Charlie flew into the building after ET, came back out and told us it was safe.

Thanks to ET and the others' glowing appendages, we could see as we made our way into the darkened entry corridor. We shifted our luggage and camping gear around, navigated around the debris of a collapsed wall.

Pete pointed to our nennop, muttering to me, "He kinda looks like that guy from the Peanuts cartoons."

"Yeah, that's why we call him Spike."

"Oh. I thought you named him that because he was cool or played volleyball or something."

"Seriously?"

He shrugged. "I just met you. How do I know what you taught them? I accidentally taught my Qulpari friends to stick my hands in water so I wet the bed. I told them a lie, and now they think it's...like...friggin' Japanese tea ceremony or something."

I chuckled. "Your friends sound like fun."

"Yeah," he groaned. "A real blast."

Frog faced Tiffrid passed us by, marching into the dark. Norenio joined him, coaxing him into some alien song I've never heard before.

"C'mon, you guys," Roy urged as he followed his new nennop.

The interior of the stone structure resembled a Mayan Temple, its walls engraved with imagery in that style, but of course depicting Qulpari and various animals. Here and there, I would see something like a cartouche, but the symbols again took on that funky Mayan-ish style, rather than the rigid profiles you'd see in the tombs of pharaohs. Sculptures, generally framing archways or hidden in alcoves with extinguished braziers, had a primitive manner, sort of a cross between the early Greek and late period Egyptian I'd seen in encyclopedias. Figures were depicted wearing outlandish costumes, like participants at a mummer's parade.

ET made a brief call to Pabyeba, checked on the status of their egg. Nothing new to report, except that the baby inside seemed to be becoming a little hyperactive.

Vadful stuck his head through an archway, took a sniff and pulled back fast, as if disgusted.

"So..." Lori muttered to me. "You...want...`Love in abundance?' From me?"

I blushed. "Yes."

My blush deepened as I thought of how presumptuous that sounded. "I mean, if you don't mind..."

Lori laughed. "I really don't mind, Elliott. The only trouble I had was how you went about it."

She took my hand, walking beside me.

Tolmina paused in front of one of the statues, giving it an offering of berries and incense. "Elliott," he said as he turned around. "What do you think of your new nennop?"

"I..." I stammered.

"He's great," Lori supplied.

The orange creature smiled. "I am pleased to hear it. I have spoken with Vukvuzan, and I believe I am better suited for better suited for mechanics."

"Well," I muttered. "Yeah. I...gathered there was...some reason they decided to put you on our flight..."

"I'm sure someone out there will still appreciate your services if you still wanted to be a nennop," Lori soothed. "Just because one person doesn't like what you do doesn't mean you're bad at your job."

"Lori," Spike scolded.

Lori gave me a halfway apologetic shrug.

Tolmina gave Lori a grateful nod. "Vukvuzan has told me similar things." He paused. "Elliott, we have not forgotten about your plants. Pabyeba is tending them now, but when Gertie is better, you must resume your nurturing, Lori and Gertie as well. The plants are important specimens, and you will speak to them, tend their leaves, soil and watering, possibly control the spread of their offspring in the event of large success."

I groaned and rubbed my face. Since I'd offended the little guy so much already, I just promised to do it.

"Your guys sure seem obsessed about plants," Pete remarked.

I stared. "Yours aren't?"

"Not really. They're more interested in recycling old machine parts in environmentally friendly ways."

We passed a couple spartan looking 'sitting rooms', and a room with a fountain choked with weeds and a swampy liquid that attracted swarms of gnats.

Roy and Norenio had been arguing some before we entered the place, but now they were quieter. Tiffrid smirked in approval.

Charlie flitted ahead of us, back and forth through doorways, then hung back outside for awhile. He told ET something, but I guess it wasn't terribly important, for ET said nothing to us about it.

I noticed, when ET wasn't busy checking our directions, he seemed rather depressed. He'd sigh and get this faraway look.

"You still sad about Meazquad?"

He nodded. "Meazquad would appreciate this kind of historical site. He and Admasca have spent many hours discussing things such as this."

I put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. He responded with a hug.

Vadful, for no apparent reason that we could figure, suddenly jumped past me and tried to shove his big feathery body through one of the archways. He couldn't quite fit, but his clawed feet kept trying to squeeze him through the opening.

Roy grabbed him around the neck. "Hey! Get out of there! What are you-"

Vadful's foot came up, and a horse-like rear kick sent him sailing into a wall.

"Norenio," he groaned in pain. "Could you...?"

The Abreya tugged on Vadful's tail, and when the creature didn't move, wiggled underneath, and through the statue framed portal.

"Yaaa!"

Whatever Norenio did, it had the desired effect. The big bird retreated, nearly stomping me to death in its haste to get back.

We continued on.

A hulking white shape lumbered across our path, giving us a start. I and Lori were screaming. Even ET let out a fearful gargling cat sound.

"Jesus!" Roy cried.

As we examined the thing a bit closer, we realized it had been a false alarm, some kind of large mutant albino penguin had shambled across our path, its thick lidded squinty eyes not even registering our presence until light shown in his face.

