The Lost City of Faar

CLORAL

The flume.

It was my fifth time flying through this magical tunnel into the unknown, but I still wasn’t used to it. Heck, I could travel like this a thousand times and I wouldn’t get used to it. As I told you guys before, it’s kind of like sailing down a huge water slide. But it’s not as violent as a water-park ride. It’s really more like floating on a cushion of warm air. The tunnel walls that were surrounding me looked like transparent crystal. But I knew this only happened when the flume was activated. Why does it do this? Haven’t got a clue.

Beyond the walls I saw stars. Billions of them. I was in the middle of the universe traveling through space and time. At least that’s how it was explained to me. I wondered if the flumes were actually solid. Was it possible to damage a flume? Could an orbiting satellite accidentally smash into one? What about a meteor? Or an asteroid? I figured I had enough to worry about without thinking about that kind of potential disaster, so I tried to think of something else.

Up ahead I could see the twists and turns of the tunnel. The first time I had done this I was afraid to bounce off the walls, so I tried to lean into the turns like one of those maniacs on a luge run, but as it turns out I didn’t have to bother. Whatever force was speeding me along also prevented me from slamming into the walls. All I had to do was kick back and enjoy the ride.

Until now, I had only taken the flume between Second Earth and Denduron. This was the first time I was headed to somewhere else. I wondered if I was going to hit some kind of intersection and get shot in the new direction. The answer came pretty quick. There were no turns. There were no junctures. I was on the express line to Cloral.

How did I know that? I heard a sound. I was used to hearing the jumble of sweet musical notes as I shot along, so this new sound jumped out at me. It kept getting louder, which meant I was getting closer to it. It wasn’t until I was almost to the end when I realized what it was.

It was water.

Suddenly the warning Uncle Press had given me before I got sucked into the flume made sense. He told me to remember the Cannonball and to hold my breath. In that instant I remembered the Cannonball. Do you remember, Mark? It was a ride at the water park in New Jersey that Uncle Press took us to a few years ago. It was a short, fast water slide that went underground, then shot you out for a fifteen-foot drop into an icy cold pool of snowmelt mountain water. I think the word you used to describe it was “rude.” Well, if I was right, then Uncle Press’s warning meant that I was about to be shot out of the flume into a pool of water. I quickly folded my arms in front of my chest, crossed my legs, and waited for the end.

It came quickly. I was fired out of the flume like a torpedo, feet first. One moment I was floating comfortably in the flume, the next moment gravity took control and I was falling through the air toward… what? Everything was a blur. I couldn’t get my bearings or my balance. All I could do was hope to land on something soft. Or wet.

It was wet. With a graceless splashdown, I hit water. But thanks to Uncle Press’s warning, I was ready. I hit feet first and plunged below. I even remembered to hold my nose so I wouldn’t get a sudden brain-flush of water shooting up my nostrils.

The water was tropical warm, like swimming in Florida. As soon as I stopped driving downward, I kicked my legs to push back to the surface. I wanted to know where I was and what the territory of Cloral had going on. When I broke the surface I took a quick look around to check the place out. I was treading water in a large pool in an underground cavern. Not a big surprise. So far all the flumes were underground. But unlike the other flumes that I walked into, the opening to this flume was cut into the cavern wall about twenty feet above the water. That’s where I had just been shot out like, well, like a cannonball. Thanks for the warning, Uncle Press.

A quick scan around told me that the cavern was completely sealed and the only light came from the water where I was floating. I figured the sun was shining outside and it reflected off the sandy bottom to create a luminous green pool that was bright enough to light up the entire cavern.

The place was about the size of two tennis courts, with a high arching ceiling that reached a peak far above. It kind of reminded me of being in a small church. The walls were craggy, sand-colored stone that looked to have been carved by centuries of erosion. There were also thousands of green, leafy vines that grew right out of the stone and draped down over the rocks like a curtain.

