Mind Over Psyche by Karina L. Fabian

they’d kept him under surveillance. Somehow, that made it funnier. He fell back against his sleeping pallet, rolling. Soon Deryl was lau ghing too.
    â€œâ€™We come in peace’ didn’t work!” Joshua sputtered.
    â€œYou’re so scruffy! I never would have hallucinated you with two day’s growth of beard!”
    â€œI’d have never hallucinated being a prisoner in a mandrake on steroids!”
    â€œA what on what ?”
    Then neither could talk for their laughter.
    Finally, Joshua sat up, still chuckling, and wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Whew! Deryl, I am so glad to see you. Now, let’s go h ome, man.”
    â€œ We can’t.”
    The words bathed Joshua in ice water. The panic came back. “What do you mean, ‘W e can’t’?”
    Deryl took a deep breath to calm the last of his giggles. “Joshua, I’m not even sure how we got here. Tasmae—Josh, she’s here! She’s real!—she said that no one can teleport right now. There are ‘storms.’ I don’t know, maybe you’d call them ‘anomalies in the space-time continuum’? I think the only reason we got here was because she was Calling me when I was trying t o escape—”
    The urge to throttle his friend returned with a vengeance. “Deryl, I want to go home !”
    â€œYes. Okay. I know. Josh, I’m so sorry. I never meant to drag you into this. I just—I freaked. Malachai drugged me. He was going to convince my aunt and uncle that I was beyond help and I don’t know what and…” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to Tasmae. I’ll figure out what I did and how to get you home. I promise.”
    â€œYeah, all right.” It was the best Deryl could do at the moment, and Joshua knew it. He leaned back against the wall—it gave slightly, as if thinly cushioned—and shut his eyes. He felt weary again, but a better weariness than the malaise of earlier. However, the headache that had been dogging him since yesterday made itself known in force. With one hand, he rubbed his temples. “So, what do we do in the meantime?”
    â€œWell, Tasmae’s convinced you’re harmless—”
    â€œâ€™Mostly harmless.’” Joshua smirked, but fought back another bout of laughter.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNever mind.” He hadn’t lent Deryl a copy of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy yet. In the story, a researcher for the guide spent fifteen years studying Earth before changing its entry from “Harmless” to “Mostly Harmle ss.” “So?”
    â€œSo we’re guests now. I’m going to take the room next to yours—”
    â€œThis isn’ t a cell?”
    Deryl rolled his eyes, and it again struck Joshua how he and Tasmae both had that expression. “I’ll have to be your interpreter until some of the others learn English. Tasmae, of course, already knows it from me.”
    â€œCould’ve fooled me. She never sai d a word.”
    Deryl shrugged. “This isn’t an actual town. It’s sort of a keep—a fallback if one of the nearby cities gets overrun by the Barins—that’s the ir enemy—”
    â€œWe’re in a war zone?”
    â€œNo. Calm down. The Barins—didn’t I tell you this at SK-Mental?—they’re from another planet, and for whatever reason, they only attack in waves with a long time—months, even years—in between. The Kanaan call it the Season of War. This is the Season of Preparation, so they’re here checking the defenses, doing military exercises, and making sure the keep is ready just in case. Anyway, the point is, there aren’t very many people here right now. They’re only using the out er areas.”
    â€œThe part that’s a plant? We’re really inside a plant?”
    Deryl’s face split into a grin. “Cool, huh?