We were lit by a single small bulb that never even touched the shadows in the corners of the barn. We didn’t want to take the chance that Cassie’s parents might notice a light on and come to investigate.

  “Yes,” I answered Marco, “I’ll tell you why you’re here. I know where the Kandrona is. I know where it is.”

  That got his attention. But he was still skeptical. “What makes you think you know where the Kandrona is?”

  “The Ellimist. He showed us. We all thought it was unfair when he appeared in the Yeerk pool and asked us to decide when we were about to be eaten, right?”

  Ax said.

  “No. You’re wrong, Ax. At least this time. The Ellimist appeared when we were about to be swallowed by the Taxxon. But then he showed us the dropshaft.”

  “We saw the dropshaft because it was there,” Jake argued. “It wasn’t about him showing it to us.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “He waited till we had walked out of the Yeerk lunchroom to appear. He waited till we were standing where we were sure to notice the dropshaft.”

  I saw Jake raise an eyebrow thoughtfully. He and Marco exchanged a look.

  “What if we’re wrong about the Ellimist being unfair? What if Cassie’s instinct is right — that he is telling the truth? That he’s trying to do what’s right? He tells us that in the future we lose the fight. That the human race is enslaved. That he has a way to save a small number of us by taking us to a safe place. And it’s all true.”

  “If he’s telling us the truth, that we lose in the future, what’s this all about?” Marco asked. “We’ve seen that future. Nothing we do will matter.”

  I shook my head. “No. It will matter. If it didn’t matter how we decided, why even bother to ask us what we wanted to do? See? It does matter what we do.”

  “Yes,” Marco said. “But the answer is obvious. We can only change the future by agreeing to the Ellimist’s plan to take us to a safe planet.”

  “Yes, that’s one way. He offered us that. But when we finally accepted, he didn’t act. He didn’t take us instantly away. Why? Why, after we agreed, did he leave us here?”

  “Because he wanted a different answer,” Cassie said, nodding at me and giving me a wink. “That’s what’s been eating at me.”

  “What different answer?” Marco asked.

  “He’s in a trap,” Cassie said. “The Ellimist is trapped. He wants to save Earth. But he can’t interfere directly. Supposedly all he’s allowed to do is offer to save a small number of us. But he knows that won’t save Earth. It will save a few humans, yes, but when he showed us visions of Earth, he wasn’t talking just about humans. He said Earth was a work of art. He wants to find a way to save it.”

  “Without interfering directly,” I agreed. “But what if we just happened to see another way? What if the Ellimist showed us the future, trying to convince us to let him take us away, and we just happened to see a way out?”

  “What way out?” Jake demanded.

  “The Kandrona. He let us see where the Kandrona is,” I said. “That Yeerk pool downtown, that’s the key. Why build a Yeerk pool downtown? Why level so many buildings to make room for it? Why leave the EGS Tower still standing? And why is there a glass dome on the top floors of the EGS? Ax is the one who said it — the Yeerk pool is the center of their lives. That Yeerk pool? I think it’s a shrine. Almost a holy place to them. It’s where they located the first Kandrona to be placed on planet Earth.”

  Jake snapped his fingers. “The EGS Tower!”

  “That’s what’s under that dome on the top floors. The Kandrona. That’s what the Ellimist wanted us to see. Just the way he let us see the dropshaft we used to escape. He wasn’t interfering … technically. The choice is still ours.”

  Marco laughed out loud. “You mean maybe the Ellimist is bending his own rules? So he can say, ‘Hey, I didn’t interfere,’ but at the same time he’s putting us where we can figure it out? I can’t believe it! The Ellimist is a weasel! He found a loophole! I think I like that guy.”

  “But even if you’re right about the Kandrona, Rachel,” Jake argued, “what does it prove? If we destroy it, are we sure it will change the future?”

  Cassie looked at me and smiled. “Maybe yes, maybe no,” she said. “But things are connected in millions of ways. They say a single butterfly, beating its wings in China, can start a tornado in America.”

  Tobias said,

  “It doesn’t,” I said. “I guess it beats its wings the best it can, and hopes it will all work out. It’s a butterfly. It just does what butterflies do.”

  “And what do we do, Xena, Warrior Princess?” Marco asked mockingly, knowing the answer I would give.

  “We kick Yeerk butt,” I said with a grin.

  At 5:10 in the morning, the EGS Tower’s windows were almost all dark. From the deeply shadowed plaza in front of the building, we could see a sleepy, uniformed guard inside the lobby.

  “There are dozens of businesses and law firms and stuff in this building,” Jake warned. “Most of them are probably just normal people. Fortunately, at this time of day, almost no one will be here. But the guard is probably just a normal guy.”

  “How do we deal with him without hurting him?” Cassie asked.

  Suddenly Tobias swooped down out of a dark sky. he said.

