The whole thing started a few months ago, when Theta, the planet that ruled the galaxy, decided to pass a series of laws that included one which stated that no planet had the right to attack Theta, or even possess advanced weaponry, for that matter.

So Terrus decided to prepare missiles for counter-attacking Theta, and at this, the Arachne Union declared war on the Terra Union. This war went on and on, with more and more destruction occurring with each onslaught.

Eventually George Kennedy, who played a major part in making decisions about the war, called Theta and asked for a meeting on Terrus. We had to travel back from South America to go to the meeting, but it was no disappointment, since everyone there treated us like Thetans, just because we were from a different continent.

The next day the spiders traveled to Terrus in some advanced spaceships and landed in Lewiston's battlefield. By noontime we had the meeting all set up. Its purpose was to reach an agreement between Terrus and Theta. Each planet's representative was to make a speech on how to reach an agreement between the two planets. Because the meeting was on Terrus, it had been agreed that everyone shall speak Terran.

George Kennedy had been chosen to represent Terrus, but in my opinion, he wasn't the best choice to make a speech that could change the fate of the whole galaxy. But he made a reasonable speech. (In our time, it was considered unlawful not to make up a speech as you go along.)

His speech went like this:

"This is the biggest attack planet Theta has ever given us. We must fight back so we can save our planet. Uh, if we win, we'll tell Theta, uh, we'll make Theta abide by some fair laws." Before Kennedy could say anything else, all the spiders in the crowd began to yell and scream. A riot began, and the spider pushed Kennedy away so he could make his own speech. Kennedy didn't do anything, probably because he didn't have much more to say.

I asked my friend Zachary what the spider's words meant. He understood many interplanetary languages because he was always went with me on missions. I would fly the ship, and he would operate the interior computer. However, there was often another person in the ship that would take the place of someone else for half the day, usually Mark.

Zachary told me that the spider was saying that Terrus was an unfair planet, and should be invaded. How would Theta run an invasion? They were so high-tech, I didn't even understand how some of their machines worked.

But just as the riot action was reaching its climax, I was distracted by a saucer-shaped object on the horizon. Perhaps Theta was beginning the invasion already! No, that couldn't be, unless they have just recently formed a league of spiders. But where were the other ships?

Then someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Mark. Mark said that the spaceship said "Earth Experiment I". I would not normally trust him, but for some reason I felt he would tell the truth in a situation like this.

As the object gradually got closer, I could see that he was right. Mark had very good eyesight. But I also noticed some symbols on the ship. Earth spoke two different languages.

It was the familiar visitor who occasionally conducted the wrestling show on television. We both knew him very well, and were good friends with him; whereas some Earthlings give off a sense of hostility to us.

Bob was only about a meter and a half tall, even though he was fully grown. Most Earthlings were shorter than Terrans. Despite their small size, they were very strong. In fact, the law states that no Earthling can compete in any of Terrus' few contact sports.

"Hi, Bob. Do you know what's going on? Or are you here for the wrestling show?"

Bob's reply was, "I want to talk to the spider. Once I knock him out of the way, I'll give a speech of my own. Then all the Terrans will know the truth, and they will forget about trying to make peace with the spiders and the tamakhs. They will revert to our side. Then we'll invade Theta, and learn all their technology. Then we'll invade Bon¾—."

The spider was still yelling out his speech by the time we got there. Zachary and Mark had disappeared into the crowd. I was so engrossed in looking for them and listening to the roar of the crowd that I wasn't aware of what Bob was doing until I heard a scream. Bob must have hit the spider, because I noticed that the roar of the crowd had gotten louder and the spider had vanished.

Bob got up to the microphone and yelled out his side of the story. It went like so:

"I want you to know the third side of the story. I'm from planet Earth, and I make frequent visits to Terrus, Bon¾, and Theta." A lie. "And I know what's going on! Spiders are liars! AND DON'T LISTEN to them. Listen to ME! And— Huh?"

It was another spider. This one was much bigger, almost the size of a tamakh. Bob was terrified. The spider scooped him up with one of its many arms. Then they and all the spiders in the crowd walked off. Some of them ran off. When the crowd thinned out, I could see that a few spiders remained, perhaps to see what I was going to do. I counted them. There were thirteen. I double-checked, and found thirteen again.

I hid myself behind the desk and turned myself invisible. When I came out, I counted the spiders again, and there were ten. I did not want to waste any time. I was set on looking for the escaping spiders.

I figured that the spiders probably had gone in the direction of the first spider. I decided to head that way.

After a minute of running, I saw a spider. The spider had on a red scarf. I remember that one of the few remaining spiders had had on a red scarf.

I sped up to the spider. By now I was flying like an owl — as silently as I could. I decided to throw a force field around the spider and to turn myself visible again.

"AAAAAAAAH!" The spider, discovering that she could not move, did all she could to attract attention. I scrunched up behind the spider, elevated myself about a half-meter, and turned invisible. When I came out, two more spiders were running towards the frozen one. I froze them too, and then asked the spiders where they were going. But then I sensed a presence behind me. I figured it was probably Zachary, because I could tell person was limping on one foot from the crunching sounds of the snow. But when I whirled around, I got frozen by Shinobu, who could see me because he was carrying a special flashlight. He had fooled me by imitating Zachary.

"SHINOBU! Are you crazy? I need to find out what the spiders want!"

"How are you going to do that, lamebrain?"

"Unfreeze me. Then I'll tell you."

Zach suddenly appeared. Even Shinobu was unaware of his presence. For a while nobody did anything. Then Zachary suddenly unfroze me. Then Shinobu tried to freeze me, but I jumped away just in time. At this, Zachary and I sprang into action. Zachary tried to freeze another spider that was approaching, and scored a hit. But Shinobu saw an opportunity, and froze Zachary. Then I froze Shinobu. But before my beam reached him, Shinobu had shot a beam at me. Now we were all frozen. We stood there for minutes.

But when one of the spiders broken the force field, he grabbed Shinobu. The spider stayed there. Within another two minutes we had all broken our force fields, but the spiders had managed to keep us from running away by calling others in and surrounding us. Three of the spiders grabbed us, while the others followed.

Surprisingly, we were led to the scene of the speeches. Some people had already gathered there — a few spiders, Bob, and a lot of Terrans: Jen, Barry, Tanya, Akira, Yoshi, Betty, and many other residents, some that I didn't even recognize — which meant that they had come from another town.

Then I looked toward the desk. The spider and the Professor were sitting there. The Professor looked around. So did the spider. More people were arriving by the minute. I saw my parents, the Toyotas, and the Andersons. The spiders let us go.

Professor Kennedy piped up, "This is a serious matter here. We need to defend our planet. This is the biggest attack planet Theta —" The spider engulfed Kennedy. The big fight grew more and more violent until Bob went up and put on his boxing gloves, loaded with steel. He meant to control his jabs so that the gloves would be just short of Kennedy and the spider, but by accident he hit both the spider and Kennedy square upon the head. And that hurt. In fact, the spider fell unconscious.

Kennedy took advantage of this and continued his speech. "This is the biggest attack planet Theta — ah — eh? What are you doing, BOB?" Bob was giving the spider some medicine that would restore its consciousness. Where he got it, I don't know.

"This is the biggest attack planet Theta — huh? GIVE me that potion, Bob!"

"I'll move the spider over to the battlefield, out of the way, and then return it to the crowd. Continue your speech."

"This is the biggest attack planet Theta has ever — oh no, with all this chaos I've forgotten my speech." (Actually, I think it was Bob's fault.) There was a long moment of silence, but murmuring began in the crowds. I decided to go back over to the desk near Bob. Kennedy yelled, "This attack from planet Theta is the biggest YET! We've got to fight BACK! Be PREPARED! We need to WIN this war or THETA will take over the Milky Way Galaxy!"

"Bob, take off your boxing gloves and give them to me." The boxing gloves were stretchable. The good thing is, they don't lose any power when you stretch them. I planned to throw them to Kennedy, but the spider wrestled him down, so I gave the boxing gloves to Yoshi.

