Elfangor ignored them. We will emerge into realspace soon. If we're lucky, we won't be too far from the StarSword. If we're even luckier, there will be additional Andalite ships close by. From that point, it will only take an hour or so for the Yeerks to start showing up.

"What happens then?" Loren asked.

Space battle, I suppose. Andalite ships against Yeerks ships. And us, of course.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

Yes. Show me the best way to tie up a human. Elfangor glared at Chapman. I don't want to have any distractions.

Loren managed to find some spare conduit hose, though she didn't really know what it was for. Coming back into the main cockpit area, Loren helped Elfangor tie Chapman up. They tied his arms behind his back, then tied his legs together and tied them to his arms. When they'd finished, there was still a bit of spare hose left. It was Loren who found a use for the excess.

"One last thing," Loren said, as she gagged Chapman with the hose. "There. Now we won't even have to listen to him." Loren smiled smugly.

To silence an Andalite, you would have to knock him unconscious, Elfangor said, surprised, since he had never considered the possibility of silencing a creature that used mouth-sounds to speak with a piece of hose. This won't hurt him?

"No, unfortunately." Loren grinned to show she'd been joking.

Elfangor was amazed. After all that she had been through, all the horrors that she had seen, Loren was still able to laugh. Maybe he had been wrong when he had assumed that humor was a weakness. Elfangor wondered if Arbron could still laugh, after all that had happened to him.

"Elfangor… aren't you tempted at all by what Chapman just suggested? I mean, if it were me, I might want to use that time machine thing to change a few things. You know?"

Maybe to avoid being captured by the Skrit Na in the first place? Elfangor asked.

"No, nothing like that." Loren smiled at Elfangor. "My life was pretty dull before all this happened. Listen," she paused for a moment, to gather her wits. "I know that when you take me back to Earth you're going to erase all my memories about this. So I just want you to know that, even though it was horrible sometimes, I wouldn't have wanted to never meet you. If it wasn't for my mom worrying and all…" Loren's voice dropped to a whisper. "I think I might want to stay."

Elfangor didn't know exactly what Loren had said last, but he liked what he'd heard up to that point.

Aboard the Skrit Na ship, where I found the Mustang, I also found pictures of Earth. It looked very beautiful. Wonderful, tasty-looking grass, and tall trees and streams of water that bubbled over stones. Is your home like that?

"We do have places like that," Loren said with a sad sort of smile. "There was a place we went to once, back when I was little and my dad still seemed to care about things. Before he went off to war. We camped out in a tent together. It was called Yosemite. Yosemite is like that."

And, did you stick tiny white cylinders in your mouths and marvel at the beauty of it all?

"Tiny white cylinders?" Loren looked puzzled. Suddenly, she started laughing. "You were looking at cigarette ads!" She laughed some more. "Those small white cylinders are called cigarettes. They're very bad for you. In fact, they make you sick."

So, humans go out to beautiful places and use sickening cylinders? Why?

By this time, however, Loren was laughing too much to give him any kind of answer. Soon, even though Elfangor hadn't the slightest idea what Loren found so funny, he started laughing too. Silent laughter that echoed inside both their minds.