Lythe shook her head. “I don’t know what that means.”
So Gabriel spent the next ten minutes trying to make her laugh with riddles, puns, and knock-knock jokes. Piper, Siena, and Dash groaned louder with each one. Lythe and Tumar mostly looked confused. They did both seem to like the “orange you glad I didn’t say banana” knock-knock joke, though. Or at least they made sounds with their throats that could almost be interpreted as laughter. At least Tumar seemed to be lightening up a little.
“Forgive me for bringing down the party,” Dash said to their guests, “but would you happen to know how we could get the ogres to move faster up the mountain?”
The cousins shared a look and shook their heads. “In the days before the Great Peace, the fact that the ogres are so slow to climb was helpful to our people,” Tumar said. “Once we saw them ascending the mountain, we knew we had a few days to get to safety, to water down the trees, to try to protect our village as well as we could.”
“Did you say days?” Dash asked. “As in more than one day?”
The elves nodded. “The mountain peaks are higher than they appear.”
“We’ve noticed that,” Piper said, frowning. Then she asked, “How do the ogres track down the dragons, anyway?”
“The dragons have a natural camouflage that helps them blend into the rocks, so finding them by sight is nearly impossible,” Lythe explained.
“They give off some kind of smell when they sleep,” Tumar said. “It’s so faint that we can’t pick it up, but the ogres can. With noses that big, I suppose they can smell anything. It leads them straight to the dragons’ dens.”
“Chris told us humans can’t smell the dragons either,” Gabriel said. His MTB crackled to life and startled him.
“Hi, Gabriel? Can anyone hear me?” Carly’s voice came through the crackling.
“We can hear you!” Gabriel said eagerly, lifting his arm. “I can’t see you on the screen, though.”
“I’m not using my MTB,” Carly said quickly. “I’m coming through SUMI. On that channel you made to contact Piper on the Light Blade.”
“Oh!” Gabriel said. “Cool.”
Dash leaned over. “Carly! Are you guys okay? Why was Colin pretending to be Chris? Is Chris okay? And where’s Anna?”
“What do you mean where’s Anna?” Anna asked. “I’m here taking care of things while you’re—”
“We’re fine,” Carly interrupted. “Well, mostly. Colin knocked Chris unconscious.” The ground crew exchanged uneasy glances. “But don’t worry about us,” Carly continued. “Anna and I have come up with a plan.”
Dash raised an eyebrow. Carly sounded normal enough, and if Carly and Anna were working together, then maybe Anna wasn’t helping Colin. Maybe Dash had been wrong to doubt her.
“What’s happening down there?” asked Carly.
Gabriel told them about the ogres climbing too slow, and about their conversation with Lythe and Tumar. Well, he mostly talked about Lythe.
“Hang on a second,” Carly said, distracted. The ground team could hear voices talking hurriedly, with STEAM and SUMI chiming in. Then Anna’s voice came through. “Dash! Carly and I think we could synthesize the smell in the lab. Then we could program the Cloud Cat’s sensors to recognize the chemical signatures, fly down there, and scare us up some dragons! We would need the elves’ help, though.”
Lythe and Tumar looked at each other. It was clear from their puzzled expressions that they didn’t know what Anna was talking about.
“Basically they want to know if you have anything that might have the dragons’ scent on it,” Gabriel explained. “Then they can try to imitate it so our smaller ship can find it.”
“You mean the flying machine from the painting on the Horn Tree?” Tumar said, his eyes brightening. “Would we be able to see it?”
Dash and Gabriel exchanged glances. Maybe this was how they convinced Tumar to help them. Dash nodded. “Not only see it,” Gabriel said, “but you guys can fly in it!”
Tumar jumped up. “I know where I can find some dragon cinder nearby. Might that work?”
More voices on the other end. Anna came back on. “STEAM says if you use your Mobile Tech Band to analyze an object the dragon left its scent on, that could work. You could then send us the data, and we’ll make it up here. We can’t take a chance on coming down tonight and having Colin catch us.”
