0.

o

-<

0>

3

M

O

3-O

O (V

O

vi CD

3 Look for other

titles by K.A. Applegate:

#7 The Invasion

#2 The Visitor

#3 The Encounter

#4 The Message

#5 The Predator

#6 The Capture

#7 The Stranger

#8 The Alien

#9 The Secret

#10 The Android

#11 The Forgotten

#12 The Reaction

#13 The Change

<MEGAMORPHS> #1 The Andalite's Gift

THE ANDALITE CHRONICLES

#1 Elfangor's Journey

4 ^,.--^ Alloran's Choice

andalite

chronicles

K.A. Applegate

AN APPLE

PAPERBACK

SCHOLASTIC INC. New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney

5 If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed"
to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this "stripped book."

No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding
permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department,
555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

ISBN 0-590-10880-8

Copyright ©1997 by Katherine Applegate. All rights reserved. Published
by Scholastic Inc. APPLE PAPERBACKS and the APPLE PAPERBACKS logo are
trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. ANIMORPHS and
the ANIMORPHS logo are trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

789/901 2/0

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

40

Printed in the U.S.A. First Scholastic printing, October 1997

6 My name is Elfangor.

I am an Andalite prince. And I am about to die.

My fighter is damaged. I have crash-landed on the surface of the planet
called Earth. I believe that my great Dome ship has been destroyed. I
fear that my little brother Aximili is already dead.

We did not expect the Yeerks to be here in such force. We made a
mistake. We underestimated the Yeerks. Not for the first time. We would
have defeated their Pool ship and its fighters. But there was a Blade
ship in orbit as well.

The Blade ship of Visser Three.

Two Yeerk Bug fighters are landing on either side of me now. The
abomination Visser Three is here as well. I can feel him. I can sense
his evil.

I cannot defeat the Visser in one-on-one combat. I am weak from my
injuries. Too weak to morph. Too weak to fight.

This is my hirac detest - my final statement. I have formed the mental
link to the thought-speak transponder in my fighter's computer. I will
record

VII

7 my memories before the Yeerks annihilate all trace of me.

If this message someday reaches the Andalite world, I want the truth to
be known. I am called a great warrior. A hero. But there is a great deal
that no Andalite knows about me. I have not lied, but I have kept the
truth a secret.

This is not my first visit to Earth. I spent many years on Earth ... and
yet, no time at all.

I landed here now in this construction site because I was looking for a
great weapon: the Time Matrix. The existence of this weapon is also a
secret.

So many secrets in my life . . . mistakes. Things I should have done.
All the strands of my strange life seem to be coming together. It all
seems inevitable now. Of course my death would come on Earth. Of course
the child would be here. Of course it would be Visser Three who would
take my life.

I am too weak to locate the Time ship now. I will die here. But I have
left a legacy. Visser Three thinks he has won our long, private war. But
I've left a little surprise behind.

I have given the morphing power to five human youths.

I know that in doing this I have broken Andalite law. I know that this
action will be condemned by all my people. But the Yeerks are here on
Earth. Visser Three is here. The humans must be given a chance

8 to resist. The human race cannot fall to the Yeerks the way the
Hork-Bajir race did.

I have given the morphing power to five young humans. Children, really.
But sometimes children can accomplish amazing things.

I have no choice but to hope. Because it was I who created Visser Three.
I who caused the abomination. I cannot go peacefully to my death,
knowing that I created the creature who will enslave the human race.

I came to this place, this empty construction site, looking for the
weapon I know is hidden here. But there is no time now. No time . . .

The Visser is here. He is laughing at my weakness. He is savoring his
victory over me.

This is the hirac delest of Elfangor-Sirinial-Sham-tul, Andalite prince.
I open my mind in the ritual of death. I open my mind and let all my
memories - all my secrets - go to be recorded by the computer.

This is not just a message to my own people. I hope that someday humans
will read it as well. Because humans are also my people. Loren . . . and
the boy I have just met, but not for the first time. . . .

IX

9 Alloran's Choice

1 It was an impossible situation.

I was alone. Alone on an alien planet. Scared, sick at hearts, and
overwhelmed.

I flew high above the scene, floating on my six pairs of wings. I was in
morph. A four-legged, two-armed Andalite transformed into a
twelve-winged kafit bird.

Below me was the horizon-to-horizon expanse of the spaceport on the
Taxxon home world. Huge, weirdly shaped metal cradles nestled a stunning
array of spacecraft. Craft from every corner of the ever-expanding Yeerk
Empire: transports and fighters and even a vast Yeerk Pool ship, sitting
like a bloated, three-legged spider.

Half a mile to my left was the Skrit Na transport we had chased to the
Taxxon world. Inside that ship, unknown to the Yeerks, was the Time Matrix.

Half a mile to my right was the Yeerk transport ship we had seized in
orbit. It was loaded to the brim with Yeerks in their natural sluglike
bodies. Big,

2 round tubs of Yeerk slugs. Yeerks I had saved when Alloran ordered
them destroyed.

And right below me was the Jahar. She was like a work of art stuck in a
junk pile. She glowed, beautiful amidst the clumsy Yeerk vessels.

And there, stepping from the Jahar, were the two odd creatures called
humans.

The one called Chapman shoved a helpless, bound Loren. She fell before
the feet of Sub-Visser Seven, the Yeerk in charge of security. The
sub-visser was a Hork-Bajir-Controller.

"That's what I have to trade," Chapman said. "A whole planet full of...
that"

A hundred Yeerks in different forms - huge, glistening, wormlike
Taxxon-Controllers, dangerous, bladed Hork-Bajir-Controllers, clumsy
Gedd-Controllers - all stood watching with bated breath.

Where was Arbron, my fellow aristhl Where was War-prince Alloran? The
last I'd seen of them they were in Taxxon morph. But the two-hour time
limit for staying in one morph had passed. I could only hope they had
demorphed at some point.

<Alloran should be dealing with all this,> I complained bitterly to no
one. Alloran was the war-prince. He'd been in wars before. He had fought
in the Hork-Bajir war. I didn't know anything! I was a nobody!

3 Okay, Elfangor, calm down and think.

But how could I be calm? The Yeerks were seizing Loren and roughly
hustling her away. Chapman was trying to communicate with Sub-Visser Seven.

Then it hit me: Chapman knew! He knew about the Time Matrix! If he found
a way to tell the Yeerks, we were all done for.

Okay, okay, so I had to do something. Something. Something. But what?
What should I do? This was madness! The entire fate of my people rested
on me? On me?

Priorities. Okay, okay, what was most important?

Rescuing Loren.

No. No, that was absurd. The Time Matrix. Everything came down to the
Time Matrix.

Was Chapman going to tell the sub-visser about it? No. It was Chapman's
biggest bargaining chip. This human was like a Skrit Na - self-serving,
greedy, and very, very strange. The Skrit Na are made up of two races.
The Skrit look like huge insects and are somewhat less than intelligent.
But the Skrit each eventually weave a cocoon and a year later, out pops
a Na. The Na stand on four slender legs, have heads shaped like
Andalites, but only possess two eyes. All the Skrit Na care about is
owning and possessing things. And it seemed the human Chapman was the
very same way. So I truly

4 I had time, but not much. The sub-visser would be kept busy with
Chapman attempting to talk about Earth. Like any Yeerk, Sub-Visser Seven
would be fascinated by the possibility of an entire planet of sentient
creatures for the Yeerk Empire to enslave.

Think, Elfangor. Think!

I couldn't count on finding Alloran and Arbron. But if they were still
alive and free, they would reach the same conclusion I had: Go for the
Skrit Na ship and its cargo, the Time Matrix.

I turned in the air and flapped my many wings hard as I headed toward
the Skrit Na ship.

Below I saw Hork-Bajir grab Loren and pull her to her feet. They yanked
her up by her golden hair and a human cry of pain floated up to me.

Priorities, Elfangor.

<Loren. It's me, Elfangor!> I called down, focusing my thought-speak on
her alone.

I saw her jerk and turn her head around the way humans do to see behind
them.

<Stop. Don't move! Don't make them mad. Don't worry, I'm using private
thought-speak. No one else can hear>

She stopped twisting around and kept marching forward between her
Hork-Bajir captors.

<Tell the Yeerks whatever they want to know. Don't resist. Just one
thing: Don't mention the Time

5 Matrix. If they get that, it's all over. You have to trust me. I will
save you.>

Of course, the human Loren couldn't answer. Humans don't have
thought-speak. Like most species, they make sounds to communicate. I
could only hope she would trust me.

Right. She should trust me. Would I trust some alien who'd landed me in
this mess?

I could only hope. She had to keep quiet about the Time Matrix. I knew
Chapman would.

I flew hard for the Skrit Na ship. At least I had a goal now. That
helped. A little. And I just wouldn't think about the insanity of it
all. I would just put all that out of my head.

The Skrit Na ship was being fussed over by Gedd-Controllers. Gedds are
clumsy, loping creatures. They were the first species the Yeerks
infested. Only low-ranking Yeerks were still stuck in Gedd bodies. These
Gedd-Controllers seemed to be busy checking the Skrit Na ship for hull
damage.

I had to get aboard that ship. And I had to fly it off the planet.

No problem, Elfangor. Just steal the ship from the middle of a Yeerk
spaceport and fly it away without getting zapped. No big deal.

\ landed in the dirt beneath the ship's cradle. It was dark and filthy
down there. Endless debris and trash had been shoved in over the years.
They had

6 apparently even emptied ships' sewage reprocessing plants there. The
smell was overwhelming.

I demorphed amid the fossilized remains of sewage from a dozen species.
Not pleasant. But it was a good feeling to get my Andalite body back.

I cowered behind the massive support pillars as I watched my four legs
grow from four of the kafit's wings. Two other wings became my hands. My
sleek bird head grew large and sprouted my twin stalk eyes, while the
bird's own two eyes became my main eyes.

The remaining wings shriveled and disappeared as my long, wispy bird
tail became my swift, powerful Andalite tail.

I was so pleased to get my tail back. A bird's body can be pretty
helpless. But unfortunately, I couldn't stay in Andalite form. An
Andalite walking around on the Taxxon world, surrounded by nothing but
various types of Yeerks, would be just slightly obvious. Slightly
obvious, as in I'd have been dead ten seconds after I walked out of the
shadows.

I had only one way to go. I would have to resume the Taxxon morph I had
acquired. The Taxxon DNA was still a part of me. It always would be.

I swallowed my fear and loathing and began the morph.

And as I felt the huge worm body grow, and felt the screaming, desperate
Taxxon hunger rise within

7 I swallowed my fear and loathing and began the morph.

And as I felt the huge worm body grow, and felt the screaming, desperate
Taxxon hunger rise within me, I tried to form a plan. A plan to save my
world, my friends, and Loren all at once.

I was halfway into Taxxon shape when I heard the shuffling, slithering
sound of a Taxxon. My stalk eyes had already morphed away. But I still
had my main eyes. I turned to look.

It was just a dozen feet away. It must have been lurking in the
darkness. It had only to scream for help and I'd be Taxxon lunch.

Then, to my surprise, the Taxxon spoke in An-dalite thought-speak.

<Elfangor! Is that you?>

<Arbron?> I cried. I was flooded with relief. I wouldn't be alone! I had
Arbron with me. We'd never exactly been close friends, but at least he
was one of my own.

<Yes, it's me,> he said.

<What happened to you?> I asked. <f lost you and Alloran in that
terrible feeding frenzy.>

For a few moments Arbron said nothing. His silence drew a chill up my
half-morphed body.

<l guess we got separated,> Arbron said flatly. <So. We gonna rescue
this Time Matrix thing or what? Hero time, huh?>

8 <l don't know. I lost him in the crowd. Just you and me, I guess. Come
on. Let's do it. Let's save the world, hah-hah! Just what you planned,
eh, Elfan-gor? Elfangor the hero?>

He seemed to alternate between being flat and emotionless and sudden
bursts of manic energy. Maybe it was the strain. The fear. And the vile
creepiness of inhabiting a Taxxon form.

That had to be it. Nothing to worry about. Just stress.

<lf I end up being a hero, you'll be one, too,> I said. <Besides, let's
just see if we survive first>

<Yeah. Survive,> he said, flat and emotionless again. <Come on,
Elfangor. Finish morphing.>

9 <You have a plan?>

<Surer> I said. <We bluff. We tell those Gedd-Controllers up there that
we've come to fix the computers. Then we fly that sorry Skrit Na ship away.>

I wanted to sound casual. Nonchalant. The way the fighter pilots always
sound when they are describing some terrifying battle. Like it was all
no big deal.

Arbron stared at me through red jelly Taxxon eyes. <Okay. Lead the way,>
he said.

Arbron and I slithered out from beneath the ship's cradle and motored
our rows of Taxxon needle legs up the ramp to the ship itself. Just a
pair of bored Taxxon technicians going to work. Totally calm.

Or as calm as any Taxxon, even a Taxxon-Controller, can ever be. There
is simply no way to explain the awful hunger of the Taxxon. It is beyond
any hunger you've ever imagined. It is constant.

10 Like a screaming voice in your head. Screaming so loud you can't think.

Every living thing you see or smell is just meat to you. You hear
beating hearts and smell rushing blood and the hunger almost takes over
your body.

And when someone is injured . . . when there is blood spilled ... well
then, as I knew personally, the hunger is all but impossible to resist.

I had come within a haunch hair of eating an injured Taxxon myself. Not
something I wanted to remember. But not something I'd ever forget.

<Don't hesitate,> I advised Arbron as several Gedds turned to blink
curiously at us. <Look like you're on your way to work.>

<Shut up, Elfangor,> Arbron said harshly.

Again I felt the chill of fear. Something was horribly wrong. But there
was no stopping now. I pushed rudely past a Gedd who was in my way.

The Gedd-Controllers looked resentful. But they had no reason to suspect
us. We were Taxxons. They had to assume we were Taxxon-Controllers. We
looked like we were there to work. No reason for them to be at all
suspicious.

