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Prologue

Aristh Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul was done with war. Sick to death of it. He had caused the Yeerk infestation of his own prince and created the abomination now called Visser Three. He had been unable to save his friend and fellow aristh Arbron, now trapped forever in the body of a Taxxon. Disaster piled on disaster. Failure on failure.

Now he was done with it all. He had escaped to the planet called Earth along with Loren, the human he loved. He would morph to human. Live as a human. Get lost amid the humans. Maybe even somehow, someway, find happiness. But he still had possession of the greatest weapon the galaxy had ever known: the Time Matrix.

The Time Matrix could travel backward through time the way a Z-space craft could travel through space. It gave the person who controlled it power beyond imagining. A person traveling backward could rewrite history. Using the Time Matrix, entire species could be exterminated. More than exterminated: They could be made never to have existed.

It was too much power to trust to anyone. Especially, Elfangor thought bitterly, a failure like him.

The Time Matrix was a sphere, taller than a human. Destroying it was physically impossible. But it could be hidden. For a while, at least.

He found an empty place. Nothing but trees. Using only the equipment available to any human, he dug a hole and rolled the device into it. He covered it. And then, he morphed to human.

Two hours later, he was no longer an Andalite. He was trapped. Human. Human forever, no longer a part of the vast war raging between Andalite and Yeerk. He was free.

Or so he thought.

Many years later, he returned to the same spot. Desperate enough to try to use the Time Matrix. The spot had become a construction site. This time, there would be no escape.

His time ran out. Just a few yards from the machine that could have given him all the time in the world.

Tobias

My name is Tobias.

In the history of Earth I may be the strangest creature ever to live. I mean it. You have to look at mythology to find anything as weird as I am. Maybe the griffin, which was supposed to be half lion and half eagle, or the centaur, half human and half horse, or whatever.

But those are myths. I am reality.

I am half human, half hawk. Red-tailed hawk, actually. Buteo jamaicensis, like that tells you much.

Homo sapiens, meet Buteo jamaicensis.

But that's not even the end of the story. Because in addition to that bizarreness, there's this:

My father was an Andalite who had morphed to human.

So you could say I'm Homo sapiens, Buteoja-maicensis, and Andalite. What would the Latin name be for Andalites? Don't know.

Is the glass half empty or half full? That's what they always ask, to see if you're an optimist or a pessimist. Am I some kind of hideous freak of nature, a twisted concoction of mismatched parts? Or am I something new and wonderful?

Depends on the day. Depends on whether I'm with Melissa, wanting to make her happy, wanting her to hold my hand, wanting to be able to take her to a movie and a burger afterward like any other guy can do with a date, maybe even hold her hand, maybe kiss her, maybe . . . Yeah, at times like that, the glass is half empty.

But there are other times. Times when the sun is high and hot. When the cumulus clouds are like gigantic mountains floating through a blue sky. Times when the warm air billows up beneath my wings and I barely have to flap and all of a sudden I'm so high, so totally, absolutely free, free in a way I never was as a human, free to soar and soar, alone, nothing but the sound of the wind ruffling across my feathers . . . and on those days the glass is spilling over. This was a full-glass day.

I was high in the air, I don't know, maybe a thousand feet up, the beach just ahead of me, a sweet thermal lifting me up. I could see the ocean, I could see the beach and all the people spread out there.

On a day like this, it was hard to be a pessimist. Yeah, Earth was being invaded by the Yeerks. Yeah, all that stood against them were five kids and one Andalite with the useful power to absorb the essence - what Ax calls "DNA" - of animals and then morph into them.

And yes, we were probably even losing the last war that humanity might ever fight as a free species. But on a stunning day like this, what I saw spread out below me was not possible Controllers, but people having a nice day at the beach, loving the sun, loving the warmth, taking it easy.

Even the slaves, standing by to attend to their masters and mistresses, seemed to be having a good time.

Jake

Tobias came swooping in through the open hayloft.

<It's clear,> he reported.

I gave him a slight nod of the head. But I didn't acknowledge his presence beyond that. Cassie's slave girl was still in the room, cleaning out the cage of an injured and very vocal goose. And as Cassie is always reminding us, the fact that a slave may not be as bright as a regular person does not mean they can't tell tales.

This particular slave was mostly deaf, which of course partly accounted for her status. But Cassie claimed the girl was otherwise reasonably smart. Cassie grabbed the girl's arm to get her attention, then, enunciating very clearly, said, "You can go now, September Twelve."

