CHAPTER 50

Uly couldn't grasp what had happened with the Aquans.

He was on the Dreamplane again with the Terrians. He was still within the pool, a space where the physical world and Dreaming met. Uly wanted to bask in it, feel complete. But he couldn't. There was too much to do. But he felt he had reached an understanding with the Terrians at least. They would remain allies with the humans of New Pacifica. For now. They had hope.

A Terrian handed Uly his staff. He hadn't felt it in so long, but it was almost like it was molded to his hand. He felt the power rushing through it, through him.

Before Uly made his way to emerge from the pool, he had to know one thing. Something he had taken for granted all of these years and had simply accepted from the moment the Terrians had saved his life by healing him. From the moment John had found him as a little boy and carried him in his strong arms out of the caves so long ago.

"Why me?" he asked. What did it matter? But part of him ached to know.

There was a flash of Isaac connecting with the sunstones over the years and bonding with the Terrian.

Then there was a moment he didn't understand. His mother Dreaming years ago with a friend of the Terrians, the mysterious penal colonist Sheppard his mother had once told him about. But she hadn't mentioned the Dreaming. Uly realized she had been touched by the planet before Uly had ever set foot upon it. And when Uly did arrive, the planet felt it knew him through his mother and father, as he was part of them both. Suddenly Uly was given a glimpse of himself as a man, tall and strong. Confident and brave. Was this who he would become? Or was this the planet's hope?

"Thank you," Uly expressed, sending out his gratitude, knowing the Terrians simply couldn't appreciate it. For them, what was done was done.

Uly rose from the water, feeling clean. But he didn't feel pure. He had too many worries and too many fears. But it was a beginning. And there was hope.

Now that he was reconnected to the Dreamplane, he could feel himself trying to adjust to it as he entered the physical realm. Everything felt slowed down to Uly. Each heartbeat was a deliberate pulse. Each blink of his eyes left him wondering when they would open again. His senses were almost overwhelmed, but he relished the feeling of each and every one.

His mother came to him in a blur, the sound of her voice dampened, as though he were still underwater. Uly. She was calling his name. She was concerned. Always concerned. He smiled in wonder. His mother. Alive. A real, living, breathing human. A miracle.

"It's ok," Uly stated, but the words were stretched out, much as time always took on new meaning on the Dreamplane.

His mother didn't run to him this time. She glanced at the staff in his hand and approached him tentatively, afraid. This time he was the one who took her in his arms. This woman he knew so well but didn't know at all. Was it this way for all children and mothers?

He felt John and Yale wrap arms around them, too, relief washing through them. Uly laughed and shrugged them all away. "I'm fine."

He saw Isaac standing alone, his face blank, staring past them, worrying his stone. And Uly, feeling his Terrian powers strengthening, sensed something about him. Something not right. He wouldn't have noticed it before, but now that he was connecting with the Dreamplane, his already sharpened senses detected that this man was different from everyone else in the cavern. Was it Isaac's bond to the sunstone that caused his body to sound as if it were buzzing? Not exactly buzzing, but there didn't seem to be a word for it. Uly shook the thought from his head. He already knew he needed to talk to Julia, and this gave him even more questions for her.

Devon gazed at Uly, her mouth half-open in disbelief. "Uly, we heard about what happened from…" She glanced at Isaac briefly before clearing her throat and continuing. "From Isaac. Are you sure you're ok? You could've been killed."

Uly nodded. He realized how slowly he was doing it and forced himself back to the physical world. He'd need to move a bit more quickly if he didn't want to alarm anyone. He considered his mother's hesitation when she had mentioned Isaac. He wasn't sure what, exactly, his father had told everyone about what they had experienced. There was so much they needed to talk about.

"I'm ok. But…," before Uly could begin to explain about what had just transpired between him and the Terrians, much less the Aquans, he felt a piercing call through the Dreamplane.

"Alonzo!" he shouted.

"Alonzo?" Devon repeated.

Without another thought, Uly fell into the Dreamplane. He was in the caves and it didn't take much searching to find Alonzo in the cavern he had once shared with Julia.