Except that one of them was.

One of the Gedd-Controllers stood right in front of us, seemingly
unimpressed. He spoke in Galard, the language of interstellar trade. It
sounded hard on his Gedd tongue, but I could understand him.

11 "Rrr-what arrrre you doing herrrrrre?"

If it was hard for the Gedd to make Galard sounds, it was almost
impossible for me, with a Taxxon's mouth and tongue. But I couldn't use
thought-speak. I might as well announce that I was Andalite. I had to
try to speak Galard with a three-foot-long Taxxon tongue.

So I tried. "Sreeeee snwwweeeyiiir sreeeyah!"

Which was not even close to being the sounds I'd wanted to make. What I
had meant to say was "computer repair." But the Taxxon's tongue is so
long, that it would be hard even if I was used to using a mouth to make
sounds.

The Gedd stared at me with its tiny yellow eyes. "Rrr-use rrr pad!" He
pointed furiously down at a small computer pad attached to his wrist.

<lt's some kind of translator^ Arbron said. <Some primitive version of
our own translator chips. Let me do it>

He reached with one of his weak, two-fingered Taxxon hands and pressed
several buttons. From the pad came a disembodied voice, speaking Galard.

"Computer repair."

The Gedd snorted angrily. "Rrryou Taxxon wearrrers think you rrrown the
planet! Arrrogant as Horrrk-Bajir!"

Arbron and I shoved past him into the Skrit Na

12 ship. Unfortunately, it was so cramped and low that we could barely
drag our massive bodies inside.

The bridge of the Skrit Na ship was identical to the Skrit Na ship we'd
boarded to rescue the two humans. There were two cocooned Skrit glued
into a corner. They wouldn't cause any trouble. They didn't look ready
to hatch into Na just yet. And there was an active Skrit, what Loren had
described as a giant cockroach, scurrying around almost brain-lessly,
polishing and cleaning.

There were no Na that I could see. Aside from the Skrit, the bridge of
the ship was empty.

<So far, so good,> I muttered. <l'm going to close the hatch. We'll
demorph, power up, and be off-planet before they know what's hit them.>

<Yeah. Okay,> Arbron said. <Ready?>

<Yep.> I focused on my breathing, trying to fight the raging Taxxon
hunger and my own fear. <Okay, do it!>

Arbron punched the pad to close the hatch door. It slid shut and made a
snug vacuum seal SHWOOMP!

I focused all my thoughts on demorphing. I wanted out of that Taxxon
body. The two of us could barely move in the cramped bridge, let alone
fly the ship. The idiot Skrit kept banging against me, unable to find a
way to go around.

I demorphed. I shed that vile Taxxon body as fast

13 as I could. I felt the awful hunger weaken and my own Andalite mind
rise above, freed of the Taxxon's instincts.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

The Gedds were pounding on the hull. "Rrrrwhat arrrre you doing? Open
rrrup!"

I ignored the noise and punched the engine power. The main engines began
to whine as they powered up.

And then I realized it. Arbron was not demorph-ing.

<Arbron, what are you waiting for? Demorph!>

Arbron didn't say anything.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

"Rrrr-open up! Powerrrdown rrryou fool!"

<Arbron! What are you up to? Demorph!> I yelled. I guess I hoped that
yelling would make it happen. But I already knew. He stared at me
through those shimmering red jelly eyes, and I knew. More quietly,
almost begging, I said, <Come on, Arbron. Demorph.>

<l really wish I could, Elfangor,> he said. <l really wish I could.>

14 There was no time to talk about it. We had to

get the Skrit Na ship up and out of that cradle before it occurred to
the Yeerks that we were stealing it,

No time to talk about it. But time to feel something of the terror
Arbron felt.

I had been in Taxxon morph. I had felt the hunger. I'd rather be dead
than be trapped in that body forever.

Arbron's weak Taxxon "arms" pushed all the right buttons, and I felt the
soft vibration of the engines reaching full power.

The Gedd-Controllers outside must have felt it, too. Suddenly they
stopped pounding on the ship. They were probably running for dear life.
The radiation blast of the engines would be captured and contained
within the cradle. But if you were still hanging around on that cradle
when the engines came on, you wouldn't last long.

<Ready?> I asked Arbron.

<Ready.>

15 <Then hang on, because I don't know how much of a kick these Skrit Na
ships have.> I punched up a burn and we rose from the pad.

Unfortunately, we didn't rise very quickly.

<What is the matter with this thing?> I yelled. I looked at the air
speed indicator. We were doing a bare thousand miles per hour. And the
acceleration rate was way too slow.

<lt'll take us ten minutes just to get escape velocity^ Arbron cried.

<Yeerk ships will be all over us before we can even think about going to
Zero-space,> I said.

<The Time Matrix!> Arbron said. <We can use it! We can escape through time!>

<No! We don't know how fast it works. If we try to activate the Time
Matrix, the power signature will light up every Yeerk sensor within a
million miles! What if it takes ten minutes for it to work? Besides ...
we don't know who else might get mad if you use that thing.>

<What? You're worried about what some prince will say if we survive?>

<No. I'm not worried about our superiors. Or at least, I figure my
career in the military is already destroyed. >

<Then what are you . . . > Arbron fell silent. Then he laughed. <Are you
kidding me? You're worried about some mythical Ellimists?>

16 <Mythical? That's what some people used to say about the Time Matrix
itself. Someone built that machine. Who else, if not the Ellimists? And
do we want to take the chance of making them angry?>

I felt a little foolish. My parents had told me El-limist stories when I
was a child. Stories of the all-powerful, inexplicable creatures who
sometimes interfered in the affairs of simpler species. I halfway
expected a snide remark from Arbron.

But Arbron didn't answer. He was staring at his display board. At least,
I guess he was staring. Taxxon eyes don't exactly focus normally. <Yeerk
patrol ship coming up on an intercept vector! It's a Bugfighter!>

<Can we take on a Bug fighter?>

<Are you kidding? All the Skrit Na ever have are secondhand, low-power
Dracon beams the Yeerks sell off for scrap. That Bug fighter has twin
Penetrator-Class Dracon beams. We can't trade shots with them!>

He was right. And I should have remembered that. But I was shaken.
Confused. My brain was spinning at a million revolutions per second and
going nowhere.

I had to think. Focus.

The air speed gauge now showed two thousand twenty miles per hour. The
hull was blistering hot from the air resistance. <Wait a minute! Bug
fighters

17 are slow in atmosphere, right? They can't handle the heat. We can! So
far, at least. We're doing better than two thousand miles per hour.
We're faster than they are in atmosphere!>

<You're going to try and outrun them in the at-mosphere?>

<You have a better option?>

<We have a second Bug fighter on us!> Arbron answered. <Two more launching!>

<We're going to the grass,> I said, hoping I sounded more confident than
I felt. <l'll need direct vision. Real time, real aspect. Open a window.>

Arbron played his console, and suddenly the panel in front of me became
a window. I could see the superheated air, blazing around the ship.

I nosed the stubby, round ship down. As we dropped we picked up speed.
<Passing three thousand miles per hour!>

Down, down, down at over three thousand mph! The brown dust of the
Taxxon world leaped up at us.

Spacecraft are designed for the almost total vacuum of space. Usually
they are barely functional in atmosphere. But the Skrit Na were
scavengers who went from planet to planet, kidnapping and stealing and
performing their inexplicable medical experiments. So they needed ships
that could handle atmosphere.

18 But nothing is really designed to do three thousand miles an hour in
atmosphere. Let alone fifty feet off the ground.

We had been seven miles up, right at the outer edge of the Taxxon
atmosphere. We dropped back down to ground level in five point eight
seconds.

<Yaaaaahhhhhh!>

<Yaaaaahhhhhh!>

We both screamed in a mix of utter terror and shocking excitement. Let
me tell you something: Millions of miles an hour in empty space is
nothing compared to three thousand miles an hour going straight for the
ground.

<Pull up! Pull up! Pull up!>

I pulled up, as the collision warnings screamed in the Skrit Na language.

We blew across the Taxxon desert, trailing sonic booms that must have
sounded like nuclear explosions going off in our wake.

<Can you get the Bug fighters on visual?> I asked.

<On screen !>

I saw two Bug fighters racing after us, one behind the other. Their
hulls glowed bright with friction heat. But they weren't backing off.

<Fine,> I muttered. <Let's see who's faster.> I raised the burn and felt
a slight lurch as the engines pushed harder still.

19 <Three thousand two hundred miles per hour,> Arbron reported. <Three
point three K. Three point four K. Hull temperature is ... you don't
even want to know. Three point five K.>

Three thousand five hundred miles an hour. The ground was a blur. We
were a blazing meteorite. We were an arrow of flame as we shot across
the Taxxon world at impossible speeds. The scruffy bushes and stunted
trees of the Taxxon world burst into flame as we passed over. We were
drawing a line of fire around the planet!

<Pull up!> Arbron yelled.

Mountains rose up like a wall. <Where did they come from?!> I cried as I
pulled up, straining every atom in the Skrit Na ship.

The ship bucked like a dying beast in its final agony. But we climbed.
Up ... up ...

<Are we going to clear?>

Before I could answer, we shot over the mountain wall. I swear I heard
the bottom scrape as we cleared the height.

Unfortunately, the Yeerks knew the local topography. They'd been ready
for them. They had adjusted easily and had gained on us.

TSSSSEEEEWWWW!

A red Dracon beam lanced past us, missing by inches. They were close
enough now to shoot.

20 We were approaching the dividing line between night and day. I could
see it rushing toward me.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the lead Bug fighter simply
explode! The air friction had finally worn down its compensators and the
craft had burned to a cinder in a split second.

<Yah-hah! One Yeerk fried!> I exulted.

<Elfangor, we're next if we don't slow down,> Arbron warned.

<There are still three Bug fighters on our tailr> I said.

<We are about five minutes away from burning up,> Arbron said. <Can you
guarantee those Bug fighters will cinder before we do?>

<What do you have in mind?>

<We take a shot. One, two, three. They won't be ready. They won't expect it>

I turned my stalk eyes to stare at Arbron. <No one can make that shot>

<l can,> he said.

<With Taxxon eyes?> I didn't want to throw that in his face, but I had
to be realistic. <With Taxxon reaction times? With Skrit Na targeting
comput-ers?>

<l can make the shot, Elfangor,> he said calmly.

<Look, Arbron, I want to come out of this alive.>

<And you think I don't care if I live or die, right?> he said bitterly.
<Maybe you're right. This

21 hunger. . . Elfangor, you've felt it. You know. But I can still make
this shot>

<You always laugh at me wanting to be a hero,> I said. <Now who's
playing hero?>

He didn't answer.

I looked at the hull temperature readout. He was right. We would cinder
in a few minutes.

You know what's funny? I wanted to ask the captain what to do. It seemed
ridiculous that I should make a life and death decision like this.
Princes made those kinds of decisions. Captains made those decisions.

Only I was the captain. And if I was wrong, we would dig a hole in the
Taxxon dirt at three thousand miles an hour.

<Okay, Arbron,> I said. <ln ten seconds. Ten . . . nine . . . eight. . . >

22 <Three . . . two . . .>

S kii!ed thrust and punched the air brakes.

SHHHHHRRRRREEEEEEEKKKK!

The Skrit Na ship shook; it bucked; it rattled; it vibrated; it bounced
wiidly just fifty feet off the grass

S was thrown off-balance, I sprawled across the deck. But Arbron's rows
of Taxxon legs absorbed the punishment. He never wavered. He kept his
Taxxon claws on the targeting controls.

Our speed dropped from nearly three and a half thousand miles per hour
down to half that. In mere seconds! Too fast for the Bug fighters to react.

What happened next would make Arbron a hero,

Our speed dropped off; the Bug fighters rocketed forward and blew past,
doing fifteen hundred mph faster than us.

Arbron fired! TSSSEEEEEWWW!

Fired! TSSSEEEEEWWW!

Fired! TSSSEEEEEWWW!

23 Three shots at three targets doing a relative speed of fifteen
hundred mph. Three shots in atmosphere! Three shots from a vibrating,
bucking wreck of a Skrit Na ship.

I dragged myself up and stared in disbelief out of the forward window.

Three spinning meteorites, three balls of flame, slammed into the
ground. They dug craters in the Taxxon dirt and extinguished themselves.

<Nice shooting!> I said. <Seriously nice shooting^

<Thanks. It turns out Taxxon senses and reflexes are good at this kind
of thing. Guess that's why the Yeerks use Taxxon-Controllers to fly
their Bug fighters. It's nice to know there's something useful about
this disgusting body.>

<We're going to find a way to get you out of that Taxxon morph,> I said.
I tried to sound like I meant it. What else could I say?

Till that moment I'd been too busy trying to stay alive to really think
about what had happened to Arbron. Maybe we'd never exactly been best
friends, but it was still horrible to look at his foul Taxxon body and
think that this was how he would remain. To look into those emotionless
red jelly eyes and realize that he was in there, looking back at me.

And I knew what he was feeling, now that the

24 battle was done. The terror. The despair. The awful Taxxon hunger.

I turned the Skrit Na ship around and headed back toward the rushing
line of daylight.

<What are you doing?> Arbron demanded.

<l need a place to land and conceal this shipr> I said. <l need
daylight. And I need to be chaser to the spaceport. We can't just leave
the others behind.>

<Others? You mean Alloran?>

<And the humansf> I said. <They are our responsibility

<We are not going back to the spaceport,> Arbron said. <The Yeerks are
back there. And Taxxons. They'll catch us. Do you know what they'll do
if they catch me? They'll eat me alive, Elfangor.>

<Arbron, you have to hold on. You have to try and hold on.> We weW
racing back across the dark mountains. Back toward the retreating line
of daylight.

