"Lucy, you got some 'splainin to do," said Kyle. "Especially before I go out there to face the apparently homicidal psycho alien with nothing but Michael for protection."
"We'll explain everything," said Max. "We promise, but not here, it isn't safe."
"Right, and how do we know you won't just erase our minds or something?" asked Maria.
"We won't do that," said Michael, his tone defensive. "We can't do that. Can we?" he added as an after thought.
Tess nodded her head, a guilty expression on her face.
"I've done it to mom to make her forget to fix dinner, and I've been cooking instead," she said.
"Tess!" Max shouted. "That's kind of wrong, don't you think?"
"Well, if you subscribe to the whole 'I only use my powers for good,' theory, then I'd have to say that's about as good as it gets, because I've tasted your mom's cooking, and no offense, but it bad."
"Real bad," said Michael.
"Yeah, horrible," agreed Liz.
"It's the worst, Max. You have to admit it," said Isabel. "Tess was, you know, only trying to keep us alive."
"Yeah but still, we don't know if you're doing that could hurt mom in any way," said Max.
"Oh, I never thought of that," Tess whispered, an expression of fear masking her pretty features.
"Don't worry about it," said Max. "I'm sure nothing happened. Besides, we have an even bigger problem to deal with. We may have fooled this Nescado guy or now, but our cars are out there, and sooner or later he's going to figure out that we aren't anywhere, but here."
"I have an idea," said Liz. "Can we all go out together, and have Tess make it look like we're walking away from our cars or something?
"That may work," said Max. "Can you do it, Tess?"
"I think so," said Tess.
"Wait a minute!" Maria shouted. "You know, we're taking an awful lot on faith here. No offense, but what proof do we have that you guys are even telling us the truth?"
"What do you want from us; a signed affidavit from our home planet or something?" Michael practically shouted.
"That'd be a start," said Maria.
"Oh, sure great, well I'll just jet off in our spaceship to Mars,"
"Antar," interjected Liz.
"Antar," continued Michael without missing a beat. "And I'll get our king to sign a note saying we're all aliens. Would that work for you?"
"You have a spaceship?" asked Alex.
"Actually," said Liz, reading the paper in her hand. "Max is the king of your planet."
"He is?" asked Michael, and Isabel, while at the same time Max said, "I am?"
"Cool!" said a now excited Isabel. "That makes Michael a prince – well that's kind of hard to believe, and Tess and I are princesses. Do you think we had tiaras? And coronation gowns, and royal jewels?"
"Excuse me, but isn't this supposed to be about a little bit of proof from you guys?" said Maria. "Not about tiaras. Unless, do you have any here? Cause if you do, I'd love to borrow one. I think I'd look pretty hot in a tiara."
"Can all of you just shut up so we can get out of here?" shouted Liz. "I just want to go home."
"Liz, are you okay?" Max asked, concern dancing across his face.
"Let's see, in the past hour, I've been attacked by a homicidal alien, found out I'm going to get shot, and that my husband sent himself back from the future to convince me to make his teenaged self fall out of love with me so he could be with Tess. On the whole, I'd say I'm doing just fine. Now, can we please just get out of here?"
A loud chorus of what's echoed in the chamber as the others processed what Liz had said.
"Liz, stop it, we have to talk," said Max. He reached out and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"No, we don't have to talk, we don't have to do anything. You on the other hand are supposed to take your bride and go back to your home planet. Now can we just get out of here?"
Liz jerked away from Max, dropping the papers she held in her rush to get away, and ran over to where the door had appeared in the wall. Picking a rock up off the ground, she began to bang at the wall, looking for a way out. Suppressing a scream of frustration when the opening didn't appear, Liz turned and threw the rock. All eyes watched it's arcing path and started in amazement when instead of a rock on rock sound, they heard the unmistakable sound of rock upon metal.
"What was that?" asked Alex. "Cause if it really was a spaceship, I call shotgun!"
The others forgot Liz for a moment as they moved across the small and stared at the cause of the noise.
"What is that?" Maria asked pointing at a metal structure. It consisted of four rectangular metal containers stacked two by two, with a filmy white substance draped over it.
"I think that's what we were in before we were born," said Michael. He reached out and began to stroke the receptacles with an almost reverent expression on his face. "Do you realize that this is a piece of home?" he asked. "See, one space for each of us."
"And Tess was down here," said Max. He was staring that the unit, but he wasn't really seeing it, he was staring into the past.
"I remember," he whispered. "We came out first," he said, pointing at Isabel and Michael. "And Tess was still in there. We were so afraid, and we didn't' know what to do. And then that man did something to get her out."
"That man was you, Max," Isabel reminded him. "You did it."
"The question remains; why?" asked Alex, examining the unit.
He pulled at it experimentally, but was unable to budge it. Meanwhile, Maria climbed into one of the small openings, and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees.
"Wow," she said. "It must have been a pretty tight squeeze. Good acoustics though," she added, rapping on the panel above her head.
"Maria, come on. Get out of there. I want to go home," said Liz.
Maria was about to argue, but once glace at Liz's strained face caused her to shut her mouth and climb out of the small cube.
"Okay," she said, making her way out. "I'm coming. Oops!" she said, banging her foot on the back panel of the chamber. "That was loud. But see, good tone."
"Yeah, except for the part where that totally didn't sound right," said Alex.
"What do you mean?" Maria asked, standing up right. "It sounded good to me. Actually, it sounded like a G."
"It sounded hollow," said Tess.
"Yeah, so, what's the big deal?" asked Michael.
"The deal is," said Liz, getting drawn into the conversation despite her desire to leave, "That if it's up against solid rock, it shouldn't sound hollow."
"That means," Max continued. "There's another room behind this one."
"Yeah, well, it's not like this thing is going to move," said Kyle, pushing at it ineffectually. "It's like they used alien super glue or something."
"Well just consider us the alien super glue remover," said Isabel. "You guys may want to step back a bit."
The four aliens focused their power on the metal chamber, and it wobbled slightly before it sliding to one side. An opening in the rock wall was revealed and a glowing light spilled out, flooding the cavern with it's shimmering glow. The filed one by one into the new room and stared in awe at the tall glowing object that filled the room.
"I think we found the granolith," said Liz.