"Gone?" The word made no sense to me. "No. How can...How can that be?"

"You lost it in the explosion," Pem explained. "When we were trying to escape, we entered the tunnel. You remember that?"

I nodded. "There was a torpedo..."

"Right. It exploded behind us."

"We got caught it in its blast," Pem continued. "We all were thrown about and took our bumps and bruises." I nodded. Sure, that made sense. "You were the closest to it. You got hit hard. You lost your leg. It was all we could do to keep you from bleeding out."

I glanced down at my feet and there appeared to be two. "Lost? But I see it right there."

Pem shook his head. "That's a prosthesis. We were able to replace your lost limb with a cybernetic limb. It may take some time for it to synch completely to your brainwaves. "It is, however, a Merapolian limb, so while it will drastically increase your maneuverability here in the water, up there on the land, it may not function as well, but it is all we have. We don't get many landbreathers down here, but I'm sure it will be fine."

I looked at the robotic limb. It ended with more of a flipper than a foot and it seemed to be a dark blue, though it was hard to tell under the sea. I traced it from the foot to the ankle to the calf up to where it connected to my thigh. This was all rather discombobulating.

"Maybe you should give it a try, Frank? We should check to make sure the interface is running efficiently."

"Sure," I said, uneasily.

"Ok," Pem said. "Just move slowly. Just slow, deliberate movements. First thing, just try moving the foot."

I moved my robotic foot.

"You're awake!" Tam said, quickly paddling into the room.

"Finally! Maybe now we can get out of here!"

"I don't think that would be wise," Pem said. 'We haven't finished calibrating..."

"I can take care of that. And don't worry, Frank, I have a few ideas for how we can upgrade it."

to be continued next week

"So we're agreed. We're going to go find out who that is and we're going to save them."

"Unless that someone turns out to be something horrible that wants to kill us," Tam said. "And then we will all die."

"We just escaped from something horrible that wanted to kill us. We want to go back to something horrible that wants to kill us. When isn't there something horrible that wants to kill us? That's the life we live. We might as well try to save someone while we're at it."

"You win, Frank. We're going to go risk our lives and the future of the omnibrane for some stupid gerbil. Let's just do it already."

"Thank you," I said before turning to the Sheriff. "If you and your deputies are too tired to come, they don't have to. We've got this."

"Whether it's Gnomenasher or your friends," the Sheriff replied, "we're in as well. We came to help get you home. We're not quitting now."

"Well, I'm not going," Haf said.

"Oh, thanks," Pem grumbled. "You know one of us is going to have to go with them until they're out of here."

"You'd rather deal with the LeechVine that doesn't realize its people now? Because if you would..."

"No," Pem stopped her there. "I'll deal with the bipeds. You can have the leechvine all to yourself."

Haf gave him an insincere smiled. "You're so kind."

So Pem led us down to the garage where we piled into what resembled a hovercraft if a craft was meant to be underwater. There was no top, only a windshield, presumably to protect us from drag, except in this case the drag was coming from water not wind. So I guess that makes it a watershield.

We sailed off into the ocean. It was a bit of a new experience for me, driving around under the sea without a roof over my head. But as far as strangeness goes, it really barely registered compared to the rest of the trip. I was driving out to save a giant gerbil with a bunch of trolls and a surly timetraveler. Who knew what awaited us when we got there?

to be continued next week

"That's..." Haf started, but came up short. She looked closer at the screen. "I don't know what that is."

Pem moved closer so he could see. "Whatever it is, it's on the move."

"Where's it going?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"I can't help with the where it's going," Tam said. "But it certainly looks like where it was coming from, is right around here."

"Something else came through the portal?" Pem asked, sounding concerned. "What other creatures could you have unleashed on our world?"

"No one," the Sheriff said. "We left people by the portal, but they would have never come without my command."

"That's what you say."

"It's the truth."

"If not some other weird creature from your world, then what could that thing be?"

"You misunderstand me," the Sheriff said. "I think a weird creature from our world is exactly what this thing is."

"Excuse me?" Pem said, confused.

"You see, I think this creature is Gnomenasher."

"Your magicfinding giant gerbil?" Tam asked

"Exactly!"

"That's incredibly unlikely," Pem said. "It is highly improbable that your 'gerbil' could have survived in this environment. Judging by the rest of you, it's most likely he's also a land dweller and unable to breath water."

The Sheriff countered with, "It's him."

"I think it's worth a look," I said.

"Oh, come on," Tam countered. "We're not going to waste time because a blip could be a gerbil."

"Tam, we need to the gerbil to find the portal."

"Are you kidding me? They point at the screen. "The portal's right there!"

"Ok," I relented, seeing that wasn't getting us anywhere. "How about we do it because Gnomenasher is important to them."

"You know what should be important to them," Tam replied. "Living to see another day. Having other days for them to live to see."