“We’ll do our best,” Gabriel promised. “Too bad the Element Fuser needs fresh ash or we’d be all set,” he said as the connection broke off. “So where are we headed?” he asked the elves as he prepared to start the tank’s engines.
Tumar shook his head. “You cannot go. If you show up at another of our sacred sites, and King Urelio discovers it, he will sound the horn for certain.”
“We will get the item for you,” Lythe said, standing up to join her cousin. “We will return before the second moon sets to the north.” They gathered their cloaks and dashed out the door.
“Wait, when’s that?” Gabriel called after them. But they were already gone.
—
Back on the Cloud Leopard several hours later, SUMI hopped over to Anna and Carly, who were busy programming. Their work would have gone faster if they weren’t looking over their shoulders for Colin the whole time.
“I have the data,” SUMI squeaked. “Will now initiate printing.” SUMI lifted her arm, and a long strip of paper slid out from a slot Carly had never noticed before in the robot’s armpit. “Thanks, SUMI,” she said, studying the printout. She handed it to Anna. “What do you think?”
“I think we have the recipe for dragon cinder.”
“Do you think you can separate the part of the dragon cinder that came from the dragon, and the part that came from the tree?”
Anna shook her head. “I don’t think I can do it. But I think we can.” Working together, it took another hour before they were confident that they’d succeeded. All that was left was to use the chemicals in the lab to create a gas out of the equation they’d come up with. Fortunately, the computer did most of the hard work, filling a vial with the swirly gray concoction. Anna snapped the top on and wrapped it up carefully, and then they flew through the tube to the engine room.
Ravi was waiting outside the Cloud Cat. “Where’s Niko?” Carly asked as Anna handed Ravi the vial.
Ravi grimaced. “Colin needed him for something, I don’t know what.”
“That can’t be good,” Carly muttered.
“Speaking of good,” Ravi said, cupping the vial in both hands, “I have good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”
The girls groaned. “The good,” Anna replied.
“Well, we figured out how to reconfigure the ship to follow the scent of the dragons.”
“Great,” Carly said. “So what’s the bad news?”
“It will take at least a week to do it.”
Their shoulders slumped. Anna scowled.
“What are we going to do?” Carly asked. “All that work for nothing!”
Rocket wandered into the room and lay down at Carly’s feet. His ears flopped and she sat on the floor beside him. “I think Rocket’s as upset as we are.” She began petting his head, hoping it would calm both of them.
Anna stared down at the dog, the wheels turning in her head. “What if…,” she said. “What if Rocket could do it?”
“Do what?” Ravi asked.
“Track the scent,” Anna replied, tapping Rocket’s nose.
“I think we should go get Niko,” Carly said, standing up and brushing the dog fur off her leg. “We need to stick together. It’s making me nervous that he’s not here.”
“Okay, let’s give Rocket a practice run, then,” Anna suggested. “We need something that smells like Niko.”
“Hey, ZRKs!” Ravi called out. The two closest ones flew down and buzzed around his head. “Please bring a pair of Niko’s socks. The dirtier and smellier the better!”
ZRKs arrived only a minute later,
each one clutching a gray sock in its tiny grip. They dropped them in front of Carly, who picked them up with two fingers and held them as far away from her as possible.
“Okay,” she said. “Now what?”
“We need a dog treat,” Anna said, pulling a treat from a nearby bag of dog food.
She hid the treat inside one of the socks and stuck out her hand toward Rocket. The dog grabbed for the socks, playfully dropping them and picking them back up. He rubbed his nose in them, frantically coaxing out the treat at the same time. “Good boy!” Anna said encouragingly.
“Poor guy. He probably hasn’t eaten since Colin took over,” Ravi said.
“Now we have to put a bunch of objects in another room,” Anna instructed, “but only one will have a treat on it.”
Carly lined up a couch cushion, a foam football, the socks, and one of her own sneakers. “Go find it, Rocket!” Anna said, sending him off to the hall. Rocket sniffed all of them, but picked—not surprisingly—the socks with the treat. Again, Anna made a big deal out of complimenting him.
This time she didn’t put out the socks. She led him into the hall and said again, “Okay, Rocket. Go find it.” Then she gave him a gentle nudge. She gave the dog one more pat and repeated the command.
