"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 h.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l that had formed around his face. It was hard again. Amazing. I could even hear him clearly, though his head was encased ina 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 cla.s.ses 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. n.o.body 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 b.u.t.tons, 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 bea "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 rea.s.sure 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 gla.s.s. 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 anch.o.r.ed. 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).

CLORAL.

Swimming underwater is a very cool thing.

My parents taught me how to snorkel in Long Island Sound when I was a kid and Uncle Press, as I told you, took me to get my diving certification. I never liked regular old swimming much. To me, doing laps in a pool was like jogging on a treadmill. There was nothing interesting to look at. But diving below the surface was a whole other story. That was like dropping in to a different world.

Of course, I had been dropping in to a few too many different worlds lately, so I wasn't as psyched about this dive as usual.

Once I sank below the surface, I was afraid to take a breath. I was used to breathing through a mouthpiece connected to a hose that was connected to a scuba tank. But there was no mouthpiece in this weird head-bubble thing. And there was no tank of compressed air strapped to my back either. All I had was a stupid little harmonica-looking doo-dad stuck near the back of my head that was supposed to take oxygen out of water. Suddenly the whole thing sounded pretty impossible. Even though I knew I was underwater and my head was still completely dry, I couldn't bring myself to let go anda "Breathe!" commanded Uncle Press.

I spun around and saw that he was floating right next to me. How weird was that? I could hear him even though we were underwater with our heads encased in clear plastic. His voice sounded kind of high and thin, like the treble k.n.o.b on my stereo was cranked all the way to ten and the ba.s.s was backed off to zero, but I could hear him as plain as if, well, as if we weren't underwater.

"Trust me, Bobby," he said. "Look at me. I'm breathing. It works."

I wanted to trust him. I also wanted to shoot back to the surface and breathe real air. But my lungs were starting to hurt. I didn't have any choice. I had to breathe. I exhaled what little air I had left in my lungs, then took in a tentative breath, to discover it worked. I had no idea how, but that little harmonica gizmo was letting me breathe. It was even better than using a mouthpiece and a scuba tank because there were no hoses to deal with. And because there was no mouthpiece, I could talk. We could communicate underwater!

"That's better," Uncle Press said rea.s.suringly. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I answered. "How come we can talk?"

"It's the re-breather," he said, tapping the silver device on the back of his globe. "It carries sound waves, too. Cool, aye?"

Cool was the word.

"Let's go," he ordered.

With a kick of his fins Uncle Press took off swimming. He left a trail of carbon dioxide bubbles that came from the re-breathing device as he exhaled. Now that I was getting used to breathing in the air globe, I took a quick look around to get oriented. The pool of water we had flumed into turned out to be the opening to a pa.s.sageway underneath a huge overhang of rock. Uncle Press was now slowly swimming toward a ribbon of light about thirty yards away that I could tell was the end of the rock ceiling, just as he had described. Behind me I saw that the ceiling only went back a few more feet before ending at a craggy wall. This was a pretty out-of-the-way place for a gate to be hidden. But I guess that was the idea. The gates wereallhidden in remote places so ordinary people from the territories wouldn't accidentally find them.

Uncle Press was already several yards ahead of me and I didn't want to be left here alone, so I kicked off and started after him. The BC belt was doing a perfect job of keeping me neutrally buoyant. I kicked easily and swam perfectly level. I didn't have to worry about banging my head on the rock ceiling above or crashing into the sand below. Excellent. If only I weren't so worried about a quig sneaking up on us, it would have been perfect. I gripped the speargun and did a quick look right and left to make sure no bogey had wandered under the rock shelf to join us. The water was incredibly clear. I'm guessing I had about a hundred feet of visibility, which is amazing. If there were any quigs headed for us, at least we'd have a little bit of warning before we got chewed on.

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.