But Max's relief was short-lived. Intense images bubbled up from a pocket of the consciousness depicting Alex as a frightening foreigner, his friendly features exaggerated, a portrait painted by fear and distrust of the unknown.

Alex is my friend, Max shared with the collective, hoping to explain-to calm their fears. He was sent to you by accident. My accident.

A ruffle of interest spiked with doubt and animosity greeted his thoughts, and Max realized he had to talk to them in their own way, recall the sights and sounds and smells of that day and surrender the memory to the consciousness.

Max started with an image of himself struggling to open the wormhole-an event many in the consciousness remembered vividly. They returned their own recollections of painful effort and exhaustion.

Then Max sent a picture of his friends morphing their faces and bodies to look like DuPris in a desperate attempt to buy Max the time he needed. The consciousness reacted with fury to the image of the traitor. DuPris had stolen one of the Stones of Midnight from the planet, and they hated him for robbing them of the sacred power source.

When Max showed DuPris tricking the group into forcing Alex through the wormhole, the collective's fury was whipped into rage. Their anger was so potent that Max wondered if he should disconnect before the strength of their emotion did him damage.

But he had to stay strong. Max focused on channeling their wrath away from Alex. Too many of the voices in the collective were associating him with their feelings about DuPris, and that could be deadly. Max had to let them know what Alex was really like.

He started off with the strongest image of Alex he could remember-Alex sitting in front of Isabel's closed bedroom door, keeping a vigil when Isabel was too destroyed over the death of her boyfriend Nikolas to get out of bed. Alex had stayed there, talking to Isabel through the door, saying anything that popped into his mind-jokes, stories, one-sided arguments-anything to keep Isabel connected to the world. His patience had been endless, and his inventive mind had never run out of things to say.

A murmur rolled through the network of beings. A good number of them turned their attention to Max, and he could feel them considering his image of Alex as a good friend.

What else could he tell them to make them understand?

Humor, Max thought. Above all else, Alex is funny.

Would the web of alien minds understand human humor? Max had to try-any picture of Alex would be incomplete unless his humor was factored in. He concentrated on sharing memories of Alex at his goofiest.

Alex mocking DuPris with an overdone, corn-fried southern accent.

Alex making his silly lists to post on the Internet. The twenty best-tasting fried snack foods. The ugliest American presidents in order of hideousness, from Taft to Kennedy. The top ten reasons why goldfish made lousy pets. The fifty funniest words in the English language. (Number one was panty.)

Even when Alex was most down, when he was crushed over Isabel or struggling against his got-to-be-a-military-man father, that spark of light that allowed him to find the humor in any situation never went out.

Max tried to express this all to the consciousness, flashing memories of Alex goofing around, his friends cracking up beside him. The collective absorbed those memories, and Max was relieved to feel amusement from some of the beings in response.

They were getting what Max was trying to tell them.

That Alex was good, Alex was his friend. It was as easy and as difficult to express as that.

There were still some rumblings in the corners of the collective that insisted Alex didn't belong on their planet. Dark rumblings.

Max couldn't agree more. He wanted Alex back on earth more than any of them. Max sent an image of the beings in the consciousness forming another wormhole and sending Alex back. Could they do it?

No, came the reply, they couldn't. Max received a sense of pure weariness and exhaustion from the friendlier members of the collective. A picture of a group of glowing moons traveling slowly through a dark, acid green sky flashed in front of him. Because he didn't know how fast the moons passed over the home planet; Max couldn't be sure how long it would take before the beings in the consciousness were recovered enough to send Alex back. But he understood that it would be a long while.

Max suddenly felt very tired. He wasn't strong enough for this kind of prolonged communication yet.

But before he detached himself, he sent one last message into the darkness.

Tell Alex I'm going to help him. Please tell him I'll find a way to bring him back.

He wasn't sure if the message would get to his friend, but it was the best he could do. Max separated from the collective consciousness and let himself slump down in his soft bed. Every limb on his body felt like it weighed about a hundred pounds.

All he could do now was wait. Wait and hope the collective would get his message to Alex. Hope that he could figure out a way to get his friend home.

Isabel couldn't relax. All her usual tricks-organizing her jewelry, refolding all her clothes, giving her long blond hair one hundred strokes with a brush-had failed her tonight. She had even arranged the shoes in her closet by designer, subdivided by color, but that hadn't calmed her down, either. Isabel stood in the center of her room, surveying the impeccable order. There was nothing left that needed to be done.

Flopping down on her back on the fluffy bed, Isabel let out a long sigh. As soon as she closed her eyes, she thought about Alex. Alex, who she was trying so hard to avoid thinking about. Alex, who had loved her far more than she had deserved.

She missed him. That sounded so lame. Like he was on vacation with his parents or something. But she couldn't think of a better way to say it. She missed him.

Isabel turned onto her side, pulling her legs up to her chest. Things had been bad between them before he disappeared. And it was her fault. Guilt-her least favorite emotion-churned in her gut.

She sat up on the edge of the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest. You apologized to him for the way you broke up with him, she reminded herself.

Not that some lame apology could make up for the way she'd done the deed. She'd been ruthless and harsh. Maybe there wasn't any good way to break up with somebody, but any other way would have been better than the irrational tirade she'd subjected him to.

A memory of how hurt Alex's eyes had looked when she'd told him off forced its way into Isabel's mind. He had loved her, through some intensely bad times. He'd always been there, even when she tried to shove him away. And how had she repaid him?

Isabel covered her eyes with her hands.

She'd treated him like a toilet.

Flush.

Isabel couldn't stand it any longer. She had to do something to make herself feel better. She hopped to her feet and shook out her arms. Maybe she should exercise a little-sweat it out of her system. Or she could reorganize her nail polish, maybe catch up on some homework. She glanced at her small white desk.

Or she could write a letter to Alex.

Before she could convince herself that writing a letter to someone trapped in another galaxy was a waste of time, Isabel sat down and pulled out a piece of cream-colored stationery. She grabbed a green fountain pen and started to write.

Dear Alex,

Now what? Should she say she'd be waiting for him when he came back, in that girlfriend kind of way? She nibbled on the end of her pen cap. Even if Alex still wanted that, she wasn't sure if she did. She decided to stick with what she knew with absolute certainty