  “Let’s do this, already,” I grumbled. I started morphing into the bear.

  “Okay, but take it easy on any innocent bystanders,” Jake said. “Tobias? I know you’re wearing out, but stay up and keep an eye out while we morph.”

  He flapped his wings and slowly gained altitude.

  “These doors will be locked,” Cassie pointed out.

  “Not for long,” I said.

  Ax was already demorphing, coming out of his human body and resuming his Andalite shape.

  Jake’s eyes were glittering, his body was lengthening, and striped orange and black fur was spreading like a wave over his skin.

  Cassie was already on all fours. Rough gray fur grew thickly around her shoulders. Her mouth bulged out farther and farther to form a wolf’s muzzle.

  Tobias called down.

  Jake said quickly.

  Cassie trotted off, already fully morphed. And a second later we heard, “Grrrrrr, grrrrrr, grrrOWWWRR!” followed by “Whoa! No way!” and the sound of a crashing bottle and running feet.

  Cassie returned just as we were finishing our morphs. Cassie reported.

  I said. I was fully the grizzly now, and feeling invulnerable.

  Jake suggested.

  While the rest of us lurked in the shadows, Marco, now an extremely large, powerful gorilla, knuckle-walked to the glass door. He stood up on his hind legs and tapped with one massive finger on the glass.

  The guard jerked in his seat. He stood up and moved cautiously closer. Then he drew his gun.

  “Hey, get out of here,” the guard said.

  Marco said in thought-speak.

  The guard’s eyes went wide. “Andalite!” he hissed.

 

  With that, Marco punched straight through the thick glass of the door.

  CRASH!

  His gorilla fist connected squarely with the guard’s chin. The guard crumpled, still holding his gun.

  Jake yelled.

  I barreled into the rest of the glass door. I was careful, but not too careful. I wasn’t very worried about being hurt. Shattered glass flew everywhere.

  Cassie, Ax, and Jake leaped over the glass shards. Jake raced for the elevator.

  Jake said.

  Marco said.

  Jake said.

  Cassie and Ax kept an eye on all activity on the ground floor while they waited for the elevator to come back down. Jake, Marco, and I had the most firepower — so we went in first.

  We squeezed our combined bulk into the one freight elevator car — not an easy thing to do — but we managed it.

  Jake said. He held up one of his huge paws to show me.

  It wasn’t easy. Bear paws aren’t exactly subtle tools. But after carefully lining up my first claw, I hit the top button.

  The doors closed and we rose swiftly upward.

  There was a safety inspection certificate mounted on one wall. I leaned very close to make out the letters, and read it aloud.

 

  The ride seemed to be taking forever. I watched the counter tick off the floors. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three.

  Jake asked.

  I said.

 

  I said.

  Suddenly I realized there was music playing in the elevator. The usual stupid elevator music.

  Jake said.

 

  Marco announced in his best elevator operator’s voice.

  The elevator stopped. The door opened.

  Just as three humans and two Hork-Bajir were racing toward the elevator.

  “Rrrrrroooowwwwrrrr!” Jake roared in a voice that could crack concrete.

  “Rrrrrooooowwwwrrr!” I echoed in my own muddier bear voice.

  I charged like an enraged bull. I went straight for the nearest Hork-Bajir. That meant running through the closest human. I felt a slight thump as his body was knocked aside.

  I slammed into the Hork-Bajir. The force of my charge just picked him up and carried him along till I hammered into the far wall.

  It didn’t kill him, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Jake took down the other Hork-Bajir with a lightning swipe of his claws. The remaining humans bolted.

  Jake said.

 

  Jake said.

  Just then the elevator door opened and Ax and Cassie piled out.

  I said.

  Cassie said. She glanced at the two Hork-Bajir. Cassie cried.

  Jake said.

  I took off at a loping run. The others were right behind me. My claws gouged the carpeted floor with every step. I couldn’t see well, but I could smell the adrenaline of the frightened Human-Controllers. I knew where they had gone.

  I could smell them. I could sense them. They had challenged me. And I was going to show them who was boss.

  Cassie called.

  I said, and plowed all my eight hundred pounds into a steel door that popped open like the lid of a jack-in-the-box.

  Inside, eight Hork-Bajir warriors stood ready.

  Eight walking razor blades.

  Eight of them. Five of us. No way we could win. A sensible person would have seen the odds and run away. But I charged straight at them.

  Later, everyone thought I was being brave. But you know what the truth was? The truth was, with my weak bear eyesight, all I could see was a blur. I thought they were humans.

  I wasn’t brave. I was just blind.

  Rachel!> Cassie yelled a warning.

  Jake said.

  I figured out the eight blurry figures were Hork-Bajir when I was about three feet away from slamming into the first one. By then it was too late to stop.

