He was understandably shocked when a human hand shoved him back the way he had come. This time though, Elfangor managed to cling to the manual release handle. Twisting it until the valve locked open, then he was forced to let go. He could only barely hear the soft hiss of rushing air as it came back into the ship.
Turning his stalk eyes, he was even more surprised to see Loren had managed to regain consciousness in the airless Jahar. Smiling weakly at Elfangor, Loren winked. Elfangor tried to breathe, but there was nothing there yet. He tried again, and this time he managed to catch just the slightest wisp of oxygen.
Aaaaaahhhhhhh!!!
His lungs ached as they drew in oxygen for the first time in uncounted minutes. It was the sweetest pain he had ever experienced. Judging from the expression on Loren's face, she felt the same way.
Are you all right? Elfangor asked her.
"I thought we were done for," Loren said, smiling with relief.
Done for? Oh, dead. Yes, we almost were. But you humans don't give up easily do you?
"Neither do you Andalites. So, what's next?"
Elfangor looked around, seeing Visser Thirty-two regain consciousness after having passed out for awhile. He could care less about Chapman, the traitor of a human.
We have air, but no power. Those asteroids drained the entire main power supply. And what's worse is that we're drifting toward a black hole.
"Now that's not good."
If we fall into that black hole every atom in our bodies, as well as those in the ship, will be stretched thinner than a strand of hair.
"Yeah, we learned about that in school. Its called 'spaghettification'."
Elfangor was surprised that humans even knew about that, much less had a name for the process. Visser Thirty-two spoke up for the first time in an hour.
There is just one way out, Andalite.
Elfangor glared at the Visser, hatred burning in his eyes. All four of them. His tail twitched, eager to slice the Andalite-Controller into bite-sized chunks.
Don't be a fool Elfangor. What would you gain from killing me? Besides short-lived satisfaction?
That is a good enough reason for me.
Loren glared hatefully at Visser Thirty-two, she more than agreed with Elfangor. The Visser shook his head, slightly amused at their stubbornness.
There would be no point, Elfangor. Even if you did kill me, which I honestly doubt that you could, you and your little human pet would still perish in the black hole.
"You have a point, Slug-boy?" Loren demanded.
Yes, I think we would all like to be spared your inane babble, Elfangor spat acidly.
You blame me for all your failures? Visser Thirty-two said with a laugh. I'm not the one who left his best friend back on the Taxxon planet, a nothlit in that disgusting worm body. Neither was I the one who disobeyed a direct order, and it was not my fault that you were too naïve to see through a simple ruse.
Elfangor's main eyes narrowed, hating the Visser's words all the more because they were true.
Do you have anything worthwhile to say? Elfangor snapped.
If you want to survive, we will have to work together. And we will have to do it fast.
To what end?
Why the Time Matrix, of course.
Elfangor laughed derisively.
In case you didn't notice, the Time Matrix was on the outside of the ship. The outside. It was held in place by energy ropes, without power those are gone. It's most likely drifted out into space by now.
I would not be so sure of that. There should be just enough gravitational attraction between this ship and the Time Matrix to keep it close by.
Elfangor thought that over, it was true. The Jahar had more mass than the Time Matrix. And in the weightless environment of interstellar space, the Jahar would possess the greater amount of gravity.
How do you propose we get to it, Visser?
How do you think we would get to it, Andalite? Visser Thirty-two sneered.
"Just tell him, Slug-boy," Loren snapped.
Silence, human, Visser Thirty-two snapped back. One of us will have to be reeled outside on a rope or a cable. Someone will have to be holding that rope, and someone else will have to be on the other end. That someone will have to find the Time Matrix and bring it back inside the ship.
And then what? If you were to preoccupied to realize this, all of our remaining atmosphere would rush out the open hatch like it did last time. Our forcefield is completely gone.
I'm aware of that, Andalite. It will be a do-or-die situation, but we can use the emergency air hoods for five minutes.
"Air hoods?"
What air hoods?
Have you forgotten so soon that I have both Alloran's body and mind at my disposal? This is still his ship, and I know everything he knows about it. He has a supply of air hoods for just this kind of occasion.
"Wow, he must've been clairvoyant to plan for this," Loren joked.
Visser Thirty-two, having learned the definition of that particular word from his Navari host, snapped at her.
Not this exact situation, you stupid human.
Do not call her that, Elfangor spoke up quickly. Taking a breath, he continued. I will work with you. But I have one condition: I will be the one on the end of the rope searching for the Time Matrix.
Visser Thirty-two laughed harshly. And when you find it, what then? Do you expect me to believe that you are just going to carry it back into the ship for one of your species' worse enemies, someone you personally despise, to use?
Yes, Elfangor said simply.
