Tears ran down Isabel's cheeks as she thought of the letters she and Max and Liz had just mailed to their parents. It would be so hard on them! She hoped desperately that there would be some way to combine her old and new worlds.

A current of excitement ran through them as they stood, hand in hand in a circle as instructed. The altered beam from the communication orbs shone into the sky. Without a sound a solid beam shone down to meet the light from the orbs. It widened to include those gathered around it and brightened. Then it disappeared and the hillside was empty. Even the orbs were gone.

***

It had taken five years for the group who departed to reach that night. For Max, Isabel, Michael, and Tess it had been a long twenty-one years. Most of the time three of them had not known anything of their origins... except for memories which told them that they were different and talents that proved it.

Tess was the only one who had actual memories of the home planet... and those memories had been furnished by Nasedo, the alien who raised her. She alone was aware all of her life. It was Tess who furnished many of the answers in the early stages that led to their emigration.

Learning to use the orbs had been a breakthrough. The original message from Max's and Isabel's mother had given them a great deal of information in a small capsule. Later use of the orb had been the key to contact.

That original use had also alerted their enemies to their existence. The Skins had been a vicious enemy but ultimately their defeat was a foregone conclusion. They had a physical vulnerability that made them easy to defeat one on one. Only their leader, Nicholas, had represented a challenge... especially since he was in contact with the enemy who enslaved their planet... Kivar.

He was the one who brought in a second serious enemy also... duplicates of themselves who had grown up rough and fought with no holds barred. Tess was glad that her duplicate was more interested in distancing herself from the others than in being a part of their evil plan. There was something disconcerting about battling those who looked and sounded identical to Michael and Isabel. (Max's duplicate had been murdered by the malevolent duo.)

The group took personal satisfaction in their defeat. Kivar had suggested to Nicholas that perhaps Liz might make good bait for Max. One night Nicholas and Rath, Michael's dupe, kidnapped Liz as she closed the Crashdown Cafe. What they didn't know was that Liz had her cell phone in her pocket. She kept her head and pushed the speed dial for Max. He and Michael were aware of everything that happened.

Liz was shoved into a building in a ghost town. Lonnie, Isabel's dupe smiled falsely at her. "Make yourself comfortable." She kicked a chair that looked like kindling in Liz's direction. Liz sat, carefully keeping her hand away from the pocket where her phone acted like a beacon.

"Now what?" Liz tried to sound cool.

"You should never have gotten involved with Max, you know. He should be attached to that dolly you call Tess. So cute. So BLONDE! What does he see in YOU anyway?" Lonnie walked around Liz, keeping an amused smile on her face.

"I don't know. Love, I guess."

"Love, I guess!" Lonnie mimicked and exaggerated what Liz had said. "What are you planning to do now?"

"Me? I'm doing nothing but keeping you company. And keeping you here." Lonnie walked to the window and looked out, for the first time sounding annoyed. "On the off chance that Max has some kind of radar for you I am here to surprise him." She took an irritated turn about the room. "He won't be here though! He'll be where Nicholas told him to be! THEY'LL get to have all the fun!" She stopped and looked at Liz. "I might get to finish you off. Not much sport in THAT though...."

The hours passed and Liz wondered if her phone was still broadcasting. Suddenly the door blew open. Lonnie and Liz both spun around and Lonnie grabbed Liz, holding her in front of her under a heavy chandelier that still hung on rickety rafters.

Maria was in the doorway. "What do YOU want?" Lonnie mocked. "You can't save your friend... however you got here. Of course you CAN join her! Come here!"

Maria came into the room and made eye contact with Liz without saying anything. She held up Max's cell phone. Her own phone was in her pocket, safely broadcasting to Max who had Isabel's phone.

Lonnie relaxed as that solved one question. She ran her hands over Liz's pockets and located her open phone. "Oh, how sweet! You really did reach out to someone.... Too bad it was only HER. She may be your friend, but she can't RESCUE you!" She paused and reconsidered. "Why didn't you call Max? Or did you? Is he out there?"

A new voice rang out as the threatening chandelier crashed a foot away. "No. Max isn't here." Lonnie, now a foot away from Liz, turned to see Isabel standing in the frame of the broken window behind her. "Why don't you come out and play? It's just us girls."