It squawked and fled us, just as surprised and fearful as we had been.

Breathing sighs of relief, we descended a cracked staircase, entering a waterlogged mold infested chamber that appeared, judging by the long stone table, to have been once used for meetings.

The floor, dry near the stairs, sloped downward, due to weakening foundation, into deeper waters, teeming with pale fish, and islands of that whitish blue substance that grows on the surface of old coffee.

The place smelled like cheese and musty locker rooms. Lori coughed at the rotten odor, letting go of my hand. "And I thought Roy's swamp house was bad..."

Roy reddened. "Hey, I worked hard to buy that place!"

She rolled her eyes.

"Hey," Pete said to me. "You said the mold guy used that gold hoop thing to control rotten stuff. Think you can use it to clean this place up?"

"Only if I wanted to turn into a mushroom," I said. "I'd rather let this place rot."

ET consulted his lore, then waded out into the rancid liquid.

Vadful balked at the water, making irritated sounds of apparent dismay.

"You said it, Vadful!" Lori cried. "There's got to be another way around!"

"No way around," ET argued, waving us onward.

"Oh c'mon!" she complained. "Do we absolutely have to go down into that stuff?"

The response was too obvious for ET to bother verbalizing. With his screen half submerged in water, he continued pushing buttons and squinting at the readout.

"Ugh," said Pete. "It's not even in my mouth and I can taste it already. It's like...someone shoved Limburger into a sweaty sock and wiped it around inside a full diaper pail."

The fish in that place resembled dolphins, if they'd been shrunk to the size of golden retrievers and somehow crossbred with koi. They puffed air and nibbled fungus with wide mouthed half praying mantis catfish heads.

It seemed that fishing hadn't been practiced there, for the pale things were bold, often times even suckering on my legs to, I don't know, see what I tasted like?

ET waddled up to one, touching it with a glowing finger as he muttered something to it.

"That's cute," Roy said. "But we didn't come here to pet the fish."

That didn't make ET stop doing it.

"Do they speak English?" I asked. "...Or Qulpari?"

ET only shrugged. "We speak to plants. This is no different."

"Those are fish."

"They eat soil nutrients and make seeds, inhale carbon dioxide. They are plants."

"But it's dark down here. What about photosynthesis?"

"They use a protein exchange from the fungus instead of light."

"I read somewhere that we share more genetic information with a banana than we do monkeys and apes," Roy remarked.

ET waded deeper in, computer fully submerged, still checking the readout. He told Tolmina to wait there with the bird.

I frowned, following him in. I mean, after all, my outfit was already filthy from slime, Xetgupa's fungus, and who knows what else.

Lori stopped at the water's edge. "I'm just gonna...Wait back here, okay?"

ET went under.

"Lovely," I groaned.

"Staying here," Lori repeated.

I joined ET in the deep area. The weird submerged glowing reminded me of a scene from Cocoon.

Hearing soft splashing behind me, I looked back and saw Vukvuzan wading in, shuttling Gertie's floating egg along with him.

"Wait," Roy protested. "Whoa, hold on there! Nobody said anything about taking her into this...unsanitary mold swamp! You trying to get her sicker?"

Norenio argued with him in another language, and Tiffrid got into it, trying to soothe things out.

"You stay out of this, Triffid!"

"I cannot. I am assigned to you."

Roy did some deep breathing exercises to calm down.

"This is the only way to reach the healer," Vuvukan said, towing Gertie further out on the water. "Her pod will protect her from the contaminants."

Despite this assurance, the man waded out to intercept them.

I swam back and pleaded with him. "Roy, this may be Gertie's only chance!"

He scowled, didn't speak for almost a whole minute.

At last he gave a heavy sigh. "Okay, but if...whatever you're doing kills your sister, someone's going to have hell to pay!"

I swam back out to catch ET.

Although I thought I could almost breathe in this sea of filthy half flat soda pop, as it more or less was, inhaling the vapors actually made me somewhat lightheaded, like I were breathing into a paper bag. I had to breathe carefully, and hold deep breaths as I followed him further out.

Gertie's pod becoming a sort of gondola, then a submersible. Up ahead, the meeting room narrowed, its pillars and statuary closing together more tightly into a weathered corridor, the water levels, due to the slanting floor, rising to almost the level of the groin vaulted roof.

I never took ET to be a swimmer. I put him in my bathtub once, but that was a disaster. It rained in the living room, and he didn't seem to even be holding in air when he ducked his head under water. I thought he would drown for sure.

For this reason, I became alarmed when I noticed him not even bothering to swim, especially with the water level as high as it was. Even I was having some difficulty keeping air in my lungs, it being so musty and stagnant and all.

My alarm turned to shocked surprise when I noticed ET calmly paddling up to a fish, planting his lips upon its mouth. The resulting bubbles seemed to indicate this wasn't a mere quirk of a strange social life, he was actually getting oxygen.

When the roof no longer yielded an air pocket, I was forced to resort to this myself. It tasted disgusting, like licking the inside of a dirty refrigerator, but , wouldn't you know it, it worked. We did, after all, have a cracked floor below us that continually spewed up CO2 like a soda fountain for the creatures to fill their gills with.

