they survive, they could be one of the great races of the galaxy.
Of course, Andalites will always be greater.
I was standing by the stream, with one hoof in the water, drinking, when my stalk eyes saw a swift shadow falling from the sky.
Tobias opened his wings and shot just over my head.
He had kept most of his speed, so he swiftly disappeared above the trees. But a moment later he was back, with four other large birds of prey following him.
Tobias took a position on a branch. The others landed on the ground. I knew then it was the other Animorphs.
They quickly began to demorph. Prince Jake grew out of a falconâs racing body. Rachel emerged from a huge bald eagle. Cassie and Marco had both acquired osprey morphs, and were now becoming human again.
I felt a tingling of worry. They had obviously been searching for me, and were in a hurry.
I asked.
matter
?> Marco demanded.
But just at that point, Marco crossed the line from thought-speaking morph back to human. His human mouth was still a beak, however, so he just squawked.
I watched Cassie as she made the change. Cassie is a natural
estreen
: a person with an ability to make morphing almost artistic. On my planet it is an art form. There are professional
estreens
who change shape in fantastic, beautiful ways.
Cassie was not a professional, but she had the talent. As she morphed, she formed pleasant shapes. For a while she had an enlarged ospreyâs head, as large as a human head, and vast wings attached to a human body.
When the others morph, they are much less subtle. For them, human parts simply ooze out, while feathers melt away. It is very unappealing. The humans find it frightening and disgusting as well, I believe. And they even recognize that Cassie has a talent for morphing.
âWhat did you
do
?!â Marcoâs human mouth had reappeared.
âMy dadâs computer. You did something to it, didnât you?â
âGame? GAME?! That was no game, that was my dadâs work!â
Suddenly an idea occurred to me.
Cassie started to laugh, then silenced herself.
âNo, Ax, he writes software programs for high-tech uses. He was working with astronomers at the observatory. They were designing a program for aiming the radio telescope at the new observatory.â
I nodded, as I had seen humans do.
âIf you say âgameâ again, I swear Iâm going to punch you,â Marco said.
Prince Jake put his hand on Marcoâs shoulder. âWhat Marco means is, it was not a game, Ax. His father is going nuts about it.â
âMy dad says you may have created some whole new branch of computer software, plus, at the same time, opened up new ways to do astronomy. He showed it to the guys at the observatory. They are totally losing it! Theyâre talking about Nobel prizes! I had to convince my dad it was just an accident. I told him you were an idiot, and you were not the next Einstein.â
World Almanac
. He was the first human to realize that matter and energy â>
âAx!â Rachel exploded. âAre you not getting this? What if some Controller hears about this new software? Donât you think they might guess it was an
Andalite
who came up with it?â
It hit me quite suddenly. She was right. If those equations were supposed to be real, not a game, but
real
. . . Then I had just pushed human science ahead by a century. Maybe more.
âI think he just