Visser Thirty-two snorted. I do not believe you. Once you find the Time Matrix, you will activate it and vanish back to your homeworld. Leaving me to die in the grip of the black hole.
I will not leave Loren- I mean the humans, behind. You have Alloran's mind at your disposal, as you said, search it. He knows me.
Visser Thirty-two half-closed his main eyes, doing just that. It took some time, but he soon found what he was looking for. It was a bit unexpected to him, but Alloran believed it was true.
Well now, this is interesting. Alloran thinks you have some feelings for this pathetic human female.
She is not pathetic.
So it is true?
Elfangor fell silent, turning away from the Visser. A little embarrassed that his feelings could be read so easily.
Well, I have my answer, Visser Thirty-two said with silky satisfaction.
Just get the air hoods, Elfangor muttered, still averting his eyes from the Visser.
Very well, Visser Thirty-two purred.
Pushing off the wall closest to him, the Visser was able to slowly make his way to the back of the cockpit where the emergency supplies were stored. Opening the small storage cabinet, he took out four of the small plastic bags. That was essentially what an air hood was: a head-sized plastic bag that tied at the neck.
There was also a small bottle of oxygen, very small in the case of these particular hoods, which were not intended to be used in this kind of extreme emergency. The oxygen in the bottles was not pure, but was instead a mix of gasses that would keep a living organism from depressurizing in the vacuum of space. Once he had them, Visser Thirty-two made his way back to where Loren and Elfangor were waiting.
We will need a rope, Elfangor said.
We can use the wires in the control console for that, the Visser said offhandedly.
"And how are we going to get to them? We're all kind of up in the air here."
We could reroute the remaining emergency power to the artificial gravity, it would only provide enough power for ten minutes, though. However, it is the only way we will be able to work with the cable before we are within the black hole's event horizon.
All right, do it. But make it quick.
Visser Thirty-two shook his head, annoyed at Elfangor's constant badgering. But not so much that he would risk his own life just for spite. Making his way along the wall toward the control console, he gave Elfangor a harsh shove, causing him to float away from his purchase on one of the handles.
Loren was too far away to do anything but glare at the Andalite-Controller. Which was just the way Visser Thirty-two liked it. The Visser went to work on the console, using Alloran's knowledge of his ship's systems to reroute the emergency power to the artificial gravity generator.
Once he was all but finished, Visser Thirty-two considered warning Loren and Elfangor that the gravity would be coming back on. But he decided against it, it would be more interesting to see how they reacted without that information. Pressing the sequence of buttons and switches that would complete the codes and initiate the reroute, Visser Thirty-two braced himself.
The gravity came on almost instantly after he'd finished, and everything came abruptly crashing back to the floor. Including Loren and Elfangor. The human female was glaring at him again, and the Visser could not have cared less.
"You could have warned us about that, Slug-boy!"
Quiet, human. We have work to do, and not very much time to do it in.
Elfangor scowled, Loren sneered, but they quickly got to work tearing apart the control console. Once the outer casing had been stripped away, mostly thanks to Elfangor's tail, they went to work on the wires. Loren's hands were more adept at this kind of work, it seemed.
She was twisting the wires she had ripped from the remains of the console into a strong rope, weaving them together in a way that neither Andalite nor Andalite-Controller had seen done before. The construction looked sound, and Loren would check its strength often by pulling on the section she was working with.
Thank you, Loren, Elfangor said.
"No problem," Loren said, grinning at him from her place on his right.
It has been four minutes, human. Are you finished yet? the Visser asked.
"Shut up, Slug-boy," Loren said, not taking her eyes off her work.
Soon she had made a line that was long enough to reach all the way around the Jahar, and one that would be strong enough not to be broken by Elfangor's mass. And just in time too. The small part of the control console that had remained untouched gave a soft, almost unnoticeable beep, and everything started floating again.
Is it done? Visser Thirty-two inquired.
"Yeah, it is. And just in the nick of time too."
What do nicks have to do with time? Elfangor wondered.
"It's just a figure of speech, Elfangor."
What does it mean?
We haven't the time for this, Visser Thirty-two reminded them. Unless the both of you would like to die in the black hole.
"I'll tell you later," Loren promised, kissing Elfangor on the cheek.
Are you ready, Andalite?
I am as ready as you are, Yeerk. You just worry about yourself.
Visser Thirty-two chuckled coldly. Alloran is so right about you, Elfangor. You are a moralizing, naïve, arrogant, weak-willed young fool.
Elfangor ignored that with some effort, turning back to Loren.
As you might have already guessed, we're going to open the hatch again. The air will rush out just like last time. Will you hold on to Chapman? We don't want him getting sucked out of the ship.
"We don't?" Loren asked, raising an eyebrow.
Elfangor gave her a blank look, not sure whether she was being serious or not.
