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to
die,” said Tommy.
    “But what did
it say?”
    “It said that
the self-destruct process has been initiated. We only have 2 minutes before
this place blows.”
    “But…”
    So this was the
day—the day that Pyridos was destroyed in a controlled explosion. Alexander
Howell had given them the wrong date. So that was it. They were going to be
blown up. It would be impossible for them to get back to the Time Sphere in 2
minutes. There was nothing they could do.
    “What do we
do?” said Tommy.
    The voice came
on over the speakers again.
    “Can’t you ask
the Wheelmaster for help?” shouted Darcy.
    Martin shook
his head. A year ago, when his duplicate had taken over as the Wheelmaster, he
had made a pact with XO5. Neither the Wheelmaster nor XO5 would help or harm
the three friends. It meant that they were safe from XO5, but it also meant
that the Wheelmaster couldn’t offer them any assistance.
    Martin ran a
sweaty hand through his hair. If the recall device had been destroyed
today, it couldn’t have ended up in Harvey Longfellow’s museum thousands of
years later. Perhaps it had just landed on Earth by chance after the explosion.
No, the chances of that happening would be astronomical… astronomical! Of
course!
    Martin laughed.
    “What are you
smiling about?” Darcy yelled. “We’re about to be blown to bits.”
    “No we aren’t!”
    Martin grabbed
Darcy’s handbag and ran. His friends ran after him. He entered the
corridor—which direction? There was a clicking sound from inside Darcy’s bag
and he took a left turn. At the next junction, he took a right turn.
Eventually, Martin came to a row of escape pods.
    “40 seconds!”
said Tommy.
    Martin put the
recall device into one of the escape pods. His indestructible watch got caught
on the side of the pod and came off his wrist. Martin left it.
    “What are you
doing?” said Darcy.
    Martin closed
the escape pod. He pressed a random button and the escape pod containing his
watch and the recall device was fired out into space. Martin opened another
escape pod.
    “Get in!”  
    The three
friends climbed into the escape pod and Martin started pressing random buttons.
The device in Darcy’s bag clicked. Their pod was launched out of the
underground tunnel. As soon as Martin saw daylight, he pressed another random
switch—the Coincidence Machine clicked again—and the pod crashed to the
planet’s surface.
    The teenagers
climbed out of the escape pod, bruised but otherwise unharmed. They had dropped
right next to the Time Sphere.
    “Quick!” said
Martin.
    They climbed
back into the gold time machine and Martin set the controls. The Time Sphere
vanished. A second later, Planet Pyridos exploded.
     
    *
     
    The sphere appeared outside the
back of Tommy’s hotel again, and they climbed out into the sunshine, panting.
    “What did you
do?” said Darcy, once she had caught her breath.
    “Well, the
chances of the recall device reaching Earth after the explosion were a
billion-to-one,” said Martin. “But we already knew that it had—we’d seen it in
Harvey’s collection. I knew that the Coincidence Machine must have caused the
escape pod to take the right course. The pod must have eventually
disintegrated, but the recall device and my watch survived—another
billion-to-one chance. The recall device landed on Earth thousands of years ago,
but my watch took a bit longer. Maybe it was stuck in orbit for a while.”
    “Lucky,” said
Tommy.
    “Literally,”
said Martin, grinning. He took his watch out from his pocket and put it back on
his wrist.
    “So what do we
do now?” said Tommy.
    “We need to get
the recall device back,” said Martin. “I think it’s time we visited our old
friend Harvey Longfellow.” He turned to Tommy. “Are you coming?”
    “Er…” Tommy
looked apologetic. “No offence but I think I should go back to Fire Opal now.”
    Martin smiled.
“No worries. I understand.”
    Tommy grinned
and walked back round to the hotel