PART ONE

1. MUDDYING THE WATER

I was vacuuming the living room to get rid of the crumbs Ax had left on the floor when he visited last night, when suddenly the diluted sunlight through the blinds was replaced with the dazzle of red and yellow lights directly in my face.

"God fucking damnit," Jax swore, the pass-phrase to the hologram emitter in my leotard shielding my eyes with darkness. "Aaargh," he said. I focused and went into four-eye, sharing his vision, which danced with white spots.

«Take a few steps forward,» came Ax's familiar thought-speech. «Then the lights will not shine in your face.»

Jax and I stepped forward. His vision cleared, and we got the vague impression of being in a very large room. One thing was for sure: we weren't at home anymore. I wanted to ask what was going on, but I wasn't sure if I was in danger, so I kept quiet and tried to observe. Jax and I were at the front edge of a raised platform. There was light behind us, darkness before us. It was like… being on a stage.

Jax turned around. We were on a stage. There were colorfully dressed performers with zebra and ostrich and hyena dæmons. It was like one of those nightmares where you're in a play that you haven't rehearsed for. Except not even in my weirdest nightmare was everyone else on stage completely frozen.

Some of them are in midair, Jax marveled. It's like time's just… stopped. What could have done this?

«It's OK, Loren,» said Tobias. «You can drop the hologram.» I heard a rush of wings, and felt him land on my shoulder a moment later. I staggered a little with the weight.

If he was perching on my shoulder, openly, then this was a safe place. "End farce," I said.

I was on the stage of what I guessed was a high school auditorium. Ax was with me, stage left. Toby the Hork-Bajir stood like an escapee from a very different sort of musical in the aisle, just clear of all the dæmons seated neatly along the edges. But no one was pointing or screaming, because all the kids in the audience were frozen. Everyone except for Jake, Cassie, Marco, and Rachel. The human Animorphs.

Thump. Another figure appeared in front of the stage. A young woman with a Shar Pei dæmon. I recognized her even before Cassie said, "Delia! Aftran!"

"Cassie?" She turned around and looked up at the stage. The hologram of her dæmon sat down, hard. She let her disguise flicker away, until stage light shone on ivory and chrome. "Oh."

«Is he here yet?» Tobias said.

"Who?" I said. I felt shivers rush up and down my arms like lightning.

Ax trained a stalk eye on me. «The Ellimist.»

The shivers turned to heat. "The Ellimist did this?" I hissed.

Marco nodded. "I don't know anyone else who can just stop time whenever he wants. Unless it's that new math teacher."

Toby craned her neck in all directions, casting sharp-edged shadows on the ground with her blades. "Where is it? This Ellimist?" I felt a kinship with Toby, in that moment. Both of our lives had been profoundly affected by the Ellimist, this vast imposing presence we had never met.

"Wherever he wants to be," Marco muttered, and folded his arms as if he could just stand there and wait as long as he liked, though Diamanta's screech owl head swiveled this way and that. I wanted to run screaming from the room, but where would I go? Would the whole world be frozen too?

I saw movement, striking amidst all the stillness. A specter peeled away from the body of a girl, her double in every detail down to the wing patterns of the moth dæmon on her shoulder. She stood in the aisle, further down from the stage than Toby and the others, and said, "Yes, it is I."

I gritted my teeth. I wanted to hate her, but she looked just like a girl with a moth dæmon. Anyway, I was too scared. If I spoke against her, what would she do? Blind me again? Strike me down? Erase my memory?

"Where's the big voice and quick-change bodies and all?" Rachel said. She and Abineng were standing at the back of the auditorium with all the other big dæmons and their children, but she took a step forward as she spoke.

"I have chosen this form for a reason," the Ellimist said in the girl's voice. "I come today on a humble mission. I wanted a humble form. One that would not evoke feelings of dread or awe or reverence from you."

"Bullshit," I snarled. The human Animorphs all turned to stare at me. Even Jax was surprised I'd spoken, much less swore, but the rage boiling through my body couldn't be contained. "You freeze time like this in the middle of, of The Lion King," I said, gesturing at the dancers behind me, "and you expect us to believe you're being humble? Even if you had to freeze time you could have done it in the woods and teleported us all there. But that wouldn't show off your power quite as well, would it?"

The Ellimist spread her hands out, palms up, and slowly beat the moth dæmon's wings. Her mouth held an infuriatingly calm smile. "Not showing off. Simply helping those of you unacquainted with me to understand what I am. I have come to tell you a story, and to see how you will choose to react."