"Yes, mistress," the girl mumbled in her guttural, barely understandable speech. It came out "Yeth, mithreth." She turned and left the room. Melissa looked up at Tobias and winked. "Been out flying?"

Ax arrived a moment later. Marco was with him.

"So, what's up?" Marco demanded. "What's this meeting about? Don't you realize I have important stuff going on? I lead a busy, busy life."

"Really?" Melissa asked naively. Melissa has never really gotten Marco's sense of humor.

<Marco, are you hanging out with your imaginary friends again?> Tobias asked.

"Excuse me, but I no longer need friends, real or imagined. I was playing Pong. My dad bought one for us. It's so cool. Even my mom was into it, which, in a way is sad, because seriously, who wants to be doing stuff with their mom?"

<Be nice to your mom,> Tobias said. <She'll probably end up being your prom date someday.>

Everyone laughed. Except Ax, of course, who had no idea what a prom was. Or why it would be funny to have your mom as a date.

He's not one of us. So what can you expect?

"We have information from the Chee," I said.

That made Marco groan. "Swell. Trouble. It always is. You know, Erek never contacts us to say, 'Hey let's have fun!' It's always 'Hey, how would you all like to go and get yourselves killed?'"

"What does Erek have?" Melissa asked.

"He has information that the Yeerks are putting together a new front organization. This one, unlike The Sharing, is aimed at a very specific target."

<What target?> Ax asked.

"Our troops," I said. "Especially troops being sent to the war in Brazil." Cassie made a skeptical face. "Why would the Yeerks want to make Controllers of troops heading toward the jungle? What do they care whether we wipe out a bunch of Primitives?"

"It's not the war they care about," I said. "It's that things are tough for our boys down there, and I guess harsh conditions like that make it easy to get recruits. I mean, you're in the jungle, right? You figure 'How much worse could life get?' But most of the troops survive the war, they come back home, and the Empire rewards them with homesteads, slaves, cars, and so on. Lots of times they get jobs in government or else stay in the army. Suddenly the Yeerks have another one of their own in a position of power."

"What are we supposed to do about it?" Melissa asked. "That's thousands of miles away."

I shrugged. "I don't know. But what are we supposed to do, sit around while the Yeerks destroy the war effort? Let the jungle rats continue to take up valuable land that we need?"

"Yeah, it would be a pity if some of the Primitives escaped alive," Cassie said. I shot a look at her. Had that been sarcasm?

She smiled blandly.

I had long suspected that Cassie might have slightly radical tendencies. A lot of blacks did. Blacks and a lot of Jews, although not in my family. My dad was a certified POE - Patriot of Empire.

Still, if you had any Jewish blood in you at all, you had to be extra careful so no one thought you were a radical.

I knew Cassie was soft-hearted toward her own slaves. But I'd never heard her make any kind of subversive remarks about the war. I'd always just assumed she was sentimental.

Even now, it was impossible to be sure what her tone of voice meant. I'm not very good at that kind of thing. I'm a mostly straightforward kind of guy. It might have been an innocent remark. Or not.

I felt my stomach churn. We couldn't denounce Cassie as a subversive. We knew for a fact that the Triple S was heavily infiltrated by Yeerks. Denounce her to the Triple S and we might as well just turn her over to the Yeerks, and then all was lost.

What was I supposed to do?

I intercepted Marco's gaze. He gave a slight nod. A "told you so" nod. The question was, where would Melissa stand if it came down to eliminating Cassie? I knew Melissa was no radical. But she was Cassie's best friend, despite being white.

I shook my head, trying to focus. The Yeerks, They were my problem. Not radicals. If the human race survived the Yeerks we'd have all the time in the world to round up the radicals and take care of them.

In the meantime . . .

I gave Cassie a blank look, not acknowledging what she might have meant. "We have to try to deal with this. Personally, I don't want a world filled with Primitives any more than I want a world filled with Yeerks."

"Jungle rats and slugs," Marco said with a laugh. "Now there's a nice world for decent people to live in."

"Wonderful! Wonderful, I love it!"

The voice was unknown. I spun around, ready to do battle.

Standing there, as though it had appeared from thin air, stood a creature who could not possibly be from Earth.

It looked at first glance like the mating of a small dinosaur and a large prune. It had two legs and balanced its body with a stubby tail.