He flew over to the desk and yelled out as loud as he could, "WE HAVE GOT TO FIGHT THETA FOR OUR PLANET! THIS IS GOING ON ALL OVER THE WORLD! WE'VE GOT STW HERE — THAT STANDS FOR SAVE THE WORLD! AND NOW WE'VE GOT TO DO EXACTLY THAT! WE'VE GOT TO SAVE OUR PLANET, AND WE'VE GOT TO DO IT NOW! NOW! DO YOU WANT TO LIVE UNDER TERRAN OR THETAN RULE? IF YOU WANT TO KEEP TERRUS, YOU'LL HELP OUT IN THE WAR!" I could hardly believe the spiders didn't start a riot like the rebels did when I landed on their planet.

Professor Kennedy said, "That was a fine speech, lad! I'm sure they understand you. Ah— what is your name?"

"Yoshi, Professor. Yoshi Toyota."

"Ah— I recognize that name, actually. And you can call me George."

When I got home there was a sign on the door telling me to go downstairs, which I did. And there was an Earthling. There was another sign, way above his head, saying: His name is Richie. I wondered why we had an Earthling in the house. Perhaps Dad wanted some information on the war. I decided to see what would happen if I tried to get Richie to talk. I called Zachary. I said, "Zach, come over to my house. I found an Earthling in the cellar."

"And, Zach, here he is — a genuine Earthling." Zach went over to the Earthling and asked him his name. Richie refused to speak to Zachary. "Dad says he's so homesick that he's angry, Zach. His name is Richie."

Richie yelled, "My name isn't Richie! It's RICHARD! R,—I,—C,—H,—A,R,D! I won't answer if you call me Richie."

Zach said, "So Richie, what's going on back on planet Earth?" No answer.

"RICHIE. Answer me. What's happening on planet Earth?" Still no answer.

Zach went down the basement hall to the storage room, but I stayed with Richie. "Richard — why won't you say anything?"

"Because —" Richie's voice sounded annoyed, "because — uh, because—" It seemed as if Richie could not think of anything.

Then Zach appeared with a plastic sword and shield. He said, "TALK, or I will bring you into the torture chamber and destroy you!"

Zachary was only kidding, but Richie took him very seriously. "I'll talk! I'll talk!" The Earthling was very frightened.

Richie never knew that we were kidding, for just then we got an emergency call from STW Base 7 Lewiston.

At Base 7, we saw there was a news broadcast going on. On the camera was printed "Channel 38" — the war channel! I listened in on the broadcast, whch was just starting.

"This could be the worst danger yet to Terrus — we have just received a warning message from another planet called Xema. We have never heard this name before. They warn of a powerful missile with special destructive energy!" That was the news story headline. After I had followed the newscasters to the battlefield, we learned the actual message. It went like this:

ATTENTION TERRANS IN THE WAR
THIS MESSAGE COMES FROM AN OLD COLONY PLANET OF TERRANS NAMED XEMA. OUR PEOPLE HAVE JUST DISCOVERED THAT PLANET EIBNEIKET HAS DECIDED TO SHOOT OUT A MISSILE AT TERRUS AND A MISSILE AT THETA TO END THE WAR. BEING ON YOUR SIDE, WE HAVE WARNED YOU OF THE MISSILES. WE HAVE NOT SAID ANYTHING TO THETA.
BUT THIS IS NO ORDINARY BULLET. IT IS THE SIZE OF AN ASTEROID! (APPROX. 2 KM.) WHAT'S MORE, EIBNEIKET HAS DESIGNED THIS MISSILE TO BE INVINCIBLE TO ALL THE ATTACKS CURRENTLY KNOWN TO ANY OF US!
THE MISSILES WILL BE SHOT OUT IN FOUR DAYS FROM EIBNEIKET'S NORTH POLE! SOMEONE HAS GOT TO SAVE US ALL, FOR WHEN EIBNEIKET FINDS OUT ABOUT OUR COLONY PLANET XEMA, THEY'LL SHOOT A MISSILE AT US!
HELP!

This message was a strong clue in figuring out what was behind the war, but we didn't know this until later. (Actually, all of the spiders had been enraged to find out that I had recovered the Crystals of Power, and that had helped the war greatly.)

I looked off into the distance. I saw that a spaceship was already set up for us — the Observatory! That ship had proven itself to be well-built after enduring two hard missions around the galaxy. I wondered how many Observatorys it would take to hold ten people. Five, probably.

In no time we were all packed for the mission. I had a certain feeling of dread in my heart, as if I knew there was going to be a major disaster. I told myself, Every time you think of something, it doesn't happen. How many missions have you been on before? Six? seven? even eight? And in none of them did you run into any major trouble. But the mission turned out to be longer and more dangerous than I had thought.

"Whatsamatter, Andy?" It was my best friend Zachary. He was smiling, but as I looked at him, his smile became a frown. He was scared too.

On the other side of the battlefield we were in, we saw that there were indeed five Observatorys waiting for us. They were painted five different colors — blue, green, yellow, red, and black. They were also numbered 1 through 5. Zach and me got number 1, which was black; Barry and Tim went into number 2, the yellow one; but I couldn't see the other ships, because they were all lined up in a row.

The interior of the ship looked just as I had remembered it: one big computer. There were four screens providing different views of the outside world from different viewpoints: front, rear, left and right. There were three extra screens that you could set the viewpoints for. There were various gadgets showing speed, time, etc., and other screens showing planets, stars, etc..

Our hand-held telephones all buzzed. A telephone was a small radio with a tiny television screen on it, used to reach up to 12 people. It looked like a calculator. Nancy got the "A" button; I got "B", Zach, "C"; Tim, "D", Barry, "E"; John, "F", Shinobu, "G"; Akira, "H", Yoshi, "I"; Mark, "J", and Fuji, "K".

"This is Nancy Tsetsekas. Our captains are Andrew and Zachary. I can be reached by pressing "6" on your telephone. Your mission is to follow Zachary to Eibneiket's North Pole and stop the missiles. Mark has brought along a book on Eibneiketians. Signing off."

It had been decided that I would fly the ship and Zach would watch the screens and do everything else, since that was the way it was last time. I pressed 0 on the telephone, which was an extension out to the other five ships. I yelled, "TAKE OFF!" and shifted into cruise gear.

Our ships had four gears: slow gear, cruise gear, light speed, and warp gear. Slow gear was used for cruising around just slow enough to take in everything (you can also get very slow speeds by pressing the brake and the warp gear at the same time). Cruise gear was used for takeoffs or for cruising through areas with obstacles. Light speed was used to make our ship invisible. Warp gear was used to travel at incredibly fast speeds — impossible without warping. With this gear, we would be moving so quickly that only high-tech ships like ours could detect us.

Zachary said, "Shift into warp gear!" BARRRARARRARMMMMMMMMMM! I knew from George, the designer of this ship, that the ships would always make that noise when they would shift into warp gear for the first time. It did not happen for any other gear.

It would take about an hour to make it to Eibneiket. I decided to spend the hour thinking about the time I was on Reino, and how the Reinoans revolted against me as soon as they found out I was a Terran, and how I had to destroy them one by one and hold the rest back. But I had never visited Eibneiket before, and had no idea what kind of people these were.

"Okay, everybody! We will try to land at the North Pole, because that is where the missiles are supposed to originate from."

When we stepped out, it was rather warm. We had to take off our jackets. "Just think how hot it would be at the equator, if this is the weather in winter all the way up here!" Mark grabbed a book entitled ALL ABOUT EIBNEIKETIANS from his backpack. After flipping pages, he read, "Eibneiketians are a deadly race of colonists with advanced weapon technology."

I looked around. I could see nothing but trees, bushes, and some grass. No animal life. Mark kept on reading. "When traveling to Eibneiket, prepare for the worst. Eibneiketians are cannibals that like to eat any alien visitors. They usually live in villages. If you spot an — eh?" I tapped him on the shoulder.

