Elfangor like the look of this Mustang, but he knew that the Time Matrix should be his most immediate concern. Elfangor turned to look at it with his main eyes, taking a last look at the Mustang with his stalk eyes. The Time Matrix was a simple-looking machine, but Elfangor knew better than most that appearances could be deceiving.
Elfangor had seen the readings on the Skrit Na computer that Arbron had accessed, and so he knew that within this plain, off-white sphere had more power than the Andalite and Yeerk space fleets combined. Unseen, unsuspected, it spread its power-grid through the fabric of spacetime. For a few moments Elfangor stopped breathing, in awe of the device he now beheld.
He knew that to move a spacecraft in or out of Zero-space took energy that was comparable to that of a mid-sized star, or more, but to move through time would take ten times that. The power of ten suns, all somehow contained within this unassuming, off-white globe.
It was a startling thing to consider.
Arbron! Elfangor called, knowing the other wouldn't be there but wanting to hear the silent sound of his own voice.
As he expected, there was no answer. Elfangor knew that Arbron had to have been thrown clear of the Skrit Na ship when it crashed, just as he himself had been. But Elfangor hadn't found him anywhere when he had walked around the perimeter of the downed ship. Elfangor also noticed that something else was missing from the ship, but since he'd had a lot of things on his mind, Elfangor didn't really think enough about it to figure out what it was.
Elfangor looked around with his stalk eyes, wanting to solve the mystery of the missing crewmember before he left. Once he let his feelings of panic about finding Arbron recede a bit, Elfangor's agile mind began to realize just what, or rather who, was missing from the ship. The Skrit! That's what is missing.
It was true, the lone Skrit who had been mindlessly polishing and cleaning anything within reach, was nowhere to be found. Both of the Skrit cocoons are gone, along with Arbron and the active Skrit. Where could they have gone? Elfangor started to walk away from the Time Matrix, but he turned his stalk eyes to look back at it, the machine seemed to have some kind of hold on him.
Once Elfangor did make it back outside, the first thing he did was to call out to Arbron again. It was becoming a habit, but it wasn't harmful or distracting, and so Elfangor saw no reason to stop. The nightside of the planet was almost pitch black, since the stars were too dim to see by, and Elfangor couldn't see the moons.
Elfangor remembered that the ship had been heading for a collision with a range of tall, clifflike mountains when he had been knocked unconscious, so it was probably safe to conclude that they had crashed in a gorge. Elfangor did get the impression of high, sheer walls on both sides. But Elfangor was getting tired now, and he did not want to spend the night exposed to whatever nocturnal creatures would be wandering around outside. And he most certainly did not want to chance being found by Taxxons while he was sleeping.
Elfangor took one last look at the walls of the gorge, wondering again just where Arbron had gotten to. Elfangor wondered if he could have fallen out of the ship before it had crashed, since the hole had been relatively large. Arbron could have ended up slamming into one of the mountains. Elfangor shuddered; he hated to even imagine that.
Taking a last look at the darkened sky, Elfangor turned and walked back to the ship. Ducking back inside the hole, Elfangor made his way back to the cargo hold. Looking at the mess of crates scattered all over the floor, Elfangor caught sight of one of the bound paper sheaves that were mixed in with the debris.
Elfangor picked it up, wondering what its purpose was. On what Elfangor supposed was the front, Elfangor saw an unfamiliar setting. Once he started flipping through though, Elfangor saw a picture of two humans sitting together. But they weren't what most interested him at first. It was their surroundings that held his attention.
They were in a meadow, a very lovely meadow at that, with a tall waterfall that crashed in white foam into a large lake. The grass in the meadow looked sweet, and the water looked cool and fresh. His attention turned to the two humans, they were obviously happy to be in such a beautiful place. They were smiling the way Loren had when she was happy.
They were also sticking tiny white cylinders into their mouths, and Elfangor assumed that that was something humans did when they were outside. Elfangor also saw some writing beneath the picture. Since he didn't know any human languages Elfangor couldn't read a word of it, but he thought that it must have been a poem written about the beauty expressed in the picture.
Even though Elfangor was very close to falling asleep where he stood, he continued to flip through the pages of the magazine he'd found. He saw various pictures of humans doing nothing but smiling, and various pictures of what seemed to be weapons and transports. Finally, Elfangor came to a photo of a rocket.
Elfangor almost laughed, it was an actual chemical rocket. Were humans really so primitive that they were still using chemical technology to get into space? Or was this picture taken in a museum? Either way, it was still kind of funny to see.
But, the pictures that most drew Elfangor's attention were the ones that showed things he was familiar with. The pictures of lovely beaches beside crystal blue oceans, the wide-open meadows with sweet-looking green grass, and the forest that were as beautiful as any of those on his world.
The cities, those were the things that puzzled Elfangor most. They were ugly, boxy collections of rectangles of varying height. What, he wondered, would prompt humans to build such places when they clearly had so many forests and meadows that they could live in instead? And, was that the reason that the human named Chapman was so much more brutal than Loren?
Elfangor decided that that was probably the reason. But now that he had finished looking through the magazine, the tiredness he had been holding back came at him with a vengeance. Elfangor nearly fell asleep right then and there. Somehow managing to lay himself on the floor instead of falling, Elfangor drifted off while still staring at the magazine in his hands.