Staring at the horrible mockery of my friend Ax, feeling Rachel's suicidal grin twist my face, I issued the command: "Full emergency power to the engines. Ram the Blade Ship."

Santorelli obeyed the order without thought, like the good soldier he was, and within seconds the Rachel was hurtling toward the larger vessel. I expected to see some change of expression on the face of The One, but what I saw was unexpected. The incongruous tooth-lined mouth on the Andalite face grinned hugely, and I began to feel it. The One was absorbing my mind. Before I could even think of resistance, it was done.

Being part of The One was very like being Controlled by a Yeerk. I could still sense with my body, but something bodiless and more powerful controlled it. I could see that the Rachel was moving forward, but she seemed to be doing so inches at a time. As I thought of my cousin's name, I thought of her driving, overwhelming desire to fight, to beat the enemy, to win. I felt that hunger welling up within myself. I couldn't lose! I turned all my will on fighting The One, taking power from it. I don't think I could have done it by myself, but I could feel two other captured minds bent on the same task. And suddenly, Illik's mind became a part of mine. Then Wola, Galifordurech, Thip. These beings were all long dead, their minds somehow preserved as part of The One. They were now becoming part of me, and I was growing stronger. The two minds beside me became greater as well, and as my awareness increased, I recognized them.

Looks like a hacker war to me, said Marco. We were in perfect mind-to-mind communication; No explanations were necessary. What say we pull his database out from under him?

I'm game, said Tobias.

Let's do it! I shouted. I absorbed mind after dead mind, quickly, quickly! But slowly, ponderously, The One moved to block us. By the time it did, Marco, Tobias and I were each less than a third the strength of The One.

You cannot stand against me! it said.

We didn't try. Instead we continued eating away at The One's power base, the minds it held. At last there were five minds left, standing as a unit. Humans. Samarians. Those who had escaped Atlantis. Their names were Konan, Edrif, Lagads, Brintud, and Idefi. Originally known as The Five, now Kelbrid, The One.

Of course, the few seconds that elapsed were enough to bring the Rachel to the end of its collision course with the Blade Ship. Santorelli, Jeanne, and Mendarash had not been taken by The One, but they had not moved to stop the Rachel's progress. In that last half second Marco, Tobias, and I simultaneously made the same decision. We absorbed each other. In the instant our bodies were destroyed, we pounced on KELBRID.

Silence. Silence so thick and loud that it hurt. Darkness, which gave way to a jumbled n-dimensional nonspace. Within that tiny infinitude with us were two beings. One had the appearance of a blue-skinned, silver-haired old man whose eyes were full of stars, frail, but with a feeling of power about him. The other sat on an immeasurably high throne, a mechanical-bestial cyclops, armless, but with nothing beyond the reach of its monstrous red eye.

YOU HAVE MY CONGRADULATIONS, ELLIMIST, said Crayak. TRULY INGENIOUS. BUT PERHAPS ALL HAS NOT GONE AS YOU HAD PLANNED? THE KIND ONE, THE CONSCIENCE, CASSIE, WHERE IS SHE? WHAT WILL THIS MEAN, I WONDER? I CONGRADULATE YOU ONCE AGAIN ON YOUR NEW ALLY, BUT I WILL THINK OF SOME COUNTER-MOVE. I ALWAYS DO. And with that the evil being took its leave.

YOU KNOW OF THE GREAT GAME CRAYAK AND I PLAY, said the Ellimist, for once getting right to his point. BY THE RULES OF THE GAME, NEITHER OF US IS ALLOWED TO INTERFERE DIRECTLY IN THE TIME STREAM. Meaning that he could interfere indirectly, such as by creating a device that lesser beings could use to travel through time. HOWEVER, NOW YOU ALSO ARE A BEING OUTSIDE OF SPACE AND TIME. AND YOU ARE BOUND BY NO SUCH RULES.

WAIT, WAIT, said the Marco-part. EXACTLY HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

YOUR BODIES HAVE DIED, BUT YOUR MINDS EXIST INDEPENDENT OF THEM. THE SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME, AND MUST ALSO HAVE HAPPENED TO CRAYAK, THOUGH I DO NOT KNOW THE EXACT MEANS. THIS WAS MY PLAN FROM THE BEGINNING, TO CREATE A BEING WHO COULD AFFECT THE TIME STREAM WITHOUT USING THE TIME MATRIX. A BEING WITH HIGH INTELLIGENCE, ADAPTABILITY, AND THE WILL TO DO WHAT MUST BE DONE IN SPITE OF CONSEQUENCES. YOU ARE NOW THAT BEING. ALL HAS NOT GONE ACCORDING TO MY PLAN. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER HAD CASSIE BEEN A PART OF YOU FOR MORAL GUIDANCE. I UNDERESTIMATED THE IMPACT RACHEL'S DEATH WOULD HAVE ON JAKE. IT WAS ENOUGH TO CONVINCE HIM THAT CASSIE SHOULD NOT COME. THAT CANNOT BE HELPED NOW. YOU MUST GO AS YOU ARE.

YOU MUST GO TO THE PLACE-TIME I WILL SHOW YOU. THERE YOU MUST STOP THE BEING KNOWN AS CRACHEIAS, WHO WOULD BECOME ONE OF THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE FORCES IN THE UNIVERSE. ONCE THERE YOU WILL BE BOUND TO THAT TIME AND HAVE LIMITED ABILITIES, BUT YOU WILL BE A MATCH FOR CRACHEIAS.

There was nothing more to be said. We went.

We were in a time seven billion years, give or take a few million, before our births, and our body was a small living planetoid. We were on the fringes of the Milky Way, and, according to our new memory, we had been banished from the Small Megellanic Cloud a few thousand years prior.

Something that's been bothering me for a while, said the Marco-part. The Ellimist said, 'I underestimated the impact Rachel's death would have on Jake.' That sounds like he planned it.

Right, snorted the Jake-part. And why would he do that?

Because Rachel loved destruction too much to have this kind of power, said the Tobias-part bitterly, drawing our attention to our proton-shift device and gravity reflector, both of which could destroy a planet.

But it was Erek's fault I had to send her, said the Jake-part.

True, on the surface, said the Marco-part. But the Chee weren't originally programmed to prevent violence, even if they are majorly ticked off at the person doing the killing. When Erek used the Pemalite crystal to change his programming, he didn't change it back to its original state. He allowed a greater-outweighing-few clause. He could cause one death to save hundreds. Which is exactly what he did.

You'd make a great conspiracy theorist, said the Jake-part. But what makes you think the Ellimist had anything to do with that?

How likely was it that the crystal was found in the first place?

It's true, said the Tobias-part. I know it is!

And the Jake-part knew it too. It's exactly what we would have done were we in the Ellimist's place.

The Ellimist is our enemy! we said.

Now that that's settled, said the Marco-part, what do we call ourselves?

And instantly, with our hugely expanded mind, we knew. The timeline that had created Cracheias was already nonexistant. Cracheias. Marco Rachel Tobias. We were Marco Tobias Jake. Craiak. Crayak.

Soon, Crayak had told the Jake-part. Now we understood.