It took Mark a long time to untangle Boon from the net. He wasn’t good at tying knots. He was worse at untying knots. As he worked, Boon told him what had happened in the crater of waterfalls.
“I jumped on the back of the tang and pulled him off Gunny,” he said. “But that monster was ferocious. I mean, he was crazed.”
“Is Gunny okay?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know,” Boon answered. “I slashed at the lizard and caught him across the arm. It jumped back, and I yelled at Gunny to run. The tang started after him, but I jumped on its back and bit it in the neck. Man, do you know how bad tang tastes?”
“Uh…no.”
“I hope you never find out.”
“I’m not worried,” Mark said.
Boon continued, “I clamped onto its neck and it kept thrashing around, trying to throw me. But I wouldn’t let go. He threw me around real good, too. I finally got so tired that he spun me off.”
“Did he attack you?”
“No, I must have hurt it pretty bad, because it ran off into the jungle. I figured Gunny would try to circle around to the waterfall, so that’s where I went. Big mistake. I found the cavern behind the falls, but the gars jumped me. I told them I was with Gunny and we were there to help protect Black Water, but they didn’t want to hear it. They tied me up in this net and threw me in here. Can you believe it? I’m here to save them, and they threw me in here like I’m a criminal.”
“I know the feeling,” Mark said.
“What are we going to do, Mark?” Boon asked.
Mark untied the final knot and pulled the net off Boon.
“We’re gonna get outta here” was his answer.
Bobby and Kasha worked their way through the forest at the bottom of the crater, headed for the waterfall that would lead them into Black Water. Bobby kept glancing up to check the movement of the clouds. The storm that had first been their enemy and forced them to crash was now buying them time. As long as the sunbelt stayed covered, the poison-carrying gigs would be grounded.
“The clouds are moving,” Bobby announced. “But I can’t tell how fast…oops!” Bobby’s attention was so focused on the sky, he wasn’t looking where he was going and tripped over something. He stumbled and hit the ground.
“Look out!” Kasha screamed, and leaped in between Bobby and the thing he had tripped over. “Tang!” she growled, ready to attack.
Bobby jumped up quickly, ready to run. But one look back told him he had nothing to fear. It was a tang, all right. A dead tang.
“I thought it was a rock,” Bobby said with relief.
The two crept closer to the dead tang. It was covered with multiple slashes, with one seriously nasty gash on the back of its neck.
“Those are the marks of a klee,” Kasha announced. “I’m thinking Boon’s been through here.” She reached down and touched the lizard’s body and said, “It didn’t die long ago.”
Bobby felt something wet drip on his cheek. He brushed it away and said, “It’s starting to rain.”
“Good,” Kasha said. “Maybe the storm will be around for a while.”
Another drip fell on Bobby’s cheek. He wiped it off and looked at his hand to see… blood. “Hey, I’m bleeding!” he exclaimed. Kasha gave him a quick look and said, “No, you’re not.”
“Then what’s this?” Bobby said, holding out his hand with the bloody smear. “I must have cut something when we crashed.”
Another drip of blood fell on his hand. Kasha and Bobby both realized it didn’t come from Bobby, it came from up above. They both slowly looked up to see…
Dangling high in the trees was a net trap, with its victim still inside. Bobby dodged back to get away from the dripping blood. The trees above them were so thick it was hard to see the trap, let alone what was caught in it. Bobby strained to see. Once his eyes adjusted, his heart sank. There was a gar arm poking out from the net. A dark gar arm.
“Gunny!” Bobby shouted.
Kasha sprang for the tree that held the trap, climbed up by digging her claws into the bark, and reached the rope that held the suspended net. She slashed at it with one claw, while holding the rope with the other.
“I’ll lower him down,” she announced as she slowly let the rope slip through her hands. Bobby stood beneath to guide the net down gently and lay Gunny on the ground.
“Help me get this off!” he shouted to Kasha.
She jumped down from the tree and slashed at the net, freeing the unconscious Traveler.
“Gunny!” Bobby called. “C’mon, man. It’s me!”
