"How did you convince the Yeerks that you are one of them?" Ax asked him.

Erek turned off his hologram and became a machine once again. And then the front of his head split open. Inside his steel and ivory head was a chamber, just a few inches in diameter.

And inside that chamber was a gray slug, helpless, unable to escape. Tiny wires, no thicker than hairs, wrapped around it.

"Yeerk!" Ax hissed.

"Yes," Erek said. "The Yeerks believe I am human. I accepted infestation. But of course the Yeerk cannot make a Controller of me. I made a place for him instead. He sees nothing. Knows nothing. I tapped his memory, not the other way around. And now I can pass among the Yeerks like one of them."

I had two reactions. One, I was sick at the thought of that Yeerk, trapped inside a steel cage.

As much as I hated Yeerks, it seemed harsh just the same.

But another reaction was much stronger. We had an ally! A powerful ally. An android who could pass as a Controller, who could enter Yeerk society. And an android with many powers of his own.

"How do you keep the Yeerk alive without Kandrona rays?" Cassie asked.

See, every three days a Yeerk has to return to the Yeerk pool to absorb Kandrona rays. Without that, they die.

"I am able to use my own internal power to generate Kandrona rays to keep this Yeerk alive," Erek explained. "When I go to the Yeerk pool I am able to trick the Yeerks into believing that my Yeerk is swimming in the pool.

I generate a hologram of a Yeerk leaving my ear and dropping into the pool. Later, I create a hologram of it returning. The Yeerks never notice that they don't encounter this Yeerk actually in the pool. Yeerks communicate very little in their natural states."

"How do we fit into all this?" Jake asked. "I mean, what do you want with us, Erek?"

Erek resumed his human appearance. He stepped toward us, eager, excited. "We could fight together against the Yeerks. We could be allies. If only ... we need that Pemalite crystal. But the Yeerks have created a maze of defenses like nothing you can imagine. That crystal is in a room at the heart of the Matcom building. There are Hork-Bajir everywhere. Elite Hork-Bajir warriors, the best.

"And the crystal itself is guarded by an ingenious system. It is concealed in a room of absolute darkness. Absolute darkness. The slightest, faintest light, ultraviolet, infrared, any light, will set off alarms. Within the darkness are wires that are set off by the slightest touch."

"So to get to the crystal you'd have to be able to find it without seeing it, and avoid the wires that are also invisible in the darkness," I said.

"It's like finding a needle in a haystack when you're blindfolded and can't touch a single piece of hay. The walls, ceiling, and floor are all pressure-sensitive, so you can't touch them. It may be impossible," Erek said.

"How are we supposed to do that?" I demanded.

"How can you find something you can't see? It's not like it'll smell or call out to us."

"Urn . . ." Cassiesd.

"Excuse me?" Jake asked in surprise.

"It can be done," Cassie said. "I mean ...

if we want to."

"Of course we want to," I said. "With these guys on our side, we actually have a chance of winning. Of course we want to. Animorphs and Chee together? Our morphing ability, their strength and holographic tricks? We'd kick Yeerk butt."

"No," Maria cried. "You don't understand.

Chee do not hurt. Chee do not kill. No Chee has ever taken a life." She grabbed my arm and looked right in my eyes. "While humans and Yeerks and Andalites and Hork-Bajir and a million other species on a million worlds warred and slaughtered and conquered, we remained at peace. Would you end all that? Would you make us killers, too?"

"Yes, ma'am, I guess I would," I said, a little coldly. "We're in a fight for our lives here. Our parents, our brothers and sisters, our friends -- they are all going to be slaves of the Yeerks, if we don't win. So I'll do whatever it takes. If you'd fought all those thousands of years ago, the Pe-malites would still be alive. And you wouldn't be living with dogs in a big underground kennel."

I didn't mention the sudden interest The Sharing had in my father. I didn't want to make this personal.

Maria let me go, and Erek nodded.

"A big underground kennel," Erek said bitterly. "Exactly."

"We'll get your crystal for you," Jake said.

"Tell us all you know about this Matcom, and we'll get your crystal." He looked at the Chee called Maria. "Sorry, but Marco is right. The Yeerks have my brother. There's nothing I won't do to get him back."

We rode the fake basement back up, leaving the eerie golden world of dogs behind.

"S. Do we have a deal?" Erek asked. "You'll help us get the Pemalite crystal? And then we'll fight alongside you to defeat the Yeerks."

"Sounds good to me," I said quickly.

"Unless anyone has any objection -" Jake started to say.

That's when Cassie interrupted. "Erek, let us talk it over. It's a big decision."

I was surprised, but not as surprised as Jake was.

Then we heard a noise coming from directly above us.

"HhhhrrrAAAAWWWWRRRR!"

"Oh, man," I said. I knew that sound. We all knew that sound.

"Rachel," Cassie said under her breath.

"We were down there a long time," Jake said.

"Erek, I think a friend of ours may have come in to rescue us."

Erek shrugged. "I don't think it's going to be a problem."

"You don't know our friend," I said.

The basement had settled back into its normal place. I tore up the stairway. "Rachel! Chill!"

I burst back into the utterly normal kitchen and raced into the utterly normal living room.

The front door of the house had been ripped off its hinges. The couch was thrown against one wall. And there, in the middle of the room, standing so tall its head scraped the ceiling, was a full-grown grizzly bear.

"HhhhRRAAAAWWRRR!" Rachel roared in rage and frustration.

Frustration, see, because the Chee who passed as Erek's father had her in a full nelson. His human-holograph arms were wrapped around the unbelievably massive shoulders of the grizzly, and he was actually holding the great bear still.

He had pinned a grizzly so powerful it could literally turn a Toyota into an aluminum can.

"Okay, now I've seen everything," I said.

"You Chee are very strong." Ax commented.

This was the understatement of all time.

"Where have you been8!" Rachel demanded. "I waited as long as I could.

I figured you were dead or something. And if you don't have a good explanation, you will be dead!"

"Oh, we have a story, all right," Cassie said.

Rachel had calmed down and stopped roaring when she saw us. Now the Chee slowly released her, and she began to change back out of morph.

Jake looked embarrassed and started to pull the couch back down. "Urn, Erek, this is our friend Rachel."

"It was smart of you to keep a reserve," Erek commented. To Rachel he said, "I hope you weren't hurt."

"How come you can wrestle a grizzly if you have to be nonviolent?" I asked Erek.

"Of course, my "father" here knew she was not a true bear. And he only held onto her. He did not destroy her. If Rachel had been strong enough to win, my "father" would have had no choice but to allow himself to be destroyed."