But the thing that really jumped out at me were the thousands of colorful flowers that grew from the vines. The light from the pool of water must have been enough to let them grow, or maybe flowers didn’t need light on Cloral. Whatever the case, they were like a spectacular tapestry of color all over the walls. There were vivid reds, deep blues and vibrant yellows. The flowers were all different shapes and sizes and looked nothing like Earth flowers. Some were trumpet shaped, others looked more like small helicopter blades. Stranger still, they seemed alive. No kidding, all the blossoms were slowly opening and closing like they were breathing oxygen. Seeing these thousands of moving flowers made the cavern itself seem alive. It was magical and creepy at the same time.

I had calmed down by now and floated lazily in the green pool. It was actually kind of cool. I also think I was mesmerized by this wondrous place. I probably would have kept floating there for a long time if I hadn’t heard the familiar sound of musical notes coming from the flume overhead. It took a second for me to register what was happening. Uncle Press was about to arrive. That was good. But I was treading water on the very spot where he was going to land. That was bad. I instantly kicked and lunged for the side of the pool to get out of the way. No sooner did I touch the rocky edge when I heard, “Eeeehaaaa!”

Uncle Press shot out of the flume headfirst. The force of it sent him sailing out into the center of the cavern. He seemed to hang there for an impossible second until gravity kicked in. As he began his arc down, he thrust his arms out to form a perfect swan dive. Then just before splashdown, he brought his arms together and entered the water almost vertically. He barely even made a splash. A perfect ten all the way around.

I pulled myself up and sat on the edge of the pool as Uncle Press resurfaced. He had a huge, exhilarated smile on his face as he shook his head to throw his wet hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah! I love this place!” he shouted with joy. “Headfirst is the only way to go.”

I was beginning to think that Uncle Press liked being a Traveler. At least he enjoyed it more than I did, that was for sure. With two quick strokes he swam to the side of the pool and hauled himself out. He was a little out of breath from his dramatic arrival, so he sat on the edge and looked at me with eyes that were alive with excitement.

“Welcome to Cloral,” he said with glee. “This is my favorite territory. No contest.”

He sounded like some kind of tour guide whose job it was to make sure I was enjoying my vacation. But this was no vacation. Not even close.

“So what’s the deal here?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer. “Is there a war? Some impending disaster? Some evildoings that Saint Dane cooked up to make our lives miserable?”

Uncle Press gave a shrug. “I don’t know,” was his casual response.

Huh? Up until now Uncle Press had all the answers. He didn’t always share them with me, but it was good to know that at least one of us wasn’t totally clueless.

“Don’t know?” I shot back. “Why do you keep stuff from me? If we’re headed for trouble, I want to know.”

“I’m not trying to hide things from you, Bobby,” he said sincerely. “I really don’t know what’s happening here. On Denduron, I’d been living with the Milago and knew that there was civil war brewing. But I’ve only been to Cloral a couple of times. As far as I know, everything here is fine and dandy.”

“So then why are we here?” I asked with frustration.

Uncle Press looked me right in the eye, suddenly all business.

“We’re here because Saint Dane is here,” he said soberly. “He hasn’t tipped his hand yet, but he will.”

Right. Saint Dane. Back on Denduron, moments before Loor and I had made our death-defying escape from the mine shaft, Saint Dane had jumped into a flume and shouted,”Cloral!”Since the mine was seconds away from blowing up, Loor and I would have gladly followed him, except that he sent a killer shark riding a wave of water back through the flume to stop us. We had two choices: death by shark-lunch, or flee deeper into the doomed mine. We chose to run and luckily escaped through a ventilation shaft before the entire place exploded.

It suddenly dawned on me that the reason we were here on Cloral was because of me. I was the one who knew Saint Dane came here. I guess I was playing more of a part in this whole saga than I really cared to.

“Tell me about Cloral,” I asked. I figured I should at least know what to expect from this new territory.

Uncle Press stood up and glanced around the colorful, living, underground cavern.

“The whole planet is covered by water,” he began. “As far as I know there isn’t an inch of dry land anywhere. This cave is part of a coral reef that’s about sixty feet underwater.”

“You’re kidding?” I interrupted. “Who lives on this territory? Fish?”

