‘Yes,’ said Katie. She smiled tiredly at them. ‘I didn’t think I could do it but I guess I did. Of course, when I came through the Valley of High Hopes I thought I could do anything! Oh, and when I was in the valley I came upon this huge family reunion. They said it was all thanks to the Space Brigade! This old man called Horatio Banks couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful you all were. Oh, and a girl called Barbie said she hoped your arm was okay, Nicola. What happened to your arm?’

‘A Biter,’ explained Nicola, and then she said, ‘Hey, does that mean you crossed the Raging River on your own? You had to fight off the Biters all by yourself?’

‘Yes,’ said Katie. ‘But I crossed it at night. Apparently, the Biters can’t see as well at night, so you’re less likely to be bitten.’

‘You crossed that river on your own at night!’ said Tyler. He shook his head. ‘You are – you are –’

‘A legend,’ completed Sean.

‘My hero,’ completed Shimlara.

‘Stop it,’ said Katie. ‘That wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was when I was crossing the Sweet Dream Swamplands during the hurricane. Although I shouldn’t complain. I looked up at one point and saw a hot-air balloon. Can you believe it? It looked like it was going to smash into the mountain. I felt so sorry for those people!’

‘That was us!’ yelled the Space Brigade as one.

‘You’re kidding!’ said Katie.

‘So I guess now you’ve got Katie back you don’t need to help us with the revolution,’ said Topaz, once they’d all stopped exchanging stories. ‘You’ll probably be wanting to go straight back to Earth.’

Nicola was about to answer but Katie got in first. ‘No way! We have to help you! Silent Fred and Joy are keeping Enrico away from the Hostage Room by pretending that I’ve caught some sort of horrible contagious disease, but they won’t be able to keep that up forever. Enrico will find out the truth eventually and I don’t want anyone to get in trouble because of me when he does.’

‘That’s not your responsibility. We’d understand if you wanted to return home,’ said Serena.

‘We wouldn’t just desert you,’ said Nicola.

‘We can’t go back to Earth,’ said Tyler.

‘We must do our duty,’ agreed Nicola. Our noble duty, she thought grandly to herself.

‘No, I mean we can’t,’ said Tyler. ‘Enrico has still got our spaceship, remember?’

‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Nicola. It somehow didn’t feel quite so noble once she realised they were trapped on Shobble.

‘He’s keeping it under his bed,’ said Shimlara unexpectedly.

‘How do you know that?’ asked Tyler.

‘I remember reading his mind when he took it,’ said Shimlara. ‘He thought, The little peasants will never think to look under my bed.’