Titans of Chaos

He put his arms gently around us, hugging the wet, soaking girls in their wet, clinging,see-through shirts to his manly chest. Yes, yes, I bet he was inspired to stay upright. Very upright.

"Psychotic, you mean!" Vanity said. "Get us out of here!"

I assume the first comment was meant for Colin, and the second for Argent Nautilus, because theship launched herself across the waves like a bolt from a crossbow, and we skipped like a stonefrom wave to wave.

Suddenly the storm grew quiet and the sensation of motion dampened. I could still see with myeyes that the ocean was bucking and leaping like an untamed horse, but the magic spell or theforcefield or whatever it was that had been protecting us from our own supersonic speed hadappeared around the ship, enfolding us like a blanket.

I saw the light from my hypersphere. The laws of nature I knew had just turned back on. We hadcrossed back out of the ward. These were the waters of Earth.

Colin, answering Vanity's comment, said, "I am sure there is a place to go to get out of this rain."

She was still huddled up against his shoulder. I did not hear her muffled comment, but I heardColin's reply: He laughed a loud laugh and said, "This is a Phaeacian ship! Do you really thinkthere are no secret passages aboard?"

Vanity looked up, a glint of surprise in her eye.

I was about to ask Colin (now that the ship's bucking and jumping were no longer affecting us) tolet go. His warm, strong, protective arm was still trapping my shivering body against his, and Iwanted him to let me go. I think I did.

I never got the chance. Vanity smiled and moved her foot. Her toe clicked some hidden switch.

Maybe it did not exist until she looked for it.

However she did it, Vanity made a trapdoor open beneath our feet. We all screamed, exceptColin, who laughed, and we fell from a seven-foot-high deck twelve feet to a large chamber thatwas simply too high and too wide to fit in a ship as small as Vanity's. With a loud poof! we landedon a mattress, which jumped and puffed around us.

There lay Colin, looking up as the leaves of the trapdoor clattered shut and cut off the rain, in thedark, two girls pressed up against him, still clutching him and shrieking (roller-coaster reflex,remember?), with his arms around us, in the dark. On a mattress.

Colin said in a voice of perfect satisfaction, "This is the best day of my life. Ever."