For Michael and Jake
And for Kelsey Harper
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
FIRST LIFE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
SECOND LIFE
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
THIRD LIFE
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
END GAME
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
EPILOGUE
SNEAK PEEK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
The human child called to me. The human child was dying, and nothing I could do within the rules of the game would change that fact.
The human child, one of those who called themselves Animorphs, asked me to explain. In that final moment, the human wanted to know: Was it all worth it? The pain, the despair, the fear. The horror of violence suffered, and the corrupting horror of violence inflicted, was it all worth it?
I said I could not answer that. I said that the battle was not yet done.
“Who are you?!” the child raged. “Who are you to play games with us? You appear, you disappear, you play with us, you use us, who are you, what are you? I deserve an answer.”
“Yes,” I said. “You do. To this question I will give all the answer I know. And when you know me, you will ask another question. And I will answer that question, too. And then …”
My full name is Azure Level, Seven Spar, Extension Two, Down-Messenger, Forty-one. My chosen name is Toomin. I like the sound of the word, which is all the reason you need for a chosen name.
My “game” name is Ellimist. Like Toomin, it doesn’t mean anything in particular. I just thought it sounded breezy. Never occurred to me when I chose the name that it would follow me for so long, and so far.
The Pangabans were an interesting race well adapted to their unusual world. They lived beneath an eternally gray, clouded sky. They had never seen their own sun clearly, had no notion of stars or other planets. This was particularly ironic because their own planet was in fact a moon that orbited a much larger planet well suited to life.
Had they been blessed with an occasional break in the clouds they might have become a very different race. It is hard to imagine that any species could have lived beneath the sky-filling arc of the main planet, with all its obvious lushness, and not become obsessed with a desire to learn space travel.
But the Pangabans knew nothing of this, nothing at all of anything beyond their own damp and gloomy world.
The Pangabans were six-legged, which is a common enough configuration. They carried their heads high above the slender, muscular body that was little more than a junction of the six long legs.
They were skimmers. Their feet were large, webbed, and concave, which allowed them to walk on the water that covered most of the planet aside from a few soggy islands. They fed by lowering a sort of net from their body down into the water and trolling for microscopic plants and animals of which there was an abundance.
They were intelligent. Not Ketran intelligent, perhaps, but self-aware. They knew who they were. Knew that they existed. Had a language. A culture, mostly involving amazing water dances, feeding rituals, and a religion that centered on belief in underwater spirits that either gave them food or witheld food.
DNA analysis indicated a potential for development. The Pangaban world received a decent dose of radiation, nothing deadly, just enough to cause a respectable rate of mutation. And despite their awkward physiques and the limitations of their planet’s natural resources, I believed they could be brought to a level of technology equal to, say, the Illaman Confederation.
There was one possible problem: The main planet around which the Pangabans revolved was populated by an aggressive species of four-legged, two-handed rodents called the Gunja Wave. The Gunja Wave were primitive creatures, only dimly self-aware. But their DNA held promise, too. And their aggressiveness might give them an edge if the two races ever collided.
Still, I had an instinct. I memmed my friend Azure Level, Nine Spar, Mast Three, Right-Messenger Twelve. His chosen name is Redfar. His “game” name is Inidar.
“I’ll take the Pangabans, if you choose to accept.”
“Gladly,” he memmed back. “You underestimate the value of sheer aggression. You’re an idealist, Ellimist.”
“Oh? Well, step into my lair, said the dreth to the chorkant.”
Inidar laughed. The laugh worried me a bit. He seemed very confident. But I wasn’t going to show him my own doubts. “Shall we immerse?” It was the ritual challenge of the game.
“On the other side,” Inidar agreed, accepting the challenge.
I checked my real world position, checked to see whether there were any pending memms for me to deal with. I didn’t want to be interrupted. Then I opened the shunt and was all at once inside the game.
I floated bodiless above the Pangaban world. Drifted above an endless gray-green soup choked with seaweeds and algae and gliding eels that could reach lengths of three miles. I skimmed above one of the mossy islands, brushed one of the squat, stunted, unlovely trees, and found a colony of Pangabans.
The Pangabans were trolling as always, but also playing at something. A game that involved moving in slow, ever tighter circles around one central individual. Not a complex game, certainly not in comparison with the game I played.
Still, I was heartened. Surely an ability to conceive and execute a game was a good sign in any species. It was a gentle, slow, and nearly pointless game, but one that could evolve. Games had evolved on other planets, among other peoples, my own people, the Ketrans, being perhaps the preeminent example.
I wondered what Inidar would do with the Gunja Wave. The essence of the game was minimalism: Do the least thing needed to accomplish a goal.
I knew the least thing. I knew what
