Книга: The Answer

A N

A P P L E

PAPERBACK

SCHOLASTIC I N C .

New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney Mexico City New Delhi Hong Kong

For Scott Bremner

And for Michael and Jake

<They're going after the elementary school,> Tobias said.

<They're going after everything,> I answered.

<Why are they doing this? It makes no sense,> Tobias said. <It's not just brutal; it's stupid. Pointless destruction.>

The nearest Bug fighter swooped low and slow. It fired its Dracon beams and the two-story gym exploded into charred stucco and twisted steel beams.

It drifted almost casually above the tired old low-slung classrooms and fired again, dragging the beam end-to-end along the buildings.

<They're sending a message,> I said. <Mess with us and this is what we do.> 1

We had destroyed the Yeerk pool. The Yeerk More Bug fighters than I'd ever seen in one pool was now the world's biggest sinkhole. It place. Maybe fifty of the things. They blasted looked like a crater. It was a crater, with half the schools; they blasted businesses; they blasted mall in ruins on one slope, jumbled bits of homes and churches. The shock waves would fast-food restaurants, streetlights, ripped up reach us, echoes of destruction. Pillars of smoke concrete, cars, skinny trees, all tumbled rose high in the air. Fires, some blazing and roar-together at the bottom. The water of the Yeerk ing, others smoldering sullenly, created thermal pool, looking like molten lead, soaked up updrafts that were bread and butter to three through the dirt. An Exxon sign lay half-mismatched birds of prey. We soared easily, ef-submerged in it. A couple of dozen empty one-fortlessly. We had the best possible seats for the liter soda bottles drifted around like someone's show. With raptor eyes we could see every idea of toy boats.

sickening detail. We could not miss a shot, could How many Yeerks had died? Certainly thou-not fail to see lovingly tended gardens, prized sands. Maybe tens of thousands. How many homes, businesses, cars, burn as quickly and Hork-Bajir? How many Taxxons?

brightly as match heads.

Humans?

The refugees people who had been our We had tried to warn people, but the devasta-neighbors, friends, classmates the shocked, tion had been too complete, had come too scared, lost refugees fled on foot, carrying what suddenly.

they could, running between stalled cars. Over-

<It's not a message, Big Jake,> Marco said.

passes were all down, traffic lights all off, bridges

<The Yeerks know now that we'll do whatever we were collapsed: Nothing with four wheels was have to do, they know it's all-out war. We blew up moving.

their only on-planet food supply. We're way past A news helicopter was perhaps five miles off, sending messages. Look: They're drawing a circle.

no doubt filming and sending the pictures out

live. The Yeerks could easily shoot down the Marco was a hundred feet higher up than me.

copter. They were letting it film. Maybe even He was in osprey morph, I was in falcon, Tobias piloting the craft themselves. They wanted was himself: a red-tailed hawk.

the world to see the violence. They wanted

<Marco's right,> Tobias said. <They're mak-humans

ing a big circle.>

to be afraid. The infiltration phase of the war was They were racing straight toward us. Straight over, over. From now on the Yeerks would be as toward the Bug fighters.

subtle as sledgehammers.

<It's suicide,> Marco said.

I caught a rush of warm air, the thermal en-We watched, helpless to do anything. We had ergy released by a burning supermarket, and I spent the morning watching helplessly.

soared higher, up and up. I could see what Marco The F-16's came straight in. Two of the Bug and Tobias had understood: The Yeerks were fighters broke off from torching civilian buildings creating a circle of annihilation. The collapsed and turned lazily to meet the attack.

Yeerk pool was the center. They were burning, Missiles flew from the F-16's and the jets blackening everything in a radius of two miles.

broke away. Two Dracon beams fired and the mis-That would be virtually all of what had been siles were destroyed in midflight.

our home town.

The Bug fighters accelerated, easily caught the And I had done it. I had given the order to de-jets, and fired again. Three of the four exploded.

stroy the Yeerk pool. All of this was a result.

There were no parachutes. No possibility of para-But why? That was what bothered me. This chutes. The fourth jet rocketed low, leveled off wasn't the time for moaning over the destruction, seeming inches from the scorched ground and or even for second-guessing myself. I was done hit afterburners.

with that. Why? Why were the Yeerks doing this?

The Bug fighters let him go: They had nothing

<Maybe they think we're down there,> Tobias to fear.

suggested.

No, that wasn't quite true. The Yeerks were I noticed something in the far distance, south scared, just not of jets. This circle of destruction of where we were. More smoke. And with my fal-was evidence of fear. They were creating a barrier con's eyes I could just barely make out hints of of sorts: not a wall, but a desert of ash and cinder still more Bug fighters. They looked like a cloud so that an enemy wouldn't be able to get close, of gnats.

unseen.

Tobias yelled. <Hey! Jets!> It gave me a grim satisfaction. The Yeerks I followed the direction of his gaze, and sure were scared of us. But what were they protect-enough, there they were: a flight of four F-16's.

ing? The ruins of the Yeerk pool?

<The helicopter!> Marco yelled.

<The Pool ship,> Marco whispered reverently.

The Yeerks had decided that show time was

<The mother of all targets. I would give both of over. They torched the news copter. A twirling my arms to see that thing burn.> Then he cinder fell to Earth.

laughed harshly. <You know what this means,

<Something's going to happen,> I said.

don't you?>

<And there it is,> Tobias said, as always more

<They're getting hungry,> I said. <They're observant in the air than any of us.

getting very hungry.>

It was as big as a sports arena. It moved slowly, cumbersome in atmosphere. It was designed for space, not, like the Bug fighters, to be comfortable in air.

The Pool ship looked like a fat, swollen, three-legged spider. I'd seen it before, up in orbit, high above planet Earth.

The Pool ship: home of the Yeerk invasion force, base of the Bug fighters. It was a space-going Yeerk pool, well-defended, dangerous, but essentially a portable barracks, a giant mess hall that served up hearty doses of Kandrona rays, the sustenance that a Yeerk must have every three days or die.

The Bug fighters rose to greet their mother, swarming around the Pool ship, bristling, daring anyone to attack.

The Pool ship waddled down out of the sky, shouldering through the clouds. And gently, deli-cately, ever-so-tentatively, it rested its bulk on terra firma.

I've fought them for more than three years. I was just thirteen when I started. I'm sixteen now, though that fact, like so many facts, has been deliberately obscured in the secret accounts we've kept.

I'm a sixteen-year-old kid named Jake Berenson, and I am the leader of the Animorphs.

In the past it's been hard for me to say that, to take on the title of leader. In the past I've questioned myself. Wondered whether I was right, wondered whether what I did was good, wondered whether I had any right to make life-and-death decisions. I've felt sorry for myself at My name is Jake.

times. Maybe anyone would, in my spot.

But I had to put all that aside now. I had put My name is Jake Berenson. The days of se-it all aside. Not because I was suddenly con-crecy, of lurking in the shadows are over. The vinced that I deserved the power, was worthy of Yeerks know my name. They know my height, it. That wasn't it. I knew better than to get too weight, eye color, Social Security number, and caught up in the myth of Mighty Jake the Yeerk Killer.

favorite foods. At long last they know the word I had given up soul-searching because I real-Animorph, Marco's word for us.

ized now that it was simply too late. Way past too My brother Tom is one of them, a human-late. The battle had become a war. And I was, for Controller. He has been for a long time. He's better or worse, the only leader we had.

been elevated to security chief for all Yeerk From here on out the second-guessing, the le-forces on Earth.

gitimate doubts, and the self-indulgent whining, My parents, my mom and dad, are Controllers they were over. Save them for my old age in the now, too. Host bodies for Yeerks.

unlikely event that I ever had an old age.

They know it all now, the Yeerks do. All our names. All our deeds.

We were all still alive, Cassie, Marco, Rachel, 8

Tobias, and me. We'd been formed into a group conquest, frustrated his plans, driven him to ever by accident. A chance encounter in an aban-wilder schemes. We had forced his hand, in the doned construction site with a dying Andalite end, I guess.

prince named Elfangor. He had given the five of Now the war of subversion was over. Visser us the Andalite power to morph, to become any Three was promoted to Visser One and all his animal we could touch. Later Elfangor's brother most brutal instincts were unleashed.

Ax had joined us.

In this new, open war, we had scored some We were just kids. But in some ways we were impressive victories. We had destroyed the Yeerk the ideal guerrilla fighters. The morphing power pool. And we helped to motivate at least partial let us fly and dig and crawl, sense, hide, and and spotty efforts by the military to respond to fight with far more than human power. Our youth the Yeerk threat. Marco's mom was free of her made us the least likely of suspects.

Yeerk slave master, free of the violent, dangerous The Yeerks had carried on a subversive war of creature who had been the very Yeerk who launched infiltration for more than a decade. They had first the invasion of Earth — Visser One. That Visser discovered our planet back at the time of the One was dead and his human host now worked Gulf War. For various reasons their then Visser with us. We had used the morphing cube to make One had fashioned a plan to slowly infiltrate hu-new Animorphs, to increase our numbers.

man society, infest hundreds, then thousands, But we had taken hits, too: We had all been eventually millions of humans with the Yeerk par-driven from our homes. We had lost all vestiges asite, and when it was too late to stop them, of a normal life. We now hid with the free Hork-seize sudden control of the planet. Only then Bajir in a valley deep in the mountains.

would the Yeerks finalize an almost bloodless And we had lost the morphing cube. The conquest.

Yeerks had it. My brother Tom had taken it, and, But that visser moved on and was replaced in when I might have stopped him — Cassie had let command of Earth by the evil creature we had him and it go.

long known as Visser Three. Visser Three was a With that act, Cassie had surrendered our less subtle enemy. Less adept at subversion. A edge, our one great advantage: that we alone had brute. We had fought him, lost, won, but above the power to morph.

all survived. And, in surviving, we had slowed his The Andalite technology was now in Yeerk 10

hands, and we had already seen that Yeerks were And that was the other reason why I would al-using it just as we had used it: to capture all the low myself no more second-guessing. A leader amazing powers to be found in the animal who shows weakness invites disaster.

kingdom.

We flew back to the Hork-Bajir camp. And as The six of us, Marco, Rachel, Tobias, Ax, we flew I thought. Not about how my orders to Cassie, and I, had stayed together through im-destroy the Yeerk pool had resulted in the literal possibly bad times, through every defeat, every obliteration of the city, but about how, how, how I close call, every mind-twisting weirdness, every could destroy the Pool ship.

horror. None of us had ever turned against the And about that distant pillar of smoke away to others. There had never been a betrayal.

the south.

Cassie let Tom take the morphing cube. Per-There had to be a way to take out the Pool haps she had done so because to her the alterna-ship. Destroy that ship and the war might be tive was worse: She feared for me, for my soul I won. It was the target I could not possibly resist.

guess, if I was forced to kill my own brother.

A fact that would be known by my brother Not good enough. Not for me. All that counted Tom, and my parents, and by their ruler, Visser now was that we win, and Cassie, maybe for the One.

most decent of motives, had hurt us badly.

I loved Cassie. Always had. Still did. But there was this thing between us now. And I could never trust her again. She had put my personal well-being ahead of winning a war we absolutely could not lose. And, I knew, that her decision might have come in part from my own self-doubts, my own inability to throw off moral ambigu ity.

If I had been stronger . . . if I had been as strong as I should be, maybe Cassie would not have made her fatal mistake. I saw that clearly now. Too late for either of us.

We stood around a small fire. It was chilly.

Fog had a tendency to form in this deep valley, sometimes so thick we could barely see our hands in front of our faces. It wasn't that bad now, but it was still cold.

"It's too dangerous," Cassie's dad said. He was sipping a cup of what passed for coffee here in our rough-and-ready camp.

"This is a job for the military now," Rachel's mom argued. "You kids have done enough. The secret is out: Leave it to the people who should be protecting this country. I mean, we paid enough in taxes to support the military; well, now let's see what we got for all that money."

It's too dangerous." That was Eva, Marco's We were in a council of war. I was getting so I mom. The woman who had been host body to the hated these meetings. Too many voices, too first Visser One. "Visser One will know that you many opinions. So many opinions sometimes know. He'll know you're coming. He can't let you that it seemed the consensus would always come destroy a Pool ship — that's the only large-scale down on the side of doing nothing.

food supply the Yeerks have. The Blade ship can But we were guests among the free Hork-Bajir.

only service so many. Lose a Pool ship? The This was their valley, their trees, the only home Council of Thirteen would have Visser One exe-they had. We'd come running to them with our cuted."

families in tow when we needed a place to hide.

Marco shook his head. "He'll think we're So at the very least I had to listen to Toby, the cocky after taking out the Yeerk pool. Maybe he'll young female Hork-Bajir seer. And only a fool underestimate us."

would dismiss Eva's input: None of us knew the

"No," Eva said flatly. "He'll never underesti-Yeerks half as well. And of course, there were my mate you again. That's over."

fellow Animorphs.

But added to all that we had Marco's dad; Just do it. Just do it, and if that doesn't work do Rachel's mom; James, the representative of our it harder and meaner.

new, adjunct Animorphs; Tobias's mom; both of

"It seems a waste to simply blow it up," Toby Cassie's parents, who only cared about making said, speaking for the first time. The Hork-Bajir sure no one got hurt . . . too many people with are a fearsome-looking, but basically peaceful too many agendas. But I still didn't know how to race that, left alone, would live in the trees eat-tell adults, my friends' parents no less, to be ing bark and caring for the forest. Toby is one of a quiet and let me do my job.

rare Hork-Bajir mutation: a seer. A sort of I tried not to show my impatience, but these HorkBajir intellectual and leader. She leads the days I'm not so good at that. Cassie was watching free Hork-Bajir, a small but growing band of Hork-me. We're not as close anymore, but she still Bajir who have been liberated from their parasitic knows me.

masters.

She said, "Look folks, we're going to try. I

"What do you mean?" I asked Toby.

don't think the question is really 'whether' but

"There are hundreds of captive Hork-Bajir

'how.'"

aboard the Pool ship," Toby said. "If we could

"No one has decided any such thing," Rachel's free at least a portion of them . . . and of course mom said angrily. "My daughter is not going to there are the ship's massive weapons systems.

be dragged into some suicidal undertaking like Imagine controlling aH that power."

this."

"Take it?" Marco yelped. "Steal the Pool Rachel laughed. Rachel's not a person who'll ship!"

be one way with her friends and another way with Rachel jabbed a finger at Toby. "This is my her family. There's only one version of Rachel. "

girl," she said.

Mom, if we go, I go. If we don't go, I still go.

Rachel's "girl" was nearly six and a half feet Visser One parks his Pool ship right out in the tall, and looked an awful lot like a kid's notion of open and we're not going to ram it down his a goblin. Not to mention the fact that she was nonexistent throat? Hah! I'm with Marco: Blow it armed with razor-sharp blades growing from up. Blow it up real good."

wrists and elbows and forehead.

I hid a grin. Rachel is the original Nike girl:

<it is the approach Visser One would not expect,> Ax opined cautiously. <It is, of course, 17

possible. It is not like stealing a Bug fighter.

There was nothing to be done now. I couldn't Every system on board the Pool ship is e n -

go running after Cassie. The insult had been de-crypted, and the codes will probably change livered. There was no taking it back now.

hourly. It might take me an hour to break any one I s a i d , "As m u c h as I hate to admit i t , sequence, and if I am a minute late it will roll Rachel's mom is partly right: This isn't just our over and I will be starting back at the beginning.

fight anymore. Three pilots died today. Probably An hour to get you into navigation, for example, if Air National Guard. It shows that there are mili-I am lucky. And another hour to gain access to tary forces out there that could help."

weapons systems.>

"All due respect," Marco said, "those pilots And then everyone started talking at once, ar-didn't do much good."

guing, posturing, scoring debating points.