<Hold on? Hold on? Are you insane? If we go back there, they'll eat me!
Turn this ship back. I'm going to use the Time Matrix! I'm going back in
time. I'm going back to my life!>

<You can't light up that Time Matrix. The power signature will be
visible to every ship in orbit, every satellite, every ->

<l don't care! I don't care if I die, just let this

25 hunger stop. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it! You fool, don't you know I
could eat you right now?>

I turned my main eyes toward Arbron. I knew that inside there was a
scared Andalite aristh. But what I actually saw was the nightmare worm.
What I saw was the sloppy red eyes, the round, gasping, eternally hungry
mouth.

For a moment that seemed to stretch and stretch, we stared at each
other. I don't know what was going through Arbron's mind right then. I
don't know what conclusions he'd reached. I only know what he did.

"Sssrrrreeeeyyyyyaaahhh!" he screamed in his slithering, high-pitched
Taxxon voice. He reared back, practically laying the upper third of his
body horizontal. And then he slammed down on me.

Slammed his upper body down, red mouth open wide.

I could have killed him. He knew that, of course. He knew that no Taxxon
could hope to outfight an Andalite. But I could not kill him. Not even
if that's what he wanted.

I dodged to my right.

He slammed hard into the instrument panel. Sparks erupted!

He swept his upper body toward me, hoping to slam me against the
bulkhead and stun me.

26 I leaped inside his reach and struck!

SLASH! Two of his needle legs went rolling across the floor.

SLASH! And two more legs were gone.

Arbron sagged. The front part of his body could no longer be held up. He
lay, fully prone, a huge, helpless worm.

<Just kill me!> he screamed.

But I was busy. The control panel had been half-wrecked. The ship was
bucking and yawing. It was unstable. I reduced power. We had shot across
the line into twilight. But I couldn't see into the deep shadows between
the mountain peaks.

<You can't leave me like this!> Arbron cried.

<l'm going to get you help,> I yelled. <But I have to land this ship!>

<Elfangor! You know what happens to wounded Taxxons! You know\>

<\'\\ protect you,> I cried desperately as the ship bucked and shook
harder and harder. The two co-cooned Skrit seemed about to break loose
from their moorings. The active Skrit had gone to the cargo hold. Maybe,
even as unintelligent as the Skrit are, he knew better than to be
anywhere near a hungry Taxxon.

<You can't protect me. Fool! Nothing can stop them! Nothing can stop the
hunger. I couldn't stop it. Alloran couldn't stop it. Don't you
understand? I

27 ate, Elfangor. I ate that wounded Taxxon. I couldn't help myself!>

<Shut up!> I screamed. <Shut up!>

I didn't want to hear anymore. I couldn't. I had to focus. I had to land
the ship or we'd both die. I had to shut Arbron up.

I swept my stalk eyes around the bridge. Where would the Skrit Na keep
weapons? There. A green panel marked with Skrit Na script.

I stretched my left arm to reach the panel. Popped it open. Yes. A
handheld Dracon beam. Old and dusty and probably badly maintained, like
most Skrit Na things.

I found the power setting. I set it at the lowest intensity.

<What are you doing?> Arbron yelled.

<l have to land this ship, Arbron. Keep quiet or I'll stun you.>

<lf you fire that thing, you'll kill me,> Arbron said. <You have the
settings backward. That's originally a Yeerk weapon. Setting one is the
highest setting, not the lowest>

Suddenly, I knew what Arbron would do. He couldn't rise up, but he could
still scuttle forward. He came straight for me, rushing and slithering,
as if he were aiming his round red mouth at me.

He was trying to force me to shoot him. To shoot him with the Dracon
beam set on maximum! But

28 I was too fast for him. I twisted the dial to ten. I fired.

And just as my finger was tightening on the trigger ... I realized
Arbron had outsmarted me. He'd lied, and I'd fallen for it. Arbron had
always been a better student than me. He was a qualified exo-datologist.
He knew alien systems far better than me.

I tried to stop. But my finger squeezed. The Dra-con beam fired. On
maximum power.

But by chance, or maybe by some desperate, too-late twitch of my finger,
the beam missed Arbron by a millimeter.

Instead, it blew a two-foot hole through the hull of the ship.

After that, everything was noise and spinning and pain and confusion.

29

I woke up.

I was on my side, lying in the dirt.

I looked up at a night sky. Stars, galaxies, three tiny moons.

Where was I?

I stood up. Every muscle in my body ached. Muscles I didn't even know I
had ached. My hooves tasted nothing but bare dirt. My stalk eyes
swiveled quickly to look around, but I realized one eye was blinded.

Then I saw the ship, the Skrit Na transport. It was still more or less
in one piece. I must have been able to land it. Somehow. I couldn't
remember much of those last few minutes. It was all chaos in my brain.

I forced myself to go over the facts. I was on the Taxxon home world. I
was approximately four hundred miles from the spaceport. Loren and
Chapman were in the hands of the Yeerks. Alloran ... no one knew.

30 Arbron had tried to trick me into killing him. That's what I
remembered best.

<Arbron!> I called. <Arbron!>

No answer. I trudged wearily over to the Skrit Na ship. I saw the
two-foot hole made by the Dracon beam. And then I saw the way the
engines had been ripped half off. The ship would never fly again.

I climbed into the wreckage. My second stalk eye was starting to clear a
little. I felt it and realized it had just been covered with mud.

Inside the ship I called again. <Arbron!> I looked around. Nothing was
working except a tiny glimmer of emergency lighting. For some reason the
Skrit Na liked their emergency lighting to be green. Who knows why?

Something was missing.

Of course! The two Skrit cocoons. They must have been knocked loose.

The door to the freight hold was blown open. I went in. The same green
emergency lighting illuminated a bizarre scene. In the hold were boxes
and crates piled in wild disarray. Many had broken open on impact. They
spilled an amazing mass of alien-looking objects. Frozen, preserved
animals; bundles of the artificial skin that Loren and Chapman wore;
glass objects that seemed to contain liquids; odd, antiquated electronic
equipment; small objects that

31 looked like hundreds of rectangular sheets of paper glued together on
one side; and a long crate of what I could almost swear were primitive
weapons.

All things that the Skrit Na had looted from Earth. Loren would know
what they were, no doubt.

But in addition to all the small objects, there were two much larger
things. One was a shiny yellow-painted creation with four black wheels.

The other object was the most powerful thing in the history of the galaxy.

It looked like nothing more than a smooth, off-white sphere. It was
perhaps ten feet in diameter. Perfectly smooth. Unmarked. You would
never know what it was if you hadn't seen the power readings. Invisible
to the eye, it spread its grid down through the very fabric of time-space.

The Time Matrix.

I found I had stopped breathing. I could barely imagine the power I was
staring at. To move a ship into Zero-space took more power than a
medium-sized star. To move anything through time took ten times that
power. The power of ten suns. All somehow contained in that off-white
sphere.

<Arbron!> I yelled.

But I knew he wasn't there. He must have been thrown clear of the ship,
just as I had been. Only I hadn't seen him outside. And now it occurred
to me

32 that something else was missing, too. The active Skrit.

Both Skrit cocoons and the active Skrit were gone. Along with Arbron.

I turned slowly away from the Time Matrix. It had a hold over me. It
drew my stalk eyes back to it, even as I walked away.

I went back outside. <Arbron!>

The light of the moons and stars was too dim to see clearly. But I had
the impression I was in a narrow valley between tall, almost clifflike
mountains. Where could Arbron have gotten to? Had he fallen from the
doomed Skrit Na ship earlier? He could have ended up slamming into one
of the mountainsides.

I hated to even imagine that.

I went back inside the cargo hold and picked up a handful of paper
sheaves. Some were larger and had pictures. By the dim green light I
instantly recognized that the pictures were of humans.

I flipped through pictures of humans doing things I could not
understand. But then there was one picture I understood immediately. It
showed a marvelously tall waterfall. The waterfall crashed into a pool
surrounded by trees, all of them green. Overhead was a blue sky.

Two humans were smiling and sticking tiny white cylinders into their mouths.

33 There was human writing beneath the picture. I don't read human very
well. But I was sure it was a poem to the beauty revealed in the picture.

The grass there looked sweet.

It would be a fine thing to run there. To run with Loren and forget
everything that had happened. Forget that I was alone on a planet of
evil, my only companion probably dead, my prince lost.

I turned to other pictures. I saw small, strange pictures of humans
doing nothing but smiling. And there were pictures of human technology.
A flying machine of some sort. Humans holding long rods that spit fire.
What seemed to be hideous cities. And then, to my delight, a picture of
an actual human spacecraft.

It took me a few seconds to understand what it was. It seemed to be a
chemical rocket. An actual chemical rocket!

But the pictures that drew my gaze were the ones of beautiful beaches
beside blue seas. And mountains topped with white. And rushing
white-water streams surrounded by tall green trees.

The trees were all very similar. Not as beautiful as the trees I knew.
Still, the pictures spoke of a lovely world, filled with delicious green
grass and cool water.

That alien landscape of Earth took me away from the drab horror of the
Taxxon world. I won-

34 dered if Chapman might be from the jagged human cities. Was that why
he was so much harsher than Loren? Was Loren from the beautiful green
country where smiling humans stuck white cylinders in their mouths?

I guess I fell asleep looking at that picture. I awoke with lingering
traces of awful dreams chasing through my brain.

There was light. . . natural light from the Tax-xon sun.

I ran outside. As I had guessed, I was in an incredibly steep valley.
And now I could see tracks in the orange dirt. The marks of dozens of
needle-sharp legs. Taxxon tracks!

The tracks came right up to the ship. Had they come while I was asleep?
No. I could see my own tracks from the night before. My tracks were over
the Taxxon tracks.

Arbron! They were his tracks. Had to be. And yet. . . No, there had been
more than one Taxxon. Three . . . four others. Five sets altogether.

And then I saw two additional signs. A set of wandering, insectlike
tracks, and the evidence of something large being dragged away.

<The Skrit,> I said. <Okay. So Taxxons came. They took Arbron away. And
the Skrit. And maybe the two cocooned Skrit>

I glanced at the spot where I'd been lying un-

35 conscious. They had to have seen me, smelled me. And yet I was stiil
aiive.

<They have Arbron,> ! realized.

I reeled back and fell down. The Taxxons had taken Arbron. I knew what
Taxxons did with prisoners.

<No!> What had ! done? I'd let them take Arbron alive!

And yet why hadn't they taken me? And the Time Matrix? Surely
Taxxon-Controllers would not have done that.

! recalled Sub-Visser Seven's reference to Mountain Taxxons - Taxxons
who refused to submit to Yeerk control. And I felt just the faintest
glimmer of hope. If these had been Yeerk-controlled Taxxons, they'd have
taken the Time Matrix. And me.

<What am I supposed to do now?> I asked the empty, dusty sky.

Should I try to follow the tracks to Arbron? No. I had to be logical.
Whatever type of Taxxon he'd fallen in with, their hunger would almost
certainly seal his doom. And the doom of the poor Skrit Na, too.

Alloran might still be alive. He was my prince. My duty was to get back
to him. Tell him about the Time Matrix and Arbron. Somehow. But the
Taxxon spaceport was hundreds of miles away, across burning sands.

36 Then . . . one of the human pictures I'd seen came back to me. It had
shown two smiling humans sitting in something very much like the bright
yellow machine in the cargo hold.

I went back to the ship. Yes, this bright yellow machine had four
wheels. And you could easily see how humans might sit in it. It had a
name in chrome letters: "Mustang." Naturally, I had no idea what that meant.

I set to work enlarging the hole in the side of the cargo hold. Then I
removed the chairs in the machine. I discovered that I could fit inside
the machine if I removed the flimsy cloth top. I stared long and hard at
the control panel. The computer was tiny and had knobs you could twist.
But at first all it did was make static noises.

Then I discovered an actual tape drive! Astound-ingly primitive. I
pushed the buttons on the small keypad and twisted the knobs again, and
to my utter amazement, the computer began to play music.

"I can't get no ... satisfaction!" it screamed.

I quickly turned it down. What kind of race would use a computer to play
screaming sounds?

It took twenty minutes more for me to realize that a notched brass
insert could be twisted. And when I twisted it...

RRRR RRRRR RRRRRRRR PUH PUH PUH VROOOOM!

37 The noise was amazing!

It was an actual chemical engine! Something from a thousand years ago!
Ridiculously primitive, and yet I found when I pressed my forehoof on a
pedal in the floor, the engine roared.

VVVRRRRROOOOM! VVVRROOOOOM! VVVROOOOOOM!

It was primitive, all right. But it vibrated in a most satisfying way.
And I liked it.

38 ! have run mag-hover trucks.

I have flown Bug fighters.

i have fiown Skrit Na raiders at three thousand miles per hour in
atmosphere.

But I had never experienced anything more exhilarating than racing down
the valiey and out across the open Taxxon desert in my Mustang. It only
went a hundred miles per hour, but with the wind in your face, whipping
your fur, bending your stalk eyes back, it was certainly a wild ride.

But everything was going wrong.

! was racing across the Taxxon desert in a human vehicle toward probable
doom. But with the wind in my face, and the music in my ears mingling
with the loud roar of the engine, I didn't feel so badly.

I had gathered up some of the other human objects the Skrit Na had
taken. The writing sheets with pictures. Some of the machines that
looked like weapons. And some of the glass bottles containing liquid.

I broke several of the bottles before I figured out

39 how to open them. After that, I quickly determined that they
contained water-based liquids. I poured the liquids into a shallow pan,
and was able to stick in one hoof to drink as I drove.

dr. pepper, the bottles had said. I figured that was human writing for
"bubbling brown water."

For a while I just put Arbron out of my mind. I put Alloran out of my
mind. And I pictured myself with Loren, driving in my Mustang across the
green grass of Earth. Wind in my face. Bubbling brown water running up
my hoof.

As I drove, I tried to come up with a plan. One thing was for sure: An
Andalite in a Mustang was going to be just slightly obvious. I would
need stealth. But I would not morph to Taxxon again.

Not ever.

