"This place is awfully empty," Tobias said.

"Yes. It seems almost abandoned," I agreed. "Tobias, I am going down. My morph time is running short. Now is when I should go on alone."

55 "Yeah. Gotcha. Good luck, Ax-man. Whatever you're doing, be careful." Tobias swept up and out of the dome. I was alone.

I drifted down toward the floor. Down and down, to land on a table. There was a computer console workstation. But no humans in sight.

I saw an open door leading to what seemed to be a dark and empty office. I flapped my wings twice and was inside.

Harrier eyes, like hawk eyes, are adapted for daylight. They are not very good in the dark.

But the harrier also has extremely good hearing. I dimly saw a desk and came to rest on it.

Then I concentrated on listening.

I was alone in the room. I was certain of that. The only human sounds I heard came through the walls.

Conversation. I could not make out the sounds, but they all seemed to be concentrated in one area.

"Ax can - hear me?"

It was Tobias. His thought-speech was faint.

"Just barely," I answered.

"I'm outside. I'm looking -- a window -- here. I see - ven--- in a room. -- like some kind of meeting."

"Yes, I can hear them," I said. "Can you keep watch over them? Let me know if they come this way?"

"Yeah. If any -- leaves the - ting, I'll know -- ," Tobias said.

"I can barely hear you," I said. "I'm going to morph."

"Can't ---- very well, but go --- "

My plan was to morph to my normal Andalite form, then quickly move into my human morph, just in case any humans saw me. But I was tired from the flight. And morphing is very tiring. Especially quick morphing. And if I had to make a quick escape it would mean passing through my Andalite body to move back to harrier.

I would never be able to handle that many changes in a short time. I decided to risk staying in Andalite form.

Besides ... if it worked and I reached my home, I wanted my parents to know me when they saw me.

I began the demorphing. I could only hope that Tobias would be able to give me enough warning.

56 Even though I loved being a bird, it was a good feeling when my tail began to form again. An Andalite without a tail is just sad.

And no matter how powerful a hawk's eyes may be, they can still only look in one direction at a time. As my stalk eyes reformed, I breathed a sigh of relief. I could once again see in all directions.

There was no computer in the office. I was very annoyed by that fact. It meant I would have to go back into the observatory to use the computer there.

My hooves slipped on the polished floor. I swung my eyes in every direction, keeping a sharp lookout.

I pushed the chair away from the computer workstation. I began typing on the antique key board. The screen asked me for a password.

"Password?" I laughed. I disabled the security system and confirmed that Marco's father's new software was already in place.

Good. That would make it easier. As quickly as I could, I wrote in a virus that would swiftly transform the software that controlled the radio telescope.

Since humans had no awareness of Zero- space, they did not understand that a powerful radio receiver could be tuned in such a way as to create a Z-space vacuum and open a cross-dimensional gateway.

Once I had opened a small hole in Z-space, it was child's play to use the same receivers to modulate and reflect the background radiation into a coherent signal. The hard part would be using thought-speech to control the signal. That would take absolute concentration.

"Still --- out here," Tobias said.

I hoped the word I couldn't hear was "okay."

It took about ten Earth minutes to adjust the radio telescope. Ten minutes, and I had moved human science ahead by a century or so.

Ten minutes to completely violate Andalite law.

I was done. The system was ready.

I pressed the "enter" key.

The thousands of lines of computer language disappeared from the computer's screen.

The screen went blank.

I focused my mind as sharply as I could. I pictured the coherent signal. I pictured that beam going through my own head.

57 "Andalite Home," I thought. "Andalite Home."

The screen flickered.

A face appeared. It was a hard, suspicious face. But it was an Andalite face.

"Who is this?" the Andalite demanded. "This is a high security link. You are not an authorized sender. State your name and location."

"My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Brother of Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. Son of Noorlin- Sirinial-Cooraf and Forlay-Esgarrouth-Maheen."

The Andalite stared at me. "Elfangor's brother?" he wondered. "What is your location?"

"My location is the planet called Earth."

58 Chapter Nine

"Earth!"

"Yes."

"Is Prince Elfangor with you?"

For a moment my concentration wavered. I lost the signal. But then, I forced myself to focus.

This was too important to let my emotions mess things up.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He looked surprised that I would ask. "I am Ithileran-Halas-Corain. Assistant to the Head of Planetary Communications^ "Thank you. Ithileran, my brother's life . . . ended," I said. "The Dome ship was destroyed. I am the only survivor."

I could see that this was a surprise. Ithileran's eyes were downcast, and he lowered his stalk eyes as well in a gesture of grief.

"Your brother was a great warrior. And I mourn also for the many other warriors aboard the Dome ship."

"Elfangor was the greatest," I said. "My family doesn't know he's dead. I would like you to connect me with them. I could get interrupted any minute."

"I will do that. As soon as your family is found, I will connect you. But first, give me your report, aristhAximili."

I tried to quickly organize my thoughts. "The Yeerks are here in force. There is at least one mother ship. Also one Blade ship belonging to Visser Three, and numerous Bug fighters. The humans are unaware of the invasion. I do not know how many humans have been made into Controllers, but there must be thousands, at least."

I took a deep breath, and tried to hold onto my concentration. How much should I tell Ithileran?

"Then Earth is lost to the Yeerks?"

"No!" I said sharply. "Earth is not lost. There is a small resistance. A few humans. Young . .

. arisths, like me. I fight alongside them."

"But surely there is no hope of victory?"

"We have hurt the Yeerks," I said. "We have destroyed the Kandrona that was in place on this planet."

That got Ithileran's attention. That definitely got his attention. "You destroyed a Yeerk Kandrona? How did you manage that? You and a handful of human youths?" 59 It was time to tell him the full truth, or decide to lie.

"The humans ... the humans have the power to morph," I said. "Visser Three believes they are a small band of escaped Andalites. Earth has many strange animals, and with the morphing we use those species to attack the Yeerks."

"Humans who morph? And how did humans come by this technology?"

"It was given to them. By Elfangor."

Ithileran looked startled. His eyes darted to the side and then he abruptly disappeared from the screen. In his place stood another Andalite.

I was stunned. I instantly recognized the face.

He was very old, and yet his power seemed to vibrate through the screen, across all the light years that separated Earth from home.