I felt cold fingers around my heart.

"It was the best time of my life," he said. "It was like we'd achieved some level of perfect peace and perfect love. But at the same time, there were these times when your mom would seem upset. Like she was struggling with some problem she wouldn't tell me about."

I had stopped breathing. I knew. I knew now when the change had been made. The perfect love my father was talking about was the Yeerk at work in my mother's head. The Yeerk wasn't interested in stupid little domestic battles. It wanted peace so that it could focus on deeper goals.

"Anyway, one day I woke up in the middle of the night. Your mom was sitting up in bed, wide awake. I knew she'd had a bad dream or something. But it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was just. . ." He shook his head.

"It was so strange. She sounded like she was trapped in a deep well, and trying to call out to me."

There were tears in my eyes. I hoped my father wouldn't notice.

"She said, They won't take you if you stay away from the military." It didn't make any sense.

But the way she said it... like it was the hardest thing she'd ever said . . . like it was the most important thing she'd ever said."

I had some idea just how hard it had been for my mother to say that. Sometimes, when there is some terrible need, the human being crushed beneath the Yeerk can force its way out. It can seize control for a few desperate seconds.

They say the price the human host pays is terrible. The Yeerk has mental tortures it can carry on for weeks.

My mother, my real mother, had struck when the Yeerk was distracted, and for a few seconds regained control.

"Anyway," my dad said, "I know it was just your mom having a bad dream. But ever since then, whenever an opportunity came up to do defense work, I just got this bad feeling about it."

I couldn't even pretend to eat any more.

"Dad, are you thinking about taking on a military project now?"

He avoided my gaze. "There are some very exciting things going on with this Matcom. The thing they want me on isn't military in any way.

But... well, they do carry on some very secret work.

I guess some of what they do is probably military."

There it was. The reason Tom was trying to get me to bring my father to The Sharing. My father was working on some project that the Yeerks wanted to control.

My mother had warned him. It may have been the last words that she, the real, human woman, ever spoke to him.

He was going to ignore that warning, and now the Yeerks wanted him.

92 We had decided to meet with Erek at his house.

We had not decided to trust him completely.

Jake, Cassie, Ax, and I were going to the meeting.

Rachel and Tobias stayed outside as backup.

Rachel was all primed to use her grizzly bear morph if we called for help.

"I'll be within range of Ax's thought-speak,"

she said for the tenth time. "I can morph my bear in a minute and go through that door about ten seconds later."

"If you do that, try not to stomp over me in the process, okay?" I said.

I glanced up and saw Tobias swooping down to settle in the tree in Erek's yard.

I could joke about it, but the truth was, it did feel reassuring to know Rachel and Tobias were ready to be the cavalry.

We went up to the front door of the very ordinary-looking house. I sent Jake a look that said, "Man, I hope we're right about this." But Jake was busy exchanging solemn glances with Cassie.

"So? Someone knock on the door," I said. I glanced at Ax. He was in his human morph. His human morph is made up of DNA gathered at the same time from all of us except Tobias. There's some of Jake and Rachel and Cassie and me in Ax's human shape. In the end result he's male, but almost as pretty as a girl.

Plus, he's annoying in human morph.

"Knock? Knock on the door? Why? Knockon. Knock-kuh."

Andalites don't have mouths, and Ax can't get over how fun it is to make actual sounds.

Plus, you don't even want the boy in the same room with certain foods.

Jake knocked.

The door opened. I was surprised. It wasn't Erek. It was his father, Mr. King.

He nodded. "Come in."

We stepped inside. I felt completely dorky. It was like we were coming over to ask if Erek could come out and play. I mean, the house looked so normal inside. Normal furniture and normal lights and normal dishes displayed in a hutch. A normal TV on "mute," showing pictures from CNN.

There were two dogs, a Labrador mix and a fat little terrier. The Lab just lolled over on its back. The terrier came running over to sniff our shoes.

"Is Erek here?" I asked.

Mr. King nodded. "Yes. Would you like a soda or anything?"

"No thanks, Mr. King," Cassie said. She bent over to scratch behind the terrier's ears.

"You like dogs?" Mr. King asked.

"She likes any animal," I answered.

"She even likes skunks."

"But dogs, do you like dogs?"

Cassie smiled. "If reincarnation were real, I'd want to come back as a dog."

Mr. King smiled, nodding as if Cassie had just said something profound. "Would you all come with me?"

He turned and led the way toward the kitchen.

Once again, the total normalcy of it seemed jarring. There were little Post-It notes on the refrigerator saying things like "dozen eggs, bell peppers." Someone had left a box of Wheaties out on the counter.

Mr. King opened a door. It led down to the basement. We followed him down the narrow wooden steps.

At this point I started to wonder. I noticed that Ax was morphing slowly out of his human shape, returning to Andalite form a little at a time.

Good old Ax. He sensed danger and he wanted his tail available.

I wanted his tail available, too.

Mr. King paused when we all got down to the basement. He watched with absolutely no surprise as Ax finished transforming. He waited politely for Ax to be done.

Then, to my utter amazement, I felt a slight dropping sensation. It took a few seconds to realize what was happening. The basement was dropping like an elevator. When I looked up I couldn't see a roof overhead, just darkness.

"Whoa," Cassie commented.

"Don't be afraid," Mr. King said.

It didn't last long. We may have dropped four or five floors. At least that's what it felt like to me. Then, with a slight lurch, the basementst elevator stopped.

"Is this the floor for men's clothing?" I asked.

I was almost not surprised when one entire wall of the basement, hung with tools and garden hose and a rake and hoe, simply disappeared.

Where the wall had been was now a hallway lit with a golden light.

"My basement won't do this," I muttered to Jake.

"Have you ever tried?" he asked.

"This way," Mr. King said.

We followed him. It was way too late to start worrying now.

The hallway wasn't long, just fifty feet or so. It reached a dead end, a blank wall. But then that wall, too, disappeared.

"Yah!"

"No way!"

"Strange."

"This is just a hologram, right?" I said. But somehow, I knew it wasn't. It was real.

Unbelievable, yet real.

What was beyond the hallway was a vast, vast chamber, lit in glowing gold light, soft and buttery warm.

I stepped out of the hallway onto springy grass. And over my head, maybe a hundred feet up, there was a glowing orb, like a sun. That's where the yellow light came from.

Stretched out before us, for more than the length of a football field, was a sort of park.