"Look, look over there. It's an Eibneiketian." It was a small boy picking fruit off a berry tree. He had with him a basket in which he placed the berries. "Okay, we have two choices. We can walk up to him and talk to him, or we can turn invisible and follow him. What shall we do?" The boy turned around and saw us. Then he ran away, over a field, a brook, and through a forest, with us following him all the way. Was he ever fast. But John was the best runner, and the only one to catch the boy. The boy toppled over and spilled most of the berries. I took a berry and ate it. It tasted good. I tried a few more, and then Zachary took one and ate it. But the others wouldn't touch the berries, saying they could be poisonous.

The boy said, "Ble Danta tapa." Quickly I asked Zach, the multilingual, what it meant. Zach said he had not heard the boy. "Har tapa ipo?"

"Zach! What's it mean? You know!"

He said, "Okay, he said, Who are you?" Then the boy walked away, even though he knew we were following him. I scooped up a bunch of berries and dropped them in the basket the boy was carrying. Zach, Barry, and Tim did the same until all the berries were in the basket. The boy made no response.

We followed the young boy into a village. By this time Mark had decided that the book was all lies, and chose to burn it. He did, and when the boy saw the fire, he looked startled but not scared. He just walked away. We followed the boy into his house, and the boy's mother took the berries from him, and put them on a table. Then she gave him another basket for more berries. It seemed as if life on Eibneiket was a lot more like Terrus than we had thought.

Then the boy walked out the back door of the cottage without a word. John sped up to him and grabbed the basket. Then he made a westward dash and the shocked Eibneiketian did not know what to do. Mark tripped John, and Zach grabbed the boy. His mother came out, yelling, "Jo baba Treba? Har tapa ipo?" The boy's name must be Treba, and from what I remembered, she wanted to know who we are. So Danta must mean Eibneiketian.

Zachary let go of Treba and spoke, "Mako laru home Tera." (We are harmless visitors from Terrus.) Treba ran around the house and then to the south. John raced after him, and he told the others to wait a minute.

But Treba was faster this time, and John was out of breath by the time the boy dashed into the forest glen and disappeared. Treba had slipped out of our hands.

Suddenly Treba approached from the west, carrying nothing. We all watched as he walked into the cottage and got the basket full of berries. He began to eat them. He ate and ate until the berries were half gone, and then he walked into the cottage next door, which was a little smaller than his.

A minute later Treba emerged carrying a basket like the others. He walked, not ran, into the forest glen. This time he let Zach and me follow him. The others searched around the village, perhaps looking for something exciting.

Treba began to gather more berries. But this time he attempted to talk to me. Unfortunately, I could not understand a word of his language. But then I called Zachary over here. Zach asked the boy to repeat what he said to me, but the boy was silent. Then Zachary took the berries and began to eat them. He rushed to the village.

A minute later Treba followed, crying. The boy was angry, but also frightened. Zachary told the others to explore another village, and that we alone would take this one.

Treba ran into a bigger cottage, but soon walked out, disappointed. He kept trying until he got an axe from one of the neighbors. He was silent as he laid the axe inside his cottage, near the door.

Then I decided it was time to leave. Zach followed me as we flew above the village and landed on the other side of the forest glen. We had come to another village — the one where Mark, Tim, and John had fled. We looked around. There was another boy with a sword standing outside his door. It was then I realized that only boys were present in this village. When I elevated myself enough to see another village, I discovered that all the girls were flocked around a large building. We landed there to see what was going on. Then Barry looked at his watch and said, "Oh, no! It's dark on Terrus! Let's go!"

"Your watch is time-warped, Barry," I said, and ran into the northern section of the village, looking for something new. I saw only a lot of boys and girls headed towards the north. Then I noticed Treba and another girl were following.

I followed Treba and the others through several villages, and watched the crowd grow larger and larger. Soon there were a hundred of us, all boys and girls, rushing in a zigzagged path through all obstacles in the way. Finally Zachary asked Treba what was going on, but Treba just kept on running to try to get ahead of the crowd. But then I heard a beep come from my radio.

"This is Nancy Tsetsekas. Weren't you supposed to come back to Terrus a while ago to pick up Richie and take him to the meeting on planet Theta? Why didn't you? Or, why haven't you? Pick him up immediately. Signing off."

Barry said, "I told you guys! But you wouldn't listen! And now we will be late for the meeting." Fuji — a non-bionic member of STW that went with on some missions — grabbed Treba by the arm, and Treba screamed. I could tell that it was because Treba couldn't stand being taken away from whatever was so exciting. So we let Treba go.

We got aboard the ships. Since we were already late, I decided to go through a wormhole in a dangerous area, so we could get to Terrus in a few minutes.

As I did so, Zachary said, "What are you doing?"

I said, "I am going to use the wormhole to get to Terrus very fast."

Because we used a wormhole, it took only a few minutes to get to Terrus, and we had landed rather near my house. Richie was already there. He had with him a balloon that he carried on a string. It was about the same size as he was. I zapped the balloon so it would pop, so we could fit him on the ship. But then we remembered something.

Tim ran to the battlefield and yelled to the newscasters, "THE BROADCAST ABOUT THE MISSILE IS FALSE!" and the newscasters tilted the camera toward Tim. But he said, "Gotta go," and we left.

In ten minutes we were on Theta, but this time we had landed far from our goal, because of crosswinds. So we had to take off and land again. It's not awkward taking six small ships into the air.

On the horizon was Nancy. When we got close she said, "Hurry up! You're very late."

We walked inside the building, but I was a little behind the others because I was thinking. I remember this building. It's the dungeon. No! I remember! It's that weird office building with the free food that I encountered on my second mission to recover the Crystals of Power! I ran ahead of the others. I was hungry. But wait! That building was on Bon¾! I wonder what this is? As I ran into the building, I saw that it was the same building I had seen on Bon¾, except that there were spiders walking around instead of tamakhs.

A spider said, "Blek farg offa," and pointed to a door. It was the office that I had only caught a glimpse of on planet Bon¾.

Inside the office, there were fourteen unused chairs, obviously for us and the spider. The spider sat down on a side chair in a rather awkward way — with all its legs toward the front. It seemed awkward to me because I had never seen a spider sit down before.

Another spider came in and took the end seat of the trapezoidal table. It was obviously shaped like that to let you know who the head of the committee is. He said, "Before we start this conference, I would like to analyze all of you. Please co-operate." Spiders had analyzers, too? Then there was a buzzing sound that got louder and louder and lasted for a full minute. Then it stopped slowly and gradually.

A slot high in a corner of the room near the end of the table spit out many sheets of paper, which the spider passed out to us. Mine looked like this:

ORGANISM: HOMO SAPIENS
PLANET: TERRUS
AGE:12.2 TERRAN YEARS
INTELLIGENCE FACTOR: 33

I looked at Richie, who held his paper proudly out for everyone to see it. The intelligent spider said, "I wouldn't be proud of fifteen for an I. I. F., Richie." Fifteen! In this scale, lower numbers signified less intelligence. Was intelligence the only thing the spiders could analyze, or is that all they wanted to know? The analyzers on Terrus could analyze scores of different things.

Mark was sitting next to me, so I looked at his paper to judge my intelligence factor rating. His paper looked like this:

ORGANISM: HOMO SAPIENS
PLANET: TERRUS
AGE:12.5 TERRAN YEARS
INTELLIGENCE FACTOR: 29

The spider handed out sheets of paper with questions written on them, and traded them for the analyzer reports. Richie's had only two questions, while mine had three. The spider said, "The first criterion goes for everyone but Richie. Please vote."

I looked at the first question on the paper:

That was a very important question. I thought for a long time. The spider said we had five minutes. So I thought and thought. What if we do invade them, but it turns out that the Earthlings have some big secret weapon? Then they could turn the tables on us and become the leaders of the galaxy. Theta would hate that, and they would attack the Terra Union, if it still existed!

The spider said, "Four minutes," and that snapped me back to what is happening now, from what might happen in the future.

On the other hand, if we don't invade them, then they will have a chance to create a secret weapon, even if they didn't have one in the first place. And then I thought, But what if Earth is friendly to Theta?

Of course! I wrote on the lines:

I used the rest of my time to think over my answer, and didn't change it.

The next question was,

BONK!

