I spun around, looking for the source, ready to fight if necessary.

NO, RACHEL. THERE IS NO THREAT.

"It knows your name!" Tobias hissed.

I glanced at Ax. He had gone rigid. He wasn't frozen like all the world around us, he was afraid. He was shaking.

AXIMILI.-ESGARROUTH-ISTHILL HAS BEGUN TO GUESS WHAT I AM.

"Ellimist!" Ax said.

DO NOT BE AFRAID. I WILL APPEAR IN A PHYSICAL FORM YOU CAN

UNDERSTAND.

The air directly in front of me ... no, not in front, behind. Beside. Around. I can't explain it.

The air just opened up. As if there were a door in nothingness. As if air were solid and ... it is just impossible to explain. The air opened. He appeared.

He was humanoid. Two arms, two legs, a head where a human head would be. His skin was glowing blue, as if he were a lightbulb that had been painted over so that light still shone from him.

He seemed like an old man, but with a force of energy that was definitely not frail. His hair was long and white. His ears were swept up into points. His eyes were black holes that seemed to be full of stars.

"I am an Ellimist," he said, speaking with an actual voice, "as your Andalite friend guessed."

Ax was shaking so badly he looked like he might fall down.

"Be at peace, Andalite," the Ellimist said. "Look at your human friends. They do not fear me.

"

36 "They don't know what you are." Ax managed to say.

The Ellimist smiled. "Neither do you. All you know are the fairy stories your people tell to children."

"Well, how about if someone tells us who and what you are?" I said. I was not in the best mood ever. It was extremely bizarre and unnerving to be surrounded by human-Controllers, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxons, in the very heart of the enemy's stronghold. They were all frozen, but that could change.

To be honest, I was scared. And when I'm scared, I get mad.

The Ellimist looked at me. "You cannot begin to understand what I am."

"They are all-powerful." Ax said simply.

"They can cross a million light-years in a single instant. They can make entire worlds disappear. They can stop time itself. "

"This one doesn't look all that powerful," Marco said skeptically.

"Don't be a fool." Ax snapped. "That's not his body. He has no body. He is ... everywhere at once. Inside your head. Inside this planet. Inside the fabric of space and time. "

"So why are you here?" Jake asked the Ellimist. "Why all of this? Why did you bring Tobias here?"

"Obviously, you saw right through our morphs," Marco said. "You knew who we were. You even know our names. You brought us all here together. Why?"

"Because you must decide," the Ellimist said.

"Decide what?" I demanded.

"The fate of your race," the Ellimist said.

"The fate of the human race."

That's all?" Marco asked. "Just the fate of the human race? Don't you have something more challenging for us?"

But the Ellimist wasn't paying attention to Marco. "We do not interfere in the private affairs of other beings," he said. "But when they are in danger of becoming extinct, we step in to save a few members. We love life. All life, but especially sentient life forms, like Homo sapiens. Your species. This is a very beautiful planet. A priceless work of art."

"You've obviously never seen our school," Marco said, still giddily trying to joke.

Suddenly, without warning, the Ellimist did it again. He opened space.

37 We were no longer standing in the Yeerk pool. We were no longer underground at all. We were underwater. Deep underwater. But the water did not seem to touch my skin. And when I breathed, there was air. Still, I felt fear tingle the back of my neck.

We stood - me, Cassie, Jake, Marco, Ax, and Tobias . . . Tobias, in his own human body - in the middle of an ocean. Suspended in the water, but dry. The Ellimist could no longer be seen. We were floating above a coral reef. And everything was moving again.

All around us, fish swam by in swift-darting schools. Fish in every color and shape, reflecting the dappled sunlight from above. Sharks prowled. Stingrays seemed to fly. Squid pulsated.

Crabs scuttled across fabulous extrusions of coral. Tuna as big as sheep drifted past. Swift, grinning dolphins raced by in pursuit of their next meal.

LOVELY.

The Ellimist's voice once more seemed to grow from deep within my own heart.

LOVELY.

And then, as quickly as we had been plunged into the ocean, we were drifting above the waving golden grass of the African savannah. A pride of lions lazed in the sun below us, looking sleepily content. Wildebeest and gazelles and impalas grazed, then broke into wild, springing, bouncing races that forced you to smile at the sheer energy of it all.

There were hyenas, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, baboons, zebras. Hawks and eagles and buzzards wheeled overhead.

LOOK AT IT.

Then, in an instant, deep jungle. A lithe jaguar prowled while monkeys chattered in the tree canopy above. Snakes as long as a person slithered across tree branches. The air reeked of the heavy perfume of a million flowers. We heard the sounds of frogs, insects, monkeys, and wild, screaming birds.

IN ALL THE UNIVERSE, NO GREATER BEAUTY. IN A THOUSAND, THOUSAND

WORLDS, NO GREATER ART THAN THIS.

Then the Ellimist showed us the human race. We flew, invisible, through the steel-and-glass canyons of New York City.

We drifted above villages at the edges of jungle rivers. We watched a rock concert in Rio de Janeiro, and a political meeting in Seoul, and a soccer game in Durban, and an open-air market in the Philippines.

HUMANS. CRUDE. PRIMITIVE. BUT CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

Suddenly, all the movement stopped. We were staring at a picture. A painting. I'd seen the painting somewhere before.

38 It was a wild swirl of color. A painting of purple flowers. Irises, I think, although I'm no big expert on flowers. The artist had seen the beauty of those flowers and captured some small bit of it on canvas.

CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

Then, without warning, we were back in the Yeerk pool. The images were all gone. We were in the land of despair once again. Surrounded by frozen images of horror. The Ellimist - or at least the body he had made for us to look at - reappeared.

"That was a nice tour," I said. I was trying to sound tough. But I felt as if I had been turned inside out. As if my mind had exploded into a thousand sparkling pieces. I was overwhelmed.

"But what's it all about?"

"Humans are an endangered species. Soon you will disappear."

I thought of a couple things to say. But I said nothing.

No one said anything.

"The Yeerk race is also sentient," the Ellimist said. "And they are technologically more advanced than you. They will continue to infest the human race. The Andalites will try to stop them, but they will fail. The Yeerks will win. And soon, the only humans left will be what you call human-Controllers."

I had stopped breathing. The way he said it... it was like you couldn't argue. Like you couldn't say anything. He spoke every word with utter and complete certainty.

He wasn't guessing. He knew.

He knew that we would lose.

39 Chapter 11

We had been terrified a few moments before, as the Taxxon prepared to swallow us. I had been afraid for my own life and the lives of my friends. Now, as the Yeerk pool hung suspended in time, I felt a deeper fear. My head was still swimming from all the images the Ellimist had shown us.