“So, this is Zero-space,” Loren said, looking out through the viewport. “We’ve been in it for a full day and I still don’t understand what it is.”

I directed my stalk eyes to the viewport. I saw blank white. Empty, whiteness. <Zero-space isn’t anything, really,> I said quietly. <It’s antispace. You know, like antimatter and antigravity? Well, Zero-space is antispace.>

I had explained this at least twice during the last day. But I guess she was trying to make conversation.

She’d been through one of the worst experiences any creature can endure: She had been made a Controller. I couldn’t believe she was even managing to talk without weeping.

Fortunately, the Yeerk in Loren’s head had been at the end of its feeding cycle. Yeerks feed on Kandrona rays. Every three days they must drain out of their host and return to the Yeerk pool to absorb Kandrona rays.

So I made a deal with the hungry Yeerk. I could keep Loren tied up and wait for the Yeerk to starve to death. Or the Yeerk could come out willingly. I agreed to put it in deep hibernation. To freeze it. The Yeerk decided hibernation was better than death by Kandrona ray starvation.

I kept my word to the Yeerk. After it crawled out of Loren’s ear, I froze it. And then I ejected it from the ship into the vacuum of real space. Someday it might be found and revived. More likely it would sink into the gravity well of a star and be incinerated.

Especially since I made sure to eject it close to a sun.

Maybe that wasn’t living up to the spirit of my deal with the Yeerk. But somehow, I just didn’t care. My notions of proper behavior had brought disaster.

I was a fool. A silly child living out storybook notions of decency and fairness.

There was no decency in war. Alloran had tried to teach me that. I’d learned it too late.

“Have you decided where we’re going, Elfangor?” Loren asked gently.

“He doesn’t know,” Chapman said. He spent his time now sitting in a corner, glaring darkly at the two of us. Sub-Visser Seven had been inside Chapman’s head. If that had taught the foolish human a lesson, it sure didn’t show. “Elfangor is confused. Isn’t that right? He screwed up bad … Arbron trapped in one of those centipede bodies, Alloran made into the first-ever Andalite-Controller. Almost lost the Time Matrix. Gonna be tough explaining all this to the folks back home, eh?”

I ignored him. Back home. What was home anymore? Was I supposed to return home? Home to my parents? Run free on my old, familiar grass? Spend my days with my old childhood friends?

I wasn’t a child anymore. My home was still there, but I would never belong there again.

Loren came over to me. “Elfangor. Snap out of it. We’re going in circles in Zero-space.”

<Yes. I know.>

“You did the best you could. You’re just a kid, like me.”

<I am an aristh in the Andalite military. I disobeyed my prince and caused him to be enslaved by the Yeerks. The Yeerks will now learn everything Alloran knows about our defenses. Everything he knows about the capabilities of our weapons. Everything he knows about the locations of our ships. At least he wasn’t a scientist, so he can’t give them morphing technology or computer software. But he will still be the greatest intelligence victory in Yeerk history.>

Chapman shook his head. “Guess I was right to throw in with the Yeerks, eh? You Andalites are going down. Unless …”

Loren glared at him. “Why don’t you shut up?”

Chapman just grinned. “Unless you Andalites use the Time Matrix thing. Go back in time, find that first little tribe of Yeerk slugs. Kill ’em and the entire Yeerk species is gone. Gone and never even existed. What do they call that? Oh yeah, genocide. You up for a little genocide, Elfangor?”

I just shook my head wearily. <Don’t waste your time taunting me, Chapman. It won’t work.>

Loren looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

<He’s trying to goad me into using the Time Matrix. Remember, he’s been a Controller, however briefly. Sub-Visser Seven left him instructions, just in case something went wrong. Chapman knows that to use the Time Matrix I’d have to return to real space. My guess is that the Yeerks placed a homing beacon on the Jahar. If we return to normal space, we’ll light up every Yeerk sensor within a million light years.>

I could see from the dark rage on Chapman’s face that I had guessed correctly.

At least I’d gotten one thing right. I wasn’t fool enough to fall for —

Suddenly, it was as if a light had gone on in my head. Wherever the Jahar emerged into real space, the Yeerks would go tearing after it.

No matter where.

A trap! I could spring a trap!

But where? Where should I draw the Yeerk fleet?

To the StarSword! My old ship. She was off pursuing a Yeerk task force near the Graysha Nebula. She’d been hoping to meet a second Dome ship there.

Two Dome ships. Plus the Jahar. Enough fire-power to handle just about anything the Yeerks could muster.

I went to the control panel and entered the coordinates.

“You have a plan?” Loren asked.

<More or less,> I muttered. I was already having doubts. <There’s a place called the Graysha Nebula. We don’t know much about it. But there are rumors of a sentient species living in that area. And there are rumors that the Yeerks are exploring the nebula. My old ship, the StarSword, went there to see if it could locate a Yeerk task force we were pursuing.>

“So we’re going there to meet up with your old ship. Is … is this nebula place closer to Earth?”

<No.>

“Elfangor … am I ever going to get back home?”

<Loren, I will do my best.>

Chapman snorted. “And you’ve seen how good Elfangor’s best is. You might as well kiss Earth goodbye.”