“What?! How?” I asked. 

“And what exactly is hypertime?” asked Mr. Fisher. 

      “Yeah,” interjected J.P. “That sounds like some ridiculous science fiction thingy.”

      We all stared at J.P., newly awed by his stupidity. All of us except Brian, who was staring at the Prince.    

“Why are you looking at him like that?” I asked.

      Brian answered haltingly, still staring.  “When the Prince whispered in my ear before, he said, ‘the big stupid one is going to say, yeah, that sounds like some ridiculous science fiction thingy,’ in response to a question by Mr. Fisher.”

      “Really?” Now it was Mr. Fisher’s turn to sound astonished.  “That's absolutely fascinating. So, the HTS can send messages back in time?”  He turned to the Prince. “How far back?”

     “It depends on the size of the HTS,” the Prince replied. “This one is quite small.”

     “Why does the of the stone matter?” Mr. Fisher asked, now clearly excited. 

     “Stones carved from a large HTS can receive and send messages from and to the original stone. And even smaller HTS can still send messages back in time to the owner, as I just demonstrated. However, large HTS are exremely rare and are used by the military. It’s a sign of great repect that my father allows me to have this one.”

     “Where do they come from? Do they occur naturally or are they manmade?” Mr. Fisher was in full teacher-mode now. The Prince would be lucky to get away without a demand that he write a five-page paper on HTS—with footnotes. Believe me, it happens. 

     “They were discovered on the planet 108WB. It is the only place they have ever been found and there are no more.”

     “How do you know?”

     “Because 108WB was destroyed in the early years of the war as each side tried to collect as many HTS as possible and to keep the other side from getting any more. The planet's a wasteland now,” the Prince said matter-of-factly.  

      “How are we supposed to steal something that important? You keep saying how stupid you think we are, and we’re supposed to be your only hope?” Jack asked. “Why don’t you steal their HTS yourself?” 

      “My father thinks it's impossible.  A pointless mission. I think he's wrong,” said the Prince. 

      “So, why don't you prove him wrong? Why involve a bunch of innocent kids?” asked Mr. Fisher. 

      “I said, I think he's wrong. I'm willing to bet your lives on it, but not mine.”

     No one knew what to say. The Prince apparently took our silence as agreement. 

      “Excellent. I'd feared this would be more difficult,” said the Prince. “Here's the plan.”

      Everyone spoke at once. 

      “Wait a minute!” That was me.

      “We didn't agree to do anything,” said Brian. 

      “I don't even like him,” J.P. protested, pointing in my direction. 

     “This is very unfair to all of us,” declared Mr. Fisher. 

      The Prince smacked his hand down on the table. The sound echoed throughout the vast room. 

    “This is pointless,” he shouted. “Tom’s parents die if you refuse!” 

     “And we’re gonna die if we stay,” J.P. said, rising from his chair. “So I’m out of here. You guys are crazy if you don’t come with me. Seriously, you are going to die.” 

      Mr. Fisher rose, too. “He’s right; you should go,” he said to my friends. “I will stay with Tom. There’s no point in us all risking our lives.” 

     “You got that right,” agreed J.P. 

     “No way,” Jack protested. “I’m not leaving Tom. And Brian’s not either, right?” 

     Brian nodded, but not before hesitating for a second. It struck me then that I had not really fully understood that Brian and Jack were risking their lives for me. I just assumed they would come with me and we'd save my parents and be home for dinner or something like that. 

Now the reality of the situation was sinking in for all of us. We were somewhere we never even knew existed, with some crazy Prince who really was going to let my parents die if I didn't do what he said. And what he was saying sounded more and more insane and dangerous with every passing minute. I made a decision. 

      “I never thought I’d say this, but J.P’s right,” I said. “You guys should go home. I shouldn't have brought you here in the first place. If Mr. Fisher meant it and he’ll stay…”

“I did,” Mr. Fisher assured me.

“Thanks.  Really.”

     “Don't be stupid,” Jack protested. “I’m not leaving you.” 

     “You know, our families don't even know we're, you know, not on Earth,” Brian commented. “I don't want to leave Tom, but my mom will freak if I don't show up around dinner time.”

     “It's really okay,” I said. 

          The Prince, who had been watching us with an extremely bored expression, remarked, “Well, this has been very touching. I'm getting all weepy. Of course, no one has actually asked me if I will allow anyone to leave. Kind of a big question mark, don't you think?”

     “Don't be a jerk, at least don't be a bigger jerk,” I said. I was losing my patience and about to say several words my parents would not want coming out of my mouth. Except that was when the roof exploded. 

     Huge jagged pieces of glass rained down on us. 

     “Under the table! Now!” shouted the Prince. We dove for cover. I heard Jack scream over the noise of a thousand windows shattering. Each piece of glass striking the table caused my stomach to contract as if I'd been punched. We waited for the table to break apart, dooming us all. The shower of glass probably lasted for less than a minute, but it seemed as though time had stopped. Finally, there was silence. And then, things really went downhill. 