"It's called sarcasm, Elfangor," Loren clarified. "It's a type of humor. Despite the fact that I would like nothing better than to beat him over the head with a large, blunt object, I'm not going to let him get sucked out into space."
Elfangor smiled with his eyes, then tied the woven cable around his tail. Taking a last, deep breath of cabin air, he pulled the air hood over his head and tied it at his neck. Activating the oxygen bottle and signaling to Visser Thirty-two, Elfangor watched the hatch open for the second time.
Since there was no one on the other side to tamper with the mechanism's normal operation, the Jahar's hatch opened at it's own sluggish pace. The escaping oxygen made a sound like that of rushing wind, and then there was only the silence. And the frigid, icy cold that was like nothing any planet could ever produce.
Already shivering, Elfangor grabbed the edge of the opening, staring into the endless abyss of outer space. He could see clearly the swirling gas and dust of the black hole's accretion disk, and with the cable secured around his tail, he stepped out of the ship. At the outer edge of the disk, he caught sight of a mid-sized yellow star being slowly drawn into the hole.
He sincerely hoped that star had not had inhabited planets in orbit, he hoped that no species – sentient or not – had been torn apart atom by atom by the black hole's gravitational force. Turning back to his task, Elfangor tried not to feel the freezing cold. The swirling stars above, below, and around him distracted him from it for a few moments, and he was thankful for it.
Focus, Elfangor. Worry about the black hole if you fail, and not before, Elfangor reminded himself.
Looking around the Jahar, he set about searching for the Time Matrix. The spinning of the ship slightly disoriented him, but he pushed that feeling aside. Moving alongside the Jahar, Elfangor looked for the Time Matrix. After what seemed like an eternity, but was only eleven minutes in reality, he found it.
I see it! It is wedged in place by the engine pylons. I am going after it.
It was next to impossible for any non-Radam – Tekkamen excluded – to move in zero gravity, but there were ways that this could be done. Elfangor had been trained in some of them, now he would put that training to good use. Tugging softly on the cable attached to his tail, he moved toward the hull.
Tapping his forehooves against the hull, Elfangor halted his forward motion. The Time Matrix was right in front of him, nestled right between two of the three pylons like someone had placed it there for his convenience. Smiling inwardly, Elfangor moved closer to the ten-foot sphere.
Reaching out a hand, Elfangor laid it on the Time Matrix. Impossible as it seemed, the Matrix actually felt alive, causing warmth to spread slowly up his arm. Placing his other hand on the Matrix, he felt his frozen hands and fingers start to thaw. Realizing that he didn't have much time, Elfangor considered his next move.
Now then, how do I move you back to the hatch?
That would be a possible problem, one Elfangor was not sure he could solve with his limited amount of time. Turning his stalk-eyes backward to stare at the woven cable trailing from his tail, Elfangor knew what he had to do. Pulling his tail forward so that he could wrap his hands around it, he untied the cable.
He had only three minutes of oxygen left, less if he did anything to strain himself, so he would have to do this quickly. Taking up the slack, Elfangor had just enough to make a rudimentary sling. It would have broken almost instantly in normal gravity, but that was one advantage of zero-g.
Finally securing the sling, Elfangor checked it over one last time, before calling back to Visser Thirty-two aboard the Jahar.
Okay. Pull!
Slowly, ever so slowly at first, the Time Matrix was reeled toward the open hatch. Elfangor was clinging tightly to the cable, but in his weightless state he was no burden to the Visser. At that moment Elfangor almost didn't care that his supply of oxygen was nearly gone, or even that there was no way for him to get more after his hood ran out.
He was too absorbed in the euphoria of a job well done. It's going to work. It's going to work, we are going to use the Time Matrix. And we are going to survive. It was a good feeling, knowing that he had saved his own life. And of course, it doesn't hurt that Loren's life will also be saved by my actions.
As the last of the cable was reeled into the Jahar, Elfangor caught the first glimpse of Loren he'd had in a long while, or what felt to him like one. She had not done as well as he had in the airless ship, since the air hoods were made specifically for Andalites. Loren was suffering from slow depressurization, but she still managed a weak, sickly smile for Elfangor.
Forgetting about Visser Thirty-two for a moment, Elfangor kicked off the wall and slowly drifted towards her. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he gave her his brightest smile, putting all the confidence he felt into the expression. Loren's own smile grew wider just looking at him, and Visser Thirty-two chose that moment to cut in.
If you two are finished, he began acidly.
Tapping Elfangor on the shoulder, Loren mouthed something to him. Elfangor chuckled, despite the fact that she had made no sound, the meaning of her words was quite clear to him.
Loren wants me to relay a message to you, Visser. She says, "Shut up, Slug-boy."