Rocket turned in circles, sniffing at the air. Then he ran right at the wall that would lead to the room attached to Chris’s. “I think he did it!” Ravi said. “Unless he’s just running into the wall.”
“Good boy,” the girls told Rocket, ruffling him behind the ears.
“All right,” Ravi said, “I guess we’re heading back down to the lair of the evil twin to see if Niko needs rescuing.”
“No need,” Niko said, appearing from around the corner. “I’ve been sprung.”
They hurried over and crowded around him. “What happened?” Carly asked. “You okay?”
Niko nodded. “It was weird. He couldn’t figure out something in the Cloud Kitten, so he made me see if I could get the information out of Chris.”
“Chris is awake? That’s great!” Carly said.
Niko shook his head. “No, I tried acupressure, but it didn’t work. Well, not as well as it does for Dash. He was awake only for a moment—long enough for Colin to ask his question. But I did discover something else.”
Carly’s face fell. “What is it?”
“Colin said something about there only being one true antidote that would help Chris, which I think means Colin poisoned Chris somehow,” Niko said. “He also got nervous when I got near Chris’s room, like he was hiding something in there. Maybe there’s an antidote?”
“Okay,” said Anna, taking charge. “Carly, can you find a way to distract Colin long enough to give Niko a chance to search Chris’s room for the antidote?”
“I’m sure STEAM, SUMI, and I can think of something,” Carly said with a smile.
“Great. Ravi and I will head to the planet at the same time then and deliver Rocket to the ground crew,” Anna said. “That way Colin won’t notice us leave the Cloud Leopard either.”
“But the Cloud Cat is linked up to the main system on board,” Carly reminded her. “Colin would definitely notice if the Cloud Cat leaves.”
“We’re not taking the Cloud Cat,” Anna said.
“We’re not?” Ravi asked. He sounded a little disappointed. “I’m not sure I’m up for skydiving down to the planet with a dog. Unless the ZRKs have made us flying space-suits?”
The ZRKs buzzed around the room, turning their plastic heads from side to side.
“Nope,” Anna said. “We’re taking the Clipper.”
“That piece of junk?” Niko said. “Its propulsion system went off-line, remember? We had to float here.”
“I remember,” Anna said. “But I also heard Chris say during Gamma that he had the ZRKs repair it. If we’re fast enough, and Carly distracts Colin, we can leave without him noticing. As long as our jobs on board get done, maybe he won’t figure it out.”
Carly nodded. “I think this might work.”
Dawn on Dargon came fast. One minute, the ground team was sound asleep, with only the glow from their MTBs breaking up the darkness. The next minute, sunlight streamed through the small windows, illuminating the inside of the tank like someone had turned on a thousand-watt bulb. Everyone groaned and flung their arms over their eyes.
The door of the tank banged open. Siena barely had time to swing her legs out of the way. Lythe and Tumar stood framed in the doorway. “Don’t you two ever sleep?” Siena groaned.
“A flying ship has landed!” Tumar said, ignoring Siena.
Everyone scrambled to their feet. “Where?” Dash asked.
“Right here,” Ravi said. He stood just behind Tumar and Lythe with Rocket at his heels.
“Rocket!” Piper shouted, pushing her blanket aside. The dog bounded into the tank and proceeded to lick her face until she had to push him away. She wrapped her arms around his neck and laid her face on his head. “What’s he doing here?” she asked Ravi.
“He’s going to find us some dragons!” he replied.
“Huh?” Gabriel asked. “What happened to the original plan?”
“Yeah, the timetable for that wouldn’t really work out.” Ravi didn’t look in Dash’s direction.
If Dash noticed, he didn’t say anything. He was busy rooting through his backpack. He found his injection needle and turned away from the group to stick it in his leg. When he turned back around, everyone pretended not to notice. “It’s okay,” he said. “That was my last one. Feels like we should celebrate or something.” He gave the group a weak smile, but no one else felt much like smiling.
“So now what?” Gabriel asked, trying to dispel the awkward silence that had fallen.
“Now we get moving.” Anna stepped up beside Ravi.