"Uly! You're here!" Alonzo shouted happily, grabbing Uly and pulling him into a bear hug. "We're here! The Dreamplane was broken or something. But now the storm has passed, and it looks like everything is working again."

Uly shook his head in disbelief. "It's over?"

"Yeah, it just stopped. That crazy storm came from out of nowhere and left just as suddenly."

Uly pushed himself away from Alonzo and gazed at him in confusion. "Really?"

"And look at you! We had no idea where you were. But you're Dreaming again!" Alonzo laughed, then his face fell. "The storm stops and you're Dreaming again. Uly, did you do that?"

Uly considered his interaction with the Aquans. He hadn't understood what had happened with them in that cavern. Had he reached an agreement with the Aquans after all? What he had felt from them had been so overwhelming and strange. Is that what humans felt like to the Terrians? Is that why the Terrians simply didn't bother with the Aquans? It was almost as if the Aquans were all emotion, all activity, even compared to humans. They were water, fluid and tempestuous. The Terrians held strong and slow, unfeeling and constant.

Uly almost cried at the revelation. He had so much to share with everyone and couldn't wait.

"Alonzo, I need to try something," he said. "But I'm not sure what will happen. I don't want to, I don't know, overwhelm you."

Alonzo regarded him seriously. "It's important. I can tell. Give it a shot, whatever it is. Don't worry about me."

Uly nodded. Uly knew just as well as the Terrians that Alonzo's gifts were special. If any human could take this, it would be him.

Uly laid his hand on the wall and gestured to Alonzo to join him. He wasn't sure if the sunstones would work on the Dreamplane as they would in the physical world, but why not?

Alonzo took the few steps to reach the sunstones and gave Uly a nod as he reached out to them, too.

Uly closed his eyes and tried to share everything he could with him. The Terrians abandoning him to the flood, Isaac's history through the sunstones, Uly's discussions with the Terrians, his attempt to contact the Aquans… He steered Alonzo away from portions of Isaac's life that could have been too private to share. And that meant avoiding everything related to his mother. That could come in time. Right now, there was enough for Alonzo to mull over. He could feel Alonzo trying to let it all in, and he could sense how difficult it was for him. But Alonzo came through as no other Dreamer probably could.

As it always was on the Dreamplane, where communication need not be burdened by human speech, the moment was instantaneous on the physical level.

Alonzo opened his eyes as they removed their hands. He stared at Uly in wonder. "You did it, Uly. You shankin' did it."

"It's not over," Uly said, knowing there was so much left to be done. So much to understand.

"You saved New Pacifica, Uly. The place is a disaster area. It would've gotten so much worse."

"How bad?" Uly asked fearfully.

"Bad," Alonzo replied simply, shaking his head. "Tell Danziger we need him at home. He's gotta help us sort this mess."

Uly nodded.

"And, there's something else you need to know," Alonzo added reluctantly. "They found True unconscious during all of this. Head injury, and she was half-drowned. She's at the hospital with Julia. So tell everybody to get their butts down here. All that Hunter business can wait."

True. Uly felt a sour ball of fear grow in his stomach. "Is she going to be ok?"

"Just get them here, Uly. I'll share all the info you just gave me with Julia as best I can so she has a heads-up. Don't worry about that."

Uly nodded. What if he saved New Pacifica only to lose True? He couldn't bear the thought.

He opened his eyes, and he was in the cavern again, everyone looking at him expectantly.

"Alonzo says the storm has stopped. But there was a lot of damage and we need to get back." He turned to John, his voice cracking as he said, "Alonzo says True was hurt. We have to get to the hospital."

"What?" John said, almost shouting. "What happened?"

Uly glanced around the cavern. His family, Hunter's colonists… He had no idea what he had interrupted when he'd appeared so unexpectedly in the cavern with the Terrians, but he knew they needed to get back to New Pacifica right now. And there wasn't time to prepare them for what he wanted to do.

Uly let out a Terrian cry that made the humans around him nearly jump out of their skin. Before they knew what was happening, they were all being pulled into the earth by long Terrian arms.