I laughed. "I see why you want to change that."

I expected Erek to agree. Instead, he looked a little sad. "Yes," he said. Just that one word.

We started to leave. I let the others get a few steps ahead of me. I pulled Erek over.

"Hey, Erek. You were at my mom's funeral. I don't think I said thanks at the time."

Erek looked away and bit his lip. "Marco .

. . there's something I have to tell you."

"I think I already know. My mother isn't dead.

She's a Controller. She's Visser One."

It was Erek's turn to be impressed. "You guys have learned a lot."

I shrugged. "Is that why you were at the funeral? Did you know?"

Erek nodded. "I knew. I might have been able to save her... if."

I met his gaze. "Too late to save her,"

I said. "But payback is going to be very painful for those filthy slugs."

On the way home, we filled Rachel and Tobias in on what had happened. It took a while. We were back at Cassie's barn before we were done.

"I say do it," Rachel said. "That Chee guy held onto me like I was a baby. They're strong.

They have technology we don't. They've already penetrated The Sharing. They would double our chances.

End of story."

"No, not end of story," Cassie said, contradicting her friend.

"What right do we have to interfere and destroy the thousands of years of peace this species has had? Didn't you hear Maria? No Chee has ever taken another life. You want them to be saying a thousand years from now that no Chee ever took a life till we made them killers?"

I rounded on her, angry. "What I don't want a thousand years from now is for people to be saying, Too bad about the humans. They ended up as dead as the Pemalites.""

"Ax?" Jake asked. "You haven't said much."

Ax was in human morph, of course, since we were in the barn. "As you know, we Andalites are not supposed to interfere in the lives of other species. I am already breaking that law with you. And I am proud to be breaking that law in this case. But the Chee . . . Chee! It makes a funny sound, doesn't it? Chee." He smiled with his human mouth, then grew serious again. "The Chee are a different species. Older than Andalites. I feel . . . badly . . . helping another species to become violent."

Rachel said, "Look, no one likes violence.

All right? But we didn't ask for this war with the Yeerks. When the bad guys come after you, when they start the violence, they leave you no choice: fight or die."

"Fight or die," I agreed. "And you want proof? Look at the Pemalites. They didn't fight, they died. All gone. No more. Scratch a whole species. Now their 'essence," whatever that means, is stuck inside dogs, and their robots feed them extra kibble. Yippee. That worked out real well for them. And even that's better off than we'll be if we lose to the Yeerks."

"Law of the jungle," Rachel said.

"You eat or you get eaten."

"Maybe s." Tobias said, speaking up for the first time. "But still, wouldn't it be nice if that wasn't the law?"

"How can you take that attitude?" I demanded.

"You're a predator. You know how it is."

"Yes. I know exactly how it is.

That doesn't mean I like it. Look, the Pemalites were wiped out, maybe because they didn't fight. Maybe they'd have lost even if they had fought. We'll never know. But the Chee have lived for thousands of years. I know they're androids, but they're a species, too. They've survived without killing. Doesn't something about that make you jealous? Don't you wish we could say the same? Don't you wish Homo sapiens could face the universe and honestly say, "We do not kill? We don't enslave. We don't make war"?"

"I don't make the rules," I said. "I didn't start this war. Humans didn't start this war. Look, I don't want to make this personal, but I know the name Matcom. My dad is involved in some work with them. And the other day Tom ..." I shot a glance at Jake.

"His brother was on me to come to The Sharing and bring my father. The Sharing is targeting my dad, and now we know why. So for me, it's simple: If we take this Pemalite crystal, maybe my dad isn't involved with Matcom any more. And maybe the Yeerks find someone else to infest."

No one had an answer to that. I knew they wouldn't.

Cassie walked down to the far end of the barn and came back carrying a small cage.

"Total darkness, can't touch walls, floor, or ceiling, and you have to travel through a room strung with sensitive wires you can't even see."

She held up the cage. "Meet the animal that can do all that."

It was no larger than a small rat with its leathery wings folded back.

"Cool," I said. "First I'm Spiderman, now I get to be Batman."

I thought for once we'd get a chance to practice with the bat morph. We were planning to go after the Pemalite crystal the next weekend.

Plenty of time to plan and prepare.

Yeah, right.

"Marco?" My dad yelled up the stairs to my room, where I was desperately trying to figure out some math homework.

"Yeah?"

"Phone."

""X" equals point oh-three-nine," I reminded myself so I wouldn't lose my place. I went out into the hall to grab the upstairs phone.

"Point oh-three-nine. Yeah, who is it?"

"Hi, Marco. It's me, Erek."

"Oh, hi, Erek, what's up?" I hoped he would remember our phones could be bugged.

"Not much," he said, sounding very convincingly human.

"I was just thinking, though, you know that thing we were going to do next weekend? Why don't we just do it tonight instead?"

I knew what the "thing" was. And I knew Erek wasn't calling on a whim. Something had gone wrong. I swallowed my heart, which had jumped up into my throat. "Okay. Maybe I'll call Jake and see if he wants to do it, too."

"That'd be excellent," Erek said. "Later, man."

I hung up the phone and thought seriously about pretending I hadn't gotten the call. I mean, I wanted to do this. It was important, life and death. But it was like something out of Mis sion: Impossible.

And without planning or practice, it was beyond impossible.

Plus, I had homework to do.

I picked up the phone and called Jake. Four hours later, with all of our parents asleep in their beds, we met at Cassie's barn. All of us, including Ax. Erek arrived last.

He didn't waste time with small talk.

"There's a problem. The Yeerks are putting in a brand new security system on top of the existing systems. I don't think it's active yet, but I can't find out what it is."

"Fine. We can wait a few weeks till you can get the details." Tobias said.

"The crystal is already so well protected that any new system may put it beyond our grasp for good," Erek said. "And don't forget -- the Yeerks are racing to use this crystal to create a computer system so powerful it can take over every computer on Earth. They're not there yet. But the longer we wait. . ."

"Oh, man, this sucks," I said. "No planning? No preparation? Just go in and hope for the best?"

"I'll tell you everything I know," Erek said.

"Listen carefully. It's not too complicated."

For a few seconds we sort of teetered on the edge. We weren't sure what to do. Erek wanted us to go in, obviously. But he had his own interests, which might not be the same as ours.