“Where’s Niko?” Dash asked, surprised. Anna was supposed to stay on the Cloud Leopard to cocaptain with Carly.
“He thinks he may be able to revive Chris,” Anna answered. “So I came instead. You’ll need me anyway to help with Rocket.”
“There they are,” Siena said. She had gotten up to search for the ogres. She lowered her binoculars and pointed toward a shady spot on the mountain face. The ogres had gotten higher since yesterday, but were still less than halfway to the top.
Dash sighed. “Okay, we need a new plan, then. Since Chris didn’t prepare us to go to the top of the mountain, we’re on our own here. We don’t even know if there’s breathable air up there. If someone should lead Rocket around, it should be me.”
“You?” Gabriel asked. “The last person it should be is you, no offense.”
“I feel fine,” Dash lied. His bones actually ached, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. “The captain is supposed to take the biggest risks, remember? And everyone else has a job. Plus, I need you to go talk to the king.”
“I thought I was flying the Cloud Cat!” Gabriel complained. He was really hoping to show off his flying skills to Lythe.
“Ravi will have to pilot the ship,” Anna explained. “We had to bring the Clipper so Colin wouldn’t notice us leaving.”
Dash nodded. “Besides, Gabriel, you’ve gotten closer”—Dash cleared his throat and looked at Lythe—“to the elves than anybody else. If anybody can convince the king to hold off on sounding the horn, it’s you.”
Gabriel smiled and stood a little straighter. “I am pretty charming, aren’t I?”
Siena kicked him in the shin.
“So,” Dash continued, ignoring Gabriel’s comment, “Ravi will fly you and Piper with Lythe to meet with the king. We need to know which tree he will allow us to burn so we know which way to steer the dragon. Gabriel, you’ll need to radio Ravi with the exact coordinates.”
“Roger that!” Gabriel saluted.
“What about me and Anna?” Siena asked.
“You’ll go too. Tumar can introduce you to the rest of the elves so you can help them defend their village. If our plan works, we won’t need the ogres for anything
else and can put them back to sleep as soon as a dragon descends the mountain. But if it doesn’t, you’ll need to make sure King Urelio doesn’t sound the horn too early.”
Anna nodded. “Okay, it’s a good plan. I say we get started.”
A nose full of the dragons’ scent, Rocket sniffed the air as Dash held on to his collar with a leash he’d fashioned from a vine. Ravi had gone to drop off the rest of the crew at the elves’ village and would return to pick up Dash before they startled a dragon out of its lair.
The air on the mountain was thin but breathable. Scattered trees and bushes surrounded deep ravines, and huge boulders hid caves and caverns. There was no evidence of the moss that thrived in the wetter climate below. A good thing, since the rocks were slippery enough already.
The peaks covered so much more space than he ever would have guessed from below. Miles and miles and miles for sure. The view was amazing. The Elfin Forest looked tiny from there. Dash could see the vast ocean and even the land beyond it. Similar mountain peaks grew there, and he wondered if they harbored dragons and ogres too. The silence was total.
He had a brief feeling of being the only person on the planet. Instead of loneliness, though, a calm settled over him as they walked.
Without Rocket’s nose, Dash wouldn’t have the slightest idea of where to go. The rocky landscape literally stretched to the distant horizon. Rocket gave one big sniff, then turned south. They came across a long line of wooden huts where the ogres must have once lived. A hundred years of wind and neglect had knocked most of them down, though. The ogres wouldn’t be happy to see that, if they made it up there before the horn sounded again.
Soon after crossing a thin stream, Rocket stopped, his paws treading water. Dash almost tipped backward, but Rocket moved forward just enough to pull Dash onto solid ground. “Do you smell something?” he asked. Dash pulled the vial with the synthesized dragon scent out of his pocket. He had Rocket sniff it again, then gave him a dog treat and said, “Rocket, go find it!”
Rocket stepped forward tentatively before picking up the pace. He kept his nose in the air as he went, sniffing passing rocks and tree trunks. Dash lifted his arm and called Ravi. “I think we’re getting close,” he said into his MTB. “Any word from Gabriel?”