"Fine. Fair enough. But what if that blip isn't Gnomenasher? What if it's Kink? Or Wu? Or G'fon? Shouldn't we go looking for them?"

"It's not G'fon or Kink or your friend, Lu Wu," Tam replied.

"How can you know that? You were sent here."

"And you were not. We weren't all sent to the same world. Whatever those hooded figures were, they wanted us to be scattered across the omnibrane."

"Maybe. But you have to admit there's a possibility that that is a friend."

Tam glared at me, then sighed. "Fine...there's a possibility."

to be continued next week

"No way?" the merwoman laughed. "Really?"

The Sheriff glared at her "Yes, really. Not only do we care greatly for him. But Gnomenasher is also a magic finder. He can sniff it out miles away. We'll never be able to find the portal without him. "The portal is invisible and over open water. There are no landmarks. Without Gnomenasher, we'll be stuck here!"

"Well, no one wants that," Haf said. "But if he is a airbreather like you, then I don't know what to tell you. It must be too late by now."

"She does have a point," I said. "We lost contact with him when we were on the island. The island's gone now. I think we may have lost him."

The trolls were quiet for a few moments, then the Sheriff said, "Fine. If there's nothing we can do about it, then there's nothing we can do. But that still leaves the problem of getting home. Without Gnomenasher, how are we going to find the portals home?"

"We should be able to find your portals," Haf said.

"We can?" Pem asked.

"Sure. We just use our satellites to search for exotic matter."

"Assuming that the portals are always open," I said, "as I guess we hope they are. they should be expelling some form of matter at all times. Even if they're just on the subatomic level, something should be coming out, like an accretion disc on a black hole."

"Whatever that means," the Sheriff said. "But will it work?"

"I don't know," Pem replied, "but it's certainly worth a shot."

We all swam off to their communications laboratory where dozens of other merpeople were working. As we made our way toward the lab, it was strange seeing all this mermen and merwomen and merchildren just living their lives. They were strange and exotic to me, but here I was the strange one. Though I think they found the trolls even stranger than me.

Pem swam up to the machine and moved a few columns. The crystal display bursted into life. "That should do it."

"This is us," Haf said, pointing at one of the dots. "So presumably that is you. This one is near where we found you, so that must be the portal."

"Wait," I said. "That's us. That's the portal. Then what," I said pointing to the third dot on the screen, "is this one?"

to be continued next week

"Leave it here," I said.

"With us?" the merwoman asked.

"You have a facility that it's already locked up in."

"And you and your friends just wander off taking none of the responsibility?"

"What else do you want us to do?" I asked. "Take it with us?"

"No," Pem said. "This creature is going to bear some observation. It needs to be studied before we can consider releasing it."

"You would, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, Haf. I would. Sometimes science is the best solution. Even you have to admit that."

"Fine," she said. "We'll take your monster...for science."

"Thank you," Tam said. "Then we should be leaving."

"We can't leave without the others," I told them.

"We have responsibilities, Frank. We have a mission to complete. Enemies to vanquish. And since Lu, G'fon, and Kink aren't here," Tam said. "I assume we have to go and save them, as well."

"I know we have responsibilities, Tam," I told them, "but I have a responsibility to these people, as well. They risked their lives to help me find you. They didn't have to, but they volunteered. I owe it to them to get them back safely."

"Fine," Tam said. "We'll return them to wherever you found them and then we will go off to find the others."

We left the transformed Leechvine and were brought into a small room. The water was drained and food was brought. It was all raw fish and seaweed. Nothing was cooked. Everything was a little too slimy. Tam didn't seem to mind. As we ate, the others were brought in. First Toleuk and then the Sheriff and then finally the other deputies.

"Now that you are all together," Haf said. "you can head out."

"But we're not altogether," the Sheriff said. "We're missing Gnomenasher."

"Gnomenasher?" Tam asked.

"A giant gerbil," I replied. "Don't ask."

"This is all of you that we found," Pem said. "There's no one else."

"But we need him."

"What's so important about this creature?"

"Without Gnomenasher there's no way we can find our way home!"

to be continued next week

"The tendril monster's main form of offense is to entangle its prey in its tendrils and to feed on their lifeforce, correct?"

"To oversimplifiy things," the merwoman said, "Yes."

"But because of my accident, long story, I'm filled with unstable quantum energy. So when the tendrils were feeding on me, they were really feeding on that. That's why I'm awake when most of the others are not."

"Your point?" the merwoman asked.

"My point is, you see, when the instability builds up to a certain degree I have to drain it."

"And when I drain the instability it has an effect on my body."

"What effect?"

"My body changes...into another body. So when we were in trouble and things looked bleak, I went on the assumption that it had absorbed enough of my instability. And I used my pocket stabilizer on the creature. Soon after the island collapsed, so I'm thinking now it must have worked."