"If we're going after the Pool ship we need a

"Okay," I said holding up my hands for calm. "

diversion," I said. "We'll need a great big diver-That's enough, folks, thanks for coming."

sion. I want tanks and jets and soldiers. And I

"You don't just dismiss us!" Rachel's mom want us — some of us at least — to be right out yelled.

there in front with them. I want Visser One to be

"Sure he does, Mom," Rachel said cheerfully. "

dead sure we're trying to either blow up his pre-I need Rachel, Marco, Tobias, Ax, Toby, cious ship or get inside it."

James, and Eva," I said.

"And we will b e , right?" James asked. "I I hadn't meant to exclude Cassie. I really mean, one or the other, right?"

hadn't. But it was too late. She looked like I'd hit I shook my head. "Visser One will consider her. She blinked and turned quickly away, covering the possibility that we're using the attack as a the moment with aimless chatter to her parents.

cover. He's slow but he's not a complete idiot.

Tobias gave me a dirty look. And if you think a He'll figure one of three things: First, the attack red-tailed hawk's gaze is always a dirty look, is the real thing. Second, the attack is a cover for you're close to being right. Still, I knew Tobias the next attack. Third, the attack is a cover for us was mad at me. Everyone was. Everyone but to infiltrate the ship and destroy it from inside.

James who was excited to be included, and Eva Any of those three options he does the same who hadn't really caught what was going on with

'thing: lifts the ship off and amuses himself blast-me and Cassie.

ing everything in sight with the Pool ship's big Dracon cannon."

"Okay," Toby said. "I give up: How is he going to be wrong?"

"When the diversion comes, we'll already be on board the Pool ship, working on breaking those access codes," I said. "The diversion won't be to cover us getting on. It'll be to cover the fact that we're already there."

It sounded good. Sounded like I had a plan. I didn't.

I pulled Tobias and Marco aside after the council of war.

"Tobias? Did you notice that pillar of smoke off to the south of where we were?"

Tobias glared at me. <What you did to Cassie was beyond wrong.>

I squirmed. "I don't have time for that, Tobias."

<Cassie is one of us,> he said.

"Did you see the smoke or not?!" I demanded.

<Yeah.>

"Then I need you to go find out exactly where it'

s coming from. Now. I mean, if you can spare the time from busting me."

Tobias didn't answer. He just spread his that with Cassie. It was . . . stuff happens somewings and flapped till he cleared the trees and times."

then caught a tailwind out of sight.

"Uh-huh. I better get going."

Marco gave me a fish-eyed look, but he didn't say anything.

In twenty-four hours I had two of the three answers I was looking for. Marco did not find the

"Marco, we need to know who is currently in Chee. He did find what he hoped and believed charge of military forces in this area."

Marco thought that over. "It's not going to be was the man in charge of military forces arrayed just one guy. You'll have an air force general, a against the Yeerks.

marine, an army guy."

"He's an army general. Three star. His name I nodded. "Yeah. But the Pentagon will have is Sam Doubleday. He's fifty-four years old. His given someone the weight, you know? Someone headquarters is fifty miles from here, though. In is going to be in overall command. I mean, if they the hills, some kind of nuclear shelter in a haven't done that at least . . . they can't be that hollowed out mountain."

sorry, can they? I want you to get me a name and

"Good. At least he's not dumb enough to be a location. Grab Ax. Use him to creep Pentagon right here where the Yeerks can't help but kill computers or whatever it takes. I need the person him."

who can give orders and have them followed in The second piece of information was more in-this area."

triguing.

"How about the Chee? They'd be able to help

<They're building a new Yeerk pool,> Tobias us out."

reported. <Not so much a cave like the old one.

I shrugged. "Where are the Chee? That's the More like they're digging a small lake and going problem. Those Bug fighters smoked the King to let it be open. Taxxons are all over the place, house. I don't think it would have damaged their like maggots on a piece of roadki II.> underground complex, but with the house gone I could see that Marco was preparing some how do we make contact?"

witty remark on the fact that Tobias was

"Guess that's two problems for me and Ax,"

unusually familiar with roadkill. I shot him a Marco said.

look and he sighed, letting it go.

"Yeah." I hung my head. "I didn't mean to do A second Yeerk pool being built at a frantic 22

pace. That made sense. Once it was finished the Yeerks would remove the Pool ship back to safety in orbit. Taxxons were natural tunnelers, faster and more effective than anything Caterpillar made. It was like having a few hundred giant sentient earthworms at work.

"Okay," I said. "Let's go see this general."

<Who goes?> Tobias asked pointedly.

"Animorphs," I said. But of course I knew what he was asking. "All of us. I'll have James's people come in to watch the camp here. The rest of us, the six of us, we go to see the general.

Wait, ask James to come, too. He can use the ex-They called it ATF-1. Alien Task Force One.

perience."

Their headquarters was a concrete-and-steel

<Well, you'll need to go ask Cassie yourself,> pit carved into a mountain. It was a sort of minor-Tobias said primly.

league version of the big nuclear war fighting fa-

"Marco: Let everyone know. Everyone." I cility in Colorado. It had the look of a place that avoided looking at Tobias. Not often do I feel like has just been brought out of mothballs. There a coward, but I felt like one right then.

were cobwebs hiding in the upper corners of the rooms. Dust was still being wiped from the sort of clunky computers and monochrome monitors you'd see in a video about the early days of the space race.

Inside the mountain were hundreds of soldiers and airmen, but mostly armed, it seemed, with clipboards and Palm Pilots. They wore the exactly ironed uniforms of bureaucrat-soldiers.

Outside the gaping mouth of The Hole, it was middle of a large map of the city. The map a different picture. Men were in firing positions on showed a circle surrounding the former Yeerk the tumbled, rocky slopes. Coming in as birds of pool. I guessed it was derived from satellite prey again, we spotted machine-gun nests, tank photos of what was left of my home town.

emplacements, an artillery park well-camouflaged I demorphed.

in the trees down the valley. Helicopters flew con-

"What the . ."

stant patrols.

"General!" someone yelped.

Razor wire was going up everywhere. Soldiers

"MP's! MP's, on the double."

were laying minefields on both sides of the only

"Draw your weapons!"

road.

"Don't shoot!"

Security was very tight — it took us no time There was a flurry of running men and cock-at all to penetrate it. The general's men were ing weapons and lots of shouting. I'd had quite looking for giant bug-eyed monsters from outer an impact. Not a surprise. I was changing from a space. Not dragonflies.

two-inch-long insect to a nearly six-foot-tall teen-We zoomed around the underground head-ager.

quarters, locating storage vaults, some fairly im-My compound eyes grew huge, larger by far pressive underground barracks, food-and-water than my dragonfly body, before they bubbled up storage, electronics, so on.

like overcooked marshmallows, melted, shrank, I located the general by watching the flow of and finally re-formed into my own human eyes.

uniforms. Lieutenants talked to captains, Of course they were human eyes staring out of captains to majors, majors to colonels. My a dragonfly's face.

dragonfly eyes were good enough for me to spot The morphing process has never been the colonels' bars. In time, the various colonels led kind of neat, smooth, fluid thing you see in a me to the general.

computer-animated special effect. It's messier He was in a map-walled conference room. I'd and weirder. Things grow or shrink at different have smiled if I had a mouth. It was like speeds. Parts of one form linger long after the something right out of a war movie: maps and others have morphed. Ax could explain it, if you phones and guys chomping cigars.

had an hour to listen.

I landed on the conference table, right in the What the general saw was a creature with hu-26

man eyes and a twitching insect proboscis and They threw me in, not at all gently.

gossamer wings and a largely human body.

I was a prisoner.

I was probably lucky he didn't just order me Three minutes later, I demorphed in front of to be shot. There were a dozen rifles and pistols General Doubleday again.

aimed at me by the time I completed my He had me tackled once more, handcuffed, de-morph.

shackled, my mouth duct-taped. I was carried,

"General Doubleday," I said. "My name is hog-tied, from the room and thrown back in the Jake."

cell. In the cell I was chained to the cot.

"Get him!"

Three minutes later, I demorphed in front of Three big, burly MP's were on me before I General Doubleday.

could yell. They knocked me onto my back,

"General, why don't you stop being stupid twisted me over on my face, and slapped and listen?" I said.

handcuffs on me.

He stopped being stupid. But not until the

" G e n e r a l , this is a m i s t a k e , " I y e l l e d . "

fourth time I demorphed in front of him. And Mistake, is it? Sure as death you're one of them, then, at last, he narrowed his eyes and looked at

" he said.

me and said, "All right, Mr. Alien, what have you

"No, sir, I'm not," I grated with my cheek got to say to me?"

pressed hard onto a pencil and a crumpled map.

"First: I'm not an alien. I'm a human with ac-

"But chances are some of the people in this cess to alien morphing technology. Second: I room are."

know how to hurt the Yeerks in a way that they

"Let me shoot him," a major cried. Either a won't be able to brush off, but I'll need your help Controller or an idiot.

to provide a diversion."

"Shoot him? Have you lost your senses, Ma-The general looked amused. "My help, huh?

jor? This is a potentially valuable prisoner.

You need my help? See the stars on my shoulder Get my G-2 down here! Take him away, lock him there, son? I'm a major general, U.S. Army.

up."

You're a kid who can turn into a bug. I take my I sighed. The MP's hustled me from the room, orders from the chain of command, and that ain't down a hallway to a bare, overlit room furnished you."

with a chair and a sink and a cot and a steel door It was a nice try, but I've been intimidated by with a feeding slot in it.

the best. After you stand up to the likes of The MP ignored him and looked instead to Andalites, Visser One, and Crayak, you don't the colonel. Two other officers drew weapons.

quiver just because some guy has stars on One drew a bead on the general. The other stood his shoulders.

ready, covering the rest of the room.

"The chain of command is almost certainly

"I'd rather take him alive — the visser would infiltrated by Yeerks," I said. "So is this base.

be sure to reward us," the colonel mused. "On the Probably even this room. You don't know if the other hand, if we let him escape, we're dead."

orders you get are legitimate or not. You don't He gave me a hard look. "Better safe than dead know if the orders you give out are going to be of Kandrona starvation. Shoot him."

obeyed. Your power extends only as far as the

"Now," I said.

first Controller in your staff."

From beneath the conference table a great, The general's face was growing redder the shaggy, gray-coated wolf exploded out and more I talked. But, like I say, you want scary?

upward. Cassie's jaw closed around the MP's Visser One has a tendency to morph into huge, throat and carried him down to the ground.

murdering alien beasts. Red face? Not even in A wolf's jaws are made for breaking the mar-the game.

row out of bones. Those long, yellowed teeth dig-

"Get out of my headquarters," Doubleday ging into your throat, ready with a twitch to said.

sever at least two major arteries, definitely get

"He can't leave here alive," said a middle-your attention.

aged colonel who looked strangely like a Baldwin Then the entire table went flying. It was a big, brother.

thick, mahogany thing, must have weighed five The Baldwin colonel nodded to one of the hundred pounds. But a gorilla is a strong animal.

MP's. The MP drew his sidearm and chambered Marco gave one of the Controllers a gorilla a round.

love tap that slammed him against the wall.

"Holster that weapon, soldier," the general But perhaps most surprising to everyone were snapped.

two low-ranking soldiers who calmly drew The MP leveled the gun at me.

concealed weapons and pointed them at the

"I said holster that weapon!" the general Controllers. Continuing to hold the weapons roared.

Rachel and Ax demorphed.

The three Controllers were handcuffed and led away.

"You see my point, General," I said.

He nodded. He smoothed his ruffled hair. He pulled a cigar out of his pocket. "All right, son.

Let's talk."

BOOM!

The concussion shook the room and threw me into the wall. There was blood pouring from my nose and ears and mouth.

BOOM!

Marco grabbed me before I could fall over again.

BOOM! BOOM!

"Thanks, man."

<It's just never easy, is it?> he said. Explosion followed explosion in rapid sequence. Every time I tried to get organized the concussion would knock me silly again.

"Marco! Take care of the general!" I managed to yell.

I started to morph. Tiger. "We're gonna be up to our butts in Hork-Bajir!" I warned everyone.

They knew what to do.

I heard gunfire. Lots of it.

Should have seen this coming. Should have known the Yeerks would be wired into this headquarters. Someone, some Controller, had put in the call to Visser One: They're here. The Animorphs are here.

No, wait. Maybe not. Maybe they were just assition half in and half out of the doorway. A saulting the base without knowing we were here.

Dracon beam annihilated the half of him that was In which case it was just a typically crude Visser-exposed.

One move.

The general caught his gun as it dropped.

Ax had demorphed. In his Andalite form he

"We have to get out of here. This room is a trap.

was a blue-furred centaur with a pair of extra

" I agreed. <Rachel. Go.> eyes on movable stalks and a tail like a chef's Rachel leaned her bladed, goblin head gin-knife tied to the end of a bullwhip. Rachel and gerly out of the doorway and yelled, <Stop shoot-Tobias were both well into morphing Hork-Bajir.

ing, you fools.>

When fighting Hork-Bajir-Controllers there is The firing continued, but it was no longer di-nothing quite as useful as having a few of our rected at our doorway. Rachel and Tobias stalked own to confuse things.

angrily out and berated the lead elements of the

"Let me up," General Doubleday raged at Hork-Bajir assault force.

Marco. "I have to go to my men."

"We have the gafrash human general, you

<Let him up, Marco. General: Do you have loglafach. The visser wants him alive, and if you any kind of surveillance cameras set up in this kill him it'll be you the visser eats for breakfast!"

place?>

Even less firing now.

"What? Is that you? Are you some kind of a Then a suspicious human voice, a human-tiger now?"

Controller, demanding, "Which unit are you two

<Yeah, some kind. General, if you have secu-with?"

rity cameras, turn them on. We can use the tape

<Ax then me then Marco and Cassie with the later to spot the safe guys. Anyone who shoots a general,> I said tersely.

Controller is someone we can trust.> Ax leaped through the doorway. I was a mil-The general nodded. "The cameras are always lisecond behind him. There were forty or so Hork-on. Now get out of my way."

Bajir and half a dozen obvious human-Controllers He motioned a sergeant to open the door waiting for us. Some kept up fire down one leading out into the main chamber of the under-hall-

ground redoubt. The sergeant took up a firing po-way and upward at a catwalk lined with soldiers.

There was a full second of stunned immobil-34

ity as they absorbed the sudden appearance of

<The general's clear!> Marco yelled in thought-an Andalite.

speak. <We're coming.>

"Andalite!" someone yelled.

<No! Stay with him!> I ordered.

<Surprise,> Ax said. He's almost developed a BamBamBam!

sense of humor. Almost.

The volume of firing increased suddenly. I But by then Ax was in the midst of them, caught a wild, distorted vision of troops lined up slashing with his deadly tail. I came in after him.

on the catwalk pouring automatic fire down on us.

The bigger the crowd, the better: hard to use DraI heard Doubleday's foghorn voice bellowing, "

con beams when your own people are all around.

Don't hit the tiger or the blue thing!"

Hork-Bajir slashed at me. I felt cuts on my

<Rachel! Tobias! Back off, get outta here and flanks, my back. My tail was suddenly gone. My morph something else. You'll get shot> tiger's brain registered every wound but dismissed A Hork-Bajir nailed me with a sudden, unex-them, set aside the pain. This was a dominance pected blow. No pain, just a shocking numbness.

fight. Tiger instinct and human will combined in My hind legs collapsed. He had severed my me to press the attack forward.

spine. The bottom half of the tiger's body might I roared back, launched into my nearest toras well be gone.

mentor, and smacked his horned head with a I would be dead in seconds. Had to demorph.

blow that could stun an elephant. I spun and gut-No other choice.

slashed another. I closed my teeth on a flailing BamBamBamBamBamBam!

arm and worried it savagely like a mad dog with Demorph, Jake, I told myself, already loopy, his last bone.

drifting. Demorph.

