“What are you calling your discovery?” I heard Nora ask.

“I don’t really know,” Dad said tentatively. “What can you call something that is nothing at all?”

There wasn’t anything on TV. An old Star Trek. A new Star Trek. My life was plenty sci-fi. How about some Real World?

“What could you call it?” Dad continued. “Zero, I suppose. Zero-space.”

Uh oh.

And so we’re really in the endgame now. Things are falling apart. The Yeerks have all the power. And the Animorphs… well, they have that they’ve always had.

Hope.

Random thoughts:

“f we get our hands on that thing, we have a megaphone to the universe,” Rachel replied. “An interplanetary cell phone.”

<I believe the device would require more than a single lithium-ion battery,> Ax said practically.

“You know what I mean. I’m talking about communication with the forces that matter. Direct communication with the Andalite fleet.”

I hadn’t really thought about it before, but… why can’t the Chee make the call? Because it would lead to violence? Could they help the Animorphs make a call? Would that be indirect enough?

About a chapter later:

<The Chee cannot participate or assist in the transfer of technology that could enable war and destruction,> Ax explained.

Yeah, fine.

“Ax, you’re amazing,” Cassie said.

Ax looked at Dad and flashed one of his eye-smiles.

<At times you humans truly scare me,> he muttered softly. <A mere four decades from first orbital spaceflight to the discovery of Zero-space communication?> He stamped the dirt with a hoof for emphasis.

“So far you Andalites have left us to the Yeerks,” Rachel pointed out dryly.

It does make me wish for a post Animorphs series. A decade or two, maybe a century in the future. Quite a different beast to write though.