65 THE RESCUE

CHAPTER 65 THE RESCUE George nervously peered down from the balcony and said, "I'm going to trust you, Roz. I hope I don't regret this." "Do not worry, George. I will be very careful." Very carefully, Roz picked up the man. She held him securely. And then she leaped off the balcony. George screamed wildly as they plummeted toward a lower rooftop. But the robot's legs absorbed the impact, and the landing was surprisingly gentle. "That wasn't so bad," said George, with a smile. A moment later, he was screaming again as they leaped over flaming wreckage and dropped to a safe corner of the main platform. "I will be right back," said Roz, helping the man to his feet. Then she leaped away, vanishing into the smoke-filled sky. She came flying back down a minute later, carrying Vivian, the technology manager. Then she brought down the engineer, and then the mechanic, and then the electrician, and finally the station manager. The crew members huddled together in the cold

evening air, wondering what would happen next. Their eyes kept peeking over the edge of the platform. The station was slowly sinking, and the ocean surface was getting closer all the time. There was a sudden spray of mist, and everyone turned to see a pod of whales arriving. The whales breathed noisy gusts of air through their blowholes as

they lined up along the platform. "These are your life rafts," said Roz. "You expect us to ride whales?" said George. "An hour ago, they wanted to kill us!" "The whales did not want to kill you," explained Roz. "They wanted to stop the poison tide. Now they want to take you back to land. I have ridden on a whale myself. I promise, they will keep you safe." With no other choice, the crew began climbing onto the whales. They crawled around blowholes and dorsal fins, and soon each human was sitting on the back of their very own whale. Despite what the humans had been through, they couldn't help feeling awestruck by those magnificent animals. When everyone was seated, Akiko looked up at Roz on the platform and said, "I'm sorry to tell you this, but the poison tide is still flowing because the mining robot is still working, and he'll keep working until his task is complete. He's a giant machine designed to demolish deep-sea mountains. You can't stop him, Roz, and he won't take orders from you. Please go home. We'll send an entire fleet of cleanup robots to shut down the mining site and remove the poison tide from the ocean. It'll take time, but it'll get done. And I'll make sure the poison tide never happens again. You have my word." A deep groan rumbled up from the biggest whale. It was his way of saying, "We should leave while the

water is calm." So the whales pushed off and started ferrying the humans to shore.