  “Kill the gaffnur Andalites!” a Hork-Bajir cried in the weird mix of languages that they use. “Kill fraghent Andalite halaf kill all!”

  Suddenly I realized I was cut. A searing pain radiated from my shoulder.

  I swung my paw and hit the Hork-Bajir in the head. He fell, but as he fell he slashed with his tyrannosaurus feet, and ripped a second cut in me.

 

  From that point on, it was a nightmare of terrible images that seemed to float in and out of my hazy vision.

  I saw Cassie, with her bone-breaking jaws sunk into the throat of a Hork-Bajir.

  I saw Ax, his tail like a deadly bullwhip, lashing, cutting, lashing again, till one of the Hork-Bajir stood screaming, holding his own severed arm.

  I saw Jake and a Hork-Bajir locked in a deadly embrace as they rolled and slashed at each other with superhuman speed.

  I saw Marco fighting with one arm as he held his own sliced stomach together with the other hand.

  And everywhere, snarling, growling, raging, roaring noise.

 

  “Die, gaferach, die!”

  “RRRROOOWWRRR!”

 

 

  I couldn’t tell who was winning. I couldn’t tell who was hurt. It all became one long cry, one long scream of rage. Hork-Bajir and Animorph. Alien and animal.

  We were flesh-and-blood creatures thrown into a meat grinder. Thirteen deadly animals locked in a combat to the death.

  I felt the bear weakening as he was cut again and again by Hork-Bajir blades. I was losing blood. The human part of me knew that. I could feel my strength ebbing.

  I charged again and hit a Hork-Bajir in the stomach. I carried him along with my momentum as he slashed wildly at me.

  CRAAAASSSSHHHH!

  I’d hit something! Glass. It had shattered.

  A window! I had shoved the Hork-Bajir through the window.

  “AAAAAAaaaarrrrr!”

  I heard the Hork-Bajir’s cry, dying away as it fell.

  A sudden flash of movement, as something came zooming through the shattered window.

  “Tseeeeeerrr!” Tobias screamed as he spread his talons forward and struck the closest Hork-Bajir, raking his eyes.

  The battle had turned!

  The Hork-Bajir had had enough. Maybe it was hearing one of their fellows fall sixty stories. Or maybe it was Tobias’s arrival, strengthening our side. But whatever it was, the remaining Hork-Bajir ran.

  Three of them ran. The rest would not be running anywhere.

  Marco grabbed the crumpled door and slammed it back in place. Then, with what must have been the last of his strength, he shoved a desk in place to block the door.

  Marco said.

  Jake said.

  I said weakly.

  Tobias said.

  I stared blankly at my left paw. It wasn’t there. It was a stump.

  I said. I focused on my human body. My weak but healthy human body.

  Morphing is done from DNA, fortunately. DNA is not affected by injuries, so injuries do not follow you from one morph to another.

  Exhaustion does.

  As my human body emerged from the vast bulk of the grizzly, I felt so weary I was afraid I might faint.

  Through human eyes, I saw a scene of carnage. The Hork-Bajir lay sprawled around the room. Most seemed to be breathing. None were conscious. All were bleeding from claw-and-teeth wounds.

  Unfortunately for the Hork-Bajir, they could not simply morph out of their injured bodies.

  “Everyone okay?” Jake asked, sounding as weary as I felt.

  “Yeah, but that was way too close,” Cassie said.

  We were in a large office. I could see that now with my human eyes. Desks lay splintered. The carpet was ripped into ribbons. The walls were gouged.

  Floor-to-ceiling windows formed one wall. They were shattered. I remembered the Hork-Bajir falling, and shuddered.

  There was a door in one wall.

  “Through there?” Marco suggested.

  “Let’s try it,” I said. I staggered toward the door. It was not locked.

  A bare room. Tile floor. White painted walls. The wall of windows was blocked by heavy curtains. The room was empty but for a large, massively built platform in the very center.

  It was a steel pedestal, maybe three feet high, eight feet long.

  And atop that pedestal was a machine the size of a small car. It was shaped like a cylinder, tapered to dull points on both ends.

  It gleamed brightly, like new chrome, as if it had just been polished. And it made a slight, low humming noise. As I approached I felt my hair stand on end from the static electricity. It was warm in the room, very warm. It smelled like lightning.

  Ax said.

  “The Kandrona,” I echoed.

  For a full minute we all just stood there, gaping at it.

  “Rachel?” Jake said at last. “We need you to morph again. Can you do it?”

  I nodded slowly. “Elephant?”

  “Elephant. I don’t know how else we’re going to do it. We don’t have any tools or anything.”

  I morphed the elephant.

  Tobias flew outside to make sure there were no pedestrians below on the dark sidewalk.

  It took every last ounce of power that elephant had. But the Kandrona did move.

  It did, slowly, in jerks and starts, slide across the floor.

 

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