I was in the tiger and the tiger was in me. No A huge Hork-Bajir stood tall above me. The time to think, only act and react. Cat speed. Cat tiger's blood dripped from his wrist blade. He accuracy. But the sheer weight of the attackers raised his T. Rex foot. He was going to gut me, would defeat Ax and me, and even in the battle make sure I was dead. Couldn't move my body.

frenzy, I knew it.

My front paws batted feebly at the air. Helpless.

Rachel and Tobias had joined the fight, but Half a dozen rounds caught him in the chest.

now, Hork-Bajir themselves, their abilities were He fell straight back.

no greater than those of their opponents.

I lay there, twisted halfway around, a tiger 36

pretzel. Ax was now astride me, whipping like a I was wrong: A falcon could see a man's eyes mad thing, a Cuisinart making Hork-Bajir puree.

and know where they were aimed.

I heard a thud. Bullet in my hindquarters. I

<Thanks, James,> I said, loopy and fading looked up, confused, unable to focus clearly.

fast. <That was very nice of you.> Then my vision cleared enough to see a soldier Marco was over me, shaking me with big go-drawing careful, deliberate aim at me. A rilla hands and yelling, <Demorph! Demorph!> Controller. He looked just like his fellow Demorph?

soldiers, but he wasn't shooting at the Hork-Oh . . . okay.

Bajir, he was going for a head shot on me, that's what he was going for.

He fired. I saw the muzzle flash.

I felt the bullet hit the right side of my head.

But I wasn't dead.

Something big and brown came barreling through, sweeping Hork-Bajir before it. Ax was no longer above me, but was shoulder-to-shoulder with a grizzly bear. Cassie ran, bounded up, bounced off Rachel's massive shoulders and took a wild, flying leap straight into the Hork-Bajir.

The Hork-Bajir were falling back.

And still, I could see that single soldier biting his lip and taking aim at me again. This time he wouldn't miss. I was isolated, alone, defenseless. No one saw. No one could possibly see that he was aiming at me, not at the Hork-Bajir.

I could see his finger tighten on the trigger.

He was too focused to notice the gray-and-white blur as the falcon raked his face, leaving great gashes across his nose and forehead.

"General, better a hundred men you can trust than ten thousand you can't."

He agreed. Unfortunately, this meant a three-day delay before he could provide the diversion we needed to take the Pool ship. In that time the Yeerks, with all their Taxxons, might well get the new Yeerk pool up and running. It wouldn't be finished, most likely, but if it was at all functional, if it could be used to feed the Earth-based Yeerks, I was certain that Visser One would fly his precious Pool ship back up into the safety of orbit.

So we had to make sure the new Yeerk pool wasn't ready. Which meant two impossible mis-sions instead of just one.

Doubleday listened after that. He evacuated Better and better.

his headquarters at top speed. The Yeerks would

"At least it'll be mostly Taxxons," Marco said be back, especially now that they knew we were when we were all back at camp and eating a meal there. Fortunately, like a good general, he had a of dry cold cereal. "They're easy to take down.

fallback position.

Once they're injured at all, they're dead: Their I explained about the three days, how no brother Taxxons make sure of that."

Yeerk can survive for more than three days with-Taxxons are like big, nasty caterpillars or cen-out consuming Kandrona rays in a Yeerk pool.

tipedes. As big around as an old oak tree. They

"You need to lock down yourself and your offi-walk on rows of needle legs, carrying the upper cers and as many men as you can for three days.

third of their bulk erect. They have a ring of red-Whoever is left after that will be reliable."

jelly eyes and a lamprey mouth. And they are

"I've got two regular army divisions and half a hungry as shrews: always hungry. Always. It's a dozen guard units under my command. I can't madness, a raging, insatiable need.

lock down and watch anything like that number The Yeerks had bought them off and made of men."

them allies by the simple expedient of promising 40

to feed them. Some Taxxons carried the Yeerk it with councils of war. "Tobias? You've seen the slug in their feverish brains, but many did not.

place,"

The Yeerks hated them as host bodies, hated liv-

<It's a big hole in the ground. Looks like a ing with the hunger that not even a Yeerk could strip mine or something. It's sort of terraced: a control.

series of shelves stepping down to what will be And then, there was the danger that Marco the pool itself. The "shore," I guess you'd call it, had alluded to: Taxxons are cannibals. A wounded is maybe a hundred feet wide. The pool is going Taxxon is almost always set upon by his brothers, to be three hundred feet across, give or take. Not even in the middle of battle. It's like watching deep: maybe eight feet, almost flat on the sharks react to blood in the water.

bottom, but graded so it can be drained for

"Yeah, they're easy to kill," I said, feeling the repair. The terraces higher up, two of them, as I dark, bitter gloom that always came over me after recall, are more like twenty feet wide.> a battle. "But they'll be protected by Hork-Bajir

<Those will eventually be weapons emplace-and by Bug fighters. And by human-Controllers, ments,> Ax suggested. <It was the central flaw of of course."

the old pool: They never had a serious set of in-

"We blew up one Yeerk pool," Rachel said ternal defenses. They will ring the pool with cockily. "So we blow up another. Badda-boom.

Dracon cannons able to reach up, across, or Nothing to it."

down.>

She knew better, of course. She was just play-

"Just for us," Rachel said with a laugh. "It's ing her part. Not for the first time I wondered kind of flattering."

what on Earth would happen to her if this war

"How do you hurt a hole in the ground?"

ever ended. Off to college to study prelaw or Marco wondered.

whatever? She was the goddess of war, my cousin

<Cave in the sides?> Tobias suggested dubi-was. Sixteen years old and a veteran of more bat-ously.

tles than a World War II veteran. So was I, but

"With what?" Marco said.

Rachel loved it in a way I didn't. She needed it.

Cassie started to say something, stopped her-

"Anyone have any useful suggestions?" I self. Then, gathering her courage, she blurted, asked. It was just us, just the Animorphs. I'd had

"You can't worry about the hole, you have to destroy the digging equipment."

I raised an eyebrow. "The equipment is Taxxons."

She looked away.

Marco whistled softly. "Yep," he agreed, nodding respectfully at Cassie.

Was Cassie just stating the obvious, or was she trying to reestablish herself by being as ruthless as any of us?

Either way, she was right: Forget the dirt, focus on the shovels. There was not an endless supply of Taxxons. I wished I knew how many there were, altogether. Once again I mourned the loss of access to the Chee, our most valuable sources of information.

At the beginning of the American Civil War

"Okay," I said. "So we go after the Taxxons. I both sides thought the war was about taking or better go see Toby. Cassie? Go see James and his holding cities and ports and rivers and mountain people. We'll need everyone we can get. We go passes. They thought it was a chess game.

tonight."

By the end of the war they'd figured out that

"Oh, man, I'm just getting over this morning's they weren't playing chess. Cities didn't matter fun," Marco complained.

much. Ports and rivers and mountain passes,

"Eat your dry, stale granola," Rachel said while useful, were secondary to the real game.

w i t h a l a u g h . " Y o u need to keep up your The real game was destruction.

strength."

Lincoln had figured it out earlier than most and his generals; Ulysses S. Grant, William Te-cumseh Sherman, and Philip Sheridan made it happen.

They burned enemy homes and farms. They burned crops in the field and slaughtered farm 45

animals and wrapped railroad tracks around a bird. You never feel that the air is your natural trees. They starved the enemy.

home. You always feel that you're airborne only They realized that warfare was no longer by virtue of hard work, and if you let up for an in-about chivalry and honor, but about killing stant you'll drop like a rock. It's not actually the enemy. Find the enemy, kill the enemy.

quite that bad, but that's how it feels.

Kill so many of them that those who are left Bats can see just fine, contrary to what some alive lose their will to fight on. Do whatever it people think. They're not owls or hawks, but they takes.

see. But it's the echolocation that sets them That's the way war has been ever since.

apart.

For a long time we had fought the Yeerks re-It's like a sort of Etch-A-Sketch picture of the actively. We were always ten steps behind, trying world. You fire off a series of ultrasonic clicks.

to foil this plan or that plan. We'd tried to The sound waves bounce off objects, are picked fight the war with at least some vestige of up by your ears, and are translated in your bat decency. And maybe that had been okay when brain into a sort of alternate reality picture of the we were fighting to stop an infiltration. Now things world around you.

were different. We were down to the final You "see" things you don't see with your eyes.

stages. Either the Yeerks would prevail, or we You see insects in flight as tiny pinpoint would.

meteorites. And you overlook other things. But So I gave simple orders to my people, the working together, regular sight and echolocation, original Animorphs, and the auxiliary Animorphs, once you relax into it and let the bat's brain and Toby's free Hork-Bajir. Orders I had never work it out, you get a very complete picture.

given before: Kill the enemy. Kill the Taxxons.

We had approached within a quarter mile of Dress it up however you want, that's what war the site before morphing. Then we split up and is about. If there's glory in there somewhere, I moved in from different angles, flying wild and must have missed it.

jerky, flapping our skin wings, blasting our We Animorphs went in first, the six of us, in unheard radar sounds all around.

bat morph. Tobias had reported that real bats The Bug fighters swooped overhead, oblivious were in the area during the evening hours, which to us. Huge spotlights shone down from the lip of would allow us to blend in naturally.

Flying as a bat is very different from flying as 47

the hole. Heavily armed men and Hork-Bajir pa-No one said anything. I was braced for some-trolled. They were very much on guard. No one thing from Cassie. Surely she would raise some was napping.

sort of moral objection to this straightforward And down inside, just like Tobias had said, slaughter. But she remained silent. Hard to know like worms after a heavy rain, the Taxxons worked.

what she would object to. It was always a ques-There were pieces of heavy equipment down tion of balance for her, I guess. She was commit-there as well: earthmovers, cranes, graders, and ted to winning, believed in our cause, understood so on. But the Taxxons were digging up the dirt, that there would be terrible things to be done.

squirming their way into walls of gravel and dirt But she found some things, and not other things, and rock with amazing speed.

to be over the line. Me, I barely knew where the As we watched a large section of slope col-line was anymore. I'd come to depend on Cassie lapsed inward. The Taxxons had tunneled be-to keep me from going too far.

neath it, loosened the structure and allowed it to Nothing from Cassie.

fall in on them. They seemed to suffer no perma-

<Okay. See that vertical rift over on the right nent damage as they wormed free. Taxxons are there? Looks deep and dark enough for us. We go easy to cut, not easy to squash, perfectly adapted in. Then, battle morphs, and come out hot and to their own ecological niche.

mean. Soon as we're engaged I'll signal James.

warned everyone. <No way to know how many are We swooped silently down, down through the belowground in tunnels. Be on guard for that: They hazy lights and into the deep cleft that, to our may come swarming up from underneath us.> bat senses, was well defined and perfectly clear.

<I'm more worried about those Bug fighters,>

<Ax first,> I ordered. Ax had only to demorph Marco said. <What if they decide the Taxxons are to be dangerous. The rest of us had to demorph, expendable? What if they decide to start shoot-then morph again.

ing?>

With Ax ready I began to demorph. As my

<Unlikely, but they may if they figure the weight returned I had to grab exposed roots with Taxxons are toast anyway,> I agreed. <If they do, unformed hands to keep from sliding down the take cover in the Taxxon holes. Any other ques-cleft. Then, morphing to tiger, I lost my hold and tions?>

slid, tumbling down,

I rolled to a stop by Ax who waited calmly just logically. They each understood that a mere within the shadow. A pair of Taxxons toiled not wound was enough, as long as live Taxxons were ten feet away, out in the hazy light. They hadn't left undamaged to take care of the finishing off.

seen or smelled us.

Marco would accelerate to forty mph, dig his less-My acute tiger senses told me even without than-deadly claws into a victim, leave bloody looking that the others were morphed behind me.

scratches behind, and prance away far too

<Three count,> I said more calmly than I felt.

quickly for a Taxxon to respond.

<Three, two, GO!>

Ax wielded his tail with the precision of a sur-It must have been a terrifying sight for the geon. Tobias wheeled and dove at the red jelly Taxxons. An Andalite warrior and five wild beasts eyes. And Cassie was there, too, in wolf morph, suddenly roaring out of a crack in the dirt wall.

tearing into sausage-casing flesh, ripping and The nearest Taxxons had no chance to react. We jumping back.

hit them, slashed, cut, and moved on, knowing It was a sheer, one-sided massacre.

that a wounded Taxxon is a dead Taxxon.

Now the security forces, human-Controller I moved at breakneck speed. Slashed the and Hork-Bajir, were getting into the game. They nearest Taxxon, leaped atop him, propelled my-came running around the lip of the crater to get self away, digging my hind claws into him for close enough to fire down into us without hitting good measure.

the Taxxons.

I hit the ground, took two loping steps, and

<Here they come,> I warned.

was ripping the next Taxxon before he could But we were faster than the Taxxons, and, scream.

with the exception of Rachel, smaller. Excited But now the Taxxon voices were crying out in Hork-Bajir firing wildly were doing almost as their shrill, sibilant language.

much damage as we were.

"Sreeeeya! Ansacaleees!"

"Don't stand up here shooting, get down I caught a glimpse of a wild African elephant there!" a human voice bawled. "Get down there, burying ivory tusks in a Taxxon's raised chest.

you cowards!"

Rachel tossed her head and the tusks nearly re-

<James!> I yelled. <Now!> moved the top third of her victim.

Clear across the crater, James and seven of Marco in cheetah morph and Ax fought most his people in morph erupted amid the Taxxons.

That would keep the security forces from concen-I broke free and yelled, <Okay, Toby, your trating.

turn! Now!>

Taxxons were running away, turning and run-The battle had drawn every Yeerk eye down to ning, confused, terrified. Others lacked even that the pit. The swift, running approach of sixty free much self-control: They fell upon their wounded Hork-Bajir warriors had gone unnoticed, even by brothers and slammed their teeth-lined round the buzzing, frustrated Bug fighters overhead.

mouths down again and again, reared up high, The Yeerks were uncoordinated, thrown off by and with a "Sreee!" of delight tore chunks from our successive waves. Our plan was working. But their still-living fellow Taxxons.

sooner or later someone was going to take charge I saw two wounded Taxxons devouring each of the shocked and off-balance Yeerks.

other. Both screamed in rage and hate; both Two minutes more, I told myself, and we bail.

must have known, somewhere, deep in their It was one minute too many. The Bug fighters fevered minds, that this was madness, but nei-opened fire without warning. They fired on Taxxon ther could stop.

and human-Controller and Hork-Bajir alike.

<Ax! Hork-Bajir behind you!> I yelled.

More Bug fighters were maneuvering to get into Unnecessary, of course: An Andalite sees in all firing position. They were going to kill everyone, directions at once.

friend and foe alike. They were doing our work for But now the easy part was definitely over: us. But we would surely die as well.

Hork-Bajir were piling into the melee. It was the Hork-Bajir-Controllers were running for it, difference between fighting big, nasty but vulner-scrambling up out of the pit.

able worms and fighting walking razor blades.

<Toby! Mix your people in with them and run!

A Hork-Bajir leaped over a fallen Taxxon and James! Fall back. We'll distract them for another landed right in front of me. Just that morning I'd few seconds.>

let a Hork-Bajir cut me down.

<We get all the fun jobs,> Marco muttered.

<Not this time,> I said, and launched myself And then, what I had warned against, had straight at him, straight for his face. At arm's foreseen . . . and forgotten. The ground opened length a Hork-Bajir is almost the equal of a tiger.

beneath me and I fell.

At close range the tiger is king.

rolling, trying to grab on with my spike claws. But the surface was smooth, almost like glass. And now I was getting worried.

I fell for only thirty seconds or so, but that's a long way to go underground. Finally the chute ended and I was once more rolled across a dirt floor.

<Marco! Rachel!> No answer. Was I that far underground? Out of thought-speak range? I took a chance. <Marco, get everyone home, that's an order. Don't argue.>

There was light. Dim, but more than enough for me.

