"Two Leagues Under The Sea"
As I regained consciousness, I found myself draped over Little Neptune’s back. Sitting up, I looked around to see nothing but ocean. There was no sign whatsoever of the Starship Jupiter. Little Neptune was airborne, hovering close to the surface of the water. With no one to talk to other than the winged steed, I decided it best to try to communicate with him.
“Little Neptune,” I started, “where did they go in?” He swooped down close to a small section of ocean, motioning with his head to indicate the area of the spaceship’s entry.
“I wonder why the Els‑pod didn’t float like last time?” I pondered. (The last time I used the Els-pod was during the Kowdoon in the Magic Lands. The Els-pod—which was full of the army from Lizard Land as well as the others—bobbed up and down on the surface of the water.) “Well, at least the tractor beam seems to have stopped,” I said.
“Prrrrr,” replied Little Neptune, nodding.
“Which direction were they headed in when they entered the water?” I asked. Little Neptune indicated that with a quick motion of this nose.
“You do realize that we’re going to have to go in,” I stated. Little Neptune shook his head negatively, his mane whipping back and forth.
“It’ll be fine,” I explained, “I can put the Multi‑Purpose Protection Field around us. It’ll protect us from the water.” Little Neptune seemed to think about it for a moment before he nodded in reluctant agreement.
I repeated the spell for the protective field. Immediately upon its appearance around us, we began to slowly sink into the ocean. The field is completely water tight, but does not float. I repeated the Illumination Spell and soon the lighted field containing both Little Neptune and myself was drifting slowly downward toward the bottom of the ocean.
I tried to calculate our depth by the speed of our descent, but I lost track on the very long trip. The protective field seemed to be heavy enough to sink straight down, barely being affected by the sub-surface currents. Eventually, we landed on the sandy bottom at a depth of thousands of feet. Our impact caused a small cloud of bottom debris to obscure our view for a bit. The water was very cold and dark. After the cloud had dissipated, we marveled at numerous species of large and strange-looking fish that swam passed the protective field. It could see Little Neptune’s eyes widen in amazement at their appearance (as they must have gazed in awe at ours).
“Why didn’t I use the Transmutation Spell to change the Starship Enterprise into a submarine?” I asked aloud, “then we wouldn’t now be separated from the others.” Little Neptune seemed to shrug at this. For a winged-horse without the power of speech, he was high communicative in his own way.
I activated the Conveyance Spell, which would allow us to travel along the ocean bottom—elevated about six inches off of it. We then proceeded in the direction that Little Neptune indicated the tractor beam had pulled the Starship Jupiter in at.
Since the beam had pulled the space ship into the ocean at an angle, I assumed that the ship would have continued in a straight path along that angle. If this assumption was correct, it would not be that difficult to find them and the source of the beam. I just hoped that we were headed in the right direction—and that all of my assumptions were correct—or this would be a very long search.
* * * *
Gliding silently through the water, the Starship Jupiter continued its angular descent through the Atlantic Ocean; the tractor beam maintaining its steady pull on the ship.
“Rob, where are we headed?” asked Melissa.
“Unknown.”
“Is Larry still with us?” asked Lisa, peeking out one of the portholes, trying to catch of glimpse of the lifeline.
“Negative.”
“What do you mean ‘negative!’” snapped Melissa.
“There is no lifeform presently clinging to the lifeline attached to this vessel,” explained Rob.
“Don’t get cute,” said Cindy, sitting on the floor, leaning up against a piece of equipment, “where is he?”
“He is out of sensor range.”
“Wonderful,” said Lisa, “once again we’re imprisoned by the Els‑pod with no way out.”
“Rob, can’t you figure out where the tractor beam is coming from?” asked Melissa.
“Affirmative.” There was a moment of silence.
“Well?” asked Cleo, impatiently.
“Well, what?” asked Rob.
“Are his circuits all right?” asked Lisa.
“I am in perfect working order.”
