Uncle Press stopped when he got to the end of the overhang. The ceiling was lower there, so the distance from the rock overhead down to the sandy bottom was now about five feet. Uncle Press swam a few yards out into open water then motioned for me to look at something. I joined him outside and saw that he was pointing back to the lip of the rock where we had just come out. There, carved into the stone, was the familiar star symbol that designated this as a gate to the flumes. I gave him an okay sign, which is the universal signal you use underwater that means you understand.
Uncle Press returned the okay sign, which is custom, then smiled and said, “We can talk, remember?”
Oh, right. We didn’t have to use hand signals. I’d forgotten. Habit, I guess. I looked up and saw a wall of rock we’d been swimming under that extended straight up. This was the formation that housed the cavern and the flume.
“Now check this out,” he added, and pointed behind me.
I turned around and was confronted with one of the most breathtaking sights I had ever seen. Beyond us was open, green-blue sea. The sandy bottom turned into a coral reef that spread out before us like a colorful blanket. It was awesome. I had been on tropical reefs before and seen all sorts of tropical fish and unique coral formations, but I had never seen anything like this. The colors of this reef were nearly as vibrant as the flowers in the cavern we had just left. There were intense blue fans the size of umbrellas that waved lazily in the soft current. Dotted around them were giant chunks of brain coral, which are called that because they look like, well, like brains. At home brain coral is kind of brownish and dull. Here on Cloral, it was bright yellow. Yellow! I told you before that water filters out red and yellow at this depth, but not here on Cloral. Every color of the spectrum could be seen. There was vibrant green vegetation growing all over the reef. Off to our left was a thick forest of kelp. The vines started on the reef and floated all the way to the surface like leafy ropes — and they were bright red! Other coral had grown up out of the rock bed and formed shapes that looked like a green topiary garden. If you used your imagination, they seemed like a herd of small animals grazing on the rocks. But they weren’t; they were coral. Amazing.
Swimming among all this splendor were the most incredible fish I had ever seen. They traveled in schools, each seeming to know exactly what the others were thinking as they all changed direction at the exact same time. It always amazed me how there could be a hundred fish in a school, but none of them ever made a wrong turn or bumped into one another. One school looked like silver flutes with long delicate fins that fluttered quickly like the wings of a hummingbird. Another school of fish were perfectly round and thin, like a CD. Only they were bright pink! Still another school looked exactly like small bluebirds with beaks and feathers. I know they were swimming, but with each flap of their fins it sure seemed like they were flying. It was all a perfectly orchestrated ballet, and it was beautiful to watch them swim about the colorful reef, lazily enjoying their day.
I was totally in awe of the spectacular scene. The water was as clear as air. It was even more special because the air globes allowed me to look all around. Unlike diving goggles where you pretty much had to look straight ahead, the air globe gave me a perfect view of everything — and, man, it was worth it!
That is, until something happened that caught my eye.
“Uh-oh,” said Uncle Press.
He had seen it too. One second there were hundreds of these weird fish gently dancing through the currents. The very next moment they all scattered. It happened so fast that if I had blinked I would have missed it. Every single last fish in my view had suddenly darted off in a different direction. There’s a better word for it. They had fled. Something had scared them. And if they were scared, I was too.
“What’s going on?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“Something just spooked the fish.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” I said. “What do you think — “
“Look out!”
Uncle Press grabbed my arm and pulled me back down under the rock ledge. A second later I saw what caused the fish panic. Yup, it was a shark. A quig shark. It wasn’t in a hurry though. The big beast drifted past us as we cowered back in the shadow of the ledge. It used no effort to propel itself along.
It was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Most of its body was battleship gray, but its underbelly was jet black. And it was big. We’re talkingJawsbig. It was way bigger than the shark Saint Dane had sent back at us through the flume. One thing was the same though. Its eyes. The beast had the cold, yellow eyes that told me it was no ordinary shark. It was a quig, no doubt about it. The monster glided past, turned away from the rock, and started swimming directly away from us.
“Maybe it didn’t see us,” I said hopefully.
“It saw us,” came the flat response. “It’s just taking its time to — here we go!”
I quickly looked back outside and saw in horror that the shark had done a complete 180 and was now swimming directly at us! It had moved away from the rock overhang so it could get up a good head of steam to make its kill run at us. There was nowhere to run, or should I say, swim. We were trapped and this thing had us in its sights.
Uncle Press grabbed the speargun away from me, planted his feet, and took aim. The quig kept coming. It was almost on us. Its jaws were already open in anticipation of the big bad bite.
“Shoot!” I yelled. “Get him!”
Uncle Press waited to make sure he wouldn’t miss. I hoped he was as good with this speargun as he was with the spears on Denduron. His finger tightened on the trigger, but he didn’t fire.
Believe it or not, the shark being so big turned out to be a good thing. Its head slid underneath the ledge, but its dorsal fin hit the rock above. Yes! It was too big to fit under the ledge. It couldn’t get to us! Uncle Press lowered the speargun because the immediate danger was gone. That is, unless the quig could figure out how to squeeze in sideways. I didn’t think that would happen. Fish don’t swim sideways.
“So much for your decoy theory,” I said.
“It worked,” replied Uncle Press. “But this bad boy was quicker than I thought. Look.”
I saw that stuck in the shark’s teeth was the decoy water sled, completely tangled up in pants and vines. The quig went for the bait all right, but it was just an appetizer. It now wanted the main course. Us.
The huge quig wriggled and squirmed, trying to force its way under the rock shelf. If it’s possible for a fish to look angry, this thing looked major-league ticked. It writhed its body, swung its tail and gnashed its jaws, desperately trying to get at us. We were just out of its reach by a few yards. Too close, in my book, but no matter how furiously the quig pushed, its body was too big to squeeze any closer. Phew!
“If you’ve got a plan B, now’s the time to tell me,” I said nervously.
“I’ve always got a plan B,” came the confident reply. “I’m going to swim over to the left and come out from under the ledge. When it sees me, I guarantee it’ll come after me. As soon as I get a clear shot at it, I’ll take it. Its skull is thin. One shot and he’s gone.”
“Why wait?” I shouted. “Do it here!”
“I can’t get a good shot through the sand. I don’t want to miss.”
He was right. The quig’s violent thrashing had kicked up a storm of sand and it was hard to tell which end was up.