And there were Taxxons: three of them. Each

<Aaahhh!>

carried a Dracon beam in one set of upper legs. I I fell a long way. My tiger speed and balance could get one, maybe two of them. But three?

turned me around, aimed my feet down, tail Before they could shoot me?

twirling to maintain this attitude.

rolled sideways, and came up snarling. Snarling It was thought-speak! Not the impossible-to-at nothing. I was in an empty tunnel. Dark. Too decipher hissing and spitting of spoken Taxxon.

dark for even my cat's eyes. But I smelled plenty, a Thought-speak, and impossible as it seemed, I smell I knew: Taxxon.

had the strangest impression that it was an An-I stayed on guard, not too worried, but defi-dalite thought-speak "voice."

nitely ready. I heard a sound . . . shuffling, grind-I froze.

ing . . . digging!

<What do you want?> I demanded.

The ground opened beneath me again and I

fell in a cascade of dirt, down, and this time no He knew my name. Of course the Yeerks did hard landing on a flat surface. I was in a chute, know my name now, but still it was a shock.

5 5

<Okay, so speak. You've got the Dracon command: two lowly arisths. Me, and Elfangor-beams, I guess I'll listen.>

Sirinial-Shamtul.>

The Taxxon who was speaking opened his pinI stopped breathing. Could it be possible?

cers and let the Dracon weapon drop. The other Elfangor, Ax's brother? Elfangor, who gave us the two did the same.

morphing power to begin with? This . . . this

<Now we are at your mercy, Animorph. That whatever he was had been a friend of Elfangor's?

morph is more than capable of killing the three

<What do you want?> I asked him.

of us.>

He shuffled closer and I had to resist the nor-I took a deep breath. <Okay, let's talk. You mal reaction of disgust.

know me. Who are you?>

<My name is Arbron. I am — was an An-

<You're a Controller?>

dalite aristh.>

<No. I have no Yeerk within me. We want to

<You're a Taxxon.>

be free . . . we all want to be free . . . of the

<Your friend Tobias is a hawk,> he countered.

curse of being Taxxons.>

<You're stuck in morph? You're a morphed

I said, although I was Andalite stuck as a Taxxon? A nothlit?> I couldn't beginning to guess.

keep the horror out of my voice. One thing to be

<The morphing power,> Arbron said, now trapped as a hawk. But to be trapped as a sounding almost desperate. <The morphing power!

Taxxon?

Don't you see? If the Taxxons could morph,

Arbron said almost proudly.

acquire some more benign shape and find a safe

there could be a better way. The virus of

knowledge is in their bloodstreams now, they

<Not then. But, yes, Alloran became the un-realize that they could change forever!> willing host body for the Yeerk now ranked Visser

<You're telling me the Taxxons want to . . . to One. He commanded our mission. Alloran was stop being Taxxons?>

an Andalite prince with the smallest possible

<Yes. Yes. My people have seen a better 56

way . . . a way out of this life of eternal, phing power. We can only have it, only be free, if excruciating pain and hunger, a hunger that you and not the Yeerks are victorious.> has made us slaves of the Yeerks.>

<And you would . .> I b e g a n , not daring I didn't know what to say. Too much to ab-even to complete the sentence, it was too sorb. An entire species wanting to morph? And amazing, the possibilities too incredible.

surely Arbron knew that we no longer had the

<Yes. We would fight with you. There are one morphing cube, that Visser One had it. And in thousand seven hundred and nine non-Controller any event, Arbron must know that it wouldn't Taxxons on the surface of this planet and aboard work on him. Not on a nothlit.

the Pool ship. And we Taxxons would fight with As if he was reading my mind, Arbron said, you.>

<Listen to me, Jake the Animorph. I have been a leader of these, my new people, for many years.

We have fought the hunger, resisted as well as we could the murderous cannibalistic urges. I've tried to show them a better way. But the need is too powerful. Resistance always breaks down, and we fall again under Yeerk sway. They feed us, you see. It's as simple as that.

No choice but to be honest, I thought. I can't sustain a lie. I can't trick them. I said.

<We know. Visser One has it, and he will never free us, never. No Taxxon or even Taxxon-Controller has been allowed to acquire the mor-58

people, the guy named Ray. And you, or so we thought."

I had demorphed fully. I sat down hard. Ray was a kid born with severe birth defects. He'd acquired a leopard as his main morph. He loved the physical grace of the animal, a grace he'd never experienced in his human body.

"How are they taking it, James's people?"

"About like we were taking your death, Jake: not well. At least it was quick: Dracon beam. He never knew what hit him."

"We took out a lot of Taxxons," Rachel said, arriving on the scene impeccably dressed, look-They had given me up for dead back at the ing like she'd just stepped out of an exclusive valley of the free Hork-Bajir, so when I came fly-day spa despite the fact that it was not yet six in ing in at first light there was a certain amount of the morning and she, like all of them, had spent amazement.

the night in one of the hasty, shabby log shacks Not that Marco was going to make a big thing we'd built.

of it. "Oh, there you are," he said. "So I guess I

"Was it worth it?" Cassie wondered, then can't have your CD collection after all."

looked as if she wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

I got up and went to her. I took her hands and I landed on the ground and demorphed as said, "This time, yes. I think it was. Rachel?

Cassie came running up, her tear-streaked face Round everyone up: Toby, the parents, the whole bright. She stopped herself from hugging me, war council."

and then turned away.

"Yeah?" she asked with an inquisitive look.

"Cassie. Stay. Please," I said. "Marco: Did we

"They've got fifteen minutes to dress, pee, lose anyone last night?"

and drink a cup of roots n' twigs coffee." I laughed. I

"Yeah. Three of Toby's people. One of James's was feeling incredible. Feeling, despite the lack 60

of sleep, despite the aftermath of two terrible The parents for the most part didn't get it.

battles in one day, wild and alive.

Toby did. And Eva, the former Visser One.

It took them twenty minutes, but that was My fellow Animorphs just stared in dumb, okay. Okay aside from the fact that Marco openmouthed, it-can't-be, no-way shock.

tortured me for the secret the whole time.

All but Cassie, who sighed as if she'd been At last the frowsy, discontented bunch was holding her breath for weeks.

assembled.

I went to her and said, "You knew, didn't

"You're alive," Rachel's mom said, not seem-you?"

ing too happy about it.

She shook her head. "I hoped, that was all. I

"He's hard to kill," Marco said, shaking his hoped."

head as though commiserating with her. "I've

"Pretty good hope, Cassie," I whispered.

been tempted repeatedly during the last twenty

"Oh my God," Marco said, getting it now. "It's minutes or so."

the morphing. That's it, isn't it? The Yeerks got a

<I am very happy to see you alive, Prince taste of morphing. The Taxxons have figured out Jake. But why have I been pulled away from fin-they could do it, too."

ishing my morning rituals?> Ax said. He's cranky I nodded. "Yeah. The Taxxons grabbed me to till he gets a few good hoofsfull of dewy grass.

talk to me. They're led by an Andalite nothlit, I didn't know where to begin. I thought about trapped in Taxxon morph. He said his name is Ar-dragging it out and making a production out of it, bron. He said he was a former companion of but this was a dangerously tired, discontented Elfangor's."

crowd and I was too full of the news to keep it Ax jerked visibly. <Arbron? It is a name from a bottled up.

very long time ago. But yes, an aristh named Ar-

"Well," I said, trying to sound laconic, "the bron was a friend of my brother's.> Taxxons want to defect. They want to I recounted the details of the meeting, play-change sides."

ing to a very, very attentive audience.

Everyone just stared.

<You believed him?> Tobias asked.

"Come again?" Cassie's dad said.

I shrugged. "It doesn't make any sense as a

"The Taxxons. They want to join us. They're trap. They had me dead. If they wanted to trap ready to turn against the Yeerks."

us, if it was all a setup, they'd have demanded I 62

return with all of you. They didn't. They told me One. They do not know that Tobias's mother is to come back alone. Arbron wants me to speak to morph-capable. They do not know about the aux-his people. He wants me to tell them what I told iliary Animorphs. They do not know that the him. He wants my personal promise."

Yeerks have a cube. They will absolutely refuse.>

"Your promise of what?" Toby asked.

"Even if it means stopping a war, saving a I looked right at Ax. "They want to be made planet, and disarming their greatest enemy?"

morph-capable. They have contact with Yeerks Cassie asked. "Are they that stubborn? That stu-who've morphed, and they are bitterly ticked that pid?"

Visser One has refused to enable any of his Ax's main eyes flashed. <What they will say is Taxxon so-called allies. They realize we don't that it is a trick: that the Yeerks are using the have the morphing cube anymore. And Arbron is Taxxons to acquire more morphing power and smart enough to know that even if we win we may become even more formidable foes.> not get the cube from Visser One. He could

"They've said they'll go nothlit under our su-escape with it or even destroy it. But they've pervision," I said. "Permanent morph."

realized that the Yeerks will never, ever allow

"The Andalite high command is not going to them to gain morphing capabilities because it trust us that far," Marco said.

would be the end of Taxxon dependence on the

"The Andalite high command can drop Yeerks."

dead," Rachel said. "What good have they ever

"So they want us to promise Andalite cooper-been to us? Where are they, huh? We've always ation?" Marco said thoughtfully. "They want us been their last priority. They've done squat for to guarantee that the Andalites will pay off on our us. They're sitting off at a safe distance waiting debt?"

to see whether we win or lose. If we win they'll I nodded. "Exactly. They want us to commit pat us on the head and say, 'Good inferior the Andalite high command to make every Taxxon species, good girl, here's a doggie treat.' And morph-capable. In exchange, each Taxxon will if we lose what are they going to do?"

choose a form and turn nothlit."

No one had an answer to that. Then Cassie

<My people will never agree,> Ax said bluntly.

said, "Ax, you need to tell them."

<The morphing technology is the crown jewel of Ax looked startled. His stalk eyes jerked Andalite science. They are already furious that it toward Cassie.

has spread as far as the five of you and Visser 65

"It's time to choose, Ax," Cassie said very quietly. "Once and for all. We all know what Alloran did to the Hork-Bajir world, trying to keep them from falling into Yeerk hands. The Andalites won't allow Earth to fall to the Yeerks, will they?"

All attention was on Ax.

It was a long time before he spoke. It's hard to read Andalite emotions — they lack mouths, and that makes them less expressive than humans. But it was easy enough to guess at the conflicts going on inside that wonderfully quick, agile brain.

Ax said slowly.

"I'll kill you myself!" Rachel erupted.

"Rachel," I said as evenly as I could.

"Now can I kill him?" Rachel demanded.

Another long hesitation. Then, <Yes, I wasn't far from letting her. I was furious.

Prince Jake. It is true.>

Betrayed! Ax had used our limited In a few moment's time I'd gone from communicator to chat with his people? Behind the heights of hope and optimism to the our backs?

depths of rage and despair. The Andalite Cassie s a i d , "Ax has already defied fleet wasn't coming to rescue us. They were t h e m . They ordered him to stop our attack coming to destroy us in order to destroy the on the Yeerk pool. He disobeyed."

Yeerks.

<You spied on me?> Ax asked her.

In a h e a r t b e a t w e ' d lost one e n e m y ,

"I'm an Animorph, Ax," Cassie answered. "

the Taxxons, and gained another, far more A flea on your back when you would sneak deadly: our erstwhile friends, our long-out of camp."

awaited saviors, the Andalites.

"Why on God's green Earth would these

<How do we stop t h e m , Ax-man?> Andalites order him to stop us from killing Tobias asked. He and Ax are best friends.

their enemies?" Rachel's mother asked,

"You're asking him?" Rachel raged, and for once it was a good question.

stabbing an accusing finger at the Andalite.

Eva had the answer. "I can guess: They Ax held his head high and for a

didn't want anything to stop the Yeerks moment I thought he might refuse to from concentrating their forces here. They answer Tobias's question. T h e n , <You wanted the Yeerks to pour into E a r t h . " She must understand that the Andalite high laughed mirthlessly. "The Yeerks are evil, command is not the entire Andalite destructive, dangerous creatures, I know e l e c t o r a t e . This l o n g war h a s m a d e that better than anyone. But the Andalites t h e m a greater part of our civilization than are no saints themselves. They want the they should rightly be. The Andalite Yeerks to concentrate here because the electorate, the people, do not know what is Andalites have written us off, decided we planned.>

can't win, and they wanted to blast the

"So, how do we tell them?" Marco said. "

entire planet out of existence and take out Any time we dial up that communicator my the bulk of the Yeerk race along with the dad invented it just reaches the Andalite fleet."

human race."

<We take the Yeerk Pool ship,> Ax said.

"Is that true, Ax?"

<We use its power to contact the nonmilitary Andalite

communications net. We tell the Andalite people to mind. ". . . conflicted. I'll back your guess what has happened, what we've done, and what any day of the week."

we have promised the Taxxons.>

"I think he means he's sorry he doubted you

<Will the Andalite people back us?> Tobias and treated you like crap," Rachel said archly.

asked.

"Yeah. That's exactly what I mean. Come on, Ax looked grim. <Will your people? Will they Cassie, show me where to go next."

allow Taxxons to morph and live in peace on this planet? Will your people choose trust over hatred and revenge?>

That put it back in my court. I didn't have an answer.

"Arbron wants me to speak to the Taxxons tonight," I said. "He's suggested I appear in morph — to demonstrate the possibilities. He doesn't know much about Earth animals. But he thinks the Taxxons would prefer something not too different from their current forms. Something strong but something not afflicted by the Taxxon hunger. Cassie?"

She looked blank. "Something similar to their present forms? Centipedes? Caterpillars? No, they'd want a longer lifespan at least. And you said strong . . . ah. I have an idea. I don't know.

Maybe . . . I don't know. I'd be guessing."

I said, "Cassie, you guessed that letting Tom take the morphing cube might weaken rather than strengthen the Yeerks. You guessed that Ax was . . ." I stifled the most bitter word that came 71

thick and so long I couldn't begin to guess at its total size. It had a clearly delineated head and a sort of rough-edged diamond pattern to its scales.

It was either asleep or dead. Or very relaxed.

"The anaconda is part of the python family,"

Cassie said. "One of if not the biggest snake species on Earth. It hunts live prey, but snakes are far from the kind of hunger a Taxxon knows.

They have very slow metabolisms. They can go a long time between meals."

I peered at the informational plaque. "Native to the Amazon jungle?" I laughed. "You're thinking ahead."

"Is it a python?" I guessed.

Cassie looked embarrassed, like I'd caught

"Anaconda," Cassie said.

her doing something dishonest. "If we agree to The Gardens had survived the destruction of give the Taxxons a place to live in freedom here the town since it was outside the radius of annihion Earth, why not the rain forest? The agreement lation. But it was closed. A handful of dedicated would stop destruction of the rain forest dead in people worked to keep the animals from starving, its tracks."

I nodded. "Yes, it would. But is this . . ." I but the place was a mess: The breeze blew trash jerked my head toward the snake. "Is this the around the usually pristine sidewalks; the whole morph that would appeal to a Taxxon?"

place reeked of uncleaned cages and habitats; Cassie shrugged. "I guess I don't figure Taxxons water pressure had been cut off so the picturesque are big on imagination. I think they'd want some-moats and ponds were scummed over.

thing fairly close, as you said, to what they are The snake house looked about like it always now. But not some helpless worm or bug: They're did, though some of the display areas were dark. I used to a certain relative size."

guess snakes are low maintenance.

"Uh-huh. You sure that snake isn't dead? I The snake I was staring at looked about afoot haven't seen it move yet."