The hands were weak, flimsy things, with too many joints.

The head didn't fit with the birdlike body. It was humanoid in shape, with a narrow lower jaw and big, mocking eyes.

The skin was wrinkled, like a prune. The flesh was dark, almost jet-black, relieved only by green that rimmed the eyes and mouth.

"Who are you?" I snapped.

"Me? Oh, I'm hurt. Devastated! You don't remember your old friend the Drode?" Jake

I've never seen you before in my life," I said.

"Well ... No. Not in this life, perhaps."

"Yeerk," Melissa said. "Some new host body."

"Marco," I said. He nodded. He began to slowly morph to grizzly bear, his favorite morph.

<Who are you?> Ax demanded. <0r should I say, what?> The creature grinned. "You, at least, are no different, Aximili-EsgarrouthIsthill. Still the arrogant Andalite."

"Shut up, Ax," I snapped. "I am Supreme Leader here. I'll ask the questions." Having put one pushy alien in his place, I moved back to the other. "What do you want?" I demanded. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marco changing. The creature sighed. "Well, as much fun as it is to see you all this way, I suppose for us to move on I'll have to return you, temporarily at least, to your usual condition: sanctimonious, self-righteous, and utterly tedious." There was no flash of light. No bang. Nothing changed. Except that everything changed.

I changed.

Suddenly, instantly, I was a different person.

I stared at the Drode. I knew now who he was. What he was.

Whom he served.

I shot a look at Cassie. Then at the girl standing beside her. Melissa was gone. Rachel was there.

"So glad you're back with us, Rachel," the Drode leered. "You know you're still my favorite Animorph."

"What was all that?" Marco demanded mid-morph. "Some kind of hallucination?"

"No, no, no!" the Drode said. "It is glorious reality. Big Jake, Jake the perfect leader, Jake the compassionate, nothing more than a jumped-up little dictator with delusions of grandeur who insists on being called Supreme Leader!"

"No, that was not reality," Cassie snapped. "I do not own a slave! That's sickening! What are you talking about?"

"And where was I?" Rachel demanded.

"I was thinking how I'd have to turn Cassie in for not approving of some war down in Brazil," I admitted. "That's not reality."

"I will tell you about reality," the Drode said eagerly. "Your country is an empire, ruled by terror and torture. It has made war on the nations to the south. It slaughters peoples it calls 'Primitives.' It enslaves anyone with an IQ below eighty, as well as anyone born with what you call defects. All in all, it's my kind of place."

"That's bull!" Marco said hotly.

"I assure you it is all true. The Yeerks are within months of consolidating control. The lack of freedom among humans has made their conquest ever so much easier. Your few books, your two radio stations, your single television channel are all censored. Your technology is fifty years behind where it should be. Poverty is widespread, curable diseases run rampant, some women are forced to breed to repopulate the dominant white race while at the same time, in the major cities the poor and homeless are rounded up and shot -"

"Jake, let me take care of this little worm," Rachel said.

"What's this all about, Drode?" I asked. I wasn't at all sure I wouldn't take Rachel up on her offer.

"The Time Matrix," the Drode said.

<What?> Ax's stalk eyes snapped around to stare. <That's a myth! No such device ever existed>

"Oh, it existed," the Drode said. "It exists. It was found by a lowly humanController, who uses the name John Berryman. He's an actor. Not a very successful one. A lowly Controller whose Yeerk was, until he lost the battle for Leera, none other than Visser Four. And why did he lose the battle for Leera?

Why, because of all of you. Ironic, eh?"

"What does this have to do with all that other stuff?"

"The Yeerk, the former Visser Four, has used the Time Matrix. He has traveled backward in time and is changing historical events. He's rewritten the past in an effort to bring about a Yeerk victory and give himself greater power. You ... the other yous ... are unaware that life was ever any different. You have all been raised in an environment of delightfully ferocious oppression. It's all quite wonderful!"

"But slavery? Some genocidal war?" Cassie said, her voice cracking.

"Why are you here?" Rachel demanded.

The Drode sighed. "Sadly, I am here to offer you the chance to undo it all." He spread his hands wide and smiled a hideous smile. "I want to help." Cassie

I laughed. "You want to help. You. Meaning Crayak."

"Yes, it is rather puzzling, isn't it?" the Drode mocked.

<Why would you help?> Ax asked.