Richie had hit me on the head with an iron bar. I blacked out.

When I woke up, I was in another room of the building. It looked like another sort of office, except that no one was in there with me. I decided to leave the room in search of the others. The door was not locked.

The building was quiet, for I discovered it was night. I looked for my tele-phone, but it was gone. I stepped outside. There was no noise except for a slight wind. I was stranded on an alien planet.

I was thinking out what to do when a voice — Zachary's — said, "Wake up! Wake up!"

I looked around. The meeting was over. It was just me and Zachary in the voting room. Zachary told me that we had won. A war with Earth had started, and after the war, (if everything goes according to our plan) peace. He also made a special note on how Richie had actually agreed with the deal, and wanted to apologize for hitting me on the head.

It was night. The other eight adventurers had gone into various rooms to sleep in. We made it a rule never to sleep alone, in case an explosion or something happened in the night, for one could always help the other.

I followed Zach into a very large room that was loaded with equipment. "It's the only one left," he said. But then I noticed something. Above the door were written the words GREEN ROOM. Green Room! So that explains it! (On my second mission for the crystals, I had heard of a "blue room" but never known what it was.)

I was not tired at all, so I decided to test out some of the equipment. I sat down in a chair that was connected to a computer. It looked like the one at Kennedy Space Station on Terrus that lets you see what's happening on another planet. There was only one problem — how to turn it on. There was no switch that I could see. So I decided to get up and test out another computer.

When I stood up, the computer got power. The computer screen, however, stayed blank. There was no keyboard. There was no joystick. So I figured it must be voice-activated.

Great, I thought. Zachary doesn't know much in Thetan. But still I yelled, "Zach! Zachary! Wake up!" He got up. I explained the problem to him, but he just told me to speak Terran.

"Computer, get me Terrus," I said. the computer did nothing. "Get me Terrus." No reply from the computer.

But then Zach got up again and said "Harmein shrat xet Tera." When the computer did nothing, I got up. The computer did not turn off, so I left it on. Surely the spiders wouldn't put us here if we could start a war or something.

But then the computer's giant screen split into eight. One of the screens was Kennedy Space Station. And there was George Kennedy, looking at me through the computer back on planet Terrus. Then I started to fell weird, like I had just swallowed a weak poison or something. The air was different. But I didn't know what was wrong, so I just braced myself and went on.

And then he looked at the fourth screen on his computer, which was Eibneiket. I looked at the fourth screen on my computer, which was the same. What I saw amazed me. All the boys and girls were heading toward the north. Kennedy looked at Theta, and gasped in horror. I then noticed an object in the sky, quickly growing huge and

It must have been the missile that Xema warned about! Eibneiket was out to get us! We would have to declare war against Eibneiket! But wait! Didn't they say that there would be one at Terrus too? Everyone in the village was awake. The spiders, even more scared than us, were blindly running and tripping over each other as the flames spread. I remembered that I had thought of a disaster before the mission. But even as I was thinking, we ran into the spaceships set up for escape.

"Shift into warp gear! Like now!" ZZZEEIIP! As we took off, I had an image in my mind of all the spiders fleeing out one escape where no flames had spread. But then I realized it was a last-second afterimage of what was really happening. However, we were now so far away that Theta now looked like a marble, and now like a speck of dust. Then it disappeared. At least I could be glad that the Eibneiketians' plan failed.

"Zach, should we head for Terrus or Eibneiket?"

He calmly said, "Terrus, because somewhere on the planet there is a sea of flames exploding. We should be able to see where it is once we get through the stratosphere." The name Hurricane Island came into my mind. Then I said, "I think it's at Hurricane Island." The name Dr. Deinavian came into my mind. Zach said, "Hmmm. I think something about birds— a mad scientist— from planet Xema." Then I started to figure out what was going on with Xema and th missiles. Eibneiket had been framed for something Xema did!

I shifted into cruise gear once we were in the stratosphere of planet Terrus. I said, "Funny. There's not a cloud in the sky below us, and I can see perfectly. But no fire. And I'm sure this is Hurricane Island."

So far I knew this much: Xema had shot a missile at Theta, probably as soon as they found out that we were there. They were chasing us. They were probably about to hit us with some attack. Obviously, they hadn't shot the missile yet. But I was only just beginning to figure out Xema's plan of attack.

As we plummeted through the tropopause, I could see Hurricane Island get larger and larger. A few minutes later we were only a mile over the island, and we could see that there was a white cloud on the west side of the island. Later, I realized that they were birds. Thousands of big white birds. I figured they were deinavians. I had heard of deinavians on planet Eibneiket, but never on planet Xema. How had Dr. Deinavian worked this out? Later I realized how foolish I had been.

We headed for the east side of the island, but even as we landed, the huge cloud of birds was already ascending over us. My radio crackled.

"Greetings, adventurers. This is Nancy Tsetsekas. I am in Lewiston. Lewiston is under attack by large birds called deinavians. In fact, the deinavians are all over East Camia. Where are you?"

Zachary told Nancy everything that had happened. Nancy said that she had suspected Dr. Deinavian was up to something. She said that spears were good weapons for hunting and killing deinavians. Unfortunately, we had no spears. We were defenseless against them, for killing a thousand deinavians with no weapons is like trying to keep the ocean from rising with a row of sandbags. (I had seen Earthlings try this. The ocean always broke through.)

We ran into a cave. We were figuring out a method of escape when I saw a figure off in the distance underneath the cloud of deinavians. I knew, of course, that it was Dr. Deinavian. We were doomed.

Then a deinavian flew into the cave. He did not attack us, but flew right on into the darkness of the cave. There was a loud "thump", and with the help of a flashlight I could see that the deinavian had hit its head on the wall.

By now Dr. Deinavian was inside the cave, and shining a flashlight at us. Fuji leapt forward, but Dr. Deinavian caught him with a paralyzon. I tried to escape, but he caught me with another paralyzon. I must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew, I was at home. There was a book in front of me. It was titled, ALL ABOUT EIBNEIKETIANS: LANGUAGE AND CULTURE. Underneath, it said: BY NANCY TSETSEKAS.

I spent the next few days learning the Eibneiketian language. [Note: from here on, Eibneiketian words will be shown in English, as is the Terran language.] Then one day during STW, my radio beeped. It was almost a relief, for the school I had to go to was extremely boring during the winter. I rushed out of the school, and down to the battlefield, which is where Nancy always waits for us.

The ten of us were gathered on the field. Black Observatory I was positioned on the north side of the field, and the other four ships were positioned on the south side. Nancy and George were in the middle of the field. Nancy walked over to us. "You have a strange mission," she said.

Nancy spoke, "Your mission is to find out all you can about the Eibneiketians. This mission could last a month, or longer. You might even want to become an Eibneiketian yourself. The others are now going to planet Xema with Professor Kennedy to find out about the Xemans. We suspect that either Xema's message was a complete lie, or there is another civilization of Eibneiketians that will shoot out the missiles from the North Pole."

I said, "But, Nancy, when I was on Theta, there was a huge missile that suddenly filled the sky, and then there was a giant sea of fire. But the spiders got out. Xema is just chasing us all over the galaxy, shooting missiles. They brought the deinavians over here to attack us, but they didn't fight us. Dr. Deinavian appeared, though, and put us to sleep. That's all I know."

"Well, you still need to learn about the Eibneiketians. We have picked you and Zachary because you are the only two that know their language."

I stepped onto the ship, and waved "bye" to Nancy. Zachary took his usual position in a chair next to the Control Center. I was in the pilot's chair. There was no wormhole that led to Eibneiket, so it would take a full hour to get to Eibneiket, just like before. This time I spent the hour thinking about what it would be like to be an alien masquerading as an Eibneiketian. (But of course I still paid attention to what was going on.)

I thought, Maybe there will be a big change after all. I had never actually been inside an Eibneiketian cottage before, but I had looked through a window of one. They didn't seem to be too different from the ones in the villages on Terrus. I wondered if they had big cities on Eibneiket.