"Well, you see what I mean: It would be dif-know the galaxy is full of life, full of intelligent ferent from the relentless demands of life for a species. We'll have this huge rush of technologi-Taxxon. There's a lot of sitting in the sun incal change. There'll be nothing to stop us from volved."

being a space-traveling species. Humans on the

"Florida retirement for Taxxons."

moon, on Mars, maybe colonizing planets all

"Yeah."

around the galaxy. And there's the morphing

"Well, let's get this over with," I said reluc-technology. Can you imagine what that's going to tantly.

mean?"

"It's perfectly safe," Cassie said condescend-Cassie nodded. "I guess I don't think about ingly.

that stuff so much. I guess I think more about us.

"It's a snake. It's a snake the size of palm You and me. And all of us."

tree."

I took her in my arms. The anaconda's habitat

"Come on." She put her arm through mine was probably not the most romantic place on and drew me away toward the access corridor be-Earth, but it felt safe. "You know I love you."

hind the cages.

"I love you, too, Jake," she said, and put her We both went in and I knelt and touched the head on my shoulder.

dry scales. Not slimy at all, but still creepy. I ac-

"I guess if we win, if we survive, maybe we quired the snake. Its DNA joined the DNA of how should, you know, get married and all. I mean, many species floating around in my blood? I eventually. I know we're young, but man, we've couldn't even remember them all.

been through enough that it should count for a

"When you do this morph your biggest prob-few extra years, shouldn't it?"

lem will be staying awake," Cassie said.

I don't know what I expected her answer to I stood up, and for a moment tried to figure be, but I didn't expect her to start crying. And out how to say what I wanted to say.

not tears of joy, either.

"Cassie, you ever wonder what happens if we

"I would like that ... eventually," she said. "

win? You ever think about that?"

But. But what?"

"All the time."

She sighed. "But, Jake, what are you going to

"Nothing will ever be the same. People will be? What are you going to do?"

"Guess I thought I'd go to college," I said.

bility of actual victory, despite the probable

"And study what, Jake? Me, I'll go to college, Andalite betrayal. The Taxxons might be joining I'll become a doctor. never forget what's us! For so long I'd fought with no hope at all.

happened, I'll never even try, but I'll be able I should be excited.

to slip back into a normal life. But you, Jake?"

I should be happy.

I shrugged and released her and stood away a bit. "I'm not Rachel, you know. I didn't fall in love with the fight. I don't need it like she does. I do it, I try and do it well, but it's just a job, a duty." I tried to make a joke of it. "I mean, what do you think? The Pentagon is going to call me up and make me Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? I'm not even old enough to enlist as a private."

She didn't laugh. She just looked at me.

"Look, Cassie, when this is over I'll be done with it forever. I'll go back to school, get an education, go to basketball games, get a driver's li-cense, go to college, figure out what it is I really want to do. And be with you. You and me."

She forced a smile. "A year after it ends, if it ends, if we win, a year afterward if you want to be with me, we'll talk about that again, okay?"

"I have to wait a year? Kind of harsh, isn't it?"

"Hey, if we get married, Marco isn't going to live with us, is he?" Cassie said, trying her best to jolly us both out of our dark moods.

It didn't work.

For the first time I could taste the faint possi-77

I landed and demorphed. It was a chilly night, especially for someone in nothing but morphing clothes. I was glad to climb into the VW. I sat behind the steering wheel and looked around, not knowing what to expect. The little bud vase was empty.

<What are we doing?> Marco asked from his location somewhere on my body.

"We're sitting here looking like a suspicious car thief," I answered. "Where are you guys, anyway? Where on my body did you end up after I demorphed?"

Rachel answered, <Gotta tell you, cousin, I A

don't know where we are exactly, and I don't rbron had given me the place: a spot more really want to know.>

than a mile away from the site of the new Yeerk

"Mmmm. Good point."

pool. He had not told me positively, absolutely, to

<Marco just bit you,> Ax reported. <If I un-come alone. So, I brought backup, though not in derstand the physiology of flea bites correctly, any visible form.

you will experience an itching sensation later, I flew with fleas nestled deep in my feathers.

and then will know precisely where we were.> Only Tobias remained in his true form, flying "

"There's a pleasant thought," I said.

cover."

<Hey, there's a key in the ignition. See if the I found the spot easily enough: a used car lot radio works,> Marco suggested.

just outside the blast area. It was abandoned, of I punched the power switch. It was set to a course. About half the cars had been stolen by news channel. The announcer sounded tired. "

looters, and of those that remained maybe a third

. . . are saying at this hour that the looting has were damaged in some way. But there, just as Ar-diminished in intensity. Numerous fires are still bron had told me, waited a yellow VW Beetle.

burning, but fire departments from as far as a 78

hundred miles away are sending trucks and I closed my eyes and opened them once more and crews to —" I pushed preset buttons and tried this time I saw the Taxxons, everywhere, all for some music.

around the car, pressing close, red jelly eyes stari There was a rumbling. I turned off the radio. "

ng.

Urn . . . you guys feel that?"

"We're here," I muttered.

<We're fleas, we feel everything,> Cassie said.

<Good. I need to pee,> Marco said.

Tobias called down from high above. <I guess

"I'm going to get out," I whispered.

you guys know the ground is opening up, right?> I opened the door slowly. I stood up.

"Buckle your seat belts."

They were everywhere, a wall of Taxxons.

The ground vibrated beneath the car and I fol-More Taxxons than I could have imagined in my lowed my own advice, drew the shoulder belt worst nightmare. Not dozens, hundreds.

across, and clipped it just as the ground opened Arbron — at least I hoped it was him —

up and the car began to roll forward, down a danced forward on his needle legs. He raised his sloping tunnel into the ground.

upper third and loomed high above me.

It was elegantly done: The tunnel had an al-I knew, or at least hoped, it was a friendly most flat floor, the walls close enough to make gathering. But these were Taxxons, after all.

steering unnecessary. The car rolled free, scuff-Taxxons, not even Taxxon-Controllers. In their ing the dirt walls from time to time. How far natural state they were insane with hunger, and I down, I couldn't be sure. Then I glanced in the was food.

rearview mirror: The tunnel was being collapsed

<Please climb to the podium,> Arbron invited behind me.

me and I noticed for the first time a sort of rock-If it was a trap after all, it was a very good and-dirt mound maybe ten feet high. I scrambled trap.

up, trying not to look scared, and moving very, All at once 1 emerged into a huge open space.

very carefully so as not to scrape a knee or cut a A cavern, tall and arched, and lit by dim artificial finger.

lights high overhead.

Arbron rose part of the way behind me. Then The car rolled to a halt. I closed my eyes to he spread his upper rows of Taxxon arms wide adjust to the gloom. I opened them again and and began addressing the crowd in the Taxxon had an impression of restless movement all around.

speech.

I didn't understand a word of it, but the Now the crowd grew quieter, more attentive, Taxxon multitude did. They hissed and slithered less excited, but very, very focused.

and made a trilling sound that could either be

<I have brought this human here to speak to approval or rage.

you, my people.>

From atop the mound, and with my eyes ad-I recognized my cue. I was about to start justed to the near-darkness, I could see them all.

speaking, but it occurred to me that a visual aid A sea of Taxxons. A huge underground cavern would be helpful. So I spread my arms wide and reeking of ammonia and seething with oversized, reached deep inside myself for the DNA that murderous centipedes.

would form the tiger.

Then Arbron began to speak to them in I morphed slowly, slowly so they could all see.

thought-speak, presumably for my benefit.

They watched the claws grow from my fingers,

<Taxxons! Here is the human who leads the saw the orange-and-black fur rush across my fight against the Yeerks. He and his warriors have body, muttered as I dropped forward onto all killed many of our people.>

fours.

I must have gone several shades more pale at

<You might want to warn us,> Rachel com-that. It seemed a strange way to introduce me.

plained. <It's like an earthquake down here.>

like a man diving off a skyscraper. The dirt and The crowd liked that. They murmured in true rock rose to me, gravel becoming boulders. Gos-Taxxon form, hissing and spitting and writhing.

samer wings sprouted from my back. Articulated Impossible not to feel that I was sitting on some insect legs erupted from my chest. Massive eyes gigantic piece of rotting meat surrounded by swelled like balloons, popping out of my eye huge maggots. Impossible to shake that image.

sockets, overwhelming my face. I could actually

<He and his warriors are friends to the An-see the fleas clinging to my body.

dalites who possess the transforming power. This

<Everyone hang on, we're going airborne,> I human> — he pointed at me with three of his notified my friendly fleas.

arms — <can morph!>

I fired my wings and zoomed just over the 83

heads of the Taxxons. Then back, to land atop my I let the Taxxons take a good, long look.

podium. I demorphed. And now, if Cassie was

<This creature is called an anaconda,> I said.

right, the piece de resistance.

<It is the largest of snakes, powerful, dangerous I formed a picture of the anaconda in my when provoked. But as I feel its mind within my mind. The changes began. I saw my skin harden, own, I know that it is calm, at peace, restful. It is dry out, crack into thousands of interlocked unafraid. It longs for food, but it can resist, can scales.

control its hunger.>

My eyes moved around my head but remained The chamber was silent. The Taxxons stared, forward-focused. My face bulged out, stretched, stared holes in me with their red jelly out and out. My arms were shriveling at a eyes. <Very good,> Arbron said privately to shocking pace. I was a weird creature, half me.

snake, half human, standing erect but armless. Then my legs went weak and I dropped flat on my belly before I could fall. My legs melted into the tail that was stretching out and out and out from my elongating spine.

I was ten feet long and still growing. Longer and longer, and without thinking I shortened the muscles on one side of my body and brought my length up to form a loose coil.

The anaconda's senses replaced my own. Vision faded, color dimmed, but awareness of motion intensified. It was like when you set your computer cursor to show trails: everything, anything that moved was infinitely more interesting than color or shape.

My tongue tasted the air and I received a download of data — temperature, humidity, the scent of Taxxon exhalations.

given the choice — to remain as you are, or to change, to find a new form, and live in peace and contentment here, in a special place. A home-land for the Taxxons . . . for Taxxons who are no longer haunted by the desperate hunger, no longer prey to the Yeerks."

I was lying. At least in part. Arbron was an Andalite, or had been: He had to know that the Andalites would resist ever turning the morphing power over to the hated Taxxons.

I cringed a little as I spoke, waiting for him to interrupt, to call me a liar. But he let me go on.

And I painted the picture for the Taxxons: life H

without hunger, a life of safety and security, uman once more, I addressed the Taxxon where they would live in peace among them-multitude.

selves, no more cannibalism.

"My name is Jake. I am the leader of the Ani-And Arbron let me go on speaking.

morphs. As Arbron told you, we have killed many

"The question is: Can we and our Andalite Taxxons using the morphing power. But we are friends defeat the Yeerks and bring on this new not the enemies of the Taxxons. We are the ene-day?"

mies of the Yeerks. And we have killed many They waited for the answer. I gave it to them, Yeerks."

feeling weirdly like a presidential candidate de-They liked that okay.

livering a stump speech.

"The Andalites are our friends."

"We can defeat the Yeerks . . . if you join us.

<Yeah, right,> Rachel said in private thought-Animorph, Andalite, and Taxxon together, we can speak.

win."

"The Andalites are coming, and there may be The Taxxons didn't cheer, exactly, but they a great battle. The Andalites may win. The Yeerks did send up a creepy whistling sound that rever-may win. If we and the Andalites win, you will be berated around the chamber.

My brother, the human-Controller, head of Arbron slithered up beside me and, to my surprise, dismissed them, told them all to get back Yeerk security.

to their work. Hundreds of Taxxons obediently

"Oh, calm down, Rachel," Tom said genially, turned away and began filing out of side tunnels giving her a "chill-out" wave. She had begun to like a football stadium crowd after the game.

morph to grizzly. "No need to go all hostile."

I probably looked puzzled as I turned to Ar-

"Keep morphing, Rachel," I told her. "Ax?"

bron. "Well?"

Ax moved quickly to Tom's side. His tail blade

<Well, they have agreed. For now. They will was against Tom's throat. Tom stood still. He follow my direction. For now.> made a mocking face, exaggerated fear.

"Okay, then I guess we should get down to

"I'm alone, unarmed," Tom said, holding his specifics," I said. "You know the Pool ship is arms up in surrender. "Hey, I'm morph-capable here on Earth, on the surface. It's there to feed now, you know. If I wanted trouble I'd use this the Yeerks until they can finish —"

really cool jaguar morph I have."

<Why don't you ask your friends to demorph? I'

"Let him go, Ax," I said.

m sure they would be more comfortable.> Ax removed his tail but stayed within striking That stopped me. But there was no point in distance. A word from me and Tom's head would trying to lie. "Yeah, I guess they would."

be rolling across the cave floor like a bowling Fleas leaped away from me, unseen by either ball.

of us, and moments later my friends began to ap-

"So, this is the whole team, huh?" Tom nod-pear, growing out of swollen, vile, armor-plated ded. He shook his head ruefully. "Crazy cousin flea bodies.

Rachel. I always knew you were too much for

<And now, my friend,> Arbron said.

your own good."

I heard footsteps and peered into the dark-

<Shut up, Yeerk,> she said. <You're not my ness of an access tunnel.

cousin. You're a snail living inside my cousin's

"Well, good evening, everyone. It's an awfully head.>

pretty night to spend it all in a filthy Taxxon tun-

"Snail? Oh, I'm wounded," the Yeerk inside nel."

Tom answered. "And there's Cassie. Marco. Your I knew the voice. I'd heard it every day of my pet Andalite, of course. Hey, where's the bird?"

life. My brother. Tom.

"How about we cut the crap?" I said.

"Absolutely, Killer." His eyes were cold, hos-Marco snorted derisively. "Free? You don't tile. He was making no effort to pretend to actu-want to be free."

ally be Tom. He knew that I knew what he was.

Tom laughed. "Marco must be the one doing

<Tom represents a faction of Yeerks who want your thinking for you, Jake. You never were all some of what we want,> Arbron said.

that smart. You're right, Marco, I want something

"Some?"

else. I want Visser One dead. I want the Council

"Yeah, some," Tom agreed. "Sorry, but we're of Thirteen off my back. I want to lose the whole not interested in hiding out in some out-of-the-Empire. They're prisoners of their own tired old way forest, some game preserve. That may be fine thinking. They can't see the future. We're a para-for the Taxxons. Me, I want something a little bet-sitic species, they can't see past that. We have ter than that. But then, I have even more to offer the huge vulnerability of reliance on Kandrona than Brother Arbron, here. You want the Pool rays. But morphed, permanently morphed, we ship? You want your mommy and daddy back, Big won't need Kandrona rays, and we won't be para-Jake the Yeerk Killer? You want this creature sites anymore. We can achieve a greater destiny."

back?" He indicated his own body. "You want He moved closer now. His fists were clenched poor Tommy back? I can make all that happen."

at his side, his jaw, seemed to tighten so that the I had to rein in a powerful desire to go after words could barely force their way past bared him. It's hard to conceive of the impotent rage teeth. I'd seen Tom this way once, just once, you feel watching someone you love be reduced when he'd been wrongly accused of cheating on to a mindless puppet. "In exchange for what?"

a test. It was as angry as Tom got, short of punch-

"My people want it, too: the morphing power."

ing someone.

"You said you're already morph-capable."

"Visser One is only capable of piling brute

"I am. And not just this body, by the way, but force on top of brute force. He's insane, you me. I've subjected my own true Yeerk self to the know. You can't rely on him! You can't hope for cube. You want to know what's funny? I can career advancement, to rise as you should. I morph Tom. That's right, I can morph into my should be a sub-visser by now, and in the small own host body. Cool, huh? But there are all these numbers. What I've done on this planet? I've other Yeerks who are never going to get the been carrying him for the last three years. But as chance to be free."

long as . ." He stopped himself, forced a hard 90

smile. "Office politics. You don't want to hear That interested me. Interested me greatly, but about it."

could I believe him?

