Meanwhile, Elaine and Wally were wandering through the forest. Wally was in the lead, making measurements with his mapping devices, staring around with great interest at the surrounding plant life, and keeping up a running commentary... "We're two thousand feet above sea level, did you know? The humidity's gone up two percent in the past five minutes! Look at those clouds - the air mixture must be heavier to support all that water vapour. There'll probably be a huge storm in the next few hours. See the red tint in the soil? That's iron oxide..."
Elaine followed behind Wally, keeping her thoughts to herself. These thoughts were mainly about Guybrush, and his plans. Elaine thought Guybrush had a very specific plan in mind, which he wasn't sharing with her or Wally. It was a bad sign, not just the plan, whatever it might be, but the fact that Guybrush wasn't willing to trust them.
They'd come a fair way from the ship, through mostly thin vegetation and gently sloping land. It was very quiet. Occasionally you heard bird calls, but they were the exception. The air was heavy and barely stirred around them.
Suddenly, they heard a noise like a thunderclap behind them.
They both turned round, slowly.
"See any storms on those instruments of yours, Wally?" said Elaine in a level voice.
"Um, no... but maybe the weather is more localised on this planet... I don't know."
Elaine stared back, then turned around. "Let's keep going." The forest was thinning out further in front of them, as they slowly approached a big clearing.
This time, they didn't hear anything.
One moment, the clearing was empty. The next - although there may have been a preceding instant during which a tiny pinprick of a shadow on the grass exploded into full size - a squat black ship stood there.
The recognition on Elaine's face was immediate.
The shockwave from the landing hit them a split second later, sending them both sprawling to the ground. Only slowly did they get up, partly because both of them were hurting in several bruised places, and partly because they wanted to remain hidden.
This was Marko's ship.
"He followed us here!" whispered Elaine. "How..." And she quickly trailed off, as the implication sunk in. If Marko had followed them, it meant he knew how to use the portal stones.
They could go home.
But why would he follow them here? Surely not to help them.
"He must want our portal stones," said Wally, who had been thinking along the same lines as Elaine.
Which meant they weren't saved after all. They were in even greater danger. Elaine considered several courses of action, but all of them were made dubious by the fact that they weren't aware of Marko's motives.
Worse, her blaster was still on the ship. As she remembered this, Elaine pictured Guybrush's gnomic face and snarled. Hopefully something very nasty was happening to him at the moment...