Uncle Press laughed and reached toward one of the vines that clung to the rocks. Behind the colorful flowers, attached to the same vine, were dark lumpy-looking things. He plucked one off like an apple from a tree and tossed it to me. I caught it awkwardly and saw that it looked like a small, dark green cucumber. It was kind of rubbery, so I guess it was really more like a pickle than a cucumber.

“Break it in half,” he said.

I held both ends and snapped the strange tube in half easily. The green skin on the outside was so dark that it was nearly black, but the inside was bright red.

“Try it,” he said while plucking another one for himself. He took a big bite and chewed. I figured if it didn’t kill him, it wouldn’t kill me, so I took a bite and it was delicious! It was like the sweetest little watermelon I had ever eaten. Even the skin was good, though chewier and a bit more salty than the sweet pulp inside. No seeds, either.

“I think there may have been a time when the people of Cloral lived on dry land,” he continued. “But that was centuries ago. There aren’t any records of it. Whatever happened to the planet, no one knows. But the land is long gone.”

“So how do they live in water?” I asked while wiping the sweet juice from my chin.

“They don’t,” he answered. “They live on floating cities called ‘habitats.’ Whole communities are built on these monster barges. Some are so big you’d swear you were on an island.”

“That sounds impossible,” I said. “Where do they get food? And building materials? And — “

“Why don’t I just show you?” Uncle Press interrupted.

Good point. We could sit here talking about it, or I could see for myself. I hated to admit it, but I was kind of interested by a world that was always floating.

Uncle Press wiped fruit juice from his mouth and walked carefully across the rocky ledge until he came to a thick mound of vines near the base of the wall. He pulled them away and I saw that the vines had been covering a pile of clothing and equipment. I immediately remembered the cave on top of the mountain on Denduron where Uncle Press gave me the leather clothes of that territory. It was against the rules to wear anything from other territories, so we needed some Cloral clothes.

“I don’t get it,” I said quizzically. “If you didn’t know we were coming here, how did you know enough to have this little stash of stuff ready?”

“We aren’t alone, Bobby,” he said while picking up and checking out something that looked like a clear-plastic bubble the size of a basketball. “There are acolytes who support us on every territory. They brought this gear here.”

Acolytes. That’s who supposedly took care of the motorcycle back in the Bronx.

“Who are they?” I asked. “How come I’ve never seen one?”

“You won’t,” he answered. “At least not often. But they’re around.”

“If they’re so helpful,” I added suspiciously, “how come they didn’t help us out a little more on Denduron?”

“It’s not like that,” he said. “They aren’t Travelers. They can’t play a direct role in our mission. All they can do is help us blend into the territory. Here!”

He tossed the plastic bubble to me. It was light, but solid. One section of the globe was open so it looked kind of like a big, round fishbowl. There was also a small gizmo attached to it that looked like a silver harmonica.

“Put your head in it.”

Yeah, right. Sticking my head into that alien object is not something I’d do by choice.

“Just put it on,” he said with a smile.

Why couldn’t he just tell me what was about to happen for a change? Why did I always have to experience it myself? Oh well. Why argue? I reluctantly lifted the clear globe and slowly lowered it down over my head — until a freaky thing happened. As soon as the top of my head touched the inside of the globe, the clear dome started to change shape! I instantly yanked the cursed thing off. It immediately stopped moving and returned to its original round shape.

“What the hell was that?” I exclaimed, totally freaked out.

Uncle Press laughed and reached toward the pile of stuff to get another clear globe.

“The Clorans are pretty advanced,” he explained. “They’ve got some pretty incredible toys.”

“Like torture devices that clamp on your head and suck out your brain?”

“No, like anything to do with water. Water is their life. They’ve learned how to use it in ways you can’t even imagine.”

He put the second globe over his head. Instantly the clear dome began to writhe and change shape. In a few seconds the sphere went from totally round, to a perfect formfitting shell around his head. It was unbelievable. The thing had taken on the shape of Uncle Press’s head. He smiled at me from inside the clear mask.

