300

Falcon's Wing reaches the surface and bobs gently. Your external camera revolves slowly until a floating platform comes into sight. Two hideous apparitions of jointed legs and bloated brain sacs slither over its edge and are lost to the deep. Your exterior microphone amplifies a strange clicking which your Translator reads as, '... unforgivable interruption of Kelcrrrrck'ick by a non-clan member...' Apparently there is no universal equivalent for Kelcrrrrck'ick. Puzzling as to what you may have interrupted, your attention is suddenly drawn to the screen as the camera tilts down towards the surface, picking up some movement. Through the reflected glare of the Keladi sun you see what looks like a hundred-metre long sea monster with six luminous eyes about to engulf you.

Falcon's Wing lurches violently as it erupts from the water and you realise it is a Keladi spaceboat with its floodlights on, a rakish space ship shaped like a manta ray. CAIN chimes, They are requesting holophone contact,' and you open a channel. You strain back in your crash couch as Falcon's Wing fills suddenly with water and a cruel looking Keladi appears before your eyes, claws waving. Remembering it is only a holo-projection you relax and identify yourself as a member of TIME, codename Falcon. The Keladi replies, 'It is well I arrived quickly. I am Rrillk, Argon of the TIME research station, here in the Biruk shallows. Had not I, a member of the bond-clan of TIME, arrived first, you might have been treated with hostility, even attacked.' You ask where Lord Kirik is, and Rrillk informs you that he has just used his Time Machine to go back to the Timehole in Kelados' past, 2710 AD. You decide to follow him immediately, and thanking Rrillk for his help, disengage the holophone connection and ask CAIN to engage the Variac Drive. Turn to 281.