I wonder what all those girls and boys were going for when I left to get Richie. If we're going to be Eibneiketians, we'll have to do everything they do, I suppose. Unless they go on missions too, I think this will be a refreshing change from my normal, stressful life. That made me think about the adventurers who had gone to Xema. Poor them, I thought. Dr. Deinavian lives on Xema. They'll probably have to face a thousand genetical mutants that he created. Omigosh — what if the world is full of people like Dr. Deinavian?!

"Hey, Andy," said Zach. "Wake up! There's a ship near us. Shift to invisible gear." I shifted to light speed. I noticed the ship was also headed for Eibneiket. I decided to race up to the ship so I could read the letters on it. It said:

It was obviously a language from another planet, but I figured the two lines near the end might have some significance, as well as the fact that one line seemed to be thicker. Zachary, however, said, "Earth Experiment II." Then I shifted back into warp gear.

What was I thinking? Oh, yeah. What if the Xemans bring them into a torture chamber like the time I was on Bon¾ and I—

Then I decided that couldn't be true, because I remembered Mark had been on Xema before. He would have told me if Xema was evil. So I went back to thinking about our life on Eibneiket. I wonder if village life on Eibneiket is peaceful or not? I wonder if the villagers will even let us join their society? If they don't, what should I do? I wonder if we could convince them that we were peaceful. I went on, thinking much the same things, until we got to Eibneiket.

When we entered the atmosphere of Eibneiket, Zachary said, "Are you dozing off again, Andrew?"

"Zach, I was thinking about Eibneiket. We're going to have to become villagers, and they might not let us."

We landed in a village near the North Pole. When I looked around, I realized that I won't have to ask them to be a villager, because I already am a villager. Once you land in the village, you're a villager. But I was wrong. I saw someone speeding toward me, an adult. He was wearing a uniform. He stopped about a meter before us and said, "What are you doing here? I am Nanuko, and I must keep you out of this village. Yesterday there was an invasion of people who looked like you, and everyone was scared silly. But now that there are only two of you, we can now throw you back into the spaceship you came from!" They were going to banish us from the civilization, and probably the whole planet! The man walked past us, and talked to a younger boy, saying, "Tell all the other villages to keep these two aliens out of our village. They'll know who I am talking about. Go."

As soon as the man with the uniform was gone, I asked the boy, "What are you going to do?" I figured that was a pretty stupid question, because we already knew what he was going to do. But I decided to pretend not to know anything, so he wouldn't be so quick to accuse us of attacking their village.

He said nothing and sped right on past us. But Zach grabbed him before he could get out of the village. Then we stood in front of him, trying to make sure he didn't get out of the village. Then I ran to the south, hoping to find another village. Zach ran just behind me, and behind him was the boy with the invasion message.

He was not as fast as Treba had been, so Zach had to almost drag him along to the next village. But then the boy got away, and we had to chase him again. When I caught him, Zach yelled, "Stay with us!" and continued on with the boy in front of us.

I jumped in front of the boy, and we hiked until I saw another village. There was another uniformed man. When he saw us, he said, "Stay away!" So much for my plan of an easy, peaceful life. All I had learned about Eibneiketians so far is that they don't like alien visitors.

I thought about freezing the man, but refrained. I wouldn't learn anything if I did that. Instead, I said, "We come in peace."

"No! You want to kill everyone in the village! That's why you shot that missile!" What? I stepped back two meters, and phoned Nancy. I said (in Terran), "Nancy, the Eibneiketians say there was a missile shot at their planet." and then I turned off the telephone, and Nancy did not try to buzz in.

I glanced back down the hill to the other village. Nobody had touched the Observatory. And I didn't move the ship, because I knew I could always find it whenever I wanted to.

Ignoring the man's protests, I sped past him right into Torushi Village. It was the same village that Treba was in! I looked for his cottage, but when I found it, he wasn't there. Instead, there was a girl running forth faster than anyone I had ever seen. In fact, when she went past us, Zachary tried to run after her, but she was far ahead of him within seconds.

But then another boy walked up to me. He was wearing a uniform or costume. At first I didn't even recognize him, but it was Treba.

As Zachary came back, panting and puffing, I asked, "Who was that girl who ran by?"

I didn't even expect him to know, but he said, "Kara." Then he walked toward the center of the village as I followed. I asked him why the guard would not let us into the village, but then didn't do anything when we just ran into the village, even though I had a clue myself.

"Everyone believes that you have attacked us with a missile from another planet. I am one of the few who still trust you. But people trust me, because they are scared of me." I decided Kara wasn't important. What was important was figuring out how to attack Xema and win over Eibneiket's trust at the same time.

Treba led us into another cottage. There was a man behind a counter. It seemed to be a store. Treba asked for a basket of fruit. When the man gave him the food, Treba paid him with coins.

Then we walked back to Treba's cottage. It was empty. Treba sat down and began to eat the fruit. He gave us each a banana. I figured that bananas must have been brought over to Eibneiket somehow, just like they had been brought over to Terrus. Which reminded me of Dr. Deinavian bringing the birds to Terrus. Which gave me another clue to Xema's mystery. The deinavians had been brought to Eibneiket from planet Xema.

I walked on the roads until sunset, which came quickly since we had landed in the late afternoon. Treba led us into a cottage that looked like a small inn. This town was probably the only one big enough to have an inn.

I fell asleep quickly, thinking about life on Eibneiket in general. It seemed like life on Terrus, but quieter.

When morning came, Treba was gone. Zachary was still sleeping, but I did not wake him up. I went out into the village. I looked around, and saw Treba walking toward the north with a group of other boys and girls. Suddenly I realized what was going on. Eibneiket was involved in this mission, too.

Now I just had to figure out what part they played in the mission. I followed the villagers northward. What I saw at the end of the field shocked me.

It was an army of Earthlings in tanks. Richie and Bob were identifiable in the front of the pack. The Earthlings rushed toward us. I was terrified. Even if I had Zachary, we would still be no match for three hundred super-strong aliens.

While the Earthlings advanced, the villagers and I retreated. However, I was very slow compared to the villagers, and I was soon left behind with the Earthlings. All the villagers seemed to be terrific athletes. Even if we brought them to Terrus, where gravity is stronger, they would all surely ace the physical fitness test that the coaches gave us each spring.

Being slow but smart, I thought quickly and got a running start. Soon I was almost flying. I knew I had to act fast, for I couldn't stay in the air for longer than a few seconds. I began to turn myself invisible.

It was very hard to turn invisible and fly at the same time, so I landed with a CRASH on the ground. (Luckily, I didn't lose my invisibility field.) Knowing the Earthlings now had a clue about where I was, I began to run faster. But the villagers were nowhere in sight.

I kept running until I reached Torushi Village again. I figured it was a safe haven, because all the villagers were back to doing whatever they normally did. Treba was back in the forest glen, gathering berries. Zachary had gotten up and was now walking around the village. A figure could be seen in the distance — Kara. Why did she always run around?

But no sooner had I seen this than the Earthlings approached again. This time, they were dragging along the Observatory. I had left it in the other village before because I had figured no Eibneiketian would touch it, but intelligent Earthlings (of course, most Earthlings were more intelligent than Richie) could probably figure out how to fly the ship and shuttle to Terrus. Then I wondered what kind of ship the Earthlings took to get to Eibneiket. Maybe it was more advanced than the Observatory. If so, I would stop at nothing to fly those ships back to Terrus so we could call them all Terrus Experiment I.

I had decided to turn visible again, so that everyone could see me. Once I did, the Earthlings let go of the ship and attacked me. I knew Zachary was tempted to suddenly grab me and escape, but if he did, we would probably come back to find the villages wrecked and the Earthlings' ships gone. But then, out of nowhere, came about a hundred deinavians. The deinavians swooped down and attacked the Earthlings. The deinavians fought harder than the Earthlings, but the Earthlings soon began to win. An Eibneiketian must have called them in. And after the deinavians had flown back, defeated, the Earthlings stopped attacking, and a few went inside the Observatory. I rushed in. When I closed the door the Earthlings began cornering me. Except for one. He was piloting the ship.

