,” I explained. “Saint Dane flumed to Veelox a few weeks ago, but since then he may have spent five years there. Or a minute.”
“Now I’m totally lost,” Spader said in frustration.
“Bottom line is, we’re not too late,” I said. “It doesn’t matter when we go after him, because the flume will put us where we need to be, whenwe need to be there.”
“O-kay,” said Spader tentatively. “I’ll trust you on that.”
I’d already said good-bye to our friends on Grallion, and I’d sent my last journal to you. I had explained the importance of journals to Spader and he had already started his own. The person he chose to send them to on Cloral for safekeeping was Wu Yenza. She was the chief aquaneer and Spader’s boss. He couldn’t have picked a better person.
I took a last look around my apartment. Then we went down to the docks, loaded our air globes and water sleds onto a skimmer boat, and left Grallion for the flume. Spader was the expert, so he drove. As we shot across the water I looked back at the giant, floating farm habitat of Grallion, wondering if I’d ever see it again. I liked Cloral. There were times when I actually had fun on that territory. It gave me hope that being a Traveler didn’t mean I always had to live in a state of fear and confusion.
Now the question was, what lay ahead of us? Pretty much a state of fear and confusion. Great. Here we go again.
The trip to the flume was cake. We anchored the skimmer near the reef, popped on the air globes that allowed us to breathe underwater, triggered the water sleds, and quickly sank below the surface. We didn’t run into any shark quigs either. I think that once Saint Dane is finished with a territory, the quigs no longer patrol the gates. Still, I wasn’t taking any chances. As we sped through the water being pulled by the sleds, I kept glancing back to make sure nothing nasty was sneaking up on us to try and get a nibble.
I didn’t relax until we shot under the shelf of rock that led to the gate. Following the glow from my ring, we quickly found the wide circle of light that led up and into the cavern that held the flume. Moments later we were standing together in the cavern, staring up at the dark flume tunnel that was cut into the rock wall high over our heads.
This was it. The last few seconds of calm.
Spader looked at me and smiled. “My heart’s thumpin’.”
So was mine. We were standing at the starting line and the gun was about to go off. Spader loved adventure. Me? I’d just as soon be home watching toons. Knowing Spader was nervous made me feel like I wasn’t such a weenie after all.
He added, “We’re in for another natty-do, aren’t we, mate?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Pretty much.”
“No use in wasting time here then,” he said, sounding a lot braver than I felt.
“Yeah,” I said. “We’re on the wrong territory.” I stood straight, looked up to the dark hole of the flume, and shouted,”Veelox!”
The tunnel sprang to life. Shafts of bright light shot from deep inside. The familiar jumble of musical notes could be heard faintly at first, but quickly grew louder. They were coming to get us.
Spader turned to me and smiled. “Hobey-ho, Pendragon.” “Hobey-ho, Spader,” I answered. “Let’s go get him.” A second later we were swept up by the light and sound and pulled into the flume. Next stop… Veelox. Mark Dimond and Courtney Chetwynde huddled together in the vault of the National Bank ofStony Brook, reading Bobby’s journal from First Earth. It was a journal unlike any of the others Bobby had sent.
First off, the pages weren’t loose. They were bound nicely into a book with a deep red cover. And the pages weren’t handwritten. They were typed… on an old-fashioned typewriter. They knew it was a typewriter because the letters weren’t all perfectly lined up and there were a ton of mistakes. Besides, they didn’t have computers or printers back in 1937. This new journal was definitely a far cry from the pieces of rolled up parchment paper Bobby had written his first journals on.
The other difference was that Bobby usually sent only one journal at a time. When he finished writing one he’d send it, through his Traveler ring, to Mark’s ring. But this time, sitting in front of Mark and Courtney were four journals. After reading what happened with the gangsters on First Earth, Mark and Courtney knew why.
Bobby’s ring had been stolen. The mysterious manner in which the journals arrived was further proof of that. Earlier that day, Mark had gotten a strange phone call from a lady at the National Bank of Stony Brook. She asked for Mark and Courtney to meet her at the bank to discuss something about a Mr. Robert Pendragon. That was all Mark needed to hear. He and Courtney were at that bank in half an hour.
When they arrived, they discovered that Bobby had rented a safe-deposit box at the bank in 1937. Bobby had left explicit instructions that the bank should contact Mark Dimond on this very date — August 21, Mark’s fifteenth birthday.