That's when the ground beneath my wheels simply opened up.

FFFFWWWUUUMMPPP!

<Aaaaahhhh!>

BOOM! BOOM! RUMBLERUMBLERUMBLE!

The Mustang tumbled and rattled down a steep, rough slope. A dirt ramp
that led straight down into darkness.

<Aaaaahhhh!>

I took my hoof off the accelerator pedal. I tried to reach the key to
turn off the engine. But the vibration was too severe.

40 I slid and rattled and rolled in my human machine, down, down, down
into the ground. Down and down. And then I slid to a halt.

SCRRUUMMPPFFF!

The only sound was the noise of the engine and the weird human moaning
that passed for music.

"... gimme, gimme, gimme the honky-tonk blues!"

I turned off the music.

I was in darkness, but not the absolute darkness I expected. This
darkness still afforded sight. There was light enough for my main eyes
to see, after they'd had a few seconds to adjust.

I was in a vast underground cavern. Dominating the center of the cavern
was a sort of hill or small mountain. It was this mountain that glowed.
It glowed a dim but unmistakable red.

From this irregular glowing hill came tendrils, each perhaps three or
four feet in diameter. As my eyes adjusted I could see that there were a
dozen or more of these tendrils, and that each one extended to the edge
of the cavern and then kept going into the rock itself.

The tendrils, too, glowed a dim red. I realized that I could see things
moving inside the tendrils. The tendrils were hollow! They were tubes,
each about as big around as ...

41 As aTaxxon!

I saw them then. My eyes finally pierced the darkness and saw the
Taxxons! Dozens... no, hundreds! They swarmed around and over the
glowing red mountain.

As I watched, I saw holes open in the sides of the tunnel-tendrils. Out
crawled more Taxxons.

They had to see me. They couldn't help but see me. And yet none moved to
attack me.

Instead, they busied themselves pushing dirt and rock back into place to
fill the space my Mustang had created.

<IS THIS THE CREATURE?>

<Aaaarrrrggghh!> I screamed.

The voice in my head was huge! Massive! I grabbed my head with my hands.
It was like hearing a planet speak! It was only then, as I staggered
under the psychic blow, that I realized it: The red mountain was alive!

I heard a different thought-speak voice. <Yes. That's himF> Arbron said.
<He is called Elfangor.>

One Taxxon came slithering toward me out of the mass of bodies around
the base of the red mountain. It moved clumsily. Two rows of legs were
shorter than the others.

<Arbron?>

<Yes, Elfangor. It's me.>

42 <l was afraid you were dead,> I said.

<l wanted to be. But I am still alive. Alive to serve the Living Hive.>

<The what?>

He waved one Taxxon claw back toward the massive, glowing mountain. <The
Living Hive. Light of the Taxxons. Mother and Father of the Taxxons. The
Hive has lost many of its children to the Yeerks. Many of its servants
have betrayed the Hive and made an alliance with the Yeerks. But the
Living Hive is still the Mother and Father of the species.>

<Arbron, what are you talking about? Have they done something to you?>

Then he laughed - the old Arbron again, for just a moment. <Have they
done something to me? Well, they didn't eat me, if that's what you mean.
The Taxxons who found us after we crashed wanted to eat us both. But I
gave them the Skrit instead. I had no choice! And then the Living Hive
learned what I was. It drew me here.>

<We're hundreds of miles from where we landed. How did you get here? You
couldn't possibly have walked.>

<The Living Hive's tunnels extend across thousands of miles, Elfangor.
There is suction in the tunnels. A Taxxon has only to fold back its
legs, and the pressure draws it swiftly down the tunnel, as the Hive
commands.>

43 <The legs I... the legs you were missing. They're growing back.>

<Yes. Taxxons can regenerate legs.>

<Arbron . . . what's going on? It wasn't an accident that the ground
opened up beneath me. Did the . . . the Living Hive want me here for
some reason?>

<Yes, Elfangor. The Hive is angry.>

<At me?> I asked, feeling my guts turn over several times. If this
glowing red mountain was mad at me, all it had to do was yell in its
monstrous psychic voice and I'd be shattered.

<The Living Hive is tired of losing its children to the Yeerks. The
Living Hive has long sought a way to destroy the Yeerk invaders and
remove them from this planet. But the Hive could not understand the
Yeerks and their machines. Now . . . now, the Hive has an adviser.
Someone who understands machines, spaceships, Dracon beams. Someone who
will help the Hive destroy the Yeerks and their traitor Taxxons.>

I stared at Arbron. <You?>

He laughed. But this time there was no mirth. <What better future could
I have, Elfangor? I am Taxxon now. And now I am preparing for a surprise
attack on the spaceport. The Hive will send a thousand of her children
with me. I will lead a Taxxon rebellions

44 I didn't say anything. What was there to say? My hearts were breaking.

Arbron slithered closer, shuffling on his needle-like legs. He looked at
me through red jelly eyes. And even now, I knew he seethed with raging
Taxxon hunger.

<Don't pity me, Elfangor. I am glad I didn't die. Any life is better
than none. And no matter how awful things seem, there is always meaning
and purpose to be found.>

<And you've found your purpose?>

<We attack tonight. The Living Hive is pushing her tunnels closer to the
spaceport. A thousand Taxxons will pour from the ground, surprising the
Yeerks and all their creatures.>

I imagined that moment. A thousand huge, hungry worms, erupting amid the
technological cathedrals of the ship's cradles. Erupting amidst
Taxxon-Controllers and Hork-Bajir-Controllers.

<You'll lose,> I said.

<We know,> Arbron said. <But even a Taxxon has the right to control its
own planet. Even a Taxxon has the right to resist an invader.>

<But you can't win,> I said flatly.

<Aren't lost causes sometimes the best causes, Elfangor?>

How could he imagine that anything to do with Taxxons could ever be a
good cause? These Taxxons

45 were no less cannibalistic. No less murderous. And yet, if they
opposed the Yeerks, could I refuse to offer that help?

<Tell me what I can do to help, Arbron.> <That's more like it, Elfangor.
We'll put some tail blades into these Yeerks, right? Right? We'll be
heroes, after all.>

46 All that afternoon I stayed in the horrible, reeking, stifling
darkness of that underground cavern.

Arbron was there some of the time. But not often. Mostly he was
communing with the Living Hive. Making plans.

Arbron had become a general. He was just what the Living Hive needed. He
could explain what the Taxxons would find when they erupted into the
spaceport. He could explain how to hurt the Yeerks.

I don't know if he told the Hive how hopeless the task was. I only know
that he seemed very alive. Almost on fire.

At last, he came to me. <Elfangor. There is a delicate problem we have
to discuss. Alloran and the humans. You know what this will be like.
Taxxon against Taxxon-Controller. Taxxon against Hork-Bajir. No one will
be safe. From either side.>

<What do you want me to do?>

<lf you can, find Alloran and the humans. I know that's what you'd want
to do, anyway. But most importantly, get the Time Matrix safely away.

47 The Living Hive is no more safe from the Time Matrix than any other
living thing.>

<l'll take care of the Time Matrixr> I said.

<You'll need to take the Jahar. I'll help get you to it>

<And then you can leave with me,> I said.

<No, Elfangor. I'm staying here. We'll lose this battle. But there may
be other chances to hurt the Yeerks.>

I didn't know what to say. I guess I felt like only Arbron could decide
for Arbron now. <l'll. . . I'll tell your parents what ->

<No!> he said sharply. <No, Elfangor. Tell them I died in battle. Let
them remember me the way I used to be, okay? I don't want them to
remember me like this. I don't want them picturing me this way.>

<Arbron . . .> I said, my mind swimming in emotion.

<l have some last-minute planning. We've put that yellow machine of
yours in one of the tubes. You'll go last, after all our people have
been sent. Drive straight down the tunnel. The tunnel is part of the
Hive. It will make sure you get to the right place. And one last thing .
. .>

<Yes?>

<The spaceport will be hell,> he said flatly. <You won't be able to tell
the difference between my

48 Taxxons and Taxxon-Controllers. So don't hesitate. Do what you have to.>

And then he left. The legs I had cut off were half grown back. But I
could still recognize him, moving amongst the other Taxxons.

The launch of the attack was eerie to watch. Taxxons lined up alongside
the tunnels. The Living Hive glowed a brighter red, and swiftly,
smoothly, the Taxxons shoved through the slits in the tunnels and were
blown down the tubes.

They were launched at a rate of one every eight seconds or so, down five
separate tubes. It took almost half an hour for all the Taxxons to enter
the tubes. And then it was my turn.

I nosed the yellow Mustang into the living, pulsating gap in the tube.
To my amazement, the tube stretched for me and the machine. It flattened
down and widened out, leaving just inches of clearance.

I felt the WHOOOOOSH! of air pressure. It blew me down the tube. I
gunned the engine and went from zero to two hundred miles per hour in
seconds!

There was nothing exhilarating about this. I was blasting down a living
tunnel, enclosed on all sides, ducking my head to avoid having my stalk
eyes scraped off. The only light came from the machine's own lights -
white, looking ahead, red, looking back.

For long minutes I raced along beneath the sur-

49 face of the Taxxon world. On my way to a massacre.

And then . . .

FWOOOOOSH!

I shot into the air.

RrrrrrEEEEEEEEEEEE! The engine screamed as the wheels spun madly in midair.

I burst from the ground, flew through the air, and saw, in flashes of
explosion and Dracon-beam blast, a scene no madman could have dreamed.

The machine arced toward the ground.

WHHUUUUMPPPFF!

The front wheels hit, the engine roared, I was banged so badly that my
elbow and left foreleg were scraped bloody, and the Mustang dug in and
hauled away in an explosion of kicked-up dirt.

Suddenly, a Taxxon right in front of me!

SPLOOOMMMP!

The machine slammed into the Taxxon and burst it open like a bag of garbage!

<Aaaahhhh!> I screamed in sheer horror.

But it was only one small piece of horror in a scene that will be burned
on my brain forever.

Taxxon cries!

Hork-Bajir roars!

The TSEEEWW TSEEEWW! of Dracon beams!

Scenes of nauseating violence were everywhere! The battle had already
raged for half an hour. Half

50 an hour of unarmed Taxxons against bladed Hork-Bajir.

It was a slaughterhouse.

How was I supposed to find the humans amidst that awful battle? How was
I even supposed to think?

A huge Hork-Bajir spotted me and began to run for the Mustang. Only when
he got close did he cry "Andalite!" in surprise and greedy delight.

He leaped at the moving machine. I spun the steering wheel. The Mustang
turned sharply. I gunned the engine! WHUUMPF! I hit the Hork-Bajir in
the legs. He cartwheeled over my head and landed in the dirt behind me.

Taxxons! Hork-Bajir! Gedds! All around me! I used the Mustang like a
battering ram, mowing down anyone in my way.

The Jahar. All I could do was head for the Jahar\

The lovely ship stood proud above the slaughter. And there, atop the
ship's cradle, clearly silhouetted by the lights, were two strange,
alien shapes. Two aliens that walked on two legs alone, without tail.

The humans!

Seething around the base of the ship's cradle were a hundred Taxxons.
All pushing and shoving to squeeze up the narrow ramp that led to the
ship itself.

51 Standing alone on the ramp was a single Taxxon. A single Taxxon with
four legs shorter than the rest.

<Arbron!> I screamed, as ! slammed the Mustang into the mass of ravening
Taxxons.

<Elfangor! i can't hold them any longer!>

<Are these Taxxon-Controllers? Or are they your soldiers?>

<There's no difference anymore, Elfangor! Don't you see? Blood has been
spilled. The hunger. . . the hunger! Stop me, Elfangor! Stop me!>

And with that, Arbron, aristh of the Dome ship StarSword, lost his last
shred of control. He turned from facing down the Taxxon mob. He turned
and ran for the humans, mouth gaping open.

52 <Nooooooo!> I screamed. I leapt from the machine and plowed into the
mass of Taxxon bodies.

My tail whipped the air!

Strike! And push through.

Strike! And push through.

Strike! Strike! Strikestrikestrike!

I reached the ramp and leaped clear over the last Taxxon in my way.
<Loren! Run! Arbron! Noooooo!>

I raced up the ramp. Arbron was closing in on the humans.

The human Chapman was free. And it was toward him that Arbron ran. The
human Chapman screamed.

Arbron reared back, ready to slam his upper body down on the frail human.

<Aristh Arbron!> I cried. <Aristh Arbron, you will stop! You will do
your duty!>

I don't know what made me say that. I don't know. I only know that
Arbron hesitated. As Chapman cowered, helpless, Arbron remained poised.

53 Behind me, I saw the Taxxons falling back. And over them climbed and
leaped a handful of Hork-Bajir warriors.

Seven feet tall. Blades on their wrists and elbows and knees. Blade
horns raked forward from their sleek snake heads. Short, spiked tails
twitching. Ripping bird feet clawing at Taxxon flesh to advance.

I realized I knew one of the Hork-Bajir. It was Sub-Visser Seven.

"Ah, so we meet again, Andalite!" he said, sounding delighted.
"Elfangor, right? That was the name you yelled so defiantly at me as you
escaped. I was so afraid the Taxxons might have gotten to you by now.
And I so wanted you all for myself!"

For a moment no one moved. The injured Taxxons withdrew down the ramp to
make way for the Hork-Bajir.

I was alone against half a dozen Hork-Bajir. Behind me, Arbron, who
still eyed Loren hungrily. And with them, Chapman. Whose side was
Chapman on now? And whose side was Arbron on?

