The Andalite Chronicles

<We will emerge into real space,> I explained. <If we’re lucky, we won’t be far from the StarSword. If we’re even luckier, there will be additional Andalite ships close by. From that point it will only take the Yeerks an hour or so to start showing up.>

“And then?” Loren asked.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

<Yes. Show me the best way to tie up a human,> I said, looking at Chapman. <I don’t want any distractions.>

We tied the human around his feet and hands using spare conduit hose. Then we tied the hands to the feet behind his back.

“One last thing,” Loren said. She took a short length of the hose and wrapped it around Chapman’s face, covering his mouth. “Now we won’t have to listen to him.”

It took me a few seconds to understand. Many species communicate by making sounds with their mouths. But it had never occurred to me you could silence someone with a piece of hose.

“No. Unfortunately.” She smiled to show she had been joking.

After all she had been through, from being kidnapped by Skrit Na to being made a Controller, she could still laugh. I wondered if I’d been wrong to think humor was a weakness. I wondered if Arbron could still laugh.

“Elfangor … aren’t you tempted by what Chapman said? I mean, if it were me, I might want to use that Time machine thing to change things. You know?”

She laughed. “No. Not that. Look, my life was pretty dull before all this. I know when you take me back to Earth you’ll have to erase all my memories of this. But still, even though it was horrible sometimes, I don’t think I’d want to never have met you. If it wasn’t for my mom worrying and all …”

I was surprised. And pleased, too. <In the Skrit Na ship, where I found the Mustang, I also found pictures of Earth. It looked very beautiful. Wonderful, delicious-looking grass and tall trees and streams of water that bubbled across stones. Is your home like that?>

“We do have places like that,” Loren said, smiling sadly. “There’s a place we went once, back when I was little and my dad was still with us. Before he went to the war. It’s a place called Yosemite. We camped out in a tent. Yosemite is like that.”

“Small white cylinders?” Loren looked puzzled. Then she laughed her strange but delightful human laugh. “You were looking at cigarette ads! Those white cylinders are called cigarettes. They’re bad for you, actually. Very bad for you. They make you sick.”

But Loren was laughing too hard to answer. And pretty soon, even though I had no idea what was so funny, I was laughing, too. Although my laugh could only be heard by Loren inside her own head.

“So,” she said after a while. “Why don’t you want to use this Time Matrix thing?”

I waved my stalks forward and back in a gesture of uncertainty. <You can’t just go messing around with time. They say it’s insanely complicated. Sure, maybe I could go back, like Chapman said, and stomp out the first Yeerks who evolved. But who knows how many other things that might affect? Besides, to be honest, I guess I’m scared of the Ellimists.>

“The what?”

“You think it was because they used the Time Matrix?”

<No one knows. Some people say the Ellimists still exist, but they’ve moved beyond the normal space-time dimensions we know. There are some who say the Ellimists are almost all-powerful.> I shrugged. <Of course, there are others who say they’re gone forever. Or even that they never did exist. Now Andalite parents tell their children stories about the Ellimists.>

“Fairy tales.”

“Not just fairies. We have elves and leprechauns and Santa Claus and hobbits and werewolves and vampires…. We even have aliens from outer space.”

Despite myself, I laughed. <Yes, those outer space aliens are quite troublesome.>

“Doesn’t the Time Matrix prove that these Ellimists are real?”

“No, tell me,” Loren urged. “Unless you have something else to do.”

<Okay, well, you know that space-time has ten dimensions. There are the normal dimensions of up/down, left/right, and forward/back. Then there is the fourth dimension, which is time. Then, there are six other dimensions, but they are curled up into themselves, so we don’t see or feel them. All we feel are three space dimensions, plus time.>

Loren nodded her head. I wondered what this meant. But she didn’t ask me to stop, so I went on.

“Like if we lived on a piece of paper,” Loren said.

<Exactly. It would be like we were drawings on a piece of paper. And if someone came along and drew a box around us, we could never get out. Because the lines of the box would be walls. But what if a three-dimensional person came along? A three-dimensional person could lift that Flattie right up out of that box. The Flattie wouldn’t even know what was happening, because he’s never gone up or down before. He doesn’t even know up and down exist.>

“You’re saying we’re like the Flatties. Except we’re in three dimensions, not just two. So we’re like Cubies or something.”

<Yes. So if some creature came along who existed in more dimensions than us, he’d be able to do things that would be impossible for us.>

“Ellimists. That’s what they are?”

<Maybe. Like I say, no one knows. But someone built the Time Matrix. Someone real. Someone who isn’t around anymore.>

“Whew.”

“Or maybe we’d just make these Ellimists mad,” Loren said.

<Exactly.>

“But if you give the Time Matrix to your people, won’t they use it, anyway? Even with all the risks?”

“But now … whatever Alloran did on that Hork-Bajir planet, it was wrong, wasn’t it?”

I stared at her with my main eyes. <Loren, I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. I just don’t.>

The computer signaled that we were nearing the translation point.

<We’re going back to normal space,> I said. <And by the way … if we do survive all this, and get you back to Earth, could you show me this place with the grass and trees and tall waterfalls?>

“It’s a date,” Loren said.

She put her arm around my waist and looked deep into my eyes with her two tiny blue human eyes. “Anything you want, Elfangor. Just no white cylinders.”