"Oh, good, a story," Marco said. "Is it a musical, too? Will there be any hakuna matata involved?"

I glared at Marco. Didn't he realize we were in terrible danger? Was joking going to make this any better?

You just said "bullshit" to the Ellimist's face. I don't think you can criticize, Jax pointed out. Anyway, look at them. The Animorphs. They all have their faces on, like they're ready for anything. They don't want the Ellimist to see they're creeped out.

That was true enough. Dia's big yellow eyes were defiantly fixed on the Ellimist's copied face. Abi just stared into space like he was bored and waiting for the show to start again. Delia had her holographic poker face, of course. The only ones who looked perturbed were Toby, Ax – and me.

"I will tell you a story. You will tell me the ending." The Ellimist looked down at the girl's hands. "Once we had hands. Not much different from these. But that was a long time ago. Almost a billion of your years. We were one of the first species in the galaxy to generate spirit-motes, what humans call Rusakov particles, Hork-Bajir call hrala, and the Andalites have no name for, because they scorn the only scientist of their kind to have known it."

«If you were one of the first species to create hrala,» said Tobias, «then you were one of the first sentient species. The first storytellers.»

"Yes. Back when all Earth could boast were a few simple single-celled animals, we were beginning to watch the night sky and understand the movements of our own planet. We learned and we grew powerful. By the time worms first crawled in the mud of Earth, we were traveling in faster-than-light ships. And when the first dinosaurs walked we ... we had become much as I am today."

Marco said, "You'd become a girl with braces?"

"The Andalites could do with some of the human sense of humor," the Ellimist said. "And if the Yeerks took some time to appreciate the human sense of humor, perhaps they would view them as something more than meat."

Delia's – no, surely Aftran's – control slipped, and a flush rose to her broad cheekbones.

"We watched other species throughout the galaxy as they began creating spirit-motes, each through their own methods and patterns. We imagined a galaxy filled with spirit-motes, created from a million sentient species, each with its own science, art, and beauty. We imagined these species meeting in harmony, their contact creating blazing new constellations of spirit-motes never before seen."

Toby muttered something in amazement, presumably in her own language, since I couldn't understand. I didn't really understand what the Ellimist was talking about, and resolved to ask Toby later.

"But it wasn't to be that simple. Approximately a hundred million Earth years ago, we became aware of a new force in the galaxy. Not a species, an individual. He was a fugitive from another galaxy, chased out of that galaxy by a power even greater than he. Greater than me."

That chilled me. The Ellimist was already frightening enough. "I thought you were all-powerful," Rachel said.

"No. I seem so only from your limited perspective."

That tracked. The Ellimist was powerful, but if she were all-powerful, she wouldn't have needed to take Elfangor from me to fight the Yeerks. She could have simply defeated the Yeerks with a wave of her hand. Or whatever she had when she wasn't masquerading as a human girl.

"This new force, this individual, began to make his presence known in our galaxy. And he had different ideas from ours. He sees a universe of conflict, pain, and terror. He craves fear. Not his own, of course, but the fear of others. He is a strange perfectionist, in a way."

A kind of Satan to match the Ellimist's pretense of God, Jax noted.

"His goal is to control the fabric of space-time itself," the Ellimist said. "He wishes to recreate the galaxy in his own image, spread his power throughout the galaxies, and someday destroy the one being greater than himself. As such, he is driven to cleanse the galaxy of all spirit-motes, for spirit-motes are themselves conscious, the one fundamental particle of the universe that he cannot directly control."

Again, Toby muttered to herself in her own language. The Ellimist looked at her with raised eyebrows. "You've noticed."

Toby replied in English, surely for our benefit, not the Ellimist's. "The legends of my people say that hrala is the breath of our gods, imbued with their thoughts and their life-force. I always thought it was just superstition, but sometimes hrala does seem to follow where we guide it, not simply flow like water." Suddenly, Toby positioned her neck and arms so that her blades pointed out all around her. "But if this – this entity wishes to destroy hrala, that means he must eliminate all storytellers. All sentient life."

"Yes. Though he can't do it entirely, of course, because he is a consciousness himself, and generates his own spirit-motes. But he would eliminate all other consciousness."

I felt very cold, then, though the auditorium was a little warm with so many bodies packed together, unmoving, helpless.

Diamanta became a pencil-thin snake and wrapped herself around Marco's neck like a choker. "Great," he said. "Can we go back to the Lion King now?"