“Then answer the question,” ordered Cindy.
“I have,” replied the robot, in what can only be described as a confused tone.
“No, you haven’t,” said Melissa, “I asked if you knew where the tractor beam was coming from.”
“Negative,” replied Rob, “please listen to the audio tape.” Rob rewound the audio input tape a short distance.
Activating the playback, Melissa’s voice was heard on the tape:
“...can’t you figure out where the tractor beam is coming from?”
Rob stopped the tape.
“The answer is affirmative,” he added, “I cannot figure out where the tractor beam is coming from.”
“Fantastic,” said Lisa, plopping down in the captain’s chair, “a robot who worries about semantics.”
“I am programmed to answer all inquiries as asked of me. I am not programmed to decipher what the questioner actually intends of a question asked.”
“The fact remains that we are trapped inside this flying saucer, submerged somewhere under the Atlantic Ocean, and are being pulled toward god‑knows‑what by an invisible tractor beam. We still don’t know what time period we are in and we don’t know where Larry is.” stated Melissa, “this is not a comfortable situation to be in,” she added with all sarcasm.
Woba, who had been quietly listening, suddenly leapt toward the viewscreen.
“Look!” He stood up on his hind legs, perching one front leg on the control board and pointed out the viewscreen with the other.
Directly in front of them was a wall of enormous boulders, stretching up at least 40-feet from the ocean floor. Peeking through the cracks in the wall, they could see a glowing patch of water, which was where they assumed the tractor beam was emanating from. Unfortunately, the tractor beam was pulling the spaceship directly on a collision course with the wall.
“Rob, quickly, can you pull away?” asked Lisa.
“Negative. The engines cannot be fired off while either underwater or surrounded by the Els‑pod.”
“Will the Els‑pod hold up against a head-on collision with those rocks?” asked Cleo.
“Unknown.”
“Too late,” said Cindy, pointing out the viewscreen.
“Warning! Geological disturbance!”
“Not again,” said Woba, hiding his head under the console.
The water surrounding the Starship Jupiter suddenly began to violently shake back and forth, engulfing them in a churning sea of bubbles coming from below the ship. They were now only about 50-feet away from the wall of boulders. Peering through the now-obscured viewscreen, they could just barely make out even larger air bubbles coming up from around the wall of boulders dead ahead. The boulders separated with the help of this apparent undersea earthquake; leaving a clear path for the Starship Jupiter to proceed.
* * * *
“Do you see anything?” I asked, after about an hour.
“Neeeee,” replied Little Neptune with a negative shake of his black mane.
“And you’re sure we’re headed in the right direction?”
“Prrrrr,” he nodded.
“All right,” I said, “let’s increase our speed, then. Speed Level 3.” This speed would normally be the equivalent of about 100‑mph, but underwater, it was significantly less.
Out of nowhere, I heard a banging sound. It was like someone knocking on the Multi‑Purpose Protection Field. I halted our forward movement and looked around.
“Did you hear that?” I asked the winged steed.
“Prrrrr,” he nodded.
“I wonder where it’s coming from?” I asked, looking around. All I saw were rocks, fish and more rocks and fish.
We proceeded forward at Speed Level 2 (or about 60‑mph), scanning the outer seas more cautiously. After a few moments, I heard the knocking sound again. Whipping my head around to where it seemed like the knocking was coming from, I caught the fleeting glimpse of a fin—a large, orange, fish fin—disappearing behind a rock.
“Did you see that?” I asked. Little Neptune nodded. “That was one big fish.”
“Neeeee,” disagreed Little Neptune.
“What do mean, no,” I asked, “what else could it be?”
Little Neptune motioned slowly with his nose toward the back of the field as if there was something he wanted me to see. I slowly turned my head around to see what it was.
Hovering in the water outside the protective field was someone (or something) even more beautiful than Cleopatra herself had been. It was a fair-haired mermaid, with a large orange tail and a twinkle in her eye.
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