“They’ve figured out how to create solid material from water,” he said while tapping the shell that had formed around his face. It was hard again. Amazing. I could even hear him clearly, though his head was encased in… whatever it was encased in.

“And this thing here” — he pointed to the silver harmonica thing attached at the back of his head — “this is a filter that takes in water, breaks it down atomically, and feeds oxygen into the mask so you can breathe. Cool, aye?”

Now I got it. This strange living mask was some kind of scuba gizmo. You could breathe underwater with this thing.

And the clear plastic would act as a mask to keep water out of your eyes so you could see. How cool is that?

Uncle Press pulled the clear mask up off his head, and by the time he placed it in his lap it had already become round again.

“Centuries of living on water makes you resourceful,” he said.

“Absolutely,” I added. “What else you got there?”

There were two gizmos on the pile that I can best describe as looking like the plastic floats lifeguards use when they make rescues. Uncle Press picked one up and held it out for me to see. It was roughly football shaped, bright purple, and had handle grips on each side. It was about a foot and a half long. One end had a round, open mouth. The other end came to a point. There were also rows of slits that ran across the top and bottom.

“Okay, I give up,” I said.

“It’s a water sled. When you’re in the water, grab the handles, hold it out in front of you and pull the trigger.”

I could see that hidden inside each of the handles was a trigger.

“The open end goes in front,” he explained. “Point it where you want to go. Water gets sucked in through these slits for power and the whole thing pulls you along. The harder you squeeze the trigger, the faster you go. Easy peazy.”

This was getting good. I was beginning to see why Uncle Press liked Cloral so much. He then threw me a pair of rubbery swim fins that needed no explanation.

“Get changed,” he added.

It was time to dress like a Cloran. I had been through this drill before. So I walked across the stone ledge and began to dig through the pile of Cloral clothes. Uncle Press did the same. There were shirts and pants and even shorts that I guess were supposed to be used as underwear. Good thing. I didn’t get to wear any underwear on Denduron and the rough leather clothes gave me a raging rash that was only now starting to calm down.

The material was soft and kind of rubbery. Cloral was all about water, so I guessed these clothes would be perfect for swimming and would dry fast. The colors were bright, too. All were on the cool end of the spectrum, blue, green, and purple. I knew from the times that Uncle Press had taken me scuba diving that the best colors to use underwater were in the blue family — they showed up best. Colors like red and yellow were quickly filtered away underwater so they ended up looking gray, but blue still looked like blue underwater. So did purple and green.

I had the feeling that there would be more opportunities for my scuba diving experience to come in handy here on this water territory. Uncle Press had taken me to diving classes last year and I got my open-water diver’s certification. Uncle Press then took me on a great trip to Florida where we dove in the ocean and explored some of the fresh water springs. That was fantastic. We swam with schools of fish and hitched rides on turtles.

Uncle Press and I had done a lot of great things like that. I was beginning to think that maybe those adventures weren’t so much about having fun as they were about preparing me for some of the challenges I would face as a Traveler. I guess I should be grateful — except maybe for the time he took me sky diving. It was a blast, but I really didn’t want to think about what he may have been preparing me for with that little episode. Yikes.

I grabbed a light blue shirt and pair of pants that looked sort of like the same color. Nobody knew me here, but I didn’t want to look like a clashing, colorblind geek. I picked out some blue shorts, too. I wasn’t sure if they were the right size, but when I put them on, it was like they were made for me! There weren’t any zippers or buttons, either. I dumped my Second Earth clothes and stepped into the shorts and pants, then pulled the shirt down over my head. The stretchy clothes molded to my body perfectly. They weren’t too tight, but were still formfitting enough that nothing would twist and get in the way in the water. There were even soft boots with hard rubber souls that slipped on easily and fit like they were custom-made. It was all very Star Trek.

“Put on a belt, too,” said Uncle Press, and handed me a thin, soft strap.

