The Andalite Chronicles

Air!

My lungs burned. My hearts pounded desperately. My mind was shutting down from lack of oxygen. As I faded out, a deadly weariness took the place of terror.

The ship’s artificial gravity was gone. I floated, weightless, as the floor and walls and ceiling all spun wildly around me.

Why should I care? Why should I resist? Why not just let it all end, here, now, as the Jahar fell into the monstrous black hole?

My life was a disaster. I had failed in so many ways…. Failed to save Arbron from being trapped forever in Taxxon morph. Failed to stop the Yeerk called Visser Thirty-two from stealing the body of my prince, Alloran-Semitur-Corrass. Failed to defeat the surprise attack of the living asteroids. Failed even to protect the two humans I was supposed to take care of.

And worst of all, I had failed to deliver the Time Matrix to my people. The Time Matrix: power beyond imagination.

Airless! My head swam with disconnected thoughts and images. Airless! In a ship that spun powerless, dead, through space.

Through the still-clear window I saw the huge swirl of dust and debris that marked the approaches to the black hole. But at the center of that swirl, nothing the eye could see. It was a collapsed star so dense that its gravity trapped light itself.

Yes, Elfangor, my dying mind said, let it end.

I saw the abomination, Visser Thirty-two, the only Andalite-Controller in the galaxy. The only Yeerk ever to gain control of an Andalite body. He was swooning from the lack of oxygen. He was slammed by the spinning floor and knocked, weightless, into the ceiling, four legs flailing, arms and tail all tangled around.

I held on to a protrusion in the control panel. But as the ship twirled, with all gravity gone, I felt something large and soft bump into me.

It was Loren. The female human. Unconscious. Never to be conscious again, if I didn’t reach the emergency air supply and use the manual release.

And then it came to me, in a moment of clarity: I had no choice. When Arbron had been in utter despair and had wanted to die, I stopped him. Because without life there is no despair, but without life there can also never be hope.

I had no right to erase Loren’s hope, no matter how bad I felt.

I searched my crazy, swirling, nightmare world with all my eyes and found the panel I was searching for. I focused on it with my stalk eyes, striving blearily to keep them focused.

But it was so hard. So hard to know up from down, left from right, with all the world spinning, and my own poor oxygen-deprived brain all but extinguished.

Had to reach that panel.

I would have one chance. One only. Too far gone to try a second time.

I aimed and kicked and flew weightless across the cabin. Missed! I grabbed. Missed! I floated helplessly away.

Suddenly, a hand reached up and shoved me back toward the panel. A human hand! Impossible! Loren had regained consciousness. In a near vacuum. Without air. With temperatures already dropping toward absolute zero!

She had regained consciousness. And seen what I was trying to do. She had propelled me back toward the panel. This time I reached and grabbed. I ripped the panel open, and turned the stiff mechanical release knob.

You cannot see air, of course. You don’t really feel it on your skin, most of the time. But when it is gone, you notice it.

My lungs sucked and drew nothing in. Nothing!

My lungs gasped again, and this time, I sensed just the faintest wisp of something.

I sucked again and <aaaahhh!> A sharp pain as my collapsed lungs filled with air.

Air! I drew deep breath after deep breath, each breath hurting, but hurting less than the one before. It was not a pain I minded.

I clung to the panel with my left hand, my hooves floating free, my tail drifting behind me. And for a while I just breathed, and thanked the entire universe for letting me feel air in my lungs again.

<Are you all right?> I asked Loren.

She smiled a human smile, the characteristic up-turning of the corners of her mouth. It was a weak, shaky smile. But I was glad to see it.

“I thought we were done for,” she said.

“Neither do you Andalites,” she said. “Now what?”

I surveyed the situation. The visser appeared to be just regaining consciousness. The other human, Chapman, was still unconscious, drifting lazily against the far wall like a rag doll.

<Well, we have air, but no power. The living asteroids drained the ship of power. We are falling toward a black hole.>

“Oh. That’s not good,” she said.

“Yeah, we learned about black holes in school.”

I was surprised that humans knew about such things.

Visser Thirty-two. The very sound of his thought-speak voice in my head filled me with rage. He sounded exactly like Alloran. But I knew that Alloran’s mind was a prisoner in his own head now. He could watch, listen, feel, but not control. The Yeerk in his brain controlled him now. The Yeerk moved his arms and legs and tail. The Yeerk decided when each breath would be drawn. The Yeerk aimed his eyes and formed his thought-speech.

I turned myself to face him. I had no idea which of us would win a tail fight. He had Alloran’s experience. But I had seen that I was faster than Alloran.

<Don’t be a fool, Elfangor,> the visser sneered. <What will be gained by you and me slashing each other up with these excellent Andalite tails?>

<You have a better idea?> I asked. <Because I can think of a lot of good reasons to go tail-to-tail with you.>

The visser laughed. <You blame me for all your own failings? I’m not the one who left his friend back on the Taxxon world, trapped in that vile worm’s body. I’m not the one who disobeyed his prince’s orders and let ten thousand Yeerks escape. A bit of disobedience that helped cause poor old Alloran’s downfall.>

I wanted to shrug off his words. But there was truth in them. And it is hard to ignore the truth. And pointless, as well.

<Yes. We are falling toward a black hole in a dead ship. But we have a way out. The Time Matrix.>

I stared at him with my main eyes. But my stalk eyes saw Loren look at me with fresh hope.

<Gravity,> the Yeerk said. <There should be just enough attraction between the ship and the Time Matrix to keep it close.>

I did the familiar calculations in my head. He was right. The Time Matrix was probably still just outside the ship.

<How do you propose getting to it?> I asked.