Soon the four attackers had me down on the floor. One had carried a whip, which he now swung at me. But somehow, I still managed to call Zachary and tell him what was happening. The pilot of the ship shifted into warp gear. But he was not much of a pilot. If he kept flying the way he was we were bound to jump into the white-hot Uipi sun!

I didn't panic, because I knew that if I did, the pilot would panic and let go of the controls. At worst, we would go speeding out of the galaxy and crash on a desert planet, or jump into the sun, which had a temperature of 34,000,000¡F! I jumped up and before I crashed with the ceiling, (the ship I was in created its own artificial gravity) I went and paralyzed the pilot. I picked him up, and tossed him to the side. I froze all the Earthlings, and flew back to Eibneiket.

Upon returning to Eibneiket I saw that I had skipped a massacre. The village was completely ruined. Treba's cottage was torn apart, as well as many of the other cottages. Zachary, Treba, and someone else were standing in the middle of the village. Zachary said, "Greg McHoward. He's the leader of the army that wrecked Torushi and several other villages. He is thought to be unstoppable. I have called Nancy." It was then that I realized the Earthlings had probably not left, and there was still a chance of finding an Earthling ship.

"Adventurers, I have discovered that the Earthlings you have found are here to colonize Eibneiket. They see that Eibneiket is never attacked, and have decided to take over the planet, claim it for themselves, and call it Earth II." Earth II? Why would they want to colonize Eibneiket? Eibneiket has been a troubled planet for as long as Theta has been against them! And now that Theta is not against them, Xema is! It was then that I finally figured it out.

The pattern of Xema's attack went like this: Xema was a planet of rebels just like Reino. They had broadcast a false message so that we would turn against Eibneiket. And while we were on Eibneiket, Xema was free to attack Terrus and send out the other missile they had spoken about! And the deinavians were native also to Xema. We had managed to catch Dr. Deinavian in the middle of one of his attacks. But Xema had expected this, which left them free to attack Eibneiket. Then the Eibneiketians got angry at us, because they thought we had shot out the missile. This meant that the Ôbook of lies' had been printed on Xema. But I think we had finally got the Xemans cornered, because I knew for a fact that only part of Xema had the right conditions for life, and even then, the Xemans had to live in greenhouses with lots of plants for photosynthesis. What did they eat? Deinavians. And the other eight adventurers had gone to Xema to learn about Xemans, when we already knew everything! I called Nancy.

"Nancy, I figured it out. Xema is a planet of rebels. They broadcast a false message about the missiles, blaming Eibneiket instead of themselves. When that happened, we got sent over on our first mission to Eibneiket to stop the missiles. When we were on Eibneiket discovering there were no missiles, Xema was free to attack Terrus with deinavians, and Theta got attacked by a missile which didn't get there until we were on Theta. They planned all that. And when you called us for the meeting on Theta, they were free to attack Eibneiket! And the Eibneiketians thought we had shot the missile when we showed up the next day, which leaves them free to attack Terrus with the other missile. Nancy, there were two missiles all along! And since the other adventurers haven't told you that yet, they must be held back! They could be in a dungeon, and I'm going to Xema with Zachary and Treba, the Eibneiketian."

Forgetting the Earthlings, I made Treba follow us into the ship. He looked confused, but didn't say anything. Aboard the ship, I prepared for the dangerous mission to planet Xema. Just to make sure I hadn't fooled myself, I pressed the "F" button, for John. No answer. I pressed "G" for Shinobu. There was static, and then a whispering voice said, "It's Shinobu. Come to Xema. We need help! I think that Xema might shoot a missile at Terrus or something! Where are you?" he could have not been Shinobu, but I couldn't tell, because whoever it was was whispering. I figured it could be a Xeman, but I pretended it was Shinobu, for Shinobu could be trying to keep quiet because he was in jail, and he didn't want the Xemans to know that he had a telephone.

I said, "We're way ahead of you, Shinobu. We've got it all figured out. We know everything there is to know. Are you eating deinavians for food?" Then I got cut off. I tried all the other buttons, but there was no answer.

By now we were halfway to Xema. But then my radio buzzed. It was G Shinobu. He said, "Andrew. You don't have to come to Xema. We have already found the ships and are going to meet you partway to Xema. We weren't captured or anything! And Xema is not evil. They are just trying to attack Eibneiket, and now they don't like us too much, either, because we have sided with Eibneiket."

When I met the others, I phoned Nancy and told her what happened. Nancy also said something. "To everyone but Andrew and Zachary: You have another mission. I want you to take any two random villagers, a boy and a girl, from Eibneiket and bring them to Terrus for observation. For Andrew and Zachary, you should continue your old mission. The Earthlings are not on Eibneiket anymore." We flew uneventfully down to Eibneiket.

As soon as we entered Eibneiket's thick atmosphere, we split up. The other adventurers went to the middle latitudes. When we landed in the village again, it was afternoon. What were we supposed to do, besides avoid Earthlings? Zach ran to a cottage. I decided to take the analyzer out of the ship. When I pressed the ON button, three paper reports came out. I looked at mine first. It said:

ORGANISM HOMO SAPIENS NAME ANDREW INTELLIGENCE 34 MAGIC TERRIFIC TEN HOME PLANET TERRUS STRENGTH 27 BIRTHYEAR 2395 CURRENT ANALYZER The other cards looked like this: ORGANISM HOMO SAPIENS |ORGANISM HOMO SAPIENS NAME TREBA |NAME ZACHARY INTELLIGENCE 22 |INTELLIGENCE 36 MAGIC DANTA SPELLS |MAGIC TERRIFIC TEN HOME PLANET EIBNEIKET |HOME PLANET TERRUS STRENGTH 18 |STRENGTH 26 BIRTHYEAR 2395 |BIRTHYEAR 2394 CURRENT ANALYZER |CURRENT ANALYZER

What a crazy analyzer! But I suppose those are the facts. But then I got an idea. What would happen if we took Treba back to Terrus? Not that I could just grab him, and suddenly be on Terrus, but maybe later I would take him to my home planet and have the situation reversed.

Life on Eibneiket seemed incredibly boring. There were no cars, no schools, no television, and nothing exciting ever happened except the Earthling invasion. And that was bad news.

But then I noticed a villager walking up to us, saying, "This has gone far enough! Drat!" Then I looked at Treba, as he ran into the forest glen. The villager said, "Come back here, you! Treba! Get back here! Ah—. You! Whoever you are! Get Treba over here."

I wouldn't have gone if it hadn't been for fear. I was still afraid of the villagers. Why was Treban afraid of this man? Should I be afraid of him, too? I stopped, but Zachary kept going. Treba stopped. He let Zachary take him by the arm, but when Zachary began to drag Treba over to the other villager, he said, "No!" The other man said to Treba, "It's time for you to go on another mission. The Earthlings have been spotted advancing toward this village. We haven't even started to recover from their last attack, so you have to go and hold back the Earthling army." Wow! Even if this kid had magic powers, how was he going to stop an army? But then the man said, "Go!", and Treba jumped backward and then started on his mission.

By now I had caught on to everything, so I said, "Aren't you forgetting something, Treba?" Treba went back to his cottage and came back a minute later with an axe. A girl followed, saying, "No, Treba, you should stay behind and wait for the Earthlings to reach the village, so they will have to cross obstacles to get through, and they will be weaker. Then I can join in on the battle, and these two can fight, also." She was talking about us. When I started to run away, she said, "Coward! Don't you care about saving this village?" Zachary started to explain to her that we were not from this planet, but I stopped him. It was too late, anyway. The Earthlings were here.

Treba started swinging the axe wildly in all directions, but the Earthlings charged right on past him, and right under me and Zach. I prayed that I wouldn't suddenly fall down from the air and land in the middle of the stampede, for then I would surely be killed. And I didn't. But I lost control of myself, and started flying around like a snowflake. Treba was going crazy. But by this time, the girl had returned emptyhanded.