"Surrender, Elfangor," Sub-Visser Seven practically purred. "I won't
kill you. I'll just... use you. I'll leave this crude body and live
inside your head. I'll wrap myself around your smug, arrogant Andalite
brain and make you my slave. And with your Andalite morphing power, I'll
run the galaxy before

54 I'm done! It's either that or death, Andalite. There's no third choice."

I saw Arbron turn away from Loren. He came to stand beside me, a
massive, ten-foot-long worm. <Guess we're a long way from the good old
Star-Sword, eh, Elfangor?> he said, with a touch of his old humor. <We
are one lost, lonely pair of arisths, Tell the Yeerk scum to dream on,
Elfangor. Tell him we are Andalites. We don't surrenders

<You heard my friend, Sub-Visser Seven,> I said. <You want me? Come get me.>

In the great stories and legends, that kind of speech always scares the
bad guys. In real life it doesn't work that way.

"Okay," Sub-Visser Seven said. "I will come get you. Cut him down! Cut
him down!" he screamed in sudden rage.

His Hork-Bajir leaped for me. But the ramp was narrow. There was only
room for two Hork-Bajir at a time. Any trained Andalite can handle a
Hork-Bajir one-on-one. They're fast. We're faster.

SWOOOOOOSH! The first Hork-Bajir swung his wrist blade.

FWAAAPPPP! I struck with my tail, and he no longer had a wrist blade. Or
a wrist.

But the second Hork-Bajir shoved past him and got to my left. One of his
comrades swung over the

55 railing and leaped onto the platform to our right. And the wounded
Hork-Bajir was still dangerous.

The odds were getting worse very quickly. More Hork-Bajir were cramming
onto the ramp, anxious to serve their sub-visser.

Battle exploded suddenly in rapid thrusts and slashes. Hork-Bajir blades
made the air sing as they whipped their powerful arms and legs at me.
Arbron did what he could, but a Taxxon is helpless in a blade fight. The
Hork-Bajir just climbed over him to reach me.

"Elfangor! Lookout!" Loren screamed.

"Get him! What are you waiting for?" Sub-Visser Seven roared. " He's
just one Andalite!"

I fell back under the pressure. I had no time to think. None. Only time
to react. Only time to block deadly blows. I had been cut badly already,
and it was only a matter of time.

And then a new Hork-Bajir stepped forward. <So, how are you enjoying the
war, Aristh Elfan-gor?> he asked in Andalite thought-speak.

I was so stunned I almost missed the next blow. War-prince Alloran! In
Hork-Bajir morph!

Alloran spun. Before the sub-visser could so much as twitch, Alloran had
pressed his wrist blade against the Yeerk's throat.

<Don't move, Yeerk. Don't even breathe,> Allo-

56 ran said. <Call off your men. Do it, or I'll laugh when your head
goes rolling across the ground.>

"Hold!" the sub-visser cried. "Back away!"

The Hork-Bajir obeyed. They backed away. I panted and gasped for air. I
was exhausted. I was bleeding. Loren ran over and pressed her hands
against a deep gash in my chest. The pressure slowed the loss of blood.

"You're still alive!" she said. "I was so worried."

<Now here's what we're going to do,> Alloran said. <The two humans and
my two friends and I are going aboard the Jahar. And you, Sub-Visser,
are coming with us. Once we're off the cradle, we'll toss you back out.
How does that plan sound to you, Yeerk?> he demanded, tightening his
hold on the sub-visser.

"Do I have a choice?"

<There's always a choice, Yeerk. I can cut you right out of that
Hork-Bajir and feed your impotent slug body to my friend the Taxxon
here. That's one choice. Or you can order your men back down the ramp.
All the way down.>

"Whatever became of the Andalite reputation for kindness and
gentleness?" the Yeerk mocked.

<What happened? We left that image in the ashes of the Hork-Bajir home
world.>

"You were there?"

57 <l was there. My name is Alloran-Semitur-Cor-rass. War-prince Alloran.>

For the first time, the sub-visser seemed afraid. His mocking, arrogant
attitude seemed to evaporate. He quickly ordered his Hork-Bajir down the
ramp.

Together we backed carefully toward the Jahar. Alloran, with the Yeerk
sub-visser in his steel grip; Loren, still tending my wound; and
Chapman, the treacherous human who had led us all to this terrible mess.

Only Arbron turned away from the open hatch of the Jahar.

<Come with us, Arbron,> I said. <Look around. The free Taxxons have
lost. The Living Hive will be destroyed. There's no future for you hero

<Elfangor, there's no future for me anywhere.>

<But you can'tr> I said. <Who's going to remind me not to be so stiff?
Who's going to laugh at me when I start talking about being a great prince?>

<You go, Elfangorr> Arbron said gently. <Go save the galaxy.>

<Leave himr> Alloran said. <Aristh ... I mean, Warrior Arbron is a
casualty of war.>

58 We launched the Jahar. There was no one to stop us. The battle still
raged, and none of the Yeerks had the presence of mind to come after us.

Or so I thought.

Alloran demorphed from his Hork-Bajir body. I was relieved. I guess he
saw my expression.

<Did you think I had ended up like Arbron back there? Trapped? A
nothlit? No, Aristh Elfangor. I am still myself.>

<l'm glad, sir,> I said.

Sub-Visser Seven stood in a corner, eyeing Alloran as he demorphed and
resumed his usual An-dalite body. Loren seemed dazed. Even Chapman
seemed unusually quiet. No doubt he was afraid of what we would do to him.

He deserved whatever we did to him.

<Your orders, sir?> I asked the prince.

Alloran sneered. <Ah. Now you want orders. When I ordered you to flush
those pools full of Yeerks out into space you disobeyed me. But now

59 you want orders. Now you want to be told what to do.>

I was too tired to be angry. I was even too tired to consider how my
earlier refusal to follow orders would probably destroy my career. What
was I going to do? Explain to some military tribunal that I, the
insignificant aristh, had thought Alloran's order immoral?

<Sir, the Time Matrix is ->

<Silence, you young fool!> Alloran snapped angrily. He glared at me,
enraged. <We don't have time for that yet. No, first we have to take
care of the business you kept me from taking care of. That Taxxon ship
full of Yeerks is still in its cradle. Still filled with Yeerk slugs.
What do you think I've been doing the last day and a half? I've been
hiding in shadows, morphing and demorphing, watching that ship.>

<Prince Alloran, is that really the most important thing to do?>

For the first time since he had demorphed, he turned to face me. He
glared at me with his main eyes. And that's when I saw the look. That's
when I saw the rage. The mad rage.

<The most important thing in war is to destroy your enemies, Aristh
Elfangor. Nothing is more important than destroying your enemies. Do you
understand?>

60 He turned his stalk eyes toward the sub-visser. <You understand,
don't you? You Yeerks under-stand.>

"You said you would let me go!" the sub-visser cried.

<And so I will,> Alloran said. <Open the hatch, Aristh Elfangor. The
sub-visser is going to see if that Hork-Bajir body of his can fly!>

The sub-visser tensed up. He was not going to get pushed out of a
spaceship without a fight. His Hork-Bajir muscles bunched and rippled.

He seemed to glance at Chapman. And I swear. . . but, no, I had to be
imagining things. It's just that Chapman seemed to shake his head,
almost invisibly.

The sub-visser's face glazed over. His eyes went dead. He relaxed his
muscles.

<Slow to dead stopr> Alloran ordered. <Alti-tude?>

<Fifteen thousand feet,> I said dully. <We are still within the
atmosphere. Air speed is now at dead stop.>

<Dead stopr> Alloran said. <Appropriate. Now open the hatch.>

What could I do? I was just an aristh. I had already defied Alloran
once. If I defied him again. . . . He was mad. Insane.

What could I do?

61 I opened the hatch. Warm Taxxon air blew in, strange in the enclosed
environment. It ruffled Loren's golden hair.

<Get out, Yeerk,> Alloran said to Sub-Visser Seven.

I closed my main eyes. I kept my stalk eyes focused on my instruments. I
could not look.

<Close the hatchr> Alloran said a few seconds later.

I dared to look. The sub-visser was gone. I looked down at the exterior
display screens. A tiny figure fell through the clouds. I looked away.

<Now we go back and fry that transport shipr> Alloran said briskly.
<Good to see you've grown up a little, Aristh Elfangor. Take us back
over the southeastern corner of the spaceport. Maintain present
altitude. Then we'll go pick up our missing Time Matrix, eh?>

He seemed cheerful. As if, for a moment at least, the madness were past.
But I knew it wasn't over. We didn't need to destroy the Yeerks in those
transport pools. We needed to secure the Time Matrix.

But I had given up arguing. I was tired. I was scared. I was sick from
thinking of Arbron. I wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep, and not wake
up till I was home on my own grass, under my own trees.

I saw Loren watching me. She seemed worried. Concerned. Who wouldn't be?
And yet...

62 Chapman was watching, too. He seemed tense. Understandable. And yet. . .

<What made you decide to come with us?> I asked Chapman. <Do you expect
mercy from us? You betrayed us. You betrayed your fellow human. You've
told the Yeerks about Earth. You may have betrayed your entire species.>

He shrugged. "Not my fault, though, is it? I was on Earth, minding my
own business. I didn't ask to be kidnapped by the Skrit Na. I didn't ask
to be dragged halfway across the galaxy by you An-dalites. I was just
trying to protect myself."

<By making deals with the Yeerks?> Alloran laughed. <The Yeerks don't
make deals. They enslaver

"Yeah, I guess that's what I realized. After a while," Chapman said.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just a dumb human kid, okay? Give me a break."

<We are coming back over the spaceport,> I announced. <There is a lot of
smoke. But you should still be able to get a good targeting lock with
the shredder.>

Alloran didn't answer. He just stared at the display screen. At full
magnification we could see the wormlike Taxxons below. We could easily
see the ships, some burning from the battle, some tilted wildly over.

The Living Hive had done damage to the Yeerks.

63 But we could also see platoons of Hork-Bajir round-ing up Taxxons.
And other Taxxons were busily feeding. . .

Somewhere down there was Arbron.

Alloran aimed the shredder. He aimed it carefully, taking his time. He
focused it on the transport ship that contained thousands of helpless
Yeerk slugs.

<Fire, Aristh Elfangor,> he said.

<What?>

<l said fire. Fry those Yeerks. You let them live, now you finish them.
Undo your mistake, and no one will ever have to know about your earlier
cowardices

My finger reached for the firing pad.

<Do it, Elfangor,> Alloran hissed.

64 My finger hovered above the pad. It was war. In war, you destroyed
your enemies. AHoran was my prince. You obeyed your prince.

But ten thousand defenseless Yeerks? With one movement of my finger?

No.

I pulled my hand away, and in a blur of motion I felt Alloran's tail
blade press against my throat. <You think you can fight a clean war,
Elfangor? Is that what you think? Or are you one of those who are happy
enough when someone like me does the dirty work for you?>

<They are defenseless,> I said as calmly as I could.

<They are the enemy. Hypocrites! You're all hypocrites! We lost the
Hork-Bajir war because of weak, moralizing fools like you! Because of
fools like you, I am disgraced and shunned and sent off on trivial
errands with nothing but arisths under my commands

65 <War-prince Alloran, I honor you, but->

<What is the difference how you destroy the en-emy?> Alloran demanded.

I had no idea what he was talking about anymore. He was off somewhere in
his own head. Lost in his own memories.

<What does it matter if you kill them with a tail blade or a shredder or
a quantum virus?>

Quantum virus? No. No. Even after all the horror I had seen, I was shocked.

<You . . . you used a quantum virus? You used a quantum virus on the
Hork-Bajir world?>

A quantum virus is a sort of disease of space-time. You see, it slowly
breaks down the force that holds subatomic particles together. It slowly
disintegrates whatever it affects. Living creatures affected with a
quantum virus find their very molecules breaking down. It can take days,
weeks of agony.

That was Alloran's secret. That was his disgrace. The Yeerks had accused
us of using a quantum virus against them. We had denied it. Every
Andalite believed it was just another filthy Yeerk lie.

Alloran stared at me. <l cannot have a weak, cowardly fool like you
messing up ->

I saw it out of the corner of my stalk eyes. A sudden movement. Not
fast, but unexpected.

Chapman!

66 He leaped at Alloran and swung one of his strong human hands. With
tightly clenched fingers he hit Alloran on the side of his head.

Alloran's head snapped back. More in surprise than pain. But it was
enough. I swung my tail hard and fast. I turned the blade away and
slammed Alloran's head with every ounce of power I had.

He dropped like a stone. He collapsed to the deck in a heap. And I saw
triumph on Chapman's face. Triumph.

I should have known then. I should have realized.

Instead, I went to the medical kit and with shaking hands pulled out a
tranquilizer hypo. I emptied it into my mad prince. It would keep him
down for hours.

"Now what?" Chapman demanded.

<Now what?!> I shrieked. <Now what? I just knocked out my own prince!> I
was sick. Sick down to my bones. But there was no one else to turn to.
No one else to make decisions. As stupid as I had been, it was still up
to me.

<We have something to pick up,> I said, forcing calm into my
thought-speak voice. <Then we are getting as far from this evil place as
this ship will go!>

Chapman nodded, as if satisfied.

Loren came over. She put her soft human hand

67 on my chest wound. It had begun to scab over but the exertion of
knocking Alloran out had opened the wound again. She tore a strip of
fabric from the bottom of one of her artificial skins. She tied it
around my chest to protect the wound.

<Thank your> I said.

"Is life always this insane for you space cadets?"

<Oh, yes,> I said bitterly. <lnfiltrate the Taxxon home world, help
inspire a Taxxon civil war, mutiny against my prince, and locate the
Time Matrix, all in the company of a pair of strange, two-legged
aliens.. . . Business as usual.>

I was busy watching the ground below, looking for the place where I had
crashed the Skrit Na ship. But I saw Loren's smile.

"Hey. You made a joke. I didn't think you did humor, Elfangor."

<When the world goes mad, what else can you do?> I thought of Arbron.
Still making little jokes, even when his life was a wreck. <l wonder if
Arbron knew the world was mad?>

Loren just looked sad. But then she forced a smile again. "Speaking of
crazy ... did I see you driving up in a bright yellow Mustang back there?"