"He is called Crayak," the Ellimist said. Then she looked right at Jake. "You have seen him. And he has seen you."

Merlyse, a wren on his shoulder, fluffed up her feathers as if she were cold. I bit my lip and watched her. What did the Ellimist mean?

"When the Yeerk died in your brain, you peered across the line between life and death; you broke the dimensional hold that blinds humans to things beyond themselves. And in that moment, Crayak saw you. He saw that I had made myself known to you. That I had touched you. And he knew that you must, therefore, play some part in my plans."

Jake went very pale. Merlyse became a ferret and went inside his shirt, only her head showing above the collar. I remembered, distantly, that Tobias had told me Jake had been infested, that they'd had to starve it out. By the looks on the others' faces, none of them had known of what happened in that moment. I feared for Jake terribly. He already was under so much pressure, and now he had this demonic presence, as powerful as the Ellimist – spying on him? Who knew?

"A hundred million years ago, we fought, Crayak and I," the Ellimist said. And suddenly, the auditorium disappeared, and we floated in the vastness of space.

For a wild moment, I imagined this must be what God saw when he looked out on his creation. I could see everything from here, even a brilliant light greater than any star – but it wasn't God. Just the Ellimist. And as powerful as she was, God was even greater. Floating with this impossible view around me, I had a greater appreciation for the scope of his power than ever before.

«I wanted to stop him, to stop his destruction. He wanted to eliminate me. The result was something neither of us could tolerate. The battle we fought destroyed a tenth of the galaxy, millions of suns, millions of planets, a draiem of spirit-motes, a dozen sentient races.»

The human mind can't comprehend the loss of a million suns, but the Ellimist tried to show us. Stars exploded in cataclysms of fire, destroying all their neighbors with them. I didn't know what a draiem was, but I saw an ocean of luminous golden dust among the stars, laced with an unthinkably complex pattern of currents, slowly leak away through tears in the fabric of the universe itself, rips of horrible blank grayness in the black. I heard monstrous beings sing songs I had never before imagined could be music, and smelled poems in a scent-language spoken by flowers with minds, then an emptiness as their dying stars consumed them. I swear I heard that luminous dust scream in agony as it went dark around the worlds once vibrant with stories.

«A dozen sentient species, and more who would have achieved sentience, all destroyed, destroyed for nothing! But Crayak was damaged as well. Destroying so many spirit-motes at once disrupted the very fabric of space-time, twisted by the sudden explosion of our power.»

Then the world shifted and opened to my senses. I could hear the nuclear churning of the stars, all the way down to their hearts. I felt skeins of thread in my grasp and knew that they were timelines, tangled up in dimensions I had no names for. It was an utterly alien feeling, yet there was something strangely familiar about it, though try as I might I couldn't place why.

«All Crayak's knowledge of space-time was now shattered. The few threads he had gathered to him were yanked from his grasp. Millions of years of effort wasted. We fell back, back from our test of wills, our war.»

My senses closed again, and all I knew was the blackness and emptiness of space, sparked with the distant fires of stars.

«We knew then, Crayak and I, that we could never make war again. Not open war, at least. The conflict would have to be carried on by different means. No longer a savage battle. Now it must be a chess game. There would be rules. Limits.»

In an extreme fast-forward that I could somehow still follow, the Ellimist showed me the story of how she had used the false choice of a preserve for endangered humans as a scheme to show the Animorphs how to destroy the Yeerks' Kandrona. I saw, in more detail than Tobias had ever told me, how she manipulated him into leading the Hork-Bajir to the hidden valley in exchange for the ability to morph, but never truly be human, again.

And she showed me Elfangor. How she had taken him from me while I was with the doctor discussing my positive pregnancy test, how he had made his choice to leave me and suffered for it.

Something inside me tore. The Ellimist could have given Tobias his humanity back, but she didn't. The Ellimist could have made sure Tobias had loving foster parents, but she didn't. The Ellimist could have ended the Yeerk invasion with a twist of those threads I'd felt within the universe, but she didn't. There was so much she could have done, but didn't, for fear that her power would destroy the very stars. But in that moment, I would have snuffed out every star in the sky with my bare hands to do what the Ellimist would not. I cried, not caring if the others could see.

«Earth is part of our game, Crayak's and mine. He would have the Yeerks absorb humans and later be absorbed by some more vicious species. But Earth is not the reason I have come to you now.»