I figured that anyone brave enough to join in the fight with no weapons, and smart enough to think up a strategy so quickly, would obviously have some sort of special power. It was then that I noticed Zachary was still running away from the advancing army of Earthlings. I felt incredibly helpless. I was still drifting around in the air when suddenly I heard a loud explosion. Then there was a big fire, and while the Earthlings kept advancing, this got Treba and the girl so scared they jumped up and landed right on top of an Earthling's tank. But the Earthlings were moving so fast, they just kept flying backwards in the air.

This fight was turning into a disaster. The fire was spreading quickly. The village was thrown into a state of panic. But suddenly, there was Zachary, dragging me down to the ground via force-field. Treba and the girl were also being dragged down. Zachary used a water elemental spell to clear the growing fire. Then he took us to a safe spot beneath some trees.

When we were safe, the girl said, "Hi. My name is Nauri, and I, too, have magic powers. Treba and I have to go on missions to stop the Earthling invasion. If we don't, then Eibneiket is doomed for sure. Who are you?"

I said, "I am Andrew and this is my friend Zachary. And we also have magic powers, but we didn't know about the invasion until we landed here. We are from planet Terrus."

"Terrus? What's Terrus? I have never heard of that planet. Maybe you can help us in the fight. Come on."

I followed Nauri to the battle scene. I was wondering what to do when Nauri began to chant magic words. Treba repeated whatever she said. So then I decided to soar up into the air, create a reverse force wall with my hands, and go back to my hiding place. By this time Treba was chanting his own magic spell, stumbling over simple words.

Treba suddenly got the urge to run right into the thick of the battle (or should I say massacre?) and fight with his own axe. He jumped up just in time to hit the reverse force wall, sending him careening back to us. I soared up into the air with Zachary, and together we were able to create a normal force wall. I got rid of the reverse wall. Treba had a look of relief on his face, but Nauri was confused. I explained to her what had happened.

Then she said, "Follow me back to the village. I have something to show you."

We followed Nauri into a cottage. A man said, "I'm sorry, Treba, but you will have to leave the village. I see now that you are a traitor; that you were responsible for the attacks on our village. And take these others with you. My daughter will stay here. Go now." He was obviously talking about Nauri.

Treba said, "Nauri! This is what you wanted to show me? Now I can't even come back to the village."

I said, "Nauri, at least come on with us. I'm not even from this planet."

Zachary said, "Yeah! We just meet you, and now you banish us from the village. I think I see that Dr. Deinavian was right when he said you were senseless little robots."

And the man said, "Well, it looks like they're all against you, Nauri. At least follow them out." Nauri reluctantly led us out of the cottage. I followed, but Treba stayed in the old man's cottage. I waited, for I knew Treba would come out sometime. But Zachary and Nauri walked away.

When Treba didn't come out, I went inside the cottage and found Treba in a corner. We rushed forward until we met up with Zach and Nauri. Nauri said, "That does it! I'm not ever coming back to this village. I'd rather be off on a mission stopping the Earthling invasion. And Treba, you're coming with me. And you two— what are your names?"

We told her our names. She said them to herself, then walked on in silence. But I was a little surprised when she walked into a cave that was completely dark, and she had no candle. Nauri and Treba continued on, but I took a match out of my pocket and lit it, so I could at least see where I was going. Zachary was at the mouth of the cave. I called him inside, but Treba and Nauri had disappeared. Then I got another beep from my radio.

"This is Nancy again. Terrus is being invaded by Xemans. Come quickly to Lewiston so you can join the villagers in fighting the Xemans." I yelled for Treba and Nauri, and they ran to me.

I said, "We have a new mission. Follow me and Zachary." They did. I walked back to Torushi Village. I saw no Observatory, so I ran to another village, called Kotona. And there it was, surrounded by a crowd of Kotonans that were either trying to drag it along in their own direction, or trying to fly off the planet. I ran into the crowd, and jumped into the spaceship. Then I noticed Treba was gone. Nauri was still with me, so I asked her to find Treba. When she left, I started whacking Kotonans out of the ship.

But then they ganged up on me, and threw me right out of the ship. I cast a magic spell on all of them. They would begin to get weaker, and then I could push them out of the way. But then I realized that I had probably also weakened Treba and Nauri. They would never do any good on the mission now! But a minute later, a beaten Nauri came walking into the ship with Treba. If only there was a way to undo a magic spell without waiting 30 minutes! But then I got an idea.

"Zachary, I have an idea. When we land in Lewiston, Treba and Nauri will have to go into my house and stay for a while. When they come out, they will be normal. Then they can help us beat the Xemans."

I did just as I had said, and landed in the battlefield of Lewiston. Then Treba said, "Okay, let's go! I felt weak a while ago, but now I feel fine! Where are the Xemans?" Nauri didn't say anything, but she followed us out into the battlefield with a look of reluctance on her face.

We were headed out to fight when the general said, "Stop! We can't allow you into this fight. And besides, I can't allow any girls into the battlefield until sunset."

"Why not?" said Zach.

The man started to say something, but I dashed into the fight with Nauri and Treba. The man grabbed Nauri and me and said, "Sorry, we can't let either one of you go in now. But the other two boys can go."

I said, "Nauri here is much better than three of your men put together, and Treba, the other one, is even better than her, I think."

"All right, but don't blame me if they get killed in battle." I got an idea. I whispered to Nauri my plan.

Nauri called Treba back over here. He had taken a thrashing from the Xemans. Together, the three of us ran off the battlefield. Treba went slow enough for Nauri and me. Then, the Xemans began to rush for them, leaving the Terrans free. My plan had worked. The Xemans were after Treba and Nauri all along.

Terrans began to fight the Xemans from behind, but they just kept running. I was too busy using magic on the Xemans to fly up and see what Nauri was doing. I threw a force field around all the Xemans, and flew up. Nauri, Treba, and Zachary were just outside the field, so then it was easy to defeat the Xemans. But instead, Zach chose to leave them like that, and I agreed. The general walked up to me and said, "Okay, you were right. The kids are great." I looked at Treba. He was performing a series of kicks and punches on the Xemans. I know Earthlings practiced this. They called it martial arts. Unfortunately, Terrus didn't have any martial arts. Mark was also always complaining that our only traditional sport was shomokan, a cross between hockey and soccer.

Nauri was chanting magic spells as usual. Why didn't Treba use magic? Maybe the analyzer was wrong. It goofed once on Mark — the report said his I. I. F. was 455!

Then Coach Johnson walked over to us. The coach was very optimistic; he always said, "Every team is perfect, except for goofs. You just have to keep not goofing." But this time he said, "I saw Treba. We can use him on the Lewiston shomokan team."

On the way home, I saw George Kennedy. As he was walking toward me, he said, "Oh! Great! Hey, Andrew, bring those two with you to the Kennedy Space Station. The Terrific Ten is about to change."

We followed him into the Space Station, and into a room like the meeting room on Theta. I had been in here once before — to organize the league of the Terrific Ten. Zachary was already there. I also noticed Justine, Jen, Fuji, and Shinobu. Kennedy said, "Wait till the others come."

When everyone had gathered around the small table, there were fourteen of us. Me, Akira, John, Zachary, Barry, Shinobu, Justine, Jen, Tim, Yoshi, Treba, Nauri, Simon, Mark, Kennedy, and Nancy.

Kennedy said, "The Terrific Ten is about to split in two. Are there any objections to the following order of leagues: The first league will contain Shinobu, Mark, John, Tim, Fuji, Barry, Akira, and Yoshi. The second league will contain Andrew, Zachary, Treba, Nauri, Simon, and Dana."

Dana M. yelled, "That's not fair! We should get Tim to even it out! They have too many members!" That was definitely an objection. Dana M. acted like a mad scientist. He wanted to take over the world, and then force the other people to take over other planets. He was like a Xeman, which meant he would make a good adventurer even though he didn't have any magic powers.

To Dana, I said, "It already is even, Dana. We are stronger than the other league. We should stay at six members. Besides, we have Treba on our side, and he's a good explorer."

Nauri said, "What about me? I'm in your league." But we didn't pay any attention to her.

The other league began to whisper and even murmur. But I couldn't hear what they were saying. So we just went on talking.

Zachary said, "Okay, we need a leader. I'll be the leader, or Andrew."