<lt was a wonderful machine. Primitive, but strangely enjoyable.>

I cut thrust and peered closely into the screen. <There it is. We're
going down. I need to clear away

68 the wreckage so the tractor beam can grab the Time Matrix.>

I landed the Jahar in the narrow valley, a few feet away from the
wreckage of the Skrit Na ship. I grabbed a handheld shredder, opened the
hatch, and hurried outside.

It took several minutes to burn away the wreckage of the Skrit Na ship
and reveal the Time Matrix.

It was for this that so much horror had occurred.

For this most powerful of all weapons.

It sat there amidst the wreckage, so harmless-looking. If the Yeerks had
known this was here, they would have stopped at nothing to get it.

It was lucky Loren never told them while they held her captive. Lucky
that Chapman never told them.

Lucky.

And lucky that I had been able to hold off the Hork-Bajir. And lucky
that we had been able to get away from the spaceport without being pursued.

More luck.

Too much luck.

I really was a fool. I felt a cold shiver crawl up my spine.

I was behind the Time Matrix, hidden from the Jahar. And suddenly, I
knew what was happening back inside the Jahar while I worked to free the

69 Time Matrix. And I knew what I would see when I walked back around
that off-white globe.

Trembling with despair and exhaustion, I set the shredder for its next
to lowest setting. I would have to duplicate Arbron's feat: three quick
shots. Yes. Three.

I sucked in deep breaths, and then I bolted at top speed.

I leaped from behind the Time Matrix.

Loren, raising a Dracon beam in her hand!

I fired!

She dropped, twitching wildly from the energy pulse.

TSSSEEEWWWW!

Chapman fired! But he was weak and shaky from what he had just endured.

I fired! The human dropped to the dirt.

But there was one more left. I knew it. I knew, and I knew that I had
very little time.

Sudden movement! I spun and fired! Missed! No, not a complete miss. I
had stunned his right arm. The hand holding the Dracon beam dropped,
useless.

He stood there, rage on his face. Alloran. War-prince
Alloran-Semitur-Corrass.

But not really Alloran anymore.

For the rest of my life I would remember that

70 moment. The moment when I looked for the first time, upon the
abomination.

You see, Alloran was no longer Alloran.

<Very good, Aristh Elfangor. It took you a while, but you figured it out
in the end.>

<Sub-Visser Seven,> I said.

<Yes, but not for long. The Yeerk who made the first
Andalite-Controller? The Yeerk who captured the fabled Time Matrix? I'd
say I can count on a major promotion. Wouldn't you?>

71 I raised my shredder and pointed it at Allo-ran ... no, at Sub-Visser
Seven.

<You made Chapman a Controller. You were in his head. That Hork-Bajir I
thought was you . . . just a trick.>

<Of course. And another of my people made Loren one of us,> he sneered.
<And while you so considerately worked to clear away the Time Matrix, I
revived Alloran and transferred myself into him. The first and only
Andalite-Controller! It was so kind of you to knock the old warrior out
for me. I didn't know how I was ever going to take him. He was a wily
creature. A bit mad, of course, but he knew war. You saw how ruthless he
was in tossing out the poor Hork-Bajir who played the role of me. Yes,
Alloran was a warrior.>

The truth hit me like a brick wall. It was true! I had made it possible
for the sub-visser to take control of Alloran!

I had created the abomination!

<Chapman told us about the Time Matrix, of

72 course. But we needed you to show us where it was. The attack by the
Mountain Taxxons could have disrupted everything, but you know, in the
end it was convenient. It kept you from growing suspicious. You were too
busy worrying about your fellow aristh. You didn't even have time to
wonder how the two humans just happened to be waiting for you. You
didn't wonder why my troops let you escape.>

I had done this! I had created this abomination! I had delivered the
Time Matrix into the hands of this vile creature!

<But you know the best part?> The sub-visser laughed. <l really couldn't
have let you burn that transport ship full of my people. Chapman didn't
know about the Yeerks in that transport, so neither did I. And if you'd
gone along with Alloran I'd have had to try to stop you. So would my
brother Yeerk in the human girl. It was one thing to sacrifice the poor
fool who played the role of me. But ten thousand Yeerks? No, I'd have
had to act, and then you and Alloran together would have most likely
made short work of me.>

I couldn't breathe. I had failed. Failed so enormously that the entire
Andalite species was at risk!

<But no, Elfangor is one of those good An-dalites,> Sub-Visser Seven
sneered. <You don't go in for slaughtering the helpless, do you? Hah-hah!

73 Wonderful! Your qualms delivered Alloran to me. Alloran and the Time
Matrix. Mine!>

<Really?> I said faintly. <l seem to be the one holding the shredder.>

<There are a dozen Bug fighters closing in right now. You've lost,
little one.>

<You'll be a cinder by the time they get here,> I threatened.

<No, you won't kill a helpless foe,> he sneered. <l have no weapon! I am
your prisoner! Hah-hah! I surrender to you, Elfangor. I surrender!>

He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness as he laughed at me.
Laughed.

<You're right, Sub-Visser. I won't kill you.> I squeezed the trigger.
The stun-setting knocked the foul Andalite-Controller to the ground.

I ran to Loren. I dragged her unconscious body up the ramp into the
Jahar. Then, after a second's hesitation, I dragged Chapman aboard, too.

I was just beginning to try dragging the sub-visser to the ship when the
first wave of Bug fighters blew by overhead. They shot past, then began
to inscribe tight circles, coming back toward us.

Two more Bug fighters. Then two more. The sky was filling with Bug
fighters. I would never get the Jahar off the planet.

Unless . . .

Had Sub-Visser Seven informed his people that

74 he might be in an Andalite body? Surely. Surely he would have. He
would have had to, just to avoid being accidentally shot by his own people.

But could the Yeerks tell one Andalite from another?

I raced to the ship, tore open the medical kit and yanked out a
stimulant hypo. I ran back to the unconscious sub-visser and i emptied
the stimulant into his bloodstream. It would revive him in less than a
minute.

Bug fighters were hovering overhead now, some preparing to land. I ran
back to the Jahar, closed the hatch, and punched up the ship-to-ship
communication.

The face of a Hork-Bajir-Controller appeared on my communications
screen. It stared at me with the fury and distaste Yeerks always show
for Andalites.

I stared straight back. And in loud, arrogant, harsh thought-speak I
said, <What? You don't recognize your sub-visser? Hah-hah! I have done
it, you fool! As I said I would. I have acquired an Andalite body!>

The Hork-Bajir eyes wavered, uncertain.

If I showed any hesitation, I was lost. If I was to pass as a Yeerk
sub-visser, I could not show any doubt. <You see the Andalite down on
the ground?>

"Yes. . . Sub-Visser Seven."

75 <Goodr you're not blind as well as stupid. I want to see him run. Do
you understand me! As soon as I have lifted off, make him run! And then,
when he is good and tired, when his knees buckle with exhaustion, make
him dead. Dead! And if you fail me, I will feed you to the Taxxons.
Sub-Visser Seven, out>

I switched off the screen without waiting for an answer. Maybe it would
work. Maybe not.

I keyed the controls, lifting the Jahar gently from the ground. I
switched on an exterior view and panned the viewfinder till I framed the
sub-visser. He was just climbing to his feet.

I'll give the sub-visser credit for one thing: He was not an idiot. He
knew instantly what was happening. He broke into a run, just as a
hovering Bug fighter fired a Dracon beam near him.

I let the Jahar drift casually over the Skrit Na wreck. Focusing all my
attention, I powered the Ja-har's tractor beam and latched it onto the
white sphere of the Time Matrix.

Sub-Visser Seven was running at full Andalite speed across the sand,
pursued by teasing, taunting Bug fighters that seemed to enjoy shooting
within inches of him.

The Jahar rose, with the Time Matrix in tow. I pulled the machine closer
and closer, snugged it up into the Jahar's belly, and lashed it in place
with energy ropes. We rose up through the atmosphere of

76 the Taxxon world. Up through the weird, bright clouds.

Only then did it begin to dawn on the Yeerks.

The ship-to-ship snapped on. An ugly, suspicious Hork-Bajir face glared
at me. "Sub-Visser Seven, planet control respectfully directs you to land."

I tried bluffing some more. But when I refused to immediately turn back
and land, they knew.

Tactical showed a swarm of Bug fighters rising up from the surface of
the planet. But it was too late.

I punched up a hard burn and prepared to lose myself in Zero-space.

77 "So, this is Zero-space," Loren said, looking out through the
viewport. "We've been in it for a full day and I still don't understand
what it is."

I directed my stalk eyes to the viewport. I saw blank white. Empty,
whiteness. <Zero-space isn't anything, really,> I said quietly. <lt's
antispace. You know, like antimatter and antigravity? Well, Zero-space
is antispace.>

I had explained this at least twice during the last day. But I guess she
was trying to make conversation.

She'd been through one of the worst experiences any creature can endure:
She had been made a Controller. I couldn't believe she was even managing
to talk without weeping.

Fortunately, the Yeerk in Loren's head had been at the end of its
feeding cycle. Yeerks feed on Kan-drona rays. Every three days they must
drain out of their host and return to the Yeerk pool to absorb Kandrona
rays.

So I made a deal with the hungry Yeerk. I could

78 keep Loren tied up and wait for the Yeerk to starve to death. Or the
Yeerk could come out willingly. I agreed to put it in deep hibernation.
To freeze it. The Yeerk decided hibernation was better than death by
Kandrona ray starvation.

I kept my word to the Yeerk. After it crawled out of Loren's ear, I
froze it. And then I ejected it from the ship into the vacuum of real
space. Someday it might be found and revived. More likely it would sink
into the gravity well of a star and be incinerated.

Especially since I made sure to eject it close to a sun.

Maybe that wasn't living up to the spirit of my deal with the Yeerk. But
somehow, I just didn't care. My notions of proper behavior had brought
disaster.

I was a fool. A silly child living out storybook notions of decency and
fairness.

There was no decency in war. Alloran had tried to teach me that. I'd
learned it too late.

"Have you decided where we're going, Elfan-gor?" Loren asked gently.

"He doesn't know," Chapman said. He spent his time now sitting in a
corner, glaring darkly at the two of us. Sub-Visser Seven had been
inside Chapman's head. If that had taught the foolish human a lesson, it
sure didn't show. "Elfangor is confused. Isn't that right? He screwed up
bad . . . Arbron

79 trapped in one of those centipede bodies, Alloran made into the
first-ever Andalite-Controller. Almost lost the Time Matrix. Gonna be
tough explaining all this to the folks back home, eh?"

I ignored him. Back home. What was home anymore? Was I supposed to
return home? Home to my parents? Run free on my old, familiar grass?
Spend my days with my old childhood friends?

I wasn't a child anymore. My home was still there, but I would never
belong there again.

Loren came over to me. "Elfangor. Snap out of it. We're going in circles
in Zero-space."

<Yes. I know.>

"You did the best you could. You're just a kid, like me."

<l am an aristh in the Andalite military. I disobeyed my prince and
caused him to be enslaved by the Yeerks. The Yeerks will now learn
everything Alloran knows about our defenses. Everything he knows about
the capabilities of our weapons. Everything he knows about the locations
of our ships. At least he wasn't a scientist, so he can't give them
morphing technology or computer software. But he will still be the
greatest intelligence victory in Yeerk history>

Chapman shook his head. "Guess I was right to throw in with the Yeerks,
eh? You Andalites are going down. Unless ..."

80 Loren glared at him. "Why don't you shut up?"

Chapman just grinned. "Unless you Andalites use the Time Matrix thing.
Go back in time, find that first little tribe of Yeerk slugs. Kill 'em
and the entire Yeerk species is gone. Gone and never even existed. What
do they call that? Oh yeah, genocide. You up for a little genocide,
Elfangor?"

I just shook my head wearily. <Don't waste your time taunting me,
Chapman. It won't work.>

Loren looked puzzled. "What do you mean?"

<He's trying to goad me into using the Time Matrix. Remember, he's been
a Controller, however briefly. Sub-Visser Seven left him instructions,
just in case something went wrong. Chapman knows that to use the Time
Matrix I'd have to return to real space. My guess is that the Yeerks
placed a homing beacon on the Jahar. If we return to normal space, we'll
light up every Yeerk sensor within a million light years.>

I could see from the dark rage on Chapman's face that I had guessed
correctly.

At least I'd gotten one thing right. I wasn't fool enough to fall for -

Suddenly, it was as if a light had gone on in my head. Wherever the
Jahar emerged into real space, the Yeerks would go tearing after it.

No matter where.

A trap! I could spring a trap!

81 But where? Where should I draw the Yeerk fleet?

To the StarSwordl My old ship. She was off pursuing a Yeerk task force
near the Graysha Nebula. She'd been hoping to meet a second Dome ship there.

Two Dome ships. Plus the Jahar. Enough fire-power to handle just about
anything the Yeerks could muster.

I went to the control panel and entered the coordinates.

"You have a plan?" Loren asked.

<More or less,> I muttered. I was already having doubts. <There's a
place called the Graysha Nebula. We don't know much about it. But there
are rumors of a sentient species living in that area. And there are
rumors that the Yeerks are exploring the nebula. My old ship, the
StarSword, went there to see if it could locate a Yeerk task force we
were pursuing.>

"So we're going there to meet up with your old ship. Is ... is this
nebula place closer to Earth?"

<No.>

"Elfangor. . . am I ever going to get back home?"

<Lorenr I will do my best>

Chapman snorted. "And you've seen how good Elfangor's best is. You might
as well kiss Earth goodbye."

82 <We will emerge into real space,> I explained.

<lf we're lucky, we won't be far from the StarSword. If we're even
luckier, there will be additional Andalite ships close by. From that
point it will only take the Yeerks an hour or so to start showing up.>

"And then?" Loren asked.

<Space battle, I suppose. Andalite fighters and Yeerk Bug fighters going
at it. Us, too, of course.>

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

<Yes. Show me the best way to tie up a human,> I said, looking at
Chapman. <l don't want any dis-tractions.>

We tied the human around his feet and hands using spare conduit hose.
Then we tied the hands to the feet behind his back.

