To any outside observer, it would have seemed as though Tick and his friends had just won the Super Bowl, the World Series, and the NBA Championship in one fell swoop. Having been through so much, and after having hundreds of creepy yellow fangen within inches of tearing them to pieces, winking away to complete safety seemed reason enough to jump up and down, screaming and hugging and cheering and then to start all over again.

“What took you so long!” Paul yelled, whacking Tick on the back with a huge smile on his face.

“I was trying to decide if I wanted to take you or leave you behind,” Tick replied, grinning.

They celebrated inside a room very similar to the one they’d left in the Bermuda Triangle, though a much smaller version—a couple of couches, a chair, a cold brick fireplace. A single window was placed directly across from the fireplace, and it looked out upon a dry palette of colors—oranges, reds, browns.

Tick brought his giddiness back to reason and walked over to get a better look at the view. Beyond their room was a huge drop-off that led to a brown strip of river far below. Sheer walls of striated rock rose up from the valley on all sides, stretching in all directions as far as Tick could see. This was the satellite location Master George had said he’d send them to?

It was a canyon. No, it was the canyon.

“Are we inside the Grand Canyon?” he asked to no one in particular.

“That we are,” Mothball answered. “This big crack’s brimming over with Chi’karda, it is.”

“Then where are Master George and Rutger?” Sofia asked.

A fallen mood filled the room like a sluggish oil spill, and no one said a word.

~

Master George worked furiously on his Barrier Wand, welding and wiring and hammering. He and Rutger had managed to repel the attack from Mistress Jane with an odd assortment of weapons, but not before the creatures had smashed his Wand in half with an axe. At least they’d missed severing the Chi’karda Drive.

Knowing his deadline to pull the Realitants out of the Thirteenth Reality was only a couple of hours away, he wiped the sweat off his brow and doubled his efforts.

“Master George!” Rutger yelled from the other room, followed by the quick series of heavy thumps that always marked the little man running on his short legs.

“What is it, Rutger?” Master George asked, annoyed. “Can’t you see I’m under considerable duress?”

His friend stopped in the doorway, panting like he’d just run three miles. “Master George!”

“Speak, man, and be quick about it!”

“The nanolocators . . . Mothball, Tick . . . everyone—they winked to our station at the Canyon!”

His old friend’s news made Master George regret the harshness of his words. “That’s wonderful, Rutger! Wonderful, indeed!” He went back to work on the Wand, very encouraged indeed.

~