"What do you want?" Marco asked him. "Give

<Surely we cannot allow this creature to seize it to us A,B,C. What do you want?"

the Blade ship,> Ax said. <The Blade ship is a

<Don't even listen to him,> Rachel growled.

very powerful offensive weapon. As a warship it is

verable. We Andalites would have little to fear, Tom's Yeerk dropped the wise-guy attitude.

but few other space-faring races could stand He ignored Rachel and Marco and even Ax who against such a ship.>

still hovered close, twitching with readiness.

Tom's face smirked. "Little brother, you've

"You take the Pool ship, Jake. You can keep it.

got to know by now: Wars aren't won with clean But I get the Blade ship, and a hundred of my hands."

people, all treated with the morphing cube. And

"Don't listen to him," Cassie said, but it was we get a free pass out of this system."

almost a whisper.

"And you take off to some far-off, unsuspect-

"What do you have to offer?" I asked Tom.

ing planet, make victims of some other species?"

"The keys to the kingdom, kid. I can give you Cassie cried.

the access codes for every system on the Pool

"Hmm. Come to think of it, yes," Tom said.

ship. If you can take it, Brother Jake, you and He waited. Grinned. "But . . ."

your free Hork-Bajir and your new Taxxon allies,

"Yeah?" I asked.

if you can take it, I can tell you how to fly it. Not

"But the Yeerk Empire will be gutted. Fin-only that, I have a plan to help you get aboard the ished. I've told Visser One that I have informa-Pool ship. And by the way, your old friend Visser tion that the Andalite fleet is massing close by, One has temporarily transferred his headquarters using Jupiter as a shield to hide behind. So he's to the Pool ship. The Pool ship and Visser One —

ordered most of our own fleet to stay in Zero-that's game, set, and match." He grinned at me space, ready to emerge once the Andalites are and said, "They'll carve your sanctimonious face committed. Not quite true. The Andalites are up on Mount Rushmore, Jake-Boy. You'll be the much closer than that."

savior of the human race."

"Thanks for the offer," I said. "I don't think so. Ax, take him. Rachel? Help Ax. Carefully!"

That rocked him for a second or two. Then he nodded. "I see: The Andalite's told you he can break security." He nodded. "He probably can, the Andalites are very good with computers. He'd have an hour before the codes shift. He would.

Except that I've changed the code cycle to fifteen minutes." He glared at Ax. "Can you beat fifteen minutes, Andalite? Can you do that?"

The keys were in my hands.

I could win. We could win.

If General Doubleday would provide the diversion. If the Taxxons would rally to us. If Tom's Yeerk provided us with the access codes. If Tom really could get us aboard the Pool ship and we could overpower the Yeerks still aboard. And if Ax could (and would) find a way to convince his people to ratify the promises we'd made to the Taxxons and Tom's dissident Yeerk faction.

Five "ifs." A lot. But at least now the number of "ifs" was a finite number.

A sixth "if": If Tom's Yeerk was telling the truth.

He had asked for no guarantees. Did he trust 94

me to keep my word? Would he risk everything on your parents, may be restored to us. And because my word? True, he knew me through my brother's of that, Tom's Yeerk has seen a way to betray his memories. And yet ... and yet ..

own people and become some kind of warlord on As we flew home, flew home impossibly free his own.>

and alive after spending an hour with a few hun-I took a moment to digest that. She was actu-dred Taxxons plus one of the highest ranking ally blaming herself. <Cassie, these things hap-Yeerks, my mind was full of the details. Cassie pen. You can't always predict the results of the left me alone for a while, but I knew she'd have things you do. You try your best, take your best something to say. I knew it. And I knew I had ig-shot, and maybe it comes out right, and maybe it nored her in the past at my own peril. I knew I comes out . . . I don't know, confused.> should listen to her, trust her.

<Brilliant, isn't it? So I make the decisions, I But I also knew what she'd say, and I didn't make the big call, sanctimonious little me, I want to hear it. Just the same, after a while, as make the moral, optimistic decision, and where we flew in the dead night air above the wrecked are we?>

town below, the waiting got to me.

<Better off than we were,> I said, but I was

<Cassie, just go ahead and say it,> I said finally.

only half-listening now. An alarm bell was going

<Say it? You're expecting some moral lecture off in my head. Why? What was the problem?

from me about turning Tom's Yeerk and a hun-What was it?

dred of his chosen people loose with a fantasti-

<And some species we don't know about is cally powerful warship to roam the galaxy? Never maybe doomed when a Blade ship full of morph-knowing what suffering he may inflict?> ing Yeerks descends on them.>

<It's never completely clean, Cassie. Doesn't

clean. The fact that you know you'll be dragged She sounded bitter. I wasn't surprised. I was in the gutter doesn't mean you don't try like hell surprised by what came next.

to stay out of it. You don't get a lot of straight-up

she good or evil choices. You get shades of gray. I said. <Because of that the Taxxons may become mean, we started this war thinking we'd hold on a force for peace. And Tom, the real Tom, and till the great and glorious Andalites came to res-96

cue us. Now we're making deals with Taxxons turn? Trusted me to get him all he wanted, all I'd and Yeerks to gain a victory fast enough to keep agreed to?

the great and glorious Andalites from making No. No, that wasn't it. Tom's Yeerk wanted us their own shades-of-gray decision.> to believe we could trust him. He didn't ask for

<What are you going to do?> Cassie asked.

assurances or cross-examine me because he

<I'm going to win,> I said. But I didn't be-didn't want me doing the same to him.

lieve it. Why? It was all there. It was all possible Then I saw it: Of course. I'd been looking at at least.

nothing but tactics; I'd overlooked emotion. The Of course Tom's Yeerk was lying in part. I was emotion of a vengeful Yeerk. He despised Visser sure he was not interested in turning nothlit, that One for being a failure, for being a brute, for rewas a joke. The morphing cube was almost surely fusing to promote him. "As long as... ," Tom had on board the Blade ship, and the Blade ship had started to say.

its own small Yeerk pool facility. So of course he Yes. Visser One was not the only person Tom's was lying about that.

Yeerk hated. Someone else was to blame for forc-But just as surely, he was telling the truth ing this choice on an ambitious Yeerk.

about wanting to seize the Blade ship and go into Me. My friends. We were responsible for forc-business for himself.

ing this choice on Tom's Yeerk. In frustrating Tom. The Yeerk in his head. Had to believe Visser One we had doomed Tom's Yeerk.

him, after all, he'd known where we were, he ob-That was why Tom's Yeerk didn't ask for reas-viously knew about Arbron, he could very easily surances from us. He expected us to be dead. He have called in every Hork-Bajir-Controller on the would kill Visser One and us and sail off across planet and taken us down.

the galaxy in the Blade ship with the morphing He'd had us right in the palm of his hand, cube in his hands.

and let us go. Had to trust that. Didn't I?

It came to me all at once that I could beat Yeah. But why did he trust me? Why did he him. Use him and beat him.

trust me?

One of those rare, perfect moments when a Trust breeds trust, right? Tom's Yeerk had dozen nagging questions, an infinity of details, shown he could be trusted, so he trusted us in re-simply fall perfectly into place and form a single clear picture.

It took my breath away. The perfection of it.

I explained what I wanted her to do.

The pure, ruthless perfection of it.

<You're sure, Jake?> she asked solemnly All I had to do was send my friends to die.

when I had finished. <Because if you tell me "

Cassie was still talking to me, but I didn't Go!" I'll follow your orders. You know what that hear her words. I had seen the vision. I could see means.>

the pure, straight line from point A to point Z.

<Yeah, Rachel, I know what it means.> I said, <Marco? Find the Chee. Find them.

Still she hesitated. <It won't be the Yeerk, Bring Erek to me.>

Jake. It'll be Tom. It'll be him.>

<How am I going to do that?> Marco groused.

I s a i d . <And I ... if it hap-

<The Chee hideout is in the blast area. I tried, pens, if it comes down that way, I don't have a but it's nothing but destruction, you can't even plan for getting you out. You'd be on your own.> tell where the streets used to be. And it's crawl-

<That's how I like it.>

ing with Yeerks shooting anything that moves. It

<Okay, then. Get started. Make sure Cassie would be very easy to get myself killed going doesn't know.>

back there.>

<You still don't trust her?> Rachel said an-

<Yeah, I know. Do it anyway,> I said. <I need grily.

the Chee.> I felt sick inside. High and low at

<She loves us both, Rachel,> I said. <I can't once. Exalted. Twisted.

make her part of this. I can't let her know in ad-What chance was there that Marco would suc-vance, so, you know, if it happens, if it happens, I ceed? What chance that he would survive?

don't want her spending the rest of her life won-And worse in store for Rachel. I needed Tobias, dering if she could have stopped it somehow.> and could not risk losing Ax. Cassie? No. It had to Rachel said, <Okay, Jake. You're right. And be Rachel. Only she would do it, could do it.

you're right to use me for this. Not exactly some-I had a few small changes to make to Tom's thing I'm proud of, maybe, but later, you know, plan. The orders came easily, automatically as I dispatched my friends, one after the other. Only if — don't be blaming yourself, okay?> Rachel remained.

She angled her eagle's wings to take the wind, and flew away.

<Rachel, I have a job for you.> The plan was a fragile thing in my mind, a 100

101

construct of if-then possibilities, of hopes, optimism, and cynicism in equal measure.

I would use everyone, put everyone in harm's way. And I knew knew beyond any doubt—

that someone, and maybe more than someone, I loved was going to die.

It took all day to get my chess pieces in place. The hardest one was Erek the Chee.

Marco found him. He found him after twice being spotted and shot by Yeerk forces. But it's hard to kill an Animorph. A wounded morph has only to demorph to be reconstituted as a whole human.

Of course a dead morph is a dead Animorph, and Marco came very close to not making it.

He was not happy by the time he dragged into camp late in the day. I had almost given up hope.

Erek is a Chee, one of a race of sentient ro-bots created millennia ago by the Pemalites. The Pemalites were gentle, wise, intelligent creatures who were obliterated by the Howlers long, long 102

103

ago. The Pemalites believed in peace. And the nine forms. They took in stray or lost dogs when-Chee they created, despite being unimaginably ever they could.

powerful and equipped with formidable holo-

"Erek, we need your help."

graphic technology, were incapable of violence.

"Always glad to help, within the limits of my This was not to say that the Chee didn't have programming," he answered cautiously.

a side in the war. They were our allies. They were

"We're taking the Pool ship," I said.

the ultimate spies, able to pass as humans, as He hesitated, thought that over. "I don't see they had since arriving on Earth as refugees back how I'm going to be able to help you. We don't in the days of the pharaohs of Egypt.

have a lot of data on the Pool ship. Nothing you The Chee had spied for us, hoped we would don't already know."

w i n , but they would not help us k i l l . They

"It's not information we need," I said. "We couldn't help or cause anyone to kill or even to need your skills. We need your active participa-be hurt. I counted on that.

tion. We need you there."

Erek smiled at me with a human face that His eyes grew dark, a holographic but very should belong to a guy my own age. Of course bereal-seeming reaction. "I can't do that, Jake. We neath the hologram was a machine that looked as both know there'll be fighting. I can't be part of though it was built of stainless steel and ivory, that."

like a stylized dog walking erect.

I took a deep breath, not wanting to say what

"Jake, I'm pleased to see you still alive," Erek was about to say. "Here's the thing, Erek, I said. "Pleased to see all of you."

know what you can and can't do. So I'm going to

"And we're relieved to see you, Erek. How are use that to force your hand. I'm sorry. But we're the Chee doing?"

down to it, now. We're right down to it."

He shrugged. "Well, our house is gone. But

"What are you planning?" He switched off the "

the underground facility is intact. All our people Erek" holographic facade and revealed his true are safe. We've been through worse in five thou-self. Maybe that was to intimidate me. Maybe it sand years among your lovely people. I mean, I was just a way of conveying anger.

survived the Huns and they were quite unpleas-

"We know you can't fight us. So we're going ant. The dogs are safe at least."

to take you, carry you if we have to, put you in a The Chee carried on their master's love of ca-position where you'll cooperate because refusing 104

1 0 5

to cooperate will force us to take lives. Your refusal I nodded. "Tell you the truth, Erek, your being to cooperate would be the trigger for killing.

mad at me is the least of my problems. Marco?

"Ax? Bring your prisoner."

Erek is your property. He tries to leave, stop him.

I had dispatched Ax and Cassie to take a pris-If he succeeds in leaving, Ax, you'll execute this oner, a known Controller, a human-Controller.

Controller."

Chapman.

shot a challenging, defensive look at Cassie. "

And he was not happy.

Any comment?"

"Ax, if I tell you to kill this Controller, will you

"No."

do it?" I asked him.

I glared at my friends, all of whom were look-

<Yes,> Ax answered truthfully. <He is a ranking somber. Erek had been with us, an ally, a ing Yeerk, an enemy who has done great damage friend, for a long time. "Does anyone have any to human freedom.>

thing to say?"

"This is low," Erek grated. "This is so far be-No one did.

neath you, Jake."

"Good. Now, Ax? In addition to keeping an Weird blackmailing a creature you know is eye on our friend, here, it's time for you to phone physically capable of obliterating you down to the Andalite fleet. You tell them you succeeded your individual molecules. Weird trusting that he in stopping our raid on the Yeerk pool. Tell them won't, can't, do any such thing.

the Yeerks are all here on Earth like sitting

"Sorry," I said again. "But we'll keep you in a ducks. But they can't strike yet because you, position where every time you refuse to help, we aristh Aximili, are going to deliver a major Yeerk take a life. And I'll make you this promise: Your warship right into their laps. You're going to hand help will minimize the casualties."

them an entire, intact Pool ship."

Erek said a long string of words I didn't un-

<You are asking me to lie to my people,> Ax derstand.

said. <The Yeerks have stopped concentrating

"What?"

forces on Earth. They are awaiting the construc-

"I was offering you my opinion of your morals tion of a new Yeerk pool.>

and your ethics and your sense of decency," Erek

"I'm not asking you to lie to your people, Ax.

spat. "I was speaking an ancient Mesopotamian I'm telling you to. We need them close enough to dialect known for its wide variety of curse words."

be of use, but we also need to give them a reason 106

107

not to start blasting away at Earth. Call the An-

"Yes, I know."

dalite fleet. Tell them what I've told you to tell

"It's going to be as dangerous as it gets, and I them. I'm your prince, Ax: Do it."

have a very tough assignment for you."

I didn't wait to hear his answer. I knew it. Or

"Okay, well, you know I'm in. But I'll need to thought I did.

talk to the others, see how they feel. I think some James and his people came flying in, landed of them will want to sit this one out. I mean, after and demorphed. "You called?"

losing Ray . . . I mean, Jake, some of the young It's always disturbing for me seeing the auxil-ones, you know, some of them are having —"

iary Animorphs demorphed. When we still had

"James, we didn't give them morphing power the morphing cube we decided to add some so they could have fun flying around. This is members. But it's impossibly complicated and when we need them. All of them. You under-time-consuming to make sure each and every stand? You've taken on the role as their leader, so person is Yeerk-free. So we figured out who the lead: I want them all. Every last one."

Yeerks would have never infested, who they

"Jake, some of these kids, I mean, they're all would have overlooked: the handicapped. Plenty their families have, you know? They're still just of fully functional human hosts around, why has-starting to deal with Ray's death. It's not like we sle with all the drawbacks of dealing with a hand-haven't fought. I can't . . ."

icap?

"Look, if we lose this battle it's over, you un-We knew handicapped kids would be Yeerk-derstand me?!" I raised my voice to be heard by free. We also knew they'd be even more willing everyone. "If we lose it's over. This is the battle.

than most people to accept a treatment that This is the last stand. We lose and here's what would allow them physical freedom in animal happens: The Yeerk fleet fights the Andalite fleet.

form.