“That’s okay,” I replied. “I’m not a belt kind of guy.” “It’s not about fashion,” he said. “It’s a BC.” Cool. Going back to my scuba experience, I knew that BC stood for buoyancy compensator. Scuba divers have to wear a weight belt underwater or they’d float back to the surface. A BC is a vest that you fill with air from your scuba tank to help you adjust your buoyancy so you won’t sink to the bottom, or shoot up to the surface. When everything is perfect, it’s called “neutrally buoyant.” It makes swimming feel like flying. But I wasn’t sure how this little belt was going to keep anybody neutrally buoyant.

“It’s automatic,” Uncle Press explained. I think he was reading my mind again. “It takes on water for weight, or creates oxygen for lift, depending on what you need. I told you, these guys are pretty advanced.”

I took his word for it and threaded the strap through the belt loops on my new pants. I was really eager to get in the water and try out these new toys. This was like old times with Uncle Press, only better. Yes, so far I really liked Cloral. It was a major improvement over Denduron. It was warm, the clothes didn’t suck, the local fruit was pretty tasty, and from what Uncle Press told me, this was a territory that wasn’t at war with anybody and had advanced enough to create some pretty nifty gadgets. I was actually jazzed about getting out of the cavern and starting to explore.

That is, until I saw Uncle Press doing something odd. As soon as he finished dressing in his local outfit, he took one of the extra pairs of Cloral pants and tied a knot on the end of each leg.

“Grab a bunch of fruit,” he ordered.

I started grabbing off pieces of fruit from the vines. Uncle Press took the pieces and stuffed them into the pant legs he had just tied off. I figured maybe he was using the pants as a makeshift bag to carry some fruit to the surface. That was cool. I liked the stuff. He filled the pants up until they looked like a lumpy pair of legs, then yanked down a piece of vine from the wall and used it as a rope to thread through the belt loops and tie off the waist.

“Hand me one of the water sleds,” he asked.

Okay, now he lost me. What was he doing? I gave him one of the two purple sleds and he tied the other end of the vine that was holding the pants together to the handles. There was now about a three-foot length of vine between the water sled and the pants full of fruit.

“You gonna tell me what you’re doing?”

“We’ve got to swim out of here,” he explained. “Put on fins. We’ll use the air globes to breathe. We’re only about sixty feet down. There should be a skimmer waiting for us on the surface.”

“A skimmer?”

“It’s like a speedboat. Very fast. Easy to maneuver. You’ll love it.”

“Courtesy of the acolytes?”

“Exactly.”

“What’s with the fruity pants?”

“No big deal. Just a little quig bait.”

Uh-oh. That was it. Fun time was over. He punctuated this last comment by digging down under the rest of the Cloral clothes and pulling out a nasty-looking speargun. I knew this was going too well. There were quigs lurking outside. If you remember, quigs were the nasty beasties that Saint Dane used to guard the gates to the flumes. On Second Earth they were wild dogs. On Denduron they were prehistoric, cannibal bears with spiny backs. On Cloral they could only be…

“Sharks,” I said flatly. “You’re saying there are giant sharks swimming around out there waiting for us to pop out in our spiffy new rubber outfits?”

“You saw one yourself, on Denduron.”

I did. In the mine shaft flume on Denduron. I still remember its demonic, yellow quig-eyes as it rode the wave of water toward us. The memory made my knees buckle. The tropical vacation was over.

“Don’t worry,” said Uncle Press. “I’ll send the water sled out first. Our smell is already on these pants. If there are any quigs around, and I’m not saying thereare, mind you, they’ll chase the smell.”

“You think they’ll be dumb enough to go for it?”

“They’re vicious, not bright,” he answered with confidence. “We’ll have plenty of time to get to the surface and find the skimmer.”

He handed me the speargun, which I took gingerly.

“You don’t expect me to use this, do you?”

“Just hold it,” he said. He then took another small piece of vine and looped it through the handle of the water sled. With a quick tug, he tightened it down so that it pulled the trigger, then tied a knot to keep it in place. The trigger supposedly kicked over the engine, but it wasn’t making any noise.

“Why didn’t it turn on?” I asked.

“I told you, it needs water for power.”