"It's all part of a deal. My master, the great and glorious Crayak, and your friend, the simpering, meddling nitwit called the Ellimist, have a deal. Neither of them really approves of a mere Yeerk possessing the most powerful device in galactic history."

"In other words, this Time Matrix could endanger Crayak himself," Marco translated.

The Drode laughed. "Don't be a fool. Nothing threatens great Crayak. However. .

. one doesn't want mere baboons blundering about with Time Matrices, does one?

Who knows what harm they might do? Oh, sure, it's all fun and games when they end up starting genocidal wars or engendering race hatred -"

"Yeah, what's more fun than that?" Rachel said dryly.

"-but who knows what other damage a fool with such power may do?"

"Crayak could grab the Time Matrix himself," Jake said. "He has the power."

"Mmmm, well . . ." the Drode said.

Crayak and the Ellimist were to humans what humans are to ants. Nearly omnipotent creatures. One evil. One good.

Perhaps. We could never be entirely sure.

<The Rules,> Tobias said. <That's the problem. The rules of the game between Crayak and the Ellimist. Neither trusts the other with the Time Matrix. They don't need it themselves, but they might give it to their allies.> The Drode put his hand to his ear. "Did I just hear a bird chirping?"

"You mentioned a deal," Marco said.

"Yes," the Drode said. "A deal. And here it is: The six of you will be allowed to follow the Time Matrix. The former Visser Four set off on his journey two days ago. You will be translated back to that point and then the quanta that make up your atoms will be ... tuned. Yes, that's a good word for simple minds to comprehend. You'll be fine-tuned at the subatomic level to resonate with the movements of the Time Matrix as it travels through time. Your own memories and personalities will, of course, be buffered. Protected against changes."

<Resulting in what effect?> Ax demanded.

"Resulting in the effect that, like an echo, you will follow the Time Matrix. It plucks the chords of time and you reverberate." He stopped and shook his head in admiration of his own words. "Brilliantly explained, eh?"

"That's the deal?" Jake asked. "That's it?"

"There's something else, isn't there?" I asked the Drode. The Drode laughed. "Oh, yes. There is something else, little Cassie. Cassie the killer with a conscience. Kill 'em, then cry over 'em. That's our Cassie."

"What's the something else?" I repeated, not letting the evil little creep see that his words had hit home.

"My master Crayak has demanded a price. A payment."

"A payment."

"Uh-huh," the Drode said in a parody of coyness.

"What?"

"One of you," the Drode said. "You can attempt to save your reality, put everything back where it belongs, end slavery, replace tyranny with democracy, millions of lives saved, let freedom ring, glory hallelujah in exchange ... in exchange for one, single life."

"A life?" I asked.

"The life of one of you. That is my master Crayak's price: One of you must die."

Cassie

"This is insane!" Marco said. "I mean, I've said things were insane before, but this is totally, abjectly insane!" He pointed at the Drode. "You go back and tell that manure pile Crayak, and the Ellimist, too: This isn't on us. They can fix this and leave us out."

"If we do nothing we go back to that other reality, don't we?" I said to the Drode. "Jake's some kind of junior Nazi, I'm a slave owner, all of us living like that?"

"Why wasn't I even in the group?" Rachel demanded.

"You? A violence-prone sociopath like you, Rachel?" the Drode said with a happy laugh. "You were in a reeducation camp. This world has little room for bold, aggressive females. You were being taught your place."

"Say what? My what?"

Suddenly, around the Drode's wrist, an oversized watch appeared. "You all have to decide," the Drode said, holding up the watch. "Two minutes. Ticktock, ticktock. Then all goes back to what it should be. Tick. Tock." He was gone as suddenly as he had appeared.

"My place?" Rachel muttered, not quite believing the word. "No one teaches me my place."

"Okay. Two minutes. Visser Four is running around the past messing up the future. I don't think there's much question that we have to do this," Jake said.

Jake nodded. "No choice. Too much hangs on this. Millions of lives versus one?

Not even a question."

"Bull," Marco said. "This isn't our fight. We sit this one out." Rachel rounded on him. "What? And I go back to some reeducation camp? And slavery is back? And we're murdering natives down in the jungle or whatever? I don't think so. I can't believe even you could be this much of a weasel!" But Rachel was wrong. It hadn't dawned on her yet, or maybe on the others. But I know Jake. There was only one life that Jake would trade away like this. Marco, too, knows Jake very well.