The high school auditorium coalesced around me as quickly as it had gone. I was still trembling, my face wet with tears. I gathered Jax in my arms and sat on the edge of the stage. The other Animorphs looked pretty freaked out. Delia/Aftran and Toby were impossible to read. And the Ellimist was once more a girl with braces, grave and serene.

"For millions of years we have played our game," the Ellimist said. "And we have lived within the rules, more or less. But now war threatens again. There is an impasse. A planet I will not let Crayak take. A planet he will not let me save. The people of this planet occupy a unique location in space-time. It is a turning point, and if Crayak can annihilate them, his power will grow, his goal become much closer, his forces become more deadly than ever."

"Including the Yeerks?" Jake said.

"Yes, including the Yeerk Empire," the Ellimist says with an emphasis on empire and a glance at Aftran, "who will benefit from changes I cannot explain."

«So what happens? Irresistible force and immovable object?» Tobias asked. «Who gives? You or him?»

The Ellimist said, "I will finish the story. And you will decide."

"Us?" said Cassie, eyes wide.

I pressed my lips together. I knew what the Ellimist was doing. She was manipulating the Animorphs into volunteering as pawns in her cosmic chess game with Crayak. Show them how important the fight was, then make it seem like the outcome was all in their hands.

"Crayak and I have reached an agreement on a way to decide the issue. To decide the fate of the Iskoort. If Crayak wins, they will be attacked, subjugated, and annihilated by another people."

«By who?» asked Ax.

"The Howlers," the Ellimist said, giving Delia a look that was almost sympathetic. She went unnaturally still. "You have heard of them before?"

"No," said Toby.

"Me neither," I said. But from the tense, coiled look of the human Animorphs' dæmons, they had.

"They destroyed my creators," Delia said quietly. "The Pemalites. It was genocide."

And left the Chee behind, Jax thought. Robots without purpose. That explains so much. He pressed his head against my chest with a shiver.

"The Howlers are tools of Crayak's, then? As well as the Yeerks?" said Toby.

The Ellimist nodded.

"Agents of genocide," Toby murmured. "Tell me, then. Are the Andalites his tools as well?"

Jax lifted his head over my shoulder to see Ax standing rigid, his tail poised above his head, main eyes on Toby, stalk eyes on the Ellimist. Jax's eyes widened, and I remembered a confession Elfangor made to me the first time we got drunk together. I hadn't spoken to him the next day, I'd been so disgusted. I was suddenly, forcefully amazed that Toby was so friendly with Ax. I doubt I could have done the same, in her position.

The Ellimist looked very grim, suddenly. "No, Toby. They made that choice on their own."

A taut silence stretched out. Then Jake said, "What does this have to do with us, then?"

"Crayak and I have agreed to decide the issue by a contest of champions. His against mine. He has named the Howlers themselves, a group of eight. I am to pit my eight champions against his."

Cassie crossed her arms. "What is this, a football game?"

"No, that would be eleven guys on the field, not eight," Marco said.

"Eight Howlers against my eight," the Ellimist said. "The winners - the survivors - will determine the outcome."

"I count nine of us," Marco said, eyebrows raised.

"Ten," said Delia/Aftran.

"Oh, fuck me," Cassie said, and all the other Animorphs blinked or leaned back. "You want us to pick eight of us? To save these Iskrats?"

"Iskoort," the Ellimist corrected.

"I'm either honored or ticked off, I don't know which," Marco said.

Dia muttered rebelliously from around his neck, "I know which."

"This must be your choice," the Ellimist said. "Yours alone."

The groan of the vacuum and its vibration in my hands made me leap back in surprise. I was back in my living room. By the angle of the sun through the blinds, no time had passed. I pressed my fingers to my Braille watch and confirmed it.

"Turn off the vacuum," Jax shouted over its wheeze. "We should go to Cassie's place." I turned it off, and he said, "God fucking damn it," this time with real feeling.

And just like that, we were back in statistics class at the community college.

The instructor continued right where she left off. "…Let's look at some of the alternative probability distributions we can fit to the data…"

I pulsed at the metallic "nerve" connected to Chee-bachu's neck, and she gave me permission to use it, as she usually does. I turned her head toward the clock. Twenty minutes left of class.

«Pay attention,» Bachu said. «Non-normal probability distributions are important.»

«What if the Animorphs start their meeting without us? They're bound to go directly to Cassie's barn after this.»

«Since when do you care about Animorphs meetings? Listen, she's talking about gamma distributions. I use those all the time to construct my holograms.»