Bobby felt Gunny’s neck, checking for a pulse. Kasha held up Gunny’s arm that was missing the hand. “He was cut,” she said. Bobby saw that the arm had a few deep tang cuts on it, which accounted for the dripping blood.
“He’s alive,” Bobby announced. He gently tapped Gunny’s cheek. “Wake up, Mr. Van Dyke, we need you.”
Gunny stirred. His eyelids fluttered and opened. He looked around with confusion until he focused on Bobby.
“No offense, shorty,” Gunny croaked. “But I was kind of hoping I’d wake up in my bed at the Manhattan Tower Hotel.”
“Sorry, we’re not done here yet,” Bobby replied with a relieved smile. He helped Gunny sit up while Kasha used some rags to dress his wounds.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Bobby asked.
“Nah. I got a pretty good headache, though.”
“What happened?” Kasha asked as she worked.
“We got jumped by a tang,” Gunny explained. “Mark and Boon and I. Boon saved my life. He pulled that monster off me and cut it up pretty good.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Bobby said, pointing to the dead tang.
Gunny looked at the body of the lizard and shook his head. “Violent place, this Eelong.”
“Where are the others?” Kasha asked.
“Boon sent Mark off on the zenzen toward Black Water. He told me to run. I couldn’t do much to help him, so I did. I tried to circle around toward the waterfall, but the tang was tracking me. Those beasties must like the way I taste. The tang jumped at me; I backed off and stepped right into the trap.” Gunny chuckled. “Never thought I’d be so happy to do something so stupid. I must have banged my head when I hit the ground, I don’t remember. But it pulled me up and away from that beast. Last thing I remember is looking down to watch it leaping up at me. But I was out of reach. Then I guess I passed out.”
“He must have bled to death trying to get you,” Kasha said.
“Serves him right,” Gunny said.
“What about Courtney and Spader?” Bobby asked.
Gunny frowned. “The tangs caused a rockslide in the tunnel leading here, Bobby. I can’t say if they were hurt, or trapped outside.”
“Neither!” came a familiar voice.
Bobby, Kasha, and Gunny looked over to see a welcome sight: Spader and Courtney jogged toward them through the trees.
“You can’t stop a couple of intrepid types like us with a couple of rocks and a mountain, no sir!” Spader said with a wide smile.
Courtney ran right to Bobby and gave him a hug. Bobby was more than happy to hug her back. “Are you okay?” Bobby asked.
“I am now,” Courtney answered. “Was that you in the helicopter?”
“Yeah, nice entrance, aye?”
“Where’s Mark and Boon?” Spader asked.
“I don’t know,” Gunny answered. “In Black Water, I hope.”
Kasha said, “We’re running out of time.”
Bobby pulled away from Courtney and got back to business. “Here’s the deal. Nine helicopters are grounded back in the valley, loaded with the Cloral poison. As soon as the clouds clear, they’ll have the power to take off and make their run on Black Water.”
“We lost one tank of the antidote, mate,” Spader announced. “Couldn’t be helped.”
Kasha said, “Without Mark, we’ve only got one tank left.”
“Can you walk, Gunny?” Bobby asked.
Gunny s
truggled to his feet. He was weak, but determined. “You don’t think a little conk on the head and a couple of cuts is going to slow me down, do you? Follow me!”
The team was reunited, sort of. Gunny led them on the final leg of their journey through the crater of waterfalls to the entrance to Black Water. They arrived at the second waterfall from the right, following Gunny across the underwater path of stones. Bobby was the last of the group to step behind the waterfall. He took one last look at the sky to see the thick clouds were still covering the sunbelt. No gigs could fly. But he also saw something new… the trailing edge of the large, dark cloud. Behind it was clear blue sky. The clock was ticking.
EELONG
(CONTINUED)
Boon stood on a chairto examine the window of the small room where he and Mark were being held captive. “This room wasn’t built to be a prison,” he declared. “I think I can pry this hinge off with my claw.”