That was too much for Dana M. to stand. He fumed, "I should be the leader. You're just a lazy procrastinator. I mean business! I'll be the leader. Besides, you've been the leader for too long."

Nauri was talking to Treba in Eibneiketian. She did not want Dana M. to know what he was saying. She said, "We should let Andrew and Zachary be the leaders first, and then when the other Dana wants to be leader, we'll just force her into the other group, and get Tim in exchange." What about Dana M.? I thought.

I said, "Sorry, Dana, you're outvoted. Nauri wants us to be the leaders, and Treba usually agrees with her. Sorry, Dana."

He said, "Call me Simon. I don't like being confused with her."

But Zachary broke it up by saying, "Let's call our league the Super Six."

Simon said, "Nah. That's too bland. How about— the Stupendous Six?"

We all said "yeah" to the new name. I figured that we would have to lose two Observatorys now.

To Mr. Kennedy, I said, "Can we keep the blue, red, and green ships, Mr. Kennedy?"

He said, "You're not keeping any of the ships, Andrew." He kept looking at us. I knew he was about to say something, but he wanted to wait until we were all looking at him. "That's because you are getting three new, advanced ships! They are called Skyrocket I, II, and III.

Oh, good. Skyrocket. I had thought that Observatory was not really a good name for a ship. It sounds like a science lab. But Skyrocket seemed more useful, more like a spaceship than a science lab.

I said, "When can we see the Skyrockets, Mr. Kennedy?"

He said, "There's nothing to see. They're just large Observatorys." But the way he said it suggested that there was something he wouldn't tell us.

Kennedy said, "All right. We have a mission plan for both groups. But first I need to get your names for your groups. All right, what is the name for Yoshi's group?"

Nancy, who was standing nearby, said, "Actually, George, it looks like they're still arguing about a name."

He asked us for our name, and we told him. Then Yoshi pulled out a thesaurus. He was probably looking for an alliteracy that would make them sound like brave explorers. That was just like Yoshi. But I didn't believe in wasting time thinking for a name. After flipping pages, he said, "There are no catchy names in this thesaurus. What a dumb book." Actually, it was the biggest thesaurus he could find.

Zachary said, "I can think of a name for your group. Call yourselves the "Seven Simpletons and A Braggart!" He meant Yoshi to be the braggart.

Yoshi was starting to get angry. "We'll think of our own name, you—."

Tim said, "How about the Terrific Terrans?"

Yoshi reluctantly accepted the idea. Then Kennedy walked to the front of the room, and said, "The Terrific Terrans will shuttle to Xema to try to stop the attacks on our planet. Meanwhile, riots are starting on Earth, and it looks like they are about to attack us. The Stupendous Six should go to Earth and stop the attacks. Andrew and Zachary are the captains. But this time only two of the three ships will be used. Skyrocket I seems to have an error in its programming."

We walked to the battlefield, where red Skyrocket II and blue Skyrocket III were waiting. We decided who would go in what ship. In the end, we got Nauri and Skyrocket III, but Zachary was still going to be captain. Nancy counted me as a captain, but most of the time, I just did whatever Zachary said. However, we were both captains at STW.

I looked inside the ship. Mr. Kennedy had only been kidding. This ship was wonderful. It was much more advanced than the outdated Observatory.

The cockpit was still open to the rest of the ship, but there was no window. This was because you could see right through whatever material this cockpit was made of. As I looked around, I realized that the whole ship could be seen through, if you were within a few meters of it. This is why I hadn't been able to see in from the outside. I probably could have, once I got close enough to the ship, but at the time I had been looking at the sky. The sun was setting. I had been wondering whether it would be night or day when we got back.

The assortment of erratic gadgets and gizmos on the starboard "wall" had disappeared. I noticed it was now on the "ceiling"! Near the starboard "wall" was a large box, and above it was a rack for keeping weapons and such. At the stern (back) of the ship was a chair and a row of computers, including two that give you a full view of the other ships. (However, the window on the left was still working even thought the ship was under repair. I was going to watch this screen until the ship got fixed.) This continued on through one side, and ended near the door, with another chair in the middle.

Nauri sat on the floor in the middle of the ship, amazed. I said to Zachary, "Are you ready for takeoff? The controls seem to be the same as on the Observatory."

He said, "Ready for takeoff! Can the other ships hear me?"

Treba's voice came from the screen that showed the other ship. He said, "Yes." Then I realized that Nancy and George, working on the first ship, could hear and see us. Of course! That's how they would watch us. Nancy said, "Yes, we can hear you, adventurers. And while you're in your ships, you have no need for your telephones!"

"Shifting into warp gear." BARRRARARRARMMMMMMMMMM! That was one thing that hadn't changed. I had only heard that sound twice in my life, and the other time was only a few days ago.

Xema was on the way to Earth, but both planets were relatively close to Terrus. I yelled at the screen, several meters away, "We'll split up when we reach Xema!" Then I looked back out into space.

Zachary yelled, "Alien ship approaching. Shift to light speed." I did, but somehow Simon didn't get the message. However, it only took four seconds for him to find us, and by then we were still chasing the ship, which was probably Earth-borne.

I said, "You know, Zach, this is too dangerous. We ought to go to Earth now." I wanted a closer look at the ship, but I knew it was getting much too dangerous. By now I was sure the Earthling was either out of ammunition, or trying to fool us.

But he didn't fool me. No way. I shifted back into warp gear so quickly that Simon got left behind. Luckily, the communication between our ships can stretch for many light-years of space without even getting weak!

"Simon, we're going to Earth. You can go to Xema, but Dana has probably heard Nancy saying that there is a wormhole that leads to Earth and skips Xema. We'll probably be on Earth before you get to Xema. So goodbye, Simon."

I flew through the wormhole. Flying through a wormhole, you can't tell whether you're in or out, unless you look at a clock or listen to your heartbeat. But it was too noisy to listen to my heartbeat.

Nauri said, "W h e r e    a r e    w e    g o i n g ?" Her speech was slowed down so much that it was hard to understand her. "W e ' r e    h e a d e d    f o r    E a r t h." I tried to make my sentences as short as possible, because I hated talking in this way.

For the rest of the mission, nobody spoke. It was only a few minutes before we made it to Earth and our signals could work properly again. I had noticed the screens showing the other ships blink on and off as we entered the wormhole, and then they went out completely. I figured it was because the signals had never reached us. Even though the signals could whiz through space without taking up time, the time warp caused the signals to reach us about twenty minutes too late.

In fact, when we landed on Earth, the other two screens came on again. Nancy had fixed Skyrocket I, and Simon was approaching Xema.

Wormholes are not hard to understand. I had known about them since I was five years old, when I learned about them in kindergarten from our fanatical teacher. She was obsessed with space travel and taught us many things about space.

I said, "Nauri, Earth is a planet that hates Eibneiketians like you. If we weren't with you, you would probably get attacked." Nauri looked somewhat worried over what I had just said. I asked Zach, "What part of Earth are we landing in?" and he said "Seattle." Seattle, Washington, I thought. Even though I was the pilot, I could now also look up things in the computer. I asked the ship for data on Seattle. The computer printed this data out to Zach:

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.
EARTHLING CITY. POPULATION 5,094,493. SEATTLE IS A CITY WHICH IS UNDERGOING RADICAL CHANGE. THE CURRENT TEMPERATURE IN SEATTLE IS ABOUT 42 DEGREES, BECAUSE OF A GLOBAL WARMING PROJECT SET UP BY THE EARTHLINGS WHICH IS WARMING THE PLANET. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE THE PLANET MORE HOSPITABLE FOR GROWING CROPS, BUT RIGHT NOW IT IS FAR TOO HOT IN SEATTLE FOR THIS. PEOPLE WHO ARE OPPOSED TO THIS GLOBAL WARMING PROJECT ARE THREATENING TO START A WAR WITH THE GLOBAL WARMING PIONEERS. THEY ARE FRIENDLY TO EIBNEIKET AND TERRUS BECAUSE THESE TWO PLANETS ARE AGAINST EARTH.