"One last thing," Loren said. She took a short length of the hose and
wrapped it around Chapman's face, covering his mouth. "Now we won't have
to listen to him."

It took me a few seconds to understand. Many

83 species communicate by making sounds with their mouths. But it had
never occurred to me you could silence someone with a piece of hose.

<To silence an Andalite you'd have to knock him outt> I said. <This
won't hurt him?>

"No. Unfortunately." She smiled to show she had been joking.

After all she had been through, from being kidnapped by Skrit Na to
being made a Controller, she could still laugh. I wondered if I'd been
wrong to think humor was a weakness. I wondered if Arbron could still laugh.

"Elfangor... aren't you tempted by what Chapman said? I mean, if it were
me, I might want to use that Time machine thing to change things. You know?"

<Like maybe go back in time and avoid getting kidnapped by the Skrit Na
to begin with?>

She laughed. "No. Not that. Look, my life was pretty dull before all
this. I know when you take me back to Earth you'll have to erase all my
memories of this. But still, even though it was horrible sometimes, I
don't think I'd want to never have met you. If it wasn't for my mom
worrying and all..."

I was surprised. And pleased, too. <ln the Skrit Na ship, where I found
the Mustang, I also found pictures of Earth. It looked very beautiful.
Wonderful, delicious-looking grass and tall trees and

84 streams of water that bubbled across stones. Is your home like that?>

"We do have places like that," Loren said, smiling sadly. "There's a
place we went once, back when I was little and my dad was still with us.
Before he went to the war. It's a place called Yosemite. We camped out
in a tent. Yosemite is like that."

<And did you stick small white cylinders in your mouth and smile at the
beauty of it all?>

"Small white cylinders?" Loren looked puzzled. Then she laughed her
strange but delightful human laugh. "You were looking at cigarette ads!
Those white cylinders are called cigarettes. They're bad for you,
actually. Very bad for you. They make you sick."

<So ... so humans go to beautiful places and use sickening cylinders? Why?>

But Loren was laughing too hard to answer. And pretty soon, even though
I had no idea what was so funny, I was laughing, too. Although my laugh
could only be heard by Loren inside her own head.

"So," she said after a while. "Why don't you want to use this Time
Matrix thing?"

I waved my stalks forward and back in a gesture of uncertainty. <You
can't just go messing around with time. They say it's insanely
complicated. Sure, maybe I could go back, like Chapman said, and stomp
out the first Yeerks who evolved. But who

85 knows how many other things that might affect? Besides, to be honest,
I guess I'm scared of the Elli-mists.>

"The what?"

Supposedly they're the race that built the Time Matrix. Thousands and
thousands of years ago. They built it, and then, suddenly, as far as
anyone can tell, they vanished. The entire species of Ellimists just
vanished.>

"You think it was because they used the Time Matrix?"

<No one knows. Some people say the Ellimists still exist, but they've
moved beyond the normal space-time dimensions we know. There are some
who say the Ellimists are almost all-powerful.> I shrugged. <Of course,
there are others who say they're gone forever. Or even that they never
did exist. Now Andalite parents tell their children stories about the
Ellimists.>

"Fairytales."

<Are fairies magical beings in human mythol-ogy?>

"Not just fairies. We have elves and leprechauns and Santa Claus and
hobbits and werewolves and vampires. .. . We even have aliens from outer
space."

Despite myself, I laughed. <Yes, those outer space aliens are quite
troublesome.>

86 "Doesn't the Time Matrix prove that these Elli-mists are real?"

<Well... I don't know. But if Ellimists are real, if they really do live
in dimensions beyond our own, then they have powers we could not
imagine. Pretend . . . never mind.>

"No, tell me," Loren urged. "Unless you have something else to do."

<Okay, well, you know that space-time has ten dimensions. There are the
normal dimensions of up/down, left/right, and forward/back. Then there
is the fourth dimension, which is time. Then, there are six other
dimensions, but they are curled up into themselves, so we don't see or
feel them. All we feel are three space dimensions, plus time.>

Loren nodded her head. I wondered what this meant. But she didn't ask me
to stop, so I went on.

<lmagine if, instead of three normal space dimensions, we only had two.
Imagine we were flat, and we couldn't go up or down, just in the other
two directions. Call us the Flatties. See?>

"Like if we lived on a piece of paper," Loren said.

<Exactly. It would be like we were drawings on a piece of paper. And if
someone came along and drew a box around us, we could never get out.
Because the lines of the box would be walls. But what if a
three-dimensional person came along? A three-dimensional person could
lift that Flattie right up

87 out of that box. The Flattie wouldn't even know what was happening,
because he's never gone up or down before. He doesn't even know up and
down exist>

"You're saying we're like the Flatties. Except we're in three
dimensions, not just two. So we're like Cubies or something."

<Yes. So if some creature came along who existed in more dimensions than
us, he'd be able to do things that would be impossible for us.>

"Ellimists. That's what they are?"

<Maybe. Like I say, no one knows. But someone built the Time Matrix.
Someone real. Someone who isn't around anymore.>

"Whew."

<So maybe we could use the Time Matrix and pop in and out of time. Or
maybe we'd disappear, like the Ellimists may have.>

"Or maybe we'd just make these Ellimists mad," Loren said.

<Exactly.>

"But if you give the Time Matrix to your people, won't they use it,
anyway? Even with all the risks?"

<A week ago I'd have said absolutely not. I'd have said we Andalites
don't do things like that. Not even in war.>

"But now... whatever Alloran did on that Hork-Bajir planet, it was
wrong, wasn't it?"

88 I stared at her with my main eyes. <Loren, I don't know what's right
or wrong anymore. I just don't>

The computer signaled that we were nearing the translation point.

<We're going back to normal space,> I said. <And by the way ... if we do
survive all this, and get you back to Earth, could you show me this
place with the grass and trees and tall waterfalls?>

"It's a date," Loren said.

<Could we have a Mustang there, too?>

She put her arm around my waist and looked deep into my eyes with her
two tiny blue human eyes. "Anything you want, Elfangor. Just no white
cylinders."

89 <Coming out of Zero-space ... now!>

Zero-space is dead white. Normal space is usually deep black, dotted
with stars that burn in bright white and pale red and cold blue.

But this space was not like that.

"Jeez! Amazing!"

<You've never been close to a nebula,> I observed. But the truth was,
even I was awed.

The nebula was a dust cloud so large that a dozen solar systems the size
of Earth's could have been lost in it with room to spare. It was like a
weird, twisted cloud. A cloud of purple and orange that seemed to
envelop brilliant stars.

"It's so beautiful!"

<Yes. And if the StarSword is out there somewhere, it'll really be
beautiful.>

I glanced over at Chapman. He lay trussed up and gagged. He glared back
at me.

<Right now Yeerk ships are hearing the transponder they attached to us.
They'll be on us in a very short time. I'm conducting a sensor sweep,

90 looking for any Andalite vessels. But it's hard with the nebula
around us. The dust confuses the sensors.>

"Are we a long way from Earth?"

<Yes. Even by the standards of space. We are hundreds of light-years away.>

Loren stared out at the nebula. She bit her lip a little with her teeth
and took her arm away from my waist.

Humans like to use touch. It seems odd at first. But I had gotten used
to it.

<l'm going to try calling the StarSword,> I said.

I made the thought-speak link with the communications system. <Any
Andalite ship this sector, any Andalite ship this sector. This is Jahar.>

I expected to have to wait. I was shocked when I heard the voice of
Captain Feyorn. <Jahar! Jahar! Alloran, is that you? We are under
attack. Say again, under attack. Can you ->

<StarSword, I lost you! StarSword!> I checked the display. Yes, we had a
location fix! I punched in the new heading.

<Loren, get down on the ground. Back against the bulkhead. I'm going to
Maximum Burn!>

She ran and threw herself down on the ground, just as I punched in the
burn. But the acceleration was barely noticeable. The Jahar had amazingly

91 good compensators. But even though there was no feeling of
acceleration, the ship blew through space.

"Elfangor, what's going on?"

<l don't know. But I'm powering up all weapons.>

At Maximum Burn it took less than ten minutes for us to be able to spot
the great Dome ship. She came up on my view screen at high
magnification. She looked like a glowing steel stick with a bright
half-ball on one end. Her engines were off. In the space around her were
a dozen or more of our fighters.

But what caught my attention were the asteroids - rough, dark tumbling
rocks. The StarSword seemed to be in the middle of an asteroid field.
Only that was unlikely. Asteroids orbited stars. There was no star close
enough to hold an asteroid field in its gravity.

"Hey! It moved!" Loren said.

<What are you talking about?> I demanded. I sounded rude because I was
busy trying to figure out what was going on. And I didn't think a human
was going to be very helpful, really.

"Those rocks. Those asteroids. Look! Look at them!"

I turned one stalk eye to watch the asteroids. Then, in a flash, I
focused all four eyes.

92 <They're moving! They are under power!>

As we stared, transfixed, one of the asteroids seemed to sprout a tail.
It was a plume of hot plasma! The asteroid turned! It changed course,
and shot toward one of the StarSword's fighters.

The fighter fired a full-power shredder blast at the asteroid. The green
beam zapped through the vacuum. The asteroid glowed where the shredder
blast hit, and then it increased speed.

The fighter turned to run. But to my amazement, the asteroid
accelerated. It stayed on the fighter's tail, twisting, turning,
accelerating and then . . .

"Oh! Elfangor, look!"

<No! It's impossible!>

A pillar of living rock extended from the asteroid like some primitive
arm. It struck the fighter. I saw a tiny puff as the air was squeezed
from the ship.

And then the rock simply grew over the doomed ship. It grew swift,
unstoppable, until, within seconds, the entire fighter was covered by
living rock.

The asteroid had eaten a fighter.

93 "What are those things?" Loren asked in horror.

<l don't know. I've never seen or heard of anything like them. I mean,
they are impossible!>

"They're like living asteroids or something."

<l think that's exactly what they are. But that's impossible.>

As I watched in horror, a second fighter was caught and swallowed up by
a living rock.

<The StarSword will start shooting now,> I said confidently. <A Dome
ship's shredders can blow chunks off a planet. They'll wipe these things
out!>

TSEEEEWWWWW! TSEEEEWWWWW!

I had never seen the StarSword's main shredders fire before. It was
awesome. The beams of green light looked as thick as tree trunks as they
blasted through space and hit one of the asteroids with enough power to
punch a hole through a moon.

The asteroid glowed brightly. But it did not explode. It did not
disintegrate. It did not melt.

It turned}

94 <lt's going after the StarSword\>

Dozens of the asteroids seemed to be swarming the space around the
StarSword. Close by, not three hundred miles away, I saw another
fighter, twisting and turning, trying to lose one of the rocks.

<Go to Zero-space!> I yelled. <Whatever these things are, they can't
have Zero-space flight!>

I guess the fighter pilot thought the same thing. I saw his engines glow
bright as he powered up for a Zero-space jump. Suddenly, three more
asteroids closed in on the fighter. They blocked its path. A massive arm
of rock shot out and punched right into the fighter.

The pilot was blown clear. Out into empty space. He kicked his hooves
for a few seconds. Then he stopped moving.

"Oh, God!"

<No! No! Noooo!>

The StarSword fired all shredders, lighting up black space with
brilliant beams of light. But it didn't work. In fact, it seemed to draw
more asteroids.

"Hey! That's just attracting them," Loren cried. "The engines and the
weapons - they attract them!"

<You're right!> I don't know which shocked me more. That these asteroids
were drawn to energy discharges. Or that it was the human girl who had
figured it out.

95 I punched up communications. <StarSword, StarSword, this is Jahar.
The asteroids are attracted by energy discharge! You're drawing them to
you!>

I don't know if my message got through or not. But just then, I realized
we had a whole new set of problems. Behind us, two Yeerk ships
materialized, entering real space! They were no more than five thousand
miles away.

A Pool ship, like a fat, awkward, three-legged spider. As soon as it
appeared in real space, it began launching Bug fighters.

And beside the Pool ship, something I had never seen before. It was jet
black so that it was barely visible. It was smaller than the Pool ship,
but bigger than a Bug fighter. What seemed to be the bridge was a
hard-edged diamond attached by a long triangular shaft to twin engines.
The engines were a strange shape, like the blades of a two-headed ax.

The entire thing looked like some ancient weapon - a battle ax. It was
like some flying Hork-Bajir. A Blade ship.

Don't ask me how I knew. I don't believe in psychic things, although
some Andalites do. But still, I knew who was in that Blade ship.

I felt cold hatred. Hatred of that black ship. Hatred of the abomination
I had helped to create.

96 <So. He's still alive,> I whispered. <This time, no mercy.>

Space was filling up quickly. Yeerk ships, An-dalite ships, and the
deadly, impossible asteroids. But the Yeerks were thousands of miles
behind me, and I was thousands of miles from the Andalite fleet. If I
was lucky, the Yeerks would not be able to see the Dome ship on their
sensors yet.

And they would not even be looking for murderous asteroids.

The computer blinked to show an incoming communication. It was visual as
well as thought-speak. The image that appeared on the screen was Andalite.

The familiar face of Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. But from that familiar
face shone an evil that I cannot describe.

<Ah, Elfangor, I believe,> Sub-Visser Seven said. <Still have the Time
Matrix, I hope? I'm here to take it from you.>

I had not yet switched on my own image for him to see. I had to think
fast. I grabbed a handheld shredder and carefully set it for lowest power.

<Loren? Listen! The sub-visser doesn't know you aren't still a
Controller. Take this. Stand behind me, where he can see you when I
switch on my screen. Give me a few seconds to talk, then fire this. But
miss me, okay?>

97 "Got it, "she said.