If the Yeerks win they'll be free to enslave every We'd used them. And now they lay there living human being and kill the ones they don't rather than standing because for the most part want. If the Andalites win there's a very good they couldn't stand. Or, if they could stand, they chance they'll sterilize Earth: kill everything in couldn't see.

order to end the Yeerk menace once and for all.

"Yeah, James. We need all your people. As So, you don't like me telling you what to do, you you know, we're going after the Pool ship."

don't like your job, you don't like me, period? I 108

109

don't really care. Before this night is over the casualties will be piled high and some of you standing here right now will be dead and I don't care because we are going to win. Is that clear? We're taking that Pool ship and before this night is over we'll have Visser One right here." I held up my tight-clenched fist.

I was ranting. I was trembling. I'd never done this before. Never put myself forward as some kind of Napoleon wannabe. I felt like a jerk. Like some kind of nut. My friends must have thought I'

d lost my mind. But no one said so.

No one but Marco. "You know, you're turning into Rachel." He frowned. "Where is she, any-I was in falcon morph, floating high, high in way?"

the air, rising on the updraft of warmth that still came from the smoldering ashes of the center of town. Usually night is a bad time for a peregrine.

Night air is cold air and cold air is dead air. But flying above the black destruction I had all the lift I needed.

I could see the Pool ship, still resting beside the crater that had once been the Yeerk pool. Could they see me, Visser One and his Yeerks? They could if they tried. I wasn't invisible. But they didn't attack, didn't send a Bug fighter up to Dracon me.

Why not? Maybe Tom's Yeerk wasn't ready to kill me, yet.

Or Maybe Visser One saw me, knew what I 110

111

w a s , and w a i t e d , like the spider in his web had a strike force of almost a thousand men, watching the fly. He wanted me to come to him.

Yeerk-free. Yeerk-free, and, having seen the en-He wanted me as badly as I wanted him.

emy close-at-hand, they were motivated.

Careful what you wish for, Visser.

I'd given him all the details I safely could.

Careful what you wish for, Jake.

"They may come after you with Bug fighters —

I had visited General Doubleday. He was as that would be the best we could hope for. The shaken up as anyone I've ever seen, but deter-greater likelihood is that either the Pool ship or mined.

the Blade ship will attack you directly."

He'd followed our suggestion, reluctantly at

"I've got what amounts to a scratch battalion, first. He'd locked away as many of his men as he a few tanks, a few helicopter gunships. I've seen could. It was ten hours till the first Controller those Bug fighters in action. My men will fight, reached the point where he couldn't hold out any but they can't win."

longer. He made a break for it.

"That's right, General, they can't," I said.

"What did you do?" I had asked him.

"But if they'll fight, keep up the diversion, we

"We warned him once. Gave him a direct or-can win. I have about a dozen of my people com-der. Then the MP shot him."

ing to join you. They'll be right out front."

"That must have been tough," I'd said.

"With all due respect to your people, son,

"The MP aimed for a leg shot, but the private they may be great in hand-to-hand combat, but slipped. Bullet caught him in the head." The you're guerrilla fighters by nature. Your abilities general held out an empty bottle and showed it are geared for that kind of warfare. You're asking to m e . "This thing crawled out of the man's me for a good, old-fashioned cavalry charge, head. Crawled out through the bullet hole."

here. You're asking me for the Charge of the A Yeerk lay writhing in the bottle.

Light Brigade."

"There's your enemy, General," I'd said.

"We need the diversion," I said. "Visser One Some of the Controllers had tried to work to-has to believe the Yeerk traitor is telling him the gether to rush the door. Others had waited as truth. So you have to attack, but once the Yeerks long as they could. Seventeen percent of the come after you all you can do is dig in and take general's men had been infested. But now he cover. The Yeerks only have one way of fighting: 112

113

Attack with everything they've got. They'll go holes in it now. I could see nothing but holes. It right after you. Visser One doesn't know tactics; would never work. It would never work.

he fights with a sledgehammer."

I saw movement down below. A pair of Humvees

"If you've got a big enough sledgehammer approaching an outer ring checkpoint, head-that's all you need, son."

lights playing on wrecked, charred brick walls I was hearing those weary, wry words as I flew and burned out cars. Hork-Bajir- and human-above the Pool ship. It was a monstrous thing.

Controller guards checked ID's and passed them Bigger than an aircraft carrier. More powerful than through.

all the forces of humankind combined and multi-Now I didn't need a clock. It was go time.

plied a hundredfold. The Dracon cannon on the I swooped down, diving faster and faster, Pool ship could burn a hole through an asteroid.

matching speed with the Humvees. I dropped But it was a sledgehammer, a great, lumber-through the gaping window of a blackened home ing beast designed for war in the weightlessness and out through the far side. That would throw of space. And, anyway, if we succeeded it would off any sensors that might be tracking me.

be our sledgehammer.

I used all my falcon speed and aimed for the I saw movement below. Hork-Bajir patrols. A bouncing rear window of the second Humvee. I pair of Bug fighters flying a loose figure eight low swooped through, landed hard with a bounce above the desolation.

against the seat back.

Closer in to the Pool ship the Hork-Bajir pa-A human-Controller I didn't know was driving.

trols increased till they formed a solid, shoulderto-Tom was in the passenger seat. He turned to look shoulder ring around the ship. Hork-Bajir and at me.

human-Controller snipers stood atop the engine

"Very unsettling when you do that," he said.

pods. Visser One was taking no chances with his

<Good,> I answered.

crown jewels.

Cassie appeared to be lying on the backseat, I wondered what time it was. No way to carry handcuffed, ankles bound, a Hork-Bajir sitting be-a watch, obviously, and I could no longer spot side her with a Dracon weapon leveled at her head.

bank clocks. They'd all been destroyed.

Her face was bruised. One eye swollen almost I floated and waited. Floated and waited and shut. There were bloody cuts on her arms. Her went over my plan again and again. I could see morphing suit was in shreds.

114

115

"Gotta hand it to your girl back there," Tom said nonchalantly. "She takes a beating pretty well. Hope I didn't get carried away, Jake-boy, but it isn't every day I get a chance to pound on an Animorph. She didn't cry, didn't say a word.

Almost took the fun out of it."

<Shut up, you Yeerk scum,> I snapped. No answer. I didn't expect one.

"Bruised my fists," Tom's Yeerk said, displaying his hand.

"Whatever. Time to get small, Killer Jake. Security up ahead there."

The Humvees approached the wall-to-wall I demorphed, made a point of stroking the ap-line of Hork-Bajir around the Pool ship and came parent wounds, made another angry remark to to a stop.

Tom's Yeerk for verisimilitude, then went fly.

A Hork-Bajir- and a human-Controller stepped Back in morph I used private thought-speak, au-over to the window like cops getting ready to dible to only one person. <Rachel?> hand out tickets.

<I'm here, Jake.>

They spotted Tom, and I could hear the for-I zoomed around and then headed for Casmal stiffness in their voices. "Sir, you under-sie's bruised, battered face.

stand we still need to conduct a thorough search As I approached a landing, her swollen eye and check your identity."

opened slightly. My compound eyes saw a hun-

"You'd better," Tom snarled. "Lax security dred fragmented images of an eye opening.

makes me cranky."

And of the steel-and-ivory machine beneath The human-Controller shined a powerful light the hologram.

around the inside of the vehicle. He introduced a sensor probe that to my fly senses registered as a 116

117

fantastical wizard's wand. I could see energy ra-calmly on a titanium rod that, to me, seemed as diating in wild colors, invisible most likely to hu-thick as an oak tree.

man eyes.

No one said anything for a while, and I could

"I only read two complex life-forms," the see very little with my limited fly senses.

guard said. "I'm showing several insect readings, Then, in a calm, low-pitched voice, Tom said, but only two complex life-forms: yours, sir, and

"How's it going, little brother? You still there?"

the driver's. The prisoner is not registering as a

<I'm still here,> I said.

Iife-form."

"Good, glad to hear it. And all your little It was already going bad. What was this new friends are there with you?"

sensor? We'd never seen this instrument before. I

<Shut up, Yeerk,> I snapped. <We work to-tensed, ready to leap free and demorph. But in gether because we have to. We don't make small the enclosed space of the Humvee we were talk.>

trapped, helpless. We wouldn't be able to bring Tom's Yeerk laughed. "Oh, you're a surly our force to bear.

bunch, aren't you? No one talks to me. No one Tom said, "Well, as much as I respect your but Rachel, who told me to . . . well, you can new toy there, 1 count three: one, two, three." "

guess what Rachel told me to do."

Yes, sir."

<Whatever she said goes for all of us,> I an-

"You can count to three, right?"

swered.

"Yes, sir."

"Surly and unpleasant. Oh, well. Time to go

"Do you know what that prisoner is? That's an see the visser. My plan is working perfectly, don't Animorph. You think maybe Visser One would you think?"

like to see her just as soon as possible?"

Tom thought Cassie was real. And he thought

"Yes, sir!"

all of us were hiding out somewhere on her body.

"As for the insect life-forms, they're endemic His plan was working fine. Ours was working even to this planet. But I'll be sure to use the Gleet better.

BioFilter before I enter the ship."

Another delay. And then, at last, I heard that The guard must have been satisfied because thought-speak voice.

moments later we were on the move. I rested Visser One.

118

119

her and hand her over to some worthy, loyal Yeerk

"One of the Animorphs, Visser. My people as a host body?"

captured her and questioned her. Questioned

<They are hard to hold on to,> Visser One her ... forcefully."

said. <If you even appear to be thinking of morph-

<So I see. Congratulations.> He sounded aling you'll die, Animorph. Of course, you're likely most annoyed, like he wasn't all that happy to to die either way.>

see Tom succeed where he had failed. <Have you

"Cassie" said nothing.

passed through the Gleet BioFilter? I don't want

<But pleasure can wait,> Visser One said.

any surprises.>

"Yes, Visser, of course," Tom's Yeerk lied. The Tom clasped his hands behind his back and Gleet BioFilter detects and eliminates nonpri-assumed a respectful but casual stance. "The mary life-forms — anything "riding" on a human Animorphs' leader has made contact with human or Hork-Bajir body.

military forces. A combined force of human sol-

goal will be to use the attack as a diversion, to al-Now I could see him, a mosaic of him, in my low the Animorphs to infiltrate this ship."

compound eyes. He loomed close, leering down Visser One laughed. <They would try to take a with his mouthless Andalite face, stalk eyes Pool ship? Are they such fools?> widening out.

"Don't forget, they have an Andalite among Suddenly his tail whipped around and deliv-them. They would use his skills to break our seered a slapping blow. Fast. So fast that even curity codes. And there is more, Visser."

my fly reflexes would not have saved me. But

<More? What more?>

of course the blow never reached me. It was

"I .. I'm not certain, Visser, but I believe stopped by force fields that overlapped the holo-my people may have penetrated a second con-gram. Just as Tom's torturing blows had been.

spiracy, every bit as dangerous."

Visser One grated.

"Visser!" A new voice. Human. I vaguely per-

"Perhaps not just yet, Visser," Tom demurred. "

ceived a human-Controller, a woman.

She may still be useful as bait. Why not hold

120

121

"With your permission, Visser, this may be the in his bleary-looking Andalite eyes? No genius, report I've been waiting for," Tom said smoothly.

maybe, Visser One, but he had an instinct for

"Visser ... I apologize for interrupting," the survival. He was moving back and forth, pacing, woman said, "but a party of Hork-Bajir have ar-hooves clicking on the deck, stalk eyes wander-rived at the perimeter with a Taxxon prisoner."

ing randomly.

Bug fighters can quickly eliminate the human Tom intervened again. "I believe this is a very soldiers, and simply by lifting off we can doom special Taxxon, Visser. You may choose to hear the Animorph attempt at infiltration."

what he has to say."

<And what of these treasonous Taxxons?> Moments later the Taxxon, accompanied by

"They must be stopped quickly but carefully: Hork-Bajir guards, shuffled and writhed into the We don't want to damage the new Yeerk pool. I room. He was a hundred great worms in my com-respectfully suggest, Visser, that I take temporary pound eyes. But the colors were different. I saw command of your Blade ship and deal with the the red jelly eyes as an almost psychedelic violet.

Taxxons personally. Never fear: I will kill only as

<Well?> Visser One demanded. <I'm not a pa-many as I need to, and drive the rest back to tient Yeerk, explain the great mystery here.> their labor."

Tom proceeded to explain his penetration of a So, here it is, I thought. The moment of truth.

Taxxon alliance with the Animorphs. The Taxxon, The Visser would buy it or not. The silence straining to form coherent speech with its inade-stretched on. Too long.

quate mouthparts, confirmed the tale.

Visser One had smelled the rat.

"In a matter of moments now, Visser, this

Visser One three-part attack will take place. Human soldiers hissed. <I've fought to seize this planet for years.

will attack, the Taxxons will destroy the unfin-For years! And suddenly now everything falls into ished Yeerk pool, and the Animorphs themselves my hands? I don't trust good luck. For all I know, will use the confusion to attempt to penetrate this Animorph, this Cassie creature, has man-this ship."

aged to carry her fellow bandits in with her.> Visser One nodded. But was there hesitation

"But, Visser, the Gleet BioFilter . ."

122

123

<They've beaten the filter before,> Visser One shouted. <No! No! There's something wrong here, something very wrong. . . . Look how she stands there, beaten, whipped, cowed. No, it's too easy. And this Taxxon, how can I be sure he, too, isn't one of them? They can take any shape.

How can I be sure?>

"Very simply," Tom said calmly. "Order the Taxxon to eat the Animorph girl. If the Taxxon is an Animorph in morph, he will refuse. If not, then the girl — and any hidden morphs concealed on her person — will be consumed. Thus, we will be sure of both."

<Yes!> Visser One cried. <Guards, watch

"No! No!" Cassie cried. "NOOO!"

every corner of this room, shoot anything that The Taxxon's mouth ripped Cassie apart, moves, do you hear me? Anything! Don't wait for chewed arms and legs, spilled organs out onto orders. If they're here they'll try to demorph and the deck of the Pool ship, and finally lifted off remorph. Shoot anything! And now, hungry her head in one fatal bite.

brother Taxxon: If you are a true Taxxon, rid us of The voice — really very like Cassie's —

this girl.>

screamed, cried, begged for mercy.

The Taxxon did not hesitate. It reared up, Tom waved good-bye. "If you are there by opened its lamprey mouth, and slammed itself some chance, little brother Jake, bye-bye!"

greedily down, teeth bared.

I saw it all from inside the illusion, for illusion it was. "Cassie" was Erek, the Chee.

Tom had betrayed us, as I knew he would. He believed we were all hiding on the true Cassie.

He believed he had beaten the true Cassie, and 124

125

that she had submitted in order to make her cap-very satisfying. Now, go, my good and faithful ture seem real.

servant: Take the Blade ship. Kill the Taxxon He believed he had now fed her, and me, and rebels for me! Hammer them into submission!> all of us, to the hunger-mad Taxxon.

"Yes, Visser," Tom said, barely able to con-But the Taxxon was no more a Taxxon than "

ceal his glee.

Cassie" was the real Cassie.

He thought he had it all in his grasp, right Tobias in Taxxon morph gorged on an illusion.

then. His voice gave nothing away, but I knew the The Cassie hologram was a horror film directed Yeerk inside my brother's head was triumphant.

by Erek. Bit by bit he replaced illusions of Cassie Ecstatic!

with illusions of empty space. Until, gory bit by He had killed me. Killed all of us. And now, gory bit, she was gone, consumed by the Taxxon he would take possession of the Blade ship.

who kept at it until not even a bloodstain was left Then, if my guess was right, he'd wait while Visser on the ship's deck.