“Do it,” Mark whispered. He was standing guard at the door to make sure the gar outside wouldn’t see them trying to escape. “What do we do once we get out?” Boon asked as he worked. “One problem at a time,” Mark answered.
“Welcome!” exclaimed the gar behind the waterfall when he saw Gunny and the others approach. “You’re home now, you’ve got nothing more to worry about!” The gar froze when he saw that one of the new arrivals was a klee.
“Klee!” he shouted. Instantly ten more gars appeared, all carrying spear guns.
“It’s all right,” Gunny assured him. “You know me, my name is Gunny. We’ve been here before. So has the klee.”
The gar was suspicious, until Gunny held up his handless arm. “Remember now?” Gunny asked.
The gar relaxed a little and waved off the other gars. “I remember,” the gar said. “You were with Aron.”
“That’s right,” Gunny said. “We’re friends. All of us.”
“You realize that the Advent is under way,” the gar guard said. “Soon there will be thousands of gars arriving. If they see a klee, they might not enter.”
Gunny kept eye contact with the gar. He spoke softly, but forcefully. “Everything will be fine, but you must let us enter. We are on an important mission to make sure the Advent succeeds.”
Bobby knew that Gunny was using his Traveler powers of persuasion.
“There’s a problem with the Advent?” the gar asked worriedly.
“Not if you help us,” Gunny continued. “We need to get to the Center. Can you bring us there?”
The gar’s head shook slightly, as if he needed to jiggle the idea around inside until it landed right side up. “Yes,” he finally said. “I can help.” He turned to the other guards and commanded, “Take my post. I will lead our friends to the Center.”
Gunny looked to Bobby and winked.
Bobby said, “You’re really getting the hang of that.”
Gunny said, “It helps that the gars are simple people.”
“Come!” the gar commanded. “Follow me.” He walked quickly into the tunnel that led to Black Water, followed by Gunny, Bobby, Spader, Courtney, and Kasha.
“You have a plan?” Bobby asked Gunny quietly.
Gunny put a finger to his lips to shush Bobby. “I’ll explain once we get there. No sense in causing a ruckus.”
Bobby nodded in understanding. He realized that telling the gar that Black Water was in danger of being wiped out by a poison from the sky might cause enough of a panic to slow them down, and anything that slowed them down wasn’t good. The group walked through the narrow, dark tunnel until they arrived at the entrance to Black Water.
“Hobey!” exclaimed Spader when he got his first view_of the hidden village. “All this for us?”-
He was looking at hundreds of gars gathering on either side of the path that led down to the village. It was like they were getting ready for a parade.
“I think they’re here to greet the gars,” Bobby said.
A little blond girl who looked no more than five, with beautiful blue eyes, ran up to Bobby and handed him a single, white flower. “Welcome to Black Water,” she said sweetly. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” Bobby said, taking the flower.
Spader chuckled and said, “There you go! Maybe it’s a little bit for us too.”
“We should hurry,” Gunny said to the gar who was leading them.
They traveled quickly down the path, past the assembled gars. It was a festive atmosphere with music playing and gars cooking food on either side of the road. Most of the gars backed away from the path when they saw Kasha, but Spader tried to relax them by smiling and waving, as if he were the grand marshal of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Many gars waved back, others even cheered as if welcoming returning heroes.
“You should be a politician,” Courtney said.
“You’re right!” Spader answered. “What’s a politician?”
Bobby and Kasha were more concerned with the weather. They kept glancing up at the sky as the trailing edge of the dark storm cloud grew closer to the sunbelt.
“Whatever we’re going to do,” Kasha said, “we’d better do it fast.”
The gar escorted the group through the town to the Center. “Here you are,” the gar announced. “Do you need more help from me?”
“No,” Gunny said. “Thank you. You should get back to your post.”
The gar smiled broadly and said, “It’s a very exciting day, isn’t it?”
“You have no idea,” Courtney said sarcastically. The gar didn’t know what she meant, so without a word he jogged off.