Lonnie turned toward Liz and found both she and Maria had quietly escaped the building while Isabel held her attention. Isabel continued. "No? Well, in that case, how about a nice bonfire?" Tess stepped up to join Isabel and, a moment later, the building was engulfed in flame. Lonnie did not escape.

"That felt so weird...." Isabel murmured. "It was like executing a part of myself...."

"That's exactly what it was, Isabel," Tess remarked gravely. "It just wasn't the better part of you!"

Meanwhile, Max and Michael were glad to know via phone that Liz was rescued. Now they could concentrate on the others.

Max was waiting as Rath came up to him. "What do you expect me to do now?"

"Well, bro, I expect you to try something totally heroic and totally stupid," Rath said frankly. "Not a good idea when Lonnie has your lady."

Nicholas joined them from behind Max. In his hand was an alien dagger. He was just about to thrust it into Max when Michael silently joined them. He immediately beat Nicholas on the side of his back, the area where Skins were vulnerable. Nicholas turned his head as he died, unable to believe that the three of them had not prevailed when the scheme was so well planned. Rath had an incredulous look on his face as Max took the dagger from Nicholas' falling hand and killed Rath with it.

Michael turned pale and wiped his hand across his forehead. "I meant to do that, Maxwell, but I have to say I'm glad you did it!"

Max gave him a grim smile and said, "Me too. Let's go join the girls."

They rejoined at the Crashdown and spent the evening together. They had been friends before that. Some of them had been close. That day was when they became a team.

***

It was Liz that suggested using the orbs for communication again. Michael was opposed to it, afraid it might summon more enemies.

Max finally decided to try it. They were all there. So were Alex and Kyle and Sheriff Valenti. This time they were able to tune directly to their mother. Things were improving on the planet also.

Kivar had sent Nicholas, his closest ally, and a group of hand picked Skins to earth to exterminate the royal group that had been sent. He had also found the remnants of the biological blend that was used to develop the hybrids. His scientists were told to duplicate whatever had been made and send them to earth also. That was where the flawed duplicates came from.

Now all the plans on earth had come to nothing. On the planet itself a rebellion was taking place. Courtney, a Skin who had been a friend of Michael's, told the group about it before she died. A renegade band of Skins was fighting against Kivar and all he stood for. Without Nicholas and his followers to back him, Kivar was barely stemming the tide of rebellion. Their mother urged them to come home as soon as she could arrange transport. They were needed. Max was needed.

Another negative result of their first contact was a misunderstanding that temporarily separated Max and Liz. Because Max had been wed to Tess when they last lived on the home planet, the group had the impression that the same relationship was a requirement on earth too. Further contacts made it clear that both couples in the past were the result of betrothals that took place in infancy.... While they were friendly, there was no passion in either the pairing of Max and Tess or that of Michael and Isabel. In fact, it was that very lack of passion that had caused Isabel, in her previous life as Velandra, to become fascinated with Kivar, their mortal enemy. That attraction had doomed them all. It had enabled Kivar to usurp Max's throne.

Their mother made it clear that they were each free to make their own choices of mate. When they came home those choices would be honored. She was looking forward especially to Max's return with his pregnant bride.

***

The final hurdle they passed had been when Sheriff Jim Valenti married Maria's mother, Amy. He knew all about the hybrid group and their secrets. He was unwilling to marry Amy and keep a secret from her that Maria and he both were involved with.

As predicted, Amy was incredulous. "You're kidding, right? Where's the camera? Hello! Candid Camera from the Crashdown! OF COURSE we have aliens!" She laughed.

"No. Really." Jim finally had to get the group together to convince her. She especially liked Isabel's trick of changing the structure of things... like mustard into catsup.

It was only when it came to Maria's relationship with Michael that she really balked. "How could you even think of marrying an alien?"

"Mom, he is a hybrid! He is just as much human as he is alien."

"What about your children? Do you really want to give birth to little weird babies?"

"ALL babies are little and look weird!"

Both laughed. Amy said, "You know what I mean."

"Mom, Michael has human DNA. And I love him."

Since Maria was twenty, Amy knew that she could not change her mind. She also knew that she would lose her. Serious talk of marriage between her and Michael had come up since the group had made plans to leave earth.

***