"I mean, you talk about how advanced the Pemalites were. If they could create androids, they could create weapons."

Erek looked at me and nodded, like he agreed.

"The Pemalites had forgotten the ways of conflict and war. They were creatures of peace. They'd forgotten that there could be such a thing as pure evil."

That answer just frustrated me. It made no sense.

But I let Erek tell the rest of his grim story.

"As we ran for our lives through Zero-space, we discovered that the Howlers had achieved a special revenge. The Pemalites began to become sick.

They began to die. The Howlers had unleashed germ weapons. The Pemalites were doomed. But we Chee, we androids, were unaffected."

The scene around us became the inside of a space ship. A scene of Chee, looking on helplessly while one of their creators writhed in pain.

"Then we remembered a planet. A planet similar to our own, but very far from our home and the Howlers. It had only one sun and the light was pale, but there were trees and grass and wonderful oceans."

"Earth," Cassie said.

"Earth," Erek said. "The Pemalites had not visited Earth in fifty thousand years, and in that time, everything had changed. The wandering tribes of primates had created cities. They had domesticated animals. They were planting crops.

"We landed on Earth with just six Pemalites still clinging to life."

The hologram disappeared, and the underground cavern was back to its normal self -- a wide park of Earth trees and Earth plants, with dogs everywhere.

"We could not save the Pemalites. They would die. But we could try and rescue some part

of them. We hoped we could keep their hearts, their souls alive somehow. We looked for an Earth species we could use to harbor the essence of the Pemalites. Their decency. Their kindness.

Their playfulness and love."

"Wolves," Cassie said, once again way ahead of me.

Erek looked surprised, but he nodded his holographically projected human head. "Yes.

They looked most like the Pemalites themselves. We grafted the essence of the Pemalites into the wolf species. And from that union, dogs were cre ated. To this day, most dogs carry within them the essence of the Pemalites. Not all, but most.

Wherever you see a dog playing, chasing a stick, running around barking for the sheer joy of life, you see the remnants of the race of Pemalites."

"That's why all these dogs are here," Jake said. "They're your. . . what, friends? Creators?"

"They are our joy," Erek said, "because they remind us of a world without evil. The world we lost.

We Chee are all that is left of Pemalite tech nological genius. The dogs of Earth are all that is left of Pemalite souls."

i. don't think I would have believed any of it.

Except for the small fact that we were in a huge underground park. And there were androids walking around.

Plus, there was the fact that my entire life had become one long, incredible, unbelievable story.

So who was I to laugh at Erek's story? "So you all pass as humans?" I asked Erek.

He nodded. "Yes. We live as humans.

We play the role of children and then grow older, and eventually our hologram is allowed to "die"

and we start again as children."

"How long has this been going on?" Cassie asked.

Erek smiled warmly. "I helped to build the great pyramid."

"You designed the pyramids?"

"No, no, of course not. We have never interfered in human affairs. I was a slave. I helped to quarry the stone. It was a challenge, because I was new at pretending to be human. I had to hide my real strength, of course. The Pemalite home world had a gravity four times stronger than Earth's.

Naturally, we were designed for that gravity, which means we are quite powerful by human standards."

"And you stayed as a slave?" Jake asked. "You could have taken over Egypt. You could have taken over the world."

"No. We are not the Yeerks," he said coldly. "You see, when our creators made us, they hardwired us for nonviolence. We are not capable of hurting another living being. No Chee has ever taken a life."

Just then, I noticed a group of four Chee walking quickly toward us.

Erek saw them, too. Even though I know his "face" was just a hologram, it seemed to me he was annoyed.

"What have you done?" one of the Chee demanded.

"What have you done, you fool?"

The four Chee came up and glared at us with robot eyes. "Humans? An Andalite? Here? What have you told them?"

"Everything," Erek said defiantly. "These are the ones, these humans and this Andalite, who have been resisting the Yeerks. They're the ones who can morph." His voice rose. "They are the ones who are fighting the battle we should fight."

"We are Chee. We do not fight," one of the androids said. It turned on its holographic projector. A human body appeared. The body of an old woman, maybe eighty years old.

"I am Chee-lonos. My human name for now is Maria," she said. "I did not mean to seem angry toward you humans, or you, my Andalite friend. My dispute is with this Chee called Erek and some of his friends."

"We stood by helplessly as the Howlers annihilated our creators," Erek said to Maria.

"We can't stand by helplessly and watch this world be destroyed, too. Dogs and humans are intertwined.

They have evolved a dependency. Dogs cannot survive without humans. If the humans fall to the Yeerks, we, the last great masterpieces of the Pemalites, and the dogs, their spirit-homes, will all die, too."

I gave Jake a look. That's why the Chee wanted to help humans? To save dogs? Jake shook his head slightly in amusement.

"We do not fight," Maria said heatedly. "We do not kill. You know that, Erek. Yet you bring these outsiders here. You blurt the secrets we have kept for thousands of years. Why? What good can come from it? We cannot fight to save the humans."

"That's where you're wrong," Erek said softly.

"We can fight. While you and the others merely hope everything will work out, my friends and I have been infiltrating the Yeerk organizations here on Earth. The Yeerks even think that I am one of them."

Maria and the three unhologrammed Chee just stared.

"The Yeerks have been busy. They control a computer company called Matcom."

It took me a couple of seconds to remember that name.

Erek went on. "The Yeerks are working on a master computer to infiltrate and rewrite all the software in all the computers on Earth. When they have achieved sufficient force among humans, they will launch this computer bomb, and in a flash, control all computers."

"What does this have to do with us?" Maria asked.

"The heart of this system is a crystal the Yeerks obtained from a Dayang trader. The Dayang didn't know what he had. But the Yeerks did. The crystal is a processor more sophisticated than anything even the Andalites could create. And it is more than fifty-thousand Earth years old."

"A Pemalite crystal!" Maria gasped.

"Yes. A Pemalite crystal. If we had it, we could rewrite our own internal systems. Do you understand now? We could erase the prohibition against violence. We could be free! Free to fight!"

"A Pemalite crystal," Maria whispered.

"You can't do this, Erek. You can't!"

But Erek just turned away. "If we can get the crystal, there is very little we can't do. Our strength, joined with these Animorphs? The Yeerks would have to double their forces just to contain us."