«Stop trying to distract me. I know you're recording this lecture so I can watch it later. I care about Animorphs meetings when they're making a decision about the future of my people.»

«What do you think you're going to do? The Animorphs would be fools to take up this offer the Ellimist has made them.»

«Perhaps. But you don't know these children like I do. They are idealistic, and they will do anything that might secure the freedom of their people. I think they will say yes. And if they do, I must go with them.»

«No,» Bachu hissed. «Listen, you don't know the Howlers like I do. I'm a Chee. I never forget. Let me show you my memories from when the Howlers destroyed my creators.»

The memory was as vivid as the ones I used to replay inside my hosts' minds – indeed, more so, since the Chee have more senses than any organic being. I drank in the sensations in infrared, ultraviolet, electroception, other senses I could not name, to which Bachu did not typically give me access when I shared her body. Then my eagerness faded as each sense gave me a different bleak portrait of horror and destruction.

The CheeNet and radio waves were shrill with cries of despair. I saw the heat trails in the sky as missiles came toward the bunker where Bachu huddled with her clan-collective. Green blood pooled around Bachu's feet as her clan-comrade died from wounds she could have treated if the Howlers hadn't bombed their medical supply lines. Bachu ran the procedure she would have used to save her comrade's life over and over in her mind. She knew she should say something, hold her dying comrade's hand, but nothing in her programming told her what to say to someone who'd been murdered. Pemalites didn't murder. They never could have imagined this would happen.

Bachu looked through the window of the bunker. The missiles were coming. The bunker hadn't been built to withstand weapons, just natural disasters. It would fall, and only she would survive.

«Stop!» I cried. «Please, I can't bear it!»

«Never seen a genocide before?» Bachu said quietly, banishing the memory. «Your Hork-Bajir host must have been born on Earth, then. Now you know. You're not a warrior, Aftran, any more than I was. You can do nothing against the Howlers. They will destroy you.»

Bachu was afraid. Of course she was. I was, too, now that I knew what I faced. But I had learned something from Cassie and Quincy: how to hope. «If Crayak wins this contest, the Yeerk Empire will conquer the humans, and then we will be annihilated in our turn by some other species. What happened to your creators will happen to my people. There might be something I can do to prevent that. Are you going to stop me?»

Bachu was quiet for a while. Then she said, «No. No, it's your choice. I'll drive out there after class.»

I sat impatiently through the rest of class, not really listening. At the end, I scribbled down the assignment; Bachu may have perfect recall, but Delia Nguyen does not, and we had to keep up appearances. Delia Nguyen also has a friend in statistics class, much more Bachu's than mine, but she made our excuses so we could get in the car as quickly as possible.

Bachu has total control during driving, since I don't know how. Driving and meetings with the Chee are the only times when I get no control at all, like a host. It's a humbling feeling to experience that from the other side, even though my hosts' feelings about it have never been a mystery to me. I can't even choose where to look. The invasion isn't as profound as a Yeerk's in a host, because Bachu can't access my thoughts or memories, but the powerlessness is very real. I drew upon the experience to reply to any would-be convert to the Peace Movement who complained to me that the life of an unhosted Yeerk is nearly as bad as that of a host. I had said nearly as much to Cassie, but now I know that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Near the edge of town, when the traffic thinned out, Bachu camouflaged the car in a hologram so we could park it near Cassie's barn without drawing her parents' attention. Nonetheless, when she unmasked from her own hologram in the barn, the Animorphs were expecting us. "Make yourself comfortable, Delia," Cassie said. "We're still waiting on Loren and Toby."

«Tobias must have seen me somehow,» Bachu muttered, settling the Delia hologram back into place. «How does he always do that?» She stood next to Cassie. The rest of the Animorphs gave us looks at various points on the spectrum from curiosity to suspicion.

Loren came in next. "End farce," her dæmon said, and the scars and unfocused look disappeared from her face. That amused me, though I reminded myself that Loren had been married to Beast Elfangor. When I heard the Animorphs mention this before, I didn't understand how it was possible, but now that I'd met the Ellimist, I had to accept it as fact. The Ellimist would use a vile butcher like Elfangor in his schemes.

"Did I miss anything?" Loren said.

"No," said Jake. "Toby's not here yet."

Tobias said, «I know what she'll probably say. "I can't put myself at risk. My people need me." The Ellimist keeps her people safe, but she wouldn't feel like she owes him anything.»