Uncle Press knelt down next to the pool. He first placed the loaded pants into the water. They floated off to the length of the vine that was attached to the sled. Then with both hands on the sled, he lowered the purple engine underwater as well. As soon as the slits were underwater, I could hear the low whine of its motor kick to life. The trigger was pulled all the way so it was on full power. The little sled nearly yanked Uncle Press off the ledge. He had to struggle just to hang on to it.

“Told you,” he said with a laugh. “This thing has some giddyap.”

He was enjoying this way too much. He then released his grip and the sled jumped out of his hands. The vine attached to the pants snapped tight, and it was gone in an instant, dragging the pants o’ fruit after it.

Uncle Press then sat down to put on his swim fins. I put the speargun down and did the same, quickly. I wanted to be up and out of the water before any quigs realized they were on a wild-fruit chase and came back looking for meat. Uncle Press then picked up one of the clear globes and tossed it to me.

“Let’s go,” he said with a smile.

I think he was actually looking forward to this. He was crazy. I put the globe over my head and it immediately began changing into the shape of my face. I developed instant claustrophobia and had to tell myself that it was going to be okay.

It worked for Uncle Press. It’ll work for me. Either that or it will smother me and I’ll die right here in this fruit-filled underwater cavern. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It would definitely be better than getting chomped on by Jaws.

“Breathe normally,” instructed Uncle Press. “It’s easier than using a regulator from a scuba tank.”

Breathe normally. Yeah, right. We were about to dip into shark-infested waters and he wanted me to breathe normally. Maybe I should try and stop my heart from pounding out 180 beats a minute while I was at it.

“I’ll use the water sled,” he said. “It’ll be faster than swimming. When we go under, get on my back and hold on to my belt with your left hand, tight.”

“What do I do with my right hand?”

“That’s for the speargun.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m not taking that responsibility. No way.”

“Just hang on to it,” he said, trying to reassure me. “Nothing’s going to happen. But on the off chance it does, we’ll stop and you can give the gun to me. Okay?”

I guess that made sense. If the choice was between having a speargun and not having it, I’d certainly rather have it. So I reluctantly reached down and picked up the weapon. The gun was made of what looked like bright green plastic. The spear that was loaded in the gun was actually clear, like glass. But it looked pretty lethal just the same. I’m guessing it was made from the same hard material as our air-globe helmets. I felt the tip. Oh, yeah, it was sharp. I had held a speargun once before, in Florida. So I knew how to be safe with it. But to be honest, I never shot anything. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I never even liked fishing with a rod and reel, let alone a high-powered weapon. Okay, so I’m a wuss.

“Once we submerge,” Uncle Press instructed, “we have to swim under the rock ledge for about thirty yards. We won’t use the water sled until we get out from under the ledge. Then we’ve got to travel about a hundred yards along the reef to where the skimmer is anchored. Understand?”

I understood all right. I understood that I didn’t like Cloral anymore, no matter how nice and warm the water was. But I didn’t say that. Time was wasting. Uncle Press grabbed the other water sled and slipped into the pool. I jumped in too and immediately felt the belt tighten around my waist. This thing really did work automatically. I found that I didn’t have to tread water to stay afloat. The belt had compensated for my weight and kept me hovering in the water comfortably. I would have been really impressed, if I wasn’t ready to puke out of fear.

“Is that decoy really going to lure the quigs away?” I asked hopefully.

“In theory.”

“Theory! Don’t give me theory! I want guarantees!”

“The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be safe,” he replied calmly.

“Then let’s get out of here!” I shouted.

With a wink and a quick swing of his arms, Uncle Press sank underwater. I took one last look around the cavern and spotted the mouth of the flume far overhead. I was sorely tempted to shout out”Second Earth!”so the flume would suck me up and bring me home. But I didn’t. I was here now and I had to go forward, not back. Actually, I had to go down. Underwater. With a sweep of my arms and a kick of my legs, I thrust up out of the water, then sank back down below the surface. We were on our way. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a short and painful trip.

(CONTINUED)