      The Prince started yelling for his guards, several of whom seemed to appear out of nowhere. Mr Fisher was helping J.P. to his feet, but J.P.'s legs had other plans and he sat right back down, shaking, his arms wrapped around his chest as if he was trying to hold himself together. 

      “Help me! Please!” Brian called out. Something in his voice made everyone turn. I stumbled around the edge of the table, trying to avoid the more sinister looking pieces of glass. I saw the blood before I saw Jack. It was flowing across the floor, winding around the shards like water through a rocky creek bed. Brian was cradling Jack's head in his lap and my first thought was that Brian didn't have a shirt on. Then I noticed that Jack's left arm was lying by itself, not far from the rest of his body, and that Brian was holding his shirt against Jack's shoulder where the arm used to be attached. 

     “Tom, help!” he shouted again. I realized I'd been staring, rooted in place. I ran the last three steps, but I had no idea how to help. 

     “Oh, this is just great,” said the Prince, as he came around the edge of the table and saw what had happened. “Surgeon!” he yelled. 

     A tall woman came running over and knelt down next to Jack. She quickly placed his detached arm into a metal case filled with what looked like orange slime. Roughly pushing Brian away, she lowered Jack's head to the floor and placed a large, square piece of some kind of cloth on the bloody mess that was  his shoulder. The cloth immediately changed shape and sealed the wound like some kind of alien band aid, which I guess it kind of was. The surgeon then called for two guards, who brought a stretcher over and eased Jack onto it. Before any of us could ask any questions, the surgeon, the guards and Jack were gone.
     “It’s fortunate, that a surgeon was so nearby. Of course, maybe that’s typical here,” said Mr. Fisher, who was now standing with J.P. alongside the Prince. I wanted to ask him what he was talking about, but J.P. chose that moment to throw up. 

The Prince jumped back in disgust. “Really, you aliens are disgusting. Are any more of you planning on covering the floor with bodily fluids?”

“Now, that’s hardly fair,” started Mr. Fisher, “After what we just. . .what in the name of Isaac Newton are those things?”

Okay, imagine J.P.’s puddle of puke was a piece of candy left in the dirt next to an anthill. And imagine, instead of thousands of ants swarming out of the anthill to cover the candy, thousands of what looked like dark purple, pea-sized maggots materialized, seemingly out of the floor itself, and started feasting on vomit. If you have even a halfway decent imagination, you are probably as horrified as we were.

“They’re gruzzles. All the floors are infested with them. They devour any unwanted biological materials. I would suggest you keep your shoes on,” the Prince said with a smirk.

     “Anyway, I think we’ve had enough fun for now. Show them to their rooms,” ordered the Prince, motioning to two large guards standing nearby. “I assume all this talk of leaving is over now?” he said. 

     “What are you, crazy?” spat J.P. “We're getting out of here, now. You almost killed us.”

     “Technically that was the Chatrang trying to kill all of us. Even with our defenses, these sorts of things happen from time to time, though that roof is going to take some effort to repair. I'm sure my father is most angry at someone right now. He’ll be even angrier once he finds out that I was in this room when it happened. 

     “That, however is not your problem. You have your own issues to attend to. The injured one is being treated, but it will take some time to replace his arm. By tomorrow morning we will have done all we can do for him and he will simply need to allow the arm to mend itself for a few days. He’ll be loaded onto the ship you will use for your mission, and you will be there to console him as he goes through this rather painful recovery. For now, though, you will need some sleep to be at your best if you have any hope of surviving the next few days.” 

     J.P. walked up to the Prince, trying to look tough with vomit on his shirt. “I don't think you're hearing me,” he said to the Prince. “I don't care about Jack and his  . . .” We never learned what else J.P. didn't care about because Brian punched him so hard in the stomach that breathing became J.P.'s biggest worry for the next few minutes. By the time he caught his breath and was threatening to talk again, we were all being shown out of the room by guards who seemed to have a new-found respect for Brian.  

     After a series of twists and turns down hallways with elaborate paintings of Ashtapadans with strange eyes engaging in various bloody battles with beings with strange eyes, heads, limbs, tails, tails with eyes and a few really odd combinations, we came to a large circular room with a huge fireplace in the center. The room reminded me of a dartboard with doorways in place of the numbers along the outside edge, and the fireplace representing the largest bulls-eye I'd ever seen. The walk to the room had been mostly silent, as we all thought about Jack and what had happened (well, everyone except J.P., who was feeling well enough to keep up a steady stream of complaints). I desperately wanted to talk to Mr. Fisher who had been mumbling to himself for the past five minutes, as though trying to solve one of the puzzles in his head. But before I could pull anyone aside, the guards ushered each of us to separate rooms and closed the door. 

[this chapter continues]