Boss Hog was motionless, fifty feet above the ground.
It had been five minutes since the disappearance of the monkey, but Guybrush was taking no chances. It could teleport back at any moment.
How could it do that, anyway? Guybrush suddenly thought of the portal stones.
Beeping on the radarscope; there was movement below. Guybrush looked through the viewscreen. He saw Wally running across the ground, wildly looking around for any sign of Boss Hog.
Instantly Guybrush brought the ship down. It crashed into the ground, sending a shock through Guybrush's spine. He waited.
Soon Wally came pelting in, his eyes wide, breath ragged. "Elaine's been kidnapped!" he yelled.
"What?!" said Guybrush.
"You've gotta get back there, Marko's got her!"
"MARKO?! How did he get here?"
"No time!" Wally ran past Guybrush and jumped into the copilot seat. Displaying even less regard than Guybrush for the laws of gravity, he took off like a shot from a pistol. Guybrush grabbed the pilot chair for support. Wally levelled out and sent them zooming flat across the land. He started punching buttons furiously, expanding the radarscope view and bringing in extra parameters.
Guybrush slowly regained his balance and slid into the pilot's seat.
"There they are!" shouted Wally, pointing at a blip on the radarscope. He pushed Boss Hog harder. The engines growled beneath them. Wally typed furiously into the console.
Unexpectedly, he sat back. "I've set Boss Hog to autopilot," he explained. "It's following them automatically. They're going fairly slowly; we should catch them. Say, what were you doing in the air anyway?"
"I was attacked by a giant monkey," said Guybrush. "That teleports."
"WHAT?!"
"She?" said Elaine.
Simon stared into the middle distance. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten her. "I had a chance to kill her. Stop all this. She was right in front of me... But I was stupid. Ignorant. I failed."
He looked at Elaine, his eyes gentle. "I won't fail again."
"Who's she?" Elaine repeated.
"One stone takes you anywhere in the solar system," said Simon, zoning out again. "Two anywhere in the galaxy. Three anywhere in the Universe - you won't believe the things I've seen. Four takes you straight to her."
Another silence fell, this one only broken by the steady blip-blip of the radarscope.
"Uh, Simon," Marko spoke up. "We're being followed."
Instantly Simon snapped back to reality. "Hey?" he said, crossing the floor to look at the radarscope.
"Must be Guybrush," said Marko.
"Yes, I rather imagine it is," said Simon. "Well, he's nothing to worry about. He might even turn out to be useful."
He looked out the viewscreen. Below them, weathered granite thrust up from the ground in irregular lumps, like a rug thrown over spiky grass. The land was rising beneath them. "This is the territory we're looking for," said Simon. "Keep your eyes peeled."
But there was no need; they all saw it at the same time.
Not far ahead of them, the granite suddenly thrust upward almost vertically, creating a scraggy clifface more than two hundred feet high. Near the bottom was an enormous gaping hole in the rock. It was at least fifty feet high, and smooth and sinuous - as if it had been carved out by termites.
"This is it," said Simon.