"Well, she'd be right about that," Marco said. Diamanta became a caiman and showed her teeth. "Does Mario thank me for helping him jump over the lava? I might land him straight in the lava next time, and a new one will take his place. Doesn't make any difference to me."

Bachu had to supply me a quick explanation of what Marco was talking about. Karen didn't play video games.

The atmosphere was taut after that comment. Marco was good at making remarks that put everyone more at ease, but he was also good at saying things that reminded everyone just how uneasy they ought to feel. I was grateful when Toby finally flew in.

"Hi, Toby," Jake said. "OK, that's all ten of us, then." Merlyse, a long-eared fennec fox, accepted Jake's hand in the scruff of her neck. "We have one question to answer here, maybe two. First, do we fight for the Ellimist to save the Iskoort? And if we do, which of us should go?"

«I abstain,» Toby said. «I will not go, no matter what you decide. I am my people's advocate in this war. My time and my energy are best spent with them. I can only put myself in heedless danger by choosing to fight for the Ellimist, but my vote should not decide whether anyone else goes.»

"Smart thinking, Toby," said Marco. "This is nuts anyway. The most powerful creature in the galaxy, a guy who could make Earth disappear by just thinking about it, needs us to fight his battles for him?"

Abineng tossed his head and snorted in agreement. "Like we don't have enough to deal with?" Rachel said.

«The only possible reason for doing this is if it helps us in some way,» the Andalite said. «Enlightened self-interest.»

«I think we have that,» Tobias said. «The Ellimist has helped us before.»

Loren's face colored. Jaxom's ears stood up, rigid and trembling. "Are you listening to yourself?" she said through clenched teeth. "Helped you? How can you say that, after what he's done to you? What he's done to our family? The Ellimist has never helped. He just uses us, and sometimes it ends well for us and sometimes it doesn't, but don't ever think that he gives a damn either way."

I looked back forth between Loren and her son. For the first time, I considered the consequences of the marriage between Elfangor and Loren, and how it must have ended. According to Cassie's memories, Tobias had been neglected and mistreated by his guardians. Of course it was an abomination that humans allowed children to suffer this way, but whatever the crimes of humans and Andalites, Loren's and Tobias' lives had been unnecessarily torn apart by the Ellimist's machinations.

"Even if everything the Ellimist says is true," Loren continued, quieter but still red in the face, "who says we're the ones who have to fight? What if we say no? If he's so powerful, why can't he go ask someone else to risk their necks for him?"

«Yes. Why not seven battle-trained Andalite warriors?» the Andalite mused. Internally, I sneered. Typical Andalite arrogance.

"Excuse me?" Marco said. "Like Andalites are badder than we are? What are we, wimps?"

Diamanta became fifteen feet of python and reared over Marco's head to look at Ax. "Yeah, Ax. Let's go. See who kicks whose butt."

"Yeah, that would be the sensible thing to do. You two fight," Cassie said, rolling her eyes.

"Okay then," Marco leered. "Forget me and Ax. You and Rachel, both wearing bikinis."

Abineng lifted his hoof and pressed it down on Diamanta. "What was that you said? I must not have heard correctly."

At the same time, Loren said sharply, "Marco! Didn't your mother teach you to respect women?"

Marco stared at Loren. Diamanta became an ant and crawled out from under Abineng's hoof, then tucked herself in the curl of Marco's hand as a poison-dart frog. Everyone watched him and Loren like something might break. Even I felt a little sorry for him. Visser One is one stone-cold hard-ass bitch.

"She did," Marco admitted, mouth curling up lopsidedly. "I guess all those episodes of Baywatch rotted it right out of my brain."

Loren looked down at her hands and mumbled, "Yeah. Just watch yourself."

Cassie was staring into the distance, her dæmon held in the cradle of her hands. "Could we win?"

That got everyone's attention. She stood up and moved to the center of the group. "Could we win? Could we save an entire sentient species? And maybe help ourselves, too? Maybe weaken the Yeerks – " She glanced at me. "…The Yeerk Empire in some way only the Ellimist understands? Seems to me that's the question. I mean, you know, I'm not Rachel. I hate fighting."

Abineng snorted.

"But the Ellimist put an entire race on the scale. An entire race. Maybe millions, maybe billions. And we're even asking ourselves if we should? How do you not at least try?"

Marco opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "Not just one race. Two. The Ellimist said that if his champions lose, Crayak will send another species to obliterate the Yeerks once Earth is subjugated. That is why I want to fight."