Bobby looked up to see the storm was moving quickly. “We don’t have much time,” he said. “When that cloud clears the sunbelt, we’re done. We’d better figure out a way to use this antidote right now.”
“I already know how to use it,” Gunny said. “Really?” Courtney exclaimed.
“I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out yourself, shorty,” Gunny said. “You and Kasha were here. You saw their irrigation system.”
Bobby and Kasha exchanged confused looks. They had no idea what Gunny was talking about.
“Remember when you first got here?” Gunny asked. “When we were walking into the village-“
“The sprinklers!” Bobby exclaimed. “On the light posts.”
“They have sprinklers on light posts?” Courtney asked.
“What’s a sprinkler?” Spader asked.
Gunny walked to a tall light post and tapped it, saying, “Black Water thrives on the river water that runs through the village. They built a vast, underground watering system that channels the river water to the entire valley.”
“I remember,” Kasha exclaimed. “The water came from the poles.”
“Exactly,” Gunny said. “There are thousands of outlets like this one. Every square inch of Black Water can be reached and watered by the mist that comes from the irrigation system. It’s like they create their own rain.”
“It’s brilliant!” Spader declared. “Can we send the antidote through this system?”
“I’m counting on it,” Gunny answered. “The trick will be to time it so that Black Water is being sprayed just as the poison is dropped. If this antidote is as powerful as you say, it should act like an umbrella and make the poison harmless.”
“You’re a genius!” Courtney shouted, and threw her arms around Gunny. “We did it!”
Gunny shook his head and said, “We haven’t done anything but get here. Now we’ve got to feed the antidote into the system.”
“You know how to do that?” Bobby asked.
“No,” Gunny answered. “But I know who does.”
Gunny led the group into the Center and back to the large greenhouse room. As they entered, Bobby and Kasha took a quick look up to the glass ceiling to see the hole Saint Dane smashed open when he escaped in the form of a bird.
“I was hoping I had imagined that,” Kasha said soberly.
Gunny led them through the rows of plants growing on virloam, to a dis
tant corner of the room, where one whole wall was taken up by a series of pipes and valves.
“Irrigation control?” Bobby asked.
“Yup,” Gunny answered. “They got somebody manning this all the time. Let’s hope he didn’t take the day off for the Advent.”
Gunny left the group to go in search of the gar who ran the irrigation system. Courtney took the tank off her shoulders and gently placed it on the floor.
“I gotta be honest,” she said. “I didn’t think we’d make it.”
“Markdidn’tmake it,” Bobby said.
Courtney frowned. She had been worried about Mark ever since they split up.
“Neither did Boon,” Kasha added.
“If anything happened to them…” Bobby said, but didn’t finish the thought. The idea of his best friend getting hurt made Bobby’s heart ache.
“First things first, mate,” Spader said to Bobby. “Once we’re done here, we’ll find them. I promise you.”
Bobby nodded, but wasn’t any less worried.
“Everybody, I’d like you to meet Fayne,” Gunny said as he approached them. He was leading a woman who looked no more than twenty years old. But being that the gars of Black Water all looked young, she could have been any age. She was small, with short black hair. She looked to Bobby like someone who was used to hard work. Her rough hands and strong arms were a dead giveaway. “Fayne is on duty today,” Gunny explained. “She’s going to help us.”
“Yeah,” Fayne said, none too happily. “Biggest day in the history of Black Water and I’m stuck in here.” She stood with her hands on her hips and her feet planted. Fayne was full of no-nonsense. But as tough as she was, when she spotted Kasha, she quickly backed off.
“Whoa, klee!”
“It’s okay,” Gunny assured her.” Kasha is a friend of Aron’s. She’s here to help the gars.”
Fayne kept a suspicious eye on Kasha. “Never saw a klee who gave one tick about gars.”
“I’m special,” Kasha said impatiently. “Can we move along here?”
Courtney handed the antidote tank to Gunny. Gunny addressed the group, saying, “I was explaining to Fayne how there’s concern that the new gars might be carrying dangerous bacteria or viruses that would infect Black Water.” Gunny winked at them, asking them to play along.
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