There was a history between Jake and the evil force called Crayak. It was Jake, more than any of us, who destroyed the Howlers and saved the Iskoort, two terrible blows against Crayak.

Jake assumed that he would be the one to die. Marco had seen this instantly. He wasn't arguing in favor of the awful future we'd seen. He was arguing for the life of his best friend.

"We're just going to let it all happen?" Rachel went on, in full outrage mode.

"All we just experienced? Slavery? Censorship? Wars? Secret police rounding up the homeless and -"

"-and Pong?" Marco interrupted, breaking her momentum. "Look, don't be stupid. This could just be an elaborate trap. Anyway, how do we exactly fix the past? I mean, exactly? Does one of you have a history book stored away in his head? How do we fix history if we don't even know how it's broke?" It was Ax who answered. <Whatever Visser Four is attempting to do, we undo it>

"Hey, it isn't that simple. Where do you think Visser Four is going to go to change history? He's going to wars, I guarantee you. Killing and dying. And how do we know it isn't our own actions in the past that caused all this?"

<Time travel,> Tobias muttered. <Too much to get a human brain around. Too complex. Too many possibilities.>

"Okay, look, time is short. It's down to a vote," Jake said.

"What? The 'Supreme Leader' wants a vote?" Marco mocked. He was stalling. Eating up the two minutes.

<As bad a feeling as I get about this, I don't see how we can just blow this off,> Tobias said reluctantly.

"I'd rather die than be a slave owner," I said. "But..." I let it hang. I couldn't look at Jake. I felt sick.

I felt Marco staring at me. He wanted to see if I understood. I met his gaze. I nodded slowly.

I wanted to explain. Jake meant more to me than anyone in the world. He meant as much to me as my own parents. But I couldn't walk away from this. The society we'd just glimpsed? No. Whatever the price we paid we had to stop that. Marco smiled a small, sad half smile, accepting my verdict.

"Someone's going to teach me my place? Yeah, right. Let's do it," Rachel said, laughing at her own swagger.

"Marco?" Jake asked.

"Here's my vote: We go home and watch TV. Fifty channels, there's gotta be something on."

Jake shook his head. "I don't think so. The Drode said there was only one channel in that reality."

"One?" Marco asked, sounding shaken.

"One."

"Well, then Visser Four is my meat."

"Unanimous," Jake said, smiling in amusement at Marco. Marco turned away from Jake. The grin disappeared. He looked like he wanted to cry.

Our eyes met again. And not for the first time I realized how smart Marco is underneath all the jokes. He knew we were going to do it. He knew his best friend's life might be the price we paid. He also knew we couldn't go into this hopeless battle thinking about nothing but that single, terrible fact. I leaned close to Marco, so that only he could hear, and took his hand in mine.

"Crayak is not going to have him."

Marco nodded. He squeezed my hand. "You got that right."

"Okay, it's unanimous," Rachel was saying. "But not till I get a chance to pack some clothes, get some things, okay? In other words, you Drode piece of dog doo, not yet, okay? Not yet! Not yet!" she yelled.

But she was yelling it to a large creature that seemed to be made entirely of steel.

Rachel

"Not yet!"

It was dark.

It was raining.

And there was a very large man, on a very large horse, wearing very steel armor right in front of me.

"Rrr-EEE-hhhuhhuhh! Rrr-EEE-hhhuhuhuhh!"

The horse reared up and pranced in surprise. Hooves as big as dinner plates flailed. I had appeared right in front of it. We both had. Cassie was beside me.

"Oh, man!" I said. "I knew he'd do this!" I glanced around in the dark. I didn't see the others. No surprise. I barely saw the knight on his horse. A damp, sputtering campfire away through the trees cast just enough yellow light to outline the almost dainty metal boot in the ornate stirrup, the long steel shank of his thigh, the chain-mail glove that gripped the reins, the elbow joint, the helmet with a pointed visor decorated with elaborate filigree. The red-and-gold logo on his shield.

And, of course, the sword that hung at his side in a red scabbard.

"The Tin Man?" I said under my breath.

"Uh-uh. I don't think so, Toto," Cassie said.

My feet were sinking into mud. And it occurred to me that sitting on a horse in the pouring rain was probably not a good time. The red knight was very likely to be cranky.

The armored man got his horse under control. Barely.

Then, he drew his sword.