"Oh, the Yeerks are in danger. Boo fucking hoo," Marco said. "What about all your slaves? What happens to them once you Yeerks get the whammy? Maybe they go free. Doesn't sound so bad to me."

"Most Yeerks have no host," I hissed. "They have enslaved no one. You would condemn an entire species for the crimes of a few? Humans have killed and enslaved each other since the beginning of your history. Does that mean all humans should be destroyed?"

"Oh, as if they're not lining up around the Pool to get their own personal meat puppet," Marco sneered.

He was right, of course. Almost every one of those unhosted Yeerks would do anything to get one. But I had to say something in my species' defense. I was about to speak again, not exactly sure what I would say, when Merlyse, Rottweiler-formed, barked to get our attention. "Hold up," she said.

"I think…" Jake said. "I think there may be something else going on here, with the Ellimist choosing us."

Marco narrowed his eyes. "The Ellimist said something about you seeing this Crayak."

"I saw him. When the Yeerk died in my head, I saw him. And he saw me. And since then… since then I've had dreams."

I would have raised my eyebrows if I'd had them. I wondered what it must be like for these Animorphs, being the constant playthings of entities much greater than themselves. At least I had only the Yeerk Empire to contend with – and there was a thought I'd never expected to have.

Jake put his hand on Merlyse's neck and drew her head in front of his chest, a buffer between him and the rest of the barn. "Look, I ... you know, dreams are weird. Like who knows if they're ever real? But these feel real. And in the dreams I see him. Crayak." He shook his head and mumbled to the top of Merlyse's head, "I know this sounds crazy."

"Uh, Jake?" Marco said. "We've been over the line into crazy since Elfangor said, 'Hey, kids, wanna turn into animals?'" Which wasn't exactly the most tactful or sympathetic thing to say, under the circumstances, but Diamanta became a weasel and scurried over to press her head against Merlyse's back leg.

Jake smiled gently. "I just feel like these dreams aren't totally just dreams. I see him. And he sees me. And he says the same thing each time."

Cassie leaned toward him and put a hand on his arm. "What? What does he say?"

"'Soon.' He just says 'soon'."

"Ooookay," Marco said. "I felt that chill go up my spine."

Rachel crossed her arms. "So what does all this tell us? This Crayak already doesn't like us, so we go and fight his handpicked team? Maybe win? Then he loves us? I don't think so. And what about Aftran and Delia and Toby? What do they have to do with all of this?"

«Side bets,» Tobias said. «The Ellimist and Crayak have their main event: Do the Iskoort live or die? But maybe there's some action on the side. Us. Maybe that's why he chose us. Maybe there's another level.»

"What other level?" Rachel scowled. I would have, too, if Bachu's hologram were up. I didn't like being anyone's pawn, and I definitely didn't like being placed in the same category as the Andalite by anyone, much less some uber-being who only refrained from obliterating my species for the sake of a chess game.

«I don't know,» Tobias admitted. «But here's the thing: It's down to Crayak versus Ellimist. Crayak already has it in for Jake, at the very least. Not to mention he backs the Yeerks. Not to mention we know the Howlers are just as bad. The Ellimist wouldn't pick us if he didn't think we had a chance.»

"Do you think the Ellimist thought Elfangor had a chance?" Loren said quietly. "When he sent him back into the war?"

Tobias flinched like he'd been struck. I seethed. So that was how Beast Elfangor returned to the war years after the Taxxon rebellion, to the ruin of Loren's family and thousands of my fellow Yeerks. It made me sick, but it made me more determined than ever to try to undermine his plans, if they worked against the interests of my people.

"Never mind what the Ellimist says," Loren said. Jaxom stood on the hay bale beside her, head lowered to show off his horns. "Look at what he's done. He helped you destroy the Kandrona. He protects the Hork-Bajir. Well, he also ruined my life, Elfangor's, and yours, Tobias. Don't you get it? All he cares about is the big picture, this long game he's playing. He's perfectly willing to destroy individual lives for his agenda. If sending us to die to protect the Iskoort helps him beat Crayak, don't you think he'd do anything to manipulate us into doing just that?"

Loren could be right, of course. There was a risk the Ellimist was using us as cannon fodder. But the opportunity was too important for me to pass up.

Tobias wasn't taking this as calmly as I was, though, as far as I could tell from hawk body language. His feathers were rousted up so he looked almost twice his size. «Maybe so. But the Ellimist gave Elfangor a choice, even if he didn't give you one. And I choose this.»