"I'm sorry," Crag said. "What does whatever you just said have to do with the island collapsing?"

"The island was the tentacle monster," I tried to explain. "The island was just a disguise to trap us."

"It's true," the merwoman, whose name I really should have known by now, but she never introduced herself, said. "The Giant Leechvine is known for disguising itself with a lure like a tropical island to capture land animals to eat."

"That monster was the entire island?" Crag asked.

"Yes," I told him, "so when I used my stabilizer on the monster it changed. And when the monster changed, it must've changed into something smaller, meaning that there was nothing holding the island together."

"Leaving a lot of empty space," Tam said. "So the island collapsed."

"Yes," I said, happy that someone else got it. "The island collapsed."

"When the monster became a smaller creature, its disguise, all the island accountrements that it was using to hide itself, fell."

"Fell right on top of us," Tam added.

"Yes. Maybe it turned out that wasn't the best strategy. But, hey, here we are."

"So, that thing in there...?" Crag asked.

"Is the monster, Yes."

"The Giant Leechvine," the merwoman corrected.

"So the monster was an entire island and is now that person in there?"

"That's how I understand it, Crag."

"Ok," Tam said. "So now what are we going to do with it?"

to be continued next week

"You have no idea?" Pem asked. "We found her with your people. When we tried to save her, she attacked our people."

"She's not one of us," Crag confirmed. "The rest of our team were Trolls like me. Frank was the only, uh, whatiscalled...human among us."

"And Tam," I added. "Who we came here to rescue. But that person...I mean, no offense, but it looks like one of you."

"Like one of us?" the merwoman laughed. "Are you joking? Look at her dorsal fin, her coloring, her strange face."

I don't know about the other things, but the face did look different than the other merpeople I'd seen, more human, less fishy. "She's not one of us," I told them.

"She was with you," Pem said, "attacked the people who tried to save her."

"Ok, I still don't know who she is."

"What was she doing with you then?"

I didn't like his accusatory tone, even through the distortions of the water, as if I was to blame. "I don't know what she was doing there. I didn't see her there. I was too busy having rocks fall on me and trying not to drown."

"Well, you nearly failed at both of those things," the merwoman retorted. "If we hadn't saved you, you'd be dead, so sink the attitude."

I tried to take a deep breath with the rebreather on and it mostly worked, creating some large air bubbles in the process. "Right. Sorry." To hide my embarrassment, I turned to the woman on the other side of the window. I watched her as she thrashed about frantically.

"She's like a madwoman," Crag said. "Are we sure she's not possessed by a demon?"

The merpeople exchanged a glance. "Is he serious?"

Tam shrugged. "I think it's highly unlikely, but then again, I've seen much weirder things."

The woman's limbs moved as if they had minds of their own. Each finger moved wildly, as if the woman didn't understand how they worked. But there was something else, the way her limbs moved, almost...almost...almost as if she were...trying...trying to eat through her fingers? Why would she be tr...And then it suddenly made sense to me. "I know who she is! I know WHAT she is!"

"Ok," Pem said. "Who is she?"

"It's the island," I proclaimed. "It's the tendril monster!"

"What?" Tam asked. "How does that make any sense?"

to be continued next week

"You could just stay in there," I told him, "and let me worry about everyone else."

"I can't let you do that," Crag said. "I'm a deputy. I swore an oath. It's my duty to look after you and my fellow deputies, and my sheriff. I'll wear the collar."

So Pem partially filled up Crag's room and we went inside. Pem emerged from the water and I cautiously did likewise. I was worried about how the rebreather would react to me coming back into the air and what it would do if I accidentally breathed on my own. I was worried about how the rebreather would react to me coming back into the air and what it would do if I accidentally breathed on my own.

Crag took the collar without complaint. His was, of course, much bigger than mine. It fit around his neck easily. He snapped it home and joined us in the water. We all swam out into the water-filled hall. "All right, what about the others?" Crag asked.

"Most of your kind are still recovering, but there is one of you that has been a problem since we found them. I would like to take you to them in the hopes that you can calm them down."

"Of course," I said. "We'll do what we can to help."

We swam down the hall. Crag seemed to have some problems, which made me wonder if he even knew how to swim. He ended up making his way mostly by crawling along the floor. It wasn't the fastest or easiest way but it more or less did the job. We all managed to reach our destination.

When Pem came to a stop, I moved toward the window that looked into the next room. I was surprised by who I saw. It was Tam. They were in a room and the water was filling up. It had surpassed the height of the bed. They weren't just filling the room so that they could move in and out easier. No, they were trying to fill the entire room with water! They were trying to drown them!

There was another fishperson standing by the doorway to Tam's room. "Stop!" I yelled as I tried to swim at her. "Hey!" Pem yelled, grabbing ahold of me. I struggled against him. "Let go of me! I won't let you drown my friend!"

to be continued next week