I switched on my screen. <So, Sub-Visser Seven. You survived. Too bad.>

<l did survive. But you almost got me there, you really did. And by the
way, it's no longer Sub-Visser Seven. I'm the first Yeerk to capture an
Andalite body. I have already delivered more intelligence on Andalite
fleet deployments than a century of spying could have yielded. So it's
not Sub-Visser anything anymore. You are addressing Visser Thirty-Two

<You're still just a slug as far as I'm concerned. You want the Time
Matrix?> I asked. <Come and take it from me. I promise you ->

TSSSSEEEEWWWW!

Loren fired the shredder on low power. I jerked suddenly, and slumped
forward, turning off the screen as I fell.

I jumped back up.

"You want this back?" Loren asked, holding the shredder toward me.

<No. Keep it. You did well. Perfect timing. The visser will think you're
still a Controller. He'll think you stunned me. I'm killing all power.
We'll just wait for the sub-visser to come to us.>

"Is this going to work?" Loren asked anxiously.

<lf it doesn't, neither of us is going to the Yosemite,> I said.

98 "You picked a great time to learn how to joke, Elfangor."

We didn't have to wait long. The Blade ship fired up its engines and
leaped forward. It ate up the few thousand miles in seconds.

<Come to me, Visser whatever-your-number-is-now. Come to me,> I muttered
to myself.

I targeted the shredders on the belly of the Blade ship. I was perfectly
calm. Despite the battle I knew was raging around the StarSword. Despite
the approach of the visser's ship. One shot was all I needed. I would
wait till he was practically on me. And then -

WHAPPP!

"Ahhhh!"

Chapman! He had freed his legs and kicked Loren's feet. She went down
hard. The shredder skittered across the floor.

The human was slower than me. But he was closer. His bound hands closed
around the shredder seconds before I reached him.

TSSEEEEEWW!

He fired!

I dodged.

The Blade ship closed in.

TSSEEEEWWW!

<Arrrrggghhh!> A glancing hit. The beam struck my left arm and left
foreleg. Pain shot through me

99 like shards of glass. My left arm was as numb as stone. My left front
leg was useless. I could stand, but I could barely move.

"How do you like it, Andalite?" Chapman crowed as he rose to a standing
position. He leveled the shredder at me.

"Oh, I have so had it with you!" Loren yelled. Still lying on the deck,
she drew her legs up and kicked upward. Both her artificial hooves hit
Chapman right where his legs joined his body.

"Ooooofff!" Chapman gasped. He grabbed himself with both hands, still
clutching the shredder.

I believe the kick was painful to him.

"Oof this!" Loren said. She jumped up off the deck and delivered an
impossibly high kick that caught Chapman under the chin. His head
snapped back. Loren snatched the shredder from him.

"You know, Chapman, you are really making the human race look bad," she
said. "You are seriously embarrassing me."

"Who's side are you on?" Chapman grated.

"Not yours," Loren said. She fired the shredder and Chapman jerked and
went limp.

BUMP! BUMP!

The Jahar shook from a slow impact. The Blade ship had latched on! They
were boarding us!

As I watched, half-paralyzed, the hatch began to open.

100 The hatch opened.

<Loren! The shredder.. . . Shoot!>

The hatch door flew open with a boom. Loren fired!

TSSSEEEEWWW!

A Hork-Bajir warrior fell back. An arm appeared, reaching past the
collapsed Controller and aiming a Dracon beam.

An Andalite arm!

TSSSSEEEEWWWW!

The Dracon beam fired. The shot missed me but hit Loren and knocked her,
already unconscious, into me. With only three good legs, I fell hard to
the deck on my numb arm. Loren landed on top of me.

The evil Yeerk creature who had stolen Alloran's body pushed past the
Hork-Bajir as I struggled desperately to get out from under Loren.

The visser was in! He was aboard the Jahar\

I had one chance. One. And then let the Yeerk kill me! I swung my tail,
aiming blind. The visser jerked back reflexively. But I wasn't aiming
for him.

101 The tip of my blade hit the console. And to my great pleasure I heard -

TSSSSWWWWEEEWW!

The Jahar fired her shredders. Point-blank range. Point-blank range into
the belly of the Blade ship.

<Noooooo!> the visser screamed.

Kuh-BOOOOOOOM! The Blade ship tore loose of the Jahar.

FWWOOOOOSSSH! The hatch was open to space. Air blew from the ship,
sending it into a spin. Everything that wasn't bolted down flew toward
the open hatch.

The unconscious Hork-Bajir was thrown into space. Chapman's unconscious
body slid toward the opening. The visser was knocked down.

But even as he lay there, the Yeerk visser aimed his Dracon beam at me.
<You're a real source of agitation, Elfangor. Now, die!>

In despair I whipped my tail.

WHUMPF! Something hit us hard, just as the Yeerk squeezed the trigger.

TSSEEEEWWW! The Dracon blast missed me!

I was gasping for air. The oxygen was gone. The Jahar was spinning out
of control through space.

The visser slammed against the walls as we spun wildly. Loren's body
rolled away toward the hatch, but now the automatic safety devices of
the ship were slowly closing the door.

102 We spun, and through the window I saw flashes of Andalite fighters
half-covered with living rock. And Yeerk Bug fighters now suffering the
same fate.

I saw, in a wild, spinning flash, the Blade ship, one blade shot away.

And then . . . coming at us ... rushing toward us ... an asteroid!

FFWWWUUUMMMPPP!

The asteroid latched onto the poor, dying Jahar. And in wild, crazily
pitching flashes as I was tossed helplessly, I saw the window going
dark. Half-covered now. Half-covered by living rock!

The asteroid had us!

I was slammed violently by acceleration as the asteroid moved away from
the battlefield, holding the Jahar in its death grip.

The Jahar's compensators were off now. The ship was dead. Half-swooning
from lack of air, I staggered up, fighting the insane force of acceleration.

Air! We needed air!

The emergency environmental power unit should have come on. But the
ship's power was dead, drained away by the energy-eating asteroid.

Air!

My lungs screamed. My hearts hammered madly, circulating useless blood.
The manual emergency tanks, I had to ... to ...

103 But maybe it didn't matter. . . . Maybe it was pointless to fight.
Arbron . . . gone. Alloran .. . worse than gone. Terrible things. . .
terrible sights . . .

Let it all end. It was fine without air. Fine to suck with your lungs
and feel nothing. I was sinking, down, down, down.

No need to worry. Nothing to be afraid of.

Let it end, Elfangor.

Just let it end. .. .

Tell all your friends the collector's edition of The Andalite Chronicles
(Parts I, II, and III together in one book) will be available in
November 1997 at a bookstore near you!!

104 Don't; miss

the

andalite

chronicles

Visser Thirty-two stood on the bank of the pool

in the Yeerk zone, under his own green sky.

And on either side of him stood a creature like nothing I had ever seen
or imagined. They were each about three feet tall and four and a half
feet long. They were mostly a dark, dirty yellow with irregular black
spots. But the head and shoulders were the deep red of the Yeerk plants.

The heads were tiny for the bodies, elongated, almost needle-sharp. The
mouths were long and narrow. Hundreds of tiny, bright red teeth stuck
out, jagged and wildly different in length and shape.

But what struck me as strangest was that the creatures did not have legs
in the usual sense. They had wheels.

105 Yes, wheels. Four of them, to be exact.

The wheels were located where legs should be. Each was sloppy and
irregular in shape, not perfectly round. But it was easy to see that the
wheels were for real. There was mud and dirt all around them, and when I
strained my stalk eyes I could even see where the creatures had left
tracks in the dirt. Wheel tracks.

"Elfangor, what are those things?"

<l have no idea. I can't imagine what evolutionary path would
conceivably have created a creature with wheels.>

Visser Thirty-two actually gave a jaunty wave of his hand. <So, young
Elfangor, we meet again. As you see, I brought my pets: Jarex and Larex.
And you brought your pet, too. Your pet human.>

Loren looked at me. In a voice Visser Thirty-two was sure to hear, she
muttered, "You know, Elfangor, I'm beginning to see why you Andalites
really dislike Yeerks. Whatever body they may be in, they still have the
manner of slugs."

<Brave little human girl,> the Yeerk visser mocked. <Do you understand
that even now my people are on their way to evaluate your primitive
world? Do you understand that within a few years your people, you
humans, will be slaves of the Yeerk Empire?>

"Blah, blah, blah," Loren said.

106 I had no idea what that meant. Neither did the visser.

"You do a lot of talking for a slug," Loren clarified. "You think I'm
scared of you?"

<Yes. I know you're scared of me.>

For a moment Loren said nothing, but her lower lip was trembling
slightly. Then, she knelt quickly, plunged her hand into the water and
withdrew it. She was holding a rock. She drew her arm back, swept her
arm in a big loop and released the rock with precise timing. The rock
flew through the air at an impressive speed.

And the aim wasn't bad, either.

BONK!

<Ahhh!> the visser cried. The rock had struck him right in the face,
just below his left main eye.

I don't know who was more amazed, me or the visser.

<What. . . what do you call that?> I asked her.

"That? We call that softball. I pitch for Frank's Pro Shop Twins back
home. All-city two years in a row."

<What is softball?>

" It's a game we play."

<And you hit people in the face with rocks?>

"Not usually."

I was impressed by the human ability to throw things with such force. I
was sure that Andalite sci-

107 entists would enjoy studying humans some day. They appeared more
frail and ridiculous than they were.

The visser was not impressed. He was just angry.

<So. You propel rocks at me! You'll be very sorry you ever propelled a
rock at me, human. Jarex! Larex! Attack !>

The situation stopped being amusing very quickly. The twin beasts turned
their wheels, sluggishly at first. But then picked up speed.

I almost didn't move, I was so fascinated seeing the biological wheels
turn. It was truly incredible.

<You admire my pets, Andalite? They are a species called Mortrons. As a
young lieutenant I went on a survey party to a world that was later
destroyed when its sun went nova. We thought we might be able to make
Controllers of these Mortrons, but that didn't work out. Their brains
are simply too tiny to accommodate us. Instead, I brought two of them
home as pets.>

All the while the visser talked - or "blah, blah, blahed," as Loren had
said - the Mortrons gathered speed and raced around the circumference of
the pool.

They made a strange sound. A HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF. Faster and faster.

<They have amazing capacities, my young friend Elfangor. As you will
soon see.>

108 <What's the matter, Yeerk? Afraid to fight me tail-to-tail?> I
taunted. I hoped the answer was yes, because I was not at all sure which
of us would win a tail fight. While I was totally confident I could deal
with these Mortrons.

HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF!

The wheels spun faster, and the ungainly yellow and black monstrosities
were nearly to the edge of the Yeerk portion of the pool. I watched
carefully to see whether they could move from the Yeerk area into the
human area.

Unfortunately, the answer was yes.

<Don't worry,> I told Loren. <l can handle these two creatures.>

HUF-HUF-HUF-HUF-SCRINK-SHWOOOP!

Suddenly the creatures each split into two parts! The bottom portion,
the yellow part with the wheels, swerved away. The dark red upper
portion simply rose from the body, unfolded leathery wings I'd never
even suspected, and flew straight at me!

"Elfangor!" Loren cried.

<Hah-hah! Kill, Jarex! Kill, Larex! Kill the An-dalite!> Visser
Thirty-two cackled gleefully.

The first Mortron - I don't know if it was Jarex or Larex - opened its
mouth and showed its rows of uneven but brutally unpleasant teeth. It
powered through the air like a rocket.

I dodged left and struck with my tail blade!

109 FWAPP!

SPLEET! FLUMP. FLUMP.

My tail blade sliced the Mortron into two chunks. The two separate
pieces fell to the ground with a wet splat.

"Elfangor, the other one!"

The second Mortron used the distraction provided by his brother to swoop
wide, then arch in behind me. A tactic that would have worked on most
opponents. But not on an Andalite who can see in all directions at once.

His toothy mouth was inches from my neck when I struck.

FWAPP!

SPLEET! FLUMP. FLUMP.

And the second Mortron bird-portion fell in pieces to the ground.

I was feeling pretty good, until I looked at the visser and saw the
amusement in his eyes.

"Elfangor, look. Look!" Loren cried.

I turned my stalk eyes toward the ground. With amazing speed, the two
bloody halves of each Mortron were growing. One piece of each was
growing to become a complete bird-portion again. And the other piece was
going even further - growing into a complete, two-piece, yellow and
black, four-wheeled Mortron.

110 I had sliced both Mortrons in half. And now they were becoming four
Mortrons.

<Are you doing the math in your head, Elfan-gor?> the visser jeered.
<They regenerate! Cut an attacking Mortron in pieces and each piece
grows again to become a complete Mortron. It's the killing frenzy. It
gives them an enzyme boost that makes them regenerate! Try to kill these
four and you'll have eight. Kill those eight and you'll have sixteen!
Thirty-two! Sixty-four!>

I stared in horror as the Mortron pieces grew and grew. In seconds they
would be ready to attack again. And anything I did to destroy them would
merely make more of them!

<Loren, I don't know what to do. If only I had a shredder!>

"Can you outrun them?"

<Yes, I can. But you can't! They are faster than you are. And I won't
leave you.>

"You won't have to. Maybe. How strong is your back? Never mind, it must
be strong enough. Elfan-gor, don't be offended, okay?"

<Offended by what?>

"Hold still. I'm gonna try something."

She came to me and placed one hand on the back of my neck. She placed
another hand on my rump, right at the base of my tail. And suddenly, she

111 leaned her weight on me, swung one leg up and over, and came to rest
straddling my back. She sat there with one human leg hanging off either
side of my back and held her hands clasped around my neck.

I turned my stalk eyes around and found myself staring directly into her
small blue human eyes.

"Now let's run," she said.

<With you on my back?>

But even while I was standing there in blank astonishment, I saw a
fully-formed Mortron rise from the dirt. It was just a few feet away and
it launched its bird-part. Leather wings propelled jagged razor-sharp
teeth straight for my throat.

"Elfangor, this is not the time to think," Loren yelled. "Run! Ruuuuun!"

So I did. With the human girl actually on my back, I ran.