45 - 12 - Transponder

<No,> Ax said quickly. <I am unable to stabilize the programming of the translator chip.>

He glanced at my dad.

"Could you couple it with this?" Dad lifted a blue wire, then pointed to a green, circular component.

<That would take time,> Ax said. <I should just interpret. Or attempt to summarize.>

Ax had been sifting interplanetary chatter for hours. And for hours we'd been gathered with him, all of us, in Ax's scoop. We'd come for the unveiling of the Z-space transponder. Dad hadn't mentioned it was still under construction.

"So, it doesn't even translate?" Rachel said impatiently. "What does it do?"

Ax stopped working and looked at us with his main eyes. He put a delicate hand on either side of the device. It was fairly small. Mini-cooler size.

But it was clear from the way Ax held it that it meant more to him than an icebox. He cradled it like a newborn baby.
Wires dangled like legs. Incomprehensible cosmic chatter streamed softly from its earpiece.

<The transmission capacity is not yet enabled. Neither is the translator. But this device can monitor unscrambled Yeerk communications, which I have been doing for some time now.>

"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. <We Andalites may wish we had left you to the Yeerks.>