I made my way through several yards of the dark tunnel like this, eyes burning as I strained to follow ET's glowing body through the sea of foul contaminants.

We surfaced what felt like a mile afterwards in a sort of throne room. I coughed and sputtered, staring at my new surroundings.

The center of the room held a raised dais, upon which stood a pair of intricately carved stelae and a cluster of obsidian monuments fashioned in the shape of elephant tusks, etched with runes. The throne itself resembled half of a Viking longboat, but carved from stone, in plant shapes. Behind the throne stood two others of a similar design.

Reaching a place where I could almost stand, I looked back as I heard splashing behind me.

"Wait up," Lori gasped.

Pete surfaced, kissed a fish, then cried, "I'm gonna barf."

"I see you changed your mind," I said to my girlfriend.

She treaded water. "Yeah? Well I figured it had to smell better on the other side." The look on her face said there were other reasons.

I grinned. "Well, I'm glad you decided to come along."

ET climbed the stairs, followed by Spike.

Seeing my sister's pod emerging from the water, I rushed to check on her.

"No need to be alarmed," Spike said. "Wobax come equipped with oxygen storage and dispersal units. In other similar circumstances, we could have even filtered air from the water, like we do with our gills, but that is difficult with this carbon dioxide infused liquid."

I suddenly recalled how ET sunk into my bathtub and sucked in water like it were no big deal.

Just to be sure, I called Gertie on the communicator. The sweaty sock odor and the general unhealthful quality of the air wasn't something I particularly wanted to expose her to, so I didn't actually open her pod.

She seemed to be awake. Her drowsiness alarmed me at first, but she said she was breathing normally, she just got tired of looking at the inside of her pod.

I showed her the carved tusk things, the glyphs chiseled into the walls.

"That one looks like it's breakdancing."

I shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know."

She reached for the door opening button.

"I wouldn't do that. This place smells."

Roy surfaced with a noisy splash, gasping for air, then coughed at the putridness of what he just inhaled.

He waded toward the dais. "Oh my God. That was horrible."

"I know," Pete agreed as he trailed him. "Kissing those things was like..." His face took on the expression of a wine taster describing a newly discovered vintage. "Someone dropped a plate of sushi into a Tupperware container and left it out in someone's hot garage for a month, and you're putting that into your mouth. That plasticy...rancid tuna salad flavor."

Roy smirked. "Exactly. And it leaves you with this fishy...wilted lettuce aftertaste. My tongue is actually going numb..."

"With stuff like that floating in their oceans, it's no wonder they're all vegetarian!"

Both of them had a good laugh at that.

I stared at Roy. "I thought you weren't coming."

"And leave you kids without adequate parental supervision?"

I stifled a laugh.

"I gotta watch you so you don't get into any more trouble."

"Is anyone else coming?"

He shook his head. "They got their arms full with that bird. Figured I needed some free space from the `Ol fiancee anyway."

We appeared to be at a dead end. ET waddled to a wall, consulted his computer, frowned at the engravings. A sheet of stone lay below his feet, which made hollow sounds as he hopped on it, but it didn't budge an inch. He continued scowling at the monitor.

Roy seated himself on the throne, adjusting his shoes. They had no laces, so he just had to cinch something up.

"Are you sure that's safe?" Pete asked. "I saw a guy in a movie sitting on an old throne like that and he got harpooned through the head!"

Roy waved dismissively.

As he bent over, he noticed something I'd been pondering myself. There seemed to be a kind of gutter or trench running around his throne, connecting to something like a set of storm drains. Presently they were dry, land shrimp scuttling in and out the holes.

Roy followed a dry channel to a set of rings at the base of a stela. He tugged on them, but they didn't give any.

"Hmmm..." He rubbed his chin, sitting back on the throne. "Those look funny...like they should be able to move..."

All of us had a go at it, but this wasn't Excalibur.

When ET noticed what we were doing, his facial expression said `seriously?'

He only had to raise his hands and use his telekinetic power to loosen the things from the ground.

Yeah. Only. I mean, I had the idea in the back of my head the whole time, but again, it was difficult to say how much power had been drained from me, and what power he considered `important.' I was pretty well dependent on him to figure that out.

A couple psychic tugs was all it took. The rings apparently functioned to release a hidden sluice gate somewhere behind the storm drain things, for the moment they moved, a flood of swamp water came rushing into the channels around the center throne.

Roy laughed and clapped his hands as the throne slowly rose, boat-like from the floor. Rings beneath the second stela let in more water, and the other thrones rose as well.

The middle one began moving. I would almost use the word `sail' to describe it.

"Wow! They should have this at Disneyland!" Roy joked, leaning over the armrest to see where he was traveling.

He didn't look so keen on the experience when his throne hit a submerged lever and that hollow stone section of flooring popped open, revealing a sort of waterfall. "Uh, kids?"

He nervously glanced around the room, furrowed his brow at the tunnel we came from, as if considering going back. "Quick! Get on the chairs! Better pray we don't need seatbelts!"