Part 6
Max sat bolt upright in bed. He was sweating and trembling, and he felt tremendously afraid. Something felt so close and familiar, and he knew. "Liz!"
* * *
Liz stared down at the ground, away from two small silvery men who were guarding her. They were smaller than the Gueyere, with slightly speckled skin and more oblong faces. They didn't seem to realize that she understood their language, and though they spoke a strange dialect different from any she had heard at the rebel base, she was able to deduce that they worked for Kivar.
The room she was in was small and dark and only dimly lit by a type of Antaran glow worms squirming in their corner cages.
The small stool she was sitting on was hard and uncomfortable, but she dared not move for fear of what the guards might do. She needed to concentrate.
She stared at a point on the floor until her eyes glazed over, letting her mind focus on Serena.
* * *
"Are you sure it wasn't just a nightmare?" Tess looked somewhat skeptical as she, Michael, and Max stood in the pre-dawn light cast by the partly open blinds.
"Yes. I know it was Liz." Max sighed. "She was terrified of something, and she kept projecting this image of Serena."
"Serena? Do you think Serena did something to her?" Michael asked.
"No, no. It was more like…" He paused thoughtfully. "Like Serena could help her. Or something. It was so vague. So frustrating."
"But what can we do?" Tess lifted her hands in question. "Is there anything that we can do at all?"
"If Liz is in trouble, that means Maria's probably in trouble, too," Michael said.
Max paced the room pensively and stopped for a moment by the window.
"What is it Max?" Tess asked.
"You know that book that you gave us last year?" She looked a little confused, so he elaborated, "The book with all four of us in it?"
"Oh. Yeah. What about it?"
"Does it have something to do with helping Maria and Liz?" Michael prodded.
"You have the book, don't you, Tess?"
"Yes…"
"Do you remember how Serena said that there was more than one portal? More than one gateway?"
"Yeah. So…" Michael urged him impatiently.
"So maybe the book will have some information in it about that, something that could maybe take us to Liz and Maria."
"But we don't know where those other gateways are, or even if they are in the same solar system as the rebel base. Plus, we the crystal we have only works for the rebel base gateway," Tess added pragmatically.
"It's worth a try," Max said.
Michael grabbed his car keys. "So let's get the book."
* * *
Maria woke up in the darkness and looked across the room to see that Liz was not in bed. She looked out through their 'skylight' to see that the stars had moved quite a bit across the sky. From practice—and lack of a watch—Maria had learned to tell time by the celestial positions of the stars at night and the Antaran sun during the day. At that moment, she could tell that it was quite late, or quite early—a few hours until dawn. Where was Liz?
Maria slid out of bed and walked over to Liz's, putting her hand on the bedclothes. Cold—she'd been gone for a while. Maria knew Liz liked taking late night walks, but this late? It just didn't make sense.
* * *
"Do you understand any of it?" Tess turned the books pages slowly, Max and Michael looking over her shoulder.
"You'd think we'd have asked Serena about it," Michael lamented, somewhat angrily.
"I guess it just didn't seem relevant anymore." Max ran his fingers through his hair, adding, "Since none of us really followed our 'destinies' anyway."
"I don't remember this page being here before," Tess said suddenly.
Max reached out to take the book and look more closely, and, upon touching it, he was floored. He staggered backwards.
"Are you okay, Max?"
But Michael knew his friend better. "What did you see, Maxwell?"
* * *