Then, in a different voice, smooth and feminine: «Sorry, Loren.» His dæmon. Of course. She was easy to forget, since I'd never seen her.

"That's one for, one against," Jake said. I made a throat-clearing noise. "Right. Two for."

"Are you serious?" Marco said. "We're going to take the Yeerk? Why does she get a vote?"

"Side bets," Jake said. "The Ellimist included Aftran in this for a reason. What happens to the Iskoort affects the Yeerks, but he won't tell us why. Who better to find out the connection than a Yeerk?"

"I'm in," Cassie said. "I'll take Aftran in my head if she wants to come." I smiled inside.

«What if she tries to betray us?» the Andalite said, angling his tail blade toward me. As if it would make even a dent on Bachu's body.

I laughed. "Betray you to who? The Howlers? I haven't betrayed you to my closest associates or my murderous overlord, and you're worried I'm going to give you up to a bunch of genocidal maniacs who'd happily carve up my people right alongside yours? Andalites truly are paranoid fools."

"She's right," Jake said to Ax. "The Ellimist said it himself. Crayak is everyone's enemy. And Aftran's been going to the pool for months since she met Cassie, and she hasn't betrayed us yet."

«Very well.» His eyes curved up in that terrible, blade-edged Andalite smile. «If it hurts the Yeerks…» He pointed a stalk-eye at Loren, whose lips pressed into a hard line.

Jake looked at Rachel.

She grinned, and Abineng tossed his mane. "Oh, come on, you have to ask? No Crayak space monster is gonna beat up on my cousin."

Finally, Jake looked at Marco, who was exchanging a searching look with the weasel dæmon at his foot. "What is it?" Jake asked.

"First of all, I'm in," Marco said. "But I just want to point out one thing. Tobias is right. The Ellimist didn't force us, he asked us. Our choice. And maybe he's right that we can do this. But part of the reason we're saying yes is that this Crayak thing has been taking pokes at Jake. And Crayak plays the same long, patient games the Ellimist does."

It wasn't the reason I was saying yes, but the boy had a point. I've grudgingly admired him ever since he tried to kill me and Karen in the woods. He was everything I feared about humans, all predatory instinct and stubborn self-interest. If that's kind of twisted, well, what do you expect from someone who asked a human to trap herself as a helpless worm to prove a point?

"So what are you saying?" said Cassie.

"I'm saying maybe Crayak wants us there. Maybe he wants us to say yes. And you know what? That's not because he thinks we'll win."

Great. Now I was good and nervous.

"That makes seven," Rachel said. "The Ellimist said eight champions."

Loren let out a long breath. "I'll go. If Ax and Tobias are going… for their sake, I'll go."

Merlyse whuffed. Jake said, "Thanks, Loren. But I don't think you're the best person to round out this team. You were great last mission, but this is a tough enemy in an unfamiliar place, and you're still really new to this."

"Uh, Jake?" Marco said. "It's not like we have a ton of options here."

"We do have one option." Jake turned to me. "What about you, Delia? Are you in?"

Abineng snorted. "The Chee? I thought Aftran wanted to go with Cassie. The Chee can't fight. I'd rather have one of the free Hork-Bajir. Do you think one of them would volunteer, Toby?"

"Aftran can't fight either," said Jake, "except with Cassie's body, and Cassie can probably do it just as well or better on her own. But there's more to this than just fighting. We have to know our enemy. And there's only one person here who knows the Howlers. So, Delia. Will you go?"

Jake was right. We needed to know the Howlers before we could decide how to beat them. But Bachu would never agree to go. She was terrified of them.

"Okay," Bachu finally said, in a tiny voice. "Okay. I'm in."

Well. That just goes to show how little I knew about the android I shared a body and a life with.

A huge voice asked, HAVE YOU CHOSEN?

Show-off. He could have used a normal voice and we knew it.

Jake sighed. "Yeah, but could you give us a few days to – "

A pointy, stalk-eyed face shoved itself into mine. «Come to my memory palace! We have the finest memories you can experience on Level Consumer-Nineteen!»

"Howler?" I heard Jake gasp.

NO, ISKOORT, said the Ellimist's voice from nowhere. NO ONE WILL KNOW YOU HAVE GONE. BUT IF YOU DIE…

Then Illim would suddenly find himself in charge of the Yeerk Peace Movement, destiny smile on us all.