Marco had warned me to say nothing to his father but "yes" and "no."

"No," I said to Marco's father.

"I'm Marco's dad. Are you a friend of his?"

"Yes."

"What's your name?"

"No," I answered.

"Your name is 'No'?"

"Yes."

"That's an unusual name, isn't it?"

"No."

36 "It's not?"

"Yes."

"Yes, it's not an unusual name?"

"No."

"Now I'm totally confused."

"Yes."

Marco's father stared at me. Then, in a loud voice he yelled, "Hey, Marco? Marco? Would you ... um ... your friend is here. Your friend 'No' is here."

"No," I said.

"Yes, that's what I said."

Marco came running down the stairs. "Whoa!" he cried. "Um, Dad! You met my friend?"

"No?" Marco's father said.

"What?" Marco asked.

Marco's father shook his head. "I must be getting old. I don't understand you kids."

"Yes," I offered.

After that, we went to the bookstore.

37 Chapter SEVEn

Books are an amazing human invention. They allow instant access to information simply by turning pieces of paper. They are much faster to use than computers. Surprisingly, humans invented books before computers. They do many things backward. - From the Earth Diary of

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill

It was evening of the next day. I was in the woods. I was reading a book. The book was called the World Almanac. Did you know that twelve percent of households have a dehumidifier? Did you know that a sheep can live for twenty years? Did you know that humans used to believe the sun orbited Earth?

It's a wonderful book.

The book told me many useful things. It took humans only sixty-six years to go from inventing the first flying machine to landing on the moon. It took Andalites almost three times as long.

Humans are a very clever species. Someday, if they survive, they could be one of the great races of the galaxy.

Of course, Andalites will always be greater.

I was standing by the stream, with one hoof in the water, drinking, when my stalk eyes saw a swift shadow falling from the sky.

Tobias opened his wings and shot just over my head. "Ax! Everyone is looking for you. Stay right here. I have to get them."

He had kept most of his speed, so he swiftly disappeared above the trees. But a moment later he was back, with four other large birds of prey following him.

Tobias took a position on a branch. The others landed on the ground. I knew then it was the other Animorphs.

They quickly began to demorph. Prince Jake grew out of a falcon's racing body. Rachel emerged from a huge bald eagle. Cassie and Marco had both acquired osprey morphs, and were now becoming human again.

I felt a tingling of worry. They had obviously been searching for me, and were in a hurry.

"What is the matter?" I asked.

"What's the matter?" Marco demanded. "You're asking what's the matter? I'll tell - " But just at that point, Marco crossed the line from thought-speaking morph back to human.

His human mouth was still a beak, however, so he just squawked.

I watched Cassie as she made the change. Cassie is a natural estreen-. a person with an ability to make morphing almost artistic. On my planet it is an art form. There are professional estreenswho change shape in fantastic, beautiful ways.

38 Cassie was not a professional, but she had the talent. As she morphed, she formed pleasant shapes. For a while she had an enlarged osprey's head, as large as a human head, and vast wings attached to a human body.

When the others morph, they are much less subtle. For them, human parts simply ooze out, while feathers melt away. It is very unappealing. The humans find it frightening and disgusting as well, I believe. And they even recognize that Cassie has a talent for morphing.

"What did you do?" Marco's human mouth had reappeared.

"I don't understand the question."

"My dad's computer. You did something to it, didn't you?"

"I...I merely played the game."

"Game? GAME?! That was no game, that was my dad's work!"

"No. It was a game. You had to find the errors in the instructions." Suddenly an idea occurred to me. "Oh, I understand. Your father designs games for children." Cassie started to laugh, then silenced herself.

"No, Ax, he writes software programs for high-tech uses. He was working with astronomers at the observatory. They were designing a program for aiming the radio telescope at the new observatory."

I nodded, as I had seen humans do. "Yes, it could be used for that purpose. But it was so obviously full of errors ... I assumed it was a child's game."

"If you say 'game' again, I swear I'm going to punch you," Marco said.

Prince Jake put his hand on Marco's shoulder. "What Marco means is, it was not a game, Ax.

His father is going nuts about it."

"My dad says you may have created some whole new branch of computer software, plus, at the same time, opened up new ways to do astronomy. He showed it to the guys at the observatory. They are totally losing it! They're talking about Nobel prizes! I had to convince my dad it was just an accident. I told him you were an idiot, and you were not the next Einstein."

"Einstein. Yes. I read about him in the World Almanac. He was the first human to realize that matter and energy - "

"Ax!" Rachel exploded. "Are you not getting this? What if some Controller hears about this new software? Don't you think they might guess it was an Andalite who came up with it?"

It hit me quite suddenly. She was right. If those equations were supposed to be real, not a game, but real. . . Then I had just pushed human science ahead by a century. Maybe more.

"I think he just got it," Marco said sarcastically.

39 "What is a radio telescope?" I asked Marco.

He shrugged. "Like I would know? What am I, a science teacher?"

"A radio telescope is a telescope that sees by picking up radio waves and other radiation from outer space," Cassie said.

Marco gave her an incredulous look.

"Not all of us sleep through science class, Marco," Cassie said.

"I see. A primitive sensor. Yes, that would make sense. Of course, with the changes I made .

. ."

"What?" Marco snapped. "What about the changes you made?"

"The changes I made would only . . ."

Suddenly I stopped. The truth ... the whole truth . . . was beginning to dawn on me. A radio telescope? A huge, high-powered collector of broad-spectrum energy?

My mind raced through memories of classes from a long time ago. I could almost picture my teacher explaining. . . yes. Yes! With the right adjustments, the right software . . . Yes, I could bounce the collected energy back, focus it, modulate it with my own mind, and . . .

And break into Z-space. Zero-space.

I could use the system to send messages through Z-space! I could communicate with my own world!

I felt it as a blow that made me weak. It was true. I could use that radio telescope to call my home world. To call my people. My family.

I don't think I had ever admitted, till that moment, just how much I wanted to see another Andalite.

"Ax, what are you hiding now!" Rachel demanded.

I tried to concentrate on her question. But my mind was spinning. It made me feel weak. I could contact my home planet. I could...