Once, a long time before, I had explained to Loren what it must be like to see the universe as the Ellimists saw it. And now, as the Ellimist lifted me up out of the everyday world of three dimensions of space and one of time, I saw what he saw.

When I had used the Time Matrix I glimpsed the lines of time interwoven. But now I saw a thousand times more. It was beyond sight. Beyond sound. It was some new sense, some new awareness.

I could feel the lines of time flowing through me. I could see and taste and hear and touch and smell a billion possibilities, all flowing through me.

I saw the Ellimist himself, as he really was. An indescribable being of light and time and space. Huge, but without a place. Alone, but not the only one of his kind. I saw and understood the vast power that trailed the lines of time through his grasp. And yet, against the enormity of all that had ever been and all that would ever be, I saw his limits, too.

The Ellimist was mighty. But not all-powerful.

I saw a young Andalite who looked like I had once: so serious, so determined to prove himself. I heard his name in my mind: Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill.

Hello, little brother, I said silently.

I saw Arbron, still alive on the Taxxon world. I felt his Taxxon hunger. But I also felt his Andalite pride.

Hello, Arbron. You have become the hero I always wanted to be.

I saw Loren, and wrapped around her time line now was another human who would be her mate. I had been written out of her memory. It tore at my heart to realize that I was now a stranger to her.

And yet, I saw that some part of my own time line still intersected her own. I still touched her future in some way. My line and hers converged, and then from those two lines came a new line, just emerging, just beginning to grow.

<What does it mean?> I asked the Ellimist.

YOU HAVE A SON, ELFANGOR.

In a flash I saw the truth. That’s why Loren had gone to see her doctor. She would have come home and told me. We had a child!

<No! You can’t take me away! I have a son!> I cried. <That changes everything! Don’t take me away!>

YOU ARE AWAY, ELFANGOR-SIRINIAL-SHAMTUL. WHAT WAS BROKEN HAS BEEN REPAIRED. YOU ARE WHERE YOU MUST BE. THE CHILD WILL BE RAISED AS THE SON OF ANOTHER.

<But my son! What will happen to him? Will he still … exist?>

I saw the tiny line that was my son flow off through time. I saw pain and hardship and loneliness for him.

But then, like a distant nova, I saw a flash of light, far at the edge of a still-uncertain future. Across the galaxy my brother’s line reached to join with my son’s. And four other bright, shining time lines formed together with those two.

I knew I was watching something incredible and important. And I knew this union of six time lines, one Andalite and five human, was the entire point of the Ellimist’s “noninterference.”

<So, you don’t interfere with the affairs of other species?> I asked him.

WAS THAT SARCASM, ELFANGOR? the Ellimist asked. And then he laughed a huge laugh that reverberated through all the tendrils of space and time.

<Is it all just a game for you?>

YES, the Ellimist said, all laughter silent now. BUT WE ARE NOT THE ONLY GREAT POWERS OF THE GALAXY. THERE IS ANOTHER. OLDER EVEN THAN WE. AND HE PLAYS A DARK GAME, ANDALITE. IT IS WITH HIM THAT WE PLAY. SO HOPE THAT WE WIN, ELFANGOR-SIRINIAL-SHAMTUL. HOPE THAT WE WIN.

I saw a battle ahead.

I saw my own body twisting and changing shape.

I opened my stalk eyes. Tested my Andalite tail.

And all at once, I was on the bridge of an Andalite fighter.