One annihilated General Doubleday's troops, and It would never have fooled a true Taxxon —

then, when Visser One was least expecting it, even Chee holograms and force fields cannot pro-Tom's Yeerk would strike a surprise blow and de-ject taste. But Tobias acted his part to perfection stroy the Pool ship itself.

and the two Yeerks, Visser One and Tom, bought Tom's Yeerk would be left in command of the the performance entirely.

heavily armed and very fast Blade ship — almost Erek, now visibly nothing but deck, rolled surely the hiding place for the morphing cube.

away, out of range of any sudden movement by Tom's Yeerk would take his new command into Visser One that would reveal his presence.

Zero-space to reemerge far, far away with a hard

<You did good, Erek,> I said.

core of loyal followers and the power to morph.

He didn't answer. He couldn't. And in any He wouldn't have to stay behind to face the likely case, I knew what his answer would be. I had left arrival of the Andalites. He would be safe and in him no choice. Any failure on Erek's part would control.

have been the trigger for my ordering a slaughter.

It was a neat plan. And if I had trusted him Chee programming chose the less violent path.

I'd be dead, along with all my friends.

<Very good,> Visser One said, laughing. <I've

<Tobias, you okay?> I said.

lived to see at least one of them die. That was

<I think I chipped a couple of Taxxon teeth 126

127

munching on Erek's force fields, but yeah, I'm would be taken by Bug fighter up to the Blade good.>

ship in orbit.

<Marco? Cassie? Ax?> I called.

The Pool ship lifted off, a slight vibration be-

<We're all okay, Jake,> Marco reported. <The ing the only evidence. Off the earth to the safety good thing is that at least this flea morph I'm in of the skies, or so Visser One believed.

has no interest in sucking Taxxon blood.> Five Animorphs, twelve free Hork-Bajir, and

<Still no sign of Rachel,> Cassie said. pected. The plan was on track.

<I'm sure she's okay,> I said. <Rachel takes

<Doing good, huh, Jake?> Rachel said, her care of herself. Now, you guys get to work. We thought-speak voice already fading with dis-need navigation control, and we need it as soon tance.

as possible.>

I couldn't answer.

Marco said, <Do you think we should even try the codes Tom gave us?>

Ax answered for me. <Since he has, as predicted, betrayed us, it is likely the so-called codes he gave us are not only useless, but may well be self-destruct codes.>

Visser One helped us out inadvertently by ordering the Hork-Bajir guards to <Take that filthy Taxxon out and eliminate him. He'll give you no trouble now that he's been well fed!> The Hork-Bajir led the Taxxon away. But neither Tobias, nor my friends hiding on his morphed form, had any reason to fear. The Hork-Bajir guards were Toby and twelve of her people.

My brother left the bridge of the Pool ship. He 129

128

couldn't be sure. There were dozens of Controllers, mostly Hork-Bajir, with a scattering of humans. They sat or stood before glowing display screens. Others stood at attention, awaiting the visser's orders.

The visser paced back and forth, nervous or just feeling a rush of anticipation, I couldn't guess which.

"There, Visser!" a human voice sang out. "

Human military forces on the move."

<On main screen,> Visser One ordered.

<Magnify.>

"We have a preliminary estimate. Seven hundred and nine humans. Twelve of the tracked The Pool ship rose from the earth, bigger ground vehicles the humans call tanks, Visser.

than anything human eyes had beheld in the Nineteen rotary wing vehicles. Threat analysis: skies. Up and up, but not so high yet.

minimal."

I could see little of the room with my limited I could see the main view screen. It was up-senses. Impossible to understand large spaces side down from my perspective, and a dizzying with fly eyes. So I searched out relative darkness. I array of weirdly distorted colors, but I could searched out a space where the air motion was make it out. I could see what Visser One could minimal. I had used the fly morph many times see: General Doubleday's forces, moving forward before and I was good at interpreting the frac-through the burned debris below, still moving tured data of its senses.

forward, following orders, despite the fact that I landed upside down on an almost horizontal their target, their objective, the Pool ship now surface and hung there for a moment, trying to hovered a thousand feet over their heads.

assemble a picture of the Pool ship's battle A Hork-Bajir voice jumped in. "They were de-bridge.

ployed to attack us on the ground, Visser. They It seemed to be an oval in shape, though I seem at a loss."

130

131

<Brilliant insight,> the visser said with acid would go crazy as their brains fried. And then the sarcasm.

men, those already dead and those who still

"Now showing fixed wing aircraft on approach,"

clung to life, would burn.

another human voice said calmly. "Nine total."

"Visser!"

"Visser, I recommend allowing the Bug fight-

<Yes, what is it?>

ers to take out the aircraft. We can use our Dra-

"Visser . . . the display ... I believe there are con cannon on widest possible dispersion and morphs down there with the attacking human destroy all the ground forces with a single sus-troops."

tained shot."

The viewscreen veered wildly, rushing in for a

<Yes,> Visser One said. Then, sounding al-close-up like someone taking home video.

most regretful at being cheated of a real battle, I clearly saw a lioness loping along, a squad of he said, <Simple creatures. Did they really imag-soldiers hurrying beside it, weapons at the ready. I ine they would accomplish anything?> could see faces as they looked up fearfully at the Where were Erek and Ax? Surely it had been Pool ship. Some stopped to fire up at us.

long enough. Surely the Chee had penetrated Another morph, a rhino came lumbering into Yeerk security by now. We should have control of view. It was comical. Pitiful. Men with guns and navigation. I didn't want to bother them, they a handful of fugitives from a zoo trying to attack were surely doing their best. But neither could I a ship that could blow asteroids out of the sky.

watch wholesale slaughter of the troops on the

<The rest of the Animorphs!> the visser cried ground and do nothing.

gleefully. <Hah hah hah! I guess they're having a

"Dracon cannon configured, Visser. Permis-hard time infiltrating my ship, eh?> sion to fire?"

Nervous, toadying laughter all around. Some-If they fired the main Dracon cannon on one reported that Tom had reached the Blade widest dispersion it would not kill the men on the ship. The Blade ship was reporting readiness to ground quickly. It would kill them slowly. They join the attack.

would cook. They would grow warmer and warmer,

<Yes, yes, tell him to go deal with the Taxxons.

as the diluted Dracon energy heated them up.

This, however, is all mine,> Visser One crowed.

Hotter. Hotter till some began to pass out. Others Then, in a much different tone, almost wistful, 132

133

<How long I have waited for this moment. The cia — toppled forward, dug its horn into the dirt, bandits out in the open, targeted, on-screen, un-rolled over, and was dead.

able to escape . . .>

<Hah hah! Good shot! They burn well, these

"Permission to fire Dracon cannon?"

Animorphs!>

<No, no, cancel wide dispersion,> the visser I felt sick inside. I should do something. I ordered. <I want to see them burn, one by one.

should stop this. That was the auxiliary Ani-Move us in. Use narrow beam. Forget the human morphs down there on the ground dying. Burning.

soldiers, they're irrelevant. Rid me of these Ani-

<No, no, you have to lead them a bit. Look!

morphs, one by one. Close-up! Maximum magni-You can get two at ... good shot!> fication. Let me see them die!>

<Marco,> I pleaded. <Marco, they're killing I couldn't be patient any longer. <Ax? Marco?

James's people.>

What is keeping you?> I cried.

<Erek's doing his best, so is Ax,> Marco an-

<Had a fight,> Marco answered. I could hear swered.

the pain in his thought-speak voice.

At that same moment a new report reached A moment's pause while Marco queried the the bridge. "Visser! Casualties in engineering!" a Chee and the Andalite.

Hork-Bajir voice said.

<Three minutes,> he said at last.

<What is it? Another plasma explosion?> It was a death sentence. Three minutes. More Visser One asked.

than enough time for the sharpshooters on the

"No, Visser, all engines are nominal. All sys-bridge. Too much time.

tems are nominal."

They fired.

<Well, find out what's happened down there If I demorphed here I'd be seen. Nowhere to then,> Visser One said, sounding petulant rather hide. I'd be shot. Killed. Accomplish nothing.

than concerned. <Now target the morphs. Begin Couldn't die. I was in charge. It was my plan.

firing.>

No time for gestures. Win, that was all I had to

"Firing," the neutral voice reported.

do: Win.

The shot caught the hindquarters of the rhi-noceros. For a horrifying moment the front legs Visser One said, <Look, it's trying to repair it-kept running. The creature — a girl named Tri-self by demorphing. Get it now! No, fool! There.

Yes!>

134

135

"We're taking fire, Visser. The fixed wing air-

<Don't bother me with any more disciplinary craft have launched missiles."

matters,> Visser One said. <There! Look! An-

<Destroy them,> Visser One said, too dis-other morph! Get it! Get it!>

tracted by the murder of Animorphs to care

<Marco!> I yelled. <It's now or never!> overly much about minor matters.

casualties in engineering, Visser. One Hork-Bajir.

"Visser, that appears to be the last of the He appears to have suffered some sort of animal morphs."

attack."

<Ah, well, all good things must end,> Visser That news made the visser sit up and listen.

One said. <But it was a good ending. Be sure to He spun his stalk eyes around to the speaker.

save the recorded data — I will wish to play that

<What?>

scene over and over again. Now, set Dracon can-I used the moment to push off and swoop non for wide dispersal, let's end this game.> down. I landed between his stalk eyes. Ax had

"Dracon cannon configured, Visser."

admitted it was one of the very few spots on an

<Fire.>

Andalite's body that he cannot easily see. I

"Firing."

rested very still on Visser One's head. The stalks

<Ah, the humans have begun to notice, eh?

were like snakes to me, impossibly thick, but Ah hah hah! Look how they squirm!> flexible, bending this way and that, high over my

"They will suffer one hundred percent casual-head. The eyes floated up there, glaring daggers ties in thirty seconds."

at the Hork-Bajir crewman.

<Marco!> I cried.

<Animal attack?> Visser One grated.

<Got it!> he answered.

Then, another human-Controller reported in, "

Visser, we've contacted engineering and they

<They burn, they burn!> the visser exulted.

are responding that everything is normal. The Finally, "Visser, the helm is not answering."

wounded Hork-Bajir was a disciplinary matter."

<What do you mean the helm is not answer-Of course: Someone down in engineering, one ing? We're drifting off-target! Get us back over of my friends, had morphed and was now passing as a Yeerk crew member.

the target!>

"Helm is unresponsive, Visser!"

136

He bounded over to the helmsman's position less, while he murdered James and his people.

and seized the controls himself. I had a perfect Watched while he gloated.

view. <Engineering! That fool in engineering Now I wanted him to feel afraid.

must have . . .>

<This ends now,> Visser One said harshly.

I could practically see the wheels turning in And silently I replied, Yes, it does.

his brain. I could almost see the thought process, as one by one the clues fell into place.

<They are on board!> Visser One said, aghast.

<They're here. They're on board! They sacrificed the girl and used her as a Trojan horse!> He still hadn't quite gotten it, but he was getting there. He still had not figured out that Tom had betrayed him.

"Visser, we appear to be heading toward a low orbit"

Visser One raged. <Do we still have communications?>

"Yes."

It was almost too perfect. Visser One was actually going to invite Tom to approach. He was all but sealing his own doom.

Visser One said.

He was trembling, I could feel it so clearly. I savored his fear and rage. I had watched, help-139

138

of wide blast doors. Hork-Bajir- and human-Controllers pressed close together.

<Dracon weapons on medium power,> Visser One ordered. <When the door opens begin firing.

Fire until your power cells run dry, do you understand me?>

"Visser, there are surely some of our own people still alive in —"

The visser spun, whipped his Andalite tail, and decapitated the Hork-Bajir who had interrupted him.

then cramming into seemingly endless stair-He was clear. And if he wasn't, no one was go-wells. Descending, always descending.

ing to say anything.

<Marco! Cassie! We're on our way down I spotted Toby, recognizable only by virtue of there. Visser One and a whole bunch of his people.>

the fact that she was a bit shorter than the aver-age Hork-Bajir female. Presumably her companI was beginning to understand why it had ions were in the crowd as well.

taken Marco, Cassie, Tobias, Ax, and Erek so I called to my friends. <Hey, guys, they're go-long. Engineering was quite a distance from the ing to fire blind. They'll saturate the room with bridge.

Dracon beams on medium setting, kill every-Three corridors converged together at a pair thing. Are you ready?>

<Yep. We're good,> Marco reported.

140

141

I launched, flew down and away, zipping

"Well, Jake," Marco said cheerily. "Imagine through rapidly shuffling legs. The visser's troops meeting you here."

were forming up, strangely reminiscent of the

<There is a very convenient conduit pipe kind of array you'd have seen in the leading away from engineering,> Ax said. <We Revolutionary War. They might as well have had no trouble getting away. Though a few more been redcoats ready to fire volleys.

seconds' time would not have been resented.>

<Open the doors,> Visser One ordered.

"Yeah, you don't want to be in engineering The blast doors slid open on the main engi-right now," I said. I fought a desire to sit down.

neering station, a semicircle not so different No time to rest. No time to show them how I felt. "

from the bridge itself. But the room was on a Erek stayed in engineering?"

vastly larger scale, as much as ten stories tall,

<He'll be safe,> Tobias said. <It would take a dominated by three huge pillars of something full-power, sustained Dracon blast to hurt him.> that looked like glowing red clay.

"What happened on the ground?" Cassie asked.

The instant the doors opened the three close-

"I don't know if Tom went after the Taxxons or packed ranks of Hork-Bajir and humans began not," I said evasively.

firing. They poured energy into that room. There

"No, I mean the men on the ground. The sol-were cries from Hork-Bajir, humans, and Taxxons diers. James's people," Cassie clarified, knowing within, quickly silenced.

perfectly well that I'd deliberately misunderstood

<Keep firing!> Visser One urged. <Assault her question.

teams ready. As soon as I order the firing to stop,

"I think we were fast enough to save most of rush the room!>

the soldiers," I said.. "James's people ... I don't I flew away from the scene, propelled by a tail think many of them made it."

wind of hot air coming from the oven that was en-Cassie grabbed my arm. "Jake, was Rachel gineering.

down there with them?"

Down a corridor, left down a side hall.

"No."

<In here,> Ax said. A small door slid open.

"Then where is she? Why isn't she with us?

I zoomed through and the door slid shut be-Why won't you tell me?"

hind me. I demorphed and stood facing Ax, I sighed. No way to avoid it any longer. "She's Marco, Cassie, and Tobias.

with Tom." I wanted to keep my eyes on the floor.

142

143

Cassie was Rachel's best friend. Tobias, her cess weapons controls. Our blackmail only goes boyfriend, if that term could apply to a hawk. I so far," Marco agreed. "Erek's down to core pro-couldn't look at either of them.

gramming, no discretion: He cannot enable a

"Oh, Jake . . ." Cassie cried.

major weapons system. Flat cannot. We'll be sit-

<You son of a . . .> Tobias began. <You arro-ting ducks if Tom turns the Blade ship against gant, ruthless . . . What have you done? What us, and we all know that's his plan."

have you done?!>

I exploded. "It's not Tom! It's not Tom, don't

"I can't let him get away," I said dully. "Tom's call him that. It's the Yeerk in his head. It's the Yeerk . . . A Blade ship, probably the morphing Yeerk, not my brother!"

cube? You were right, Cassie, I can't let that hap-No one even looked shocked at my reaction.

pen."

No one was in his right mind at that moment. To-

"Had to be," Marco said quietly. My friend bias hated me, hated me, I could feel it, and I Marco had seen the same necessity I had seen.

hated myself.

He didn't like it any more than I did, but he saw Had to be another way. I couldn't kill Rachel.

the need, the inevitability.

Not my cousin Rachel, not after all the times she

"There has to be some other way," Cassie had saved my life.

whispered.

"One chance and one chance only," I said.

<Erek will not help us gain access to the

"You said it, Ax: one or two quick shots, if we had weapons systems,> Ax said. <He has degraded access to weapons. One or two shots, maybe we the helm controls so that this ship can be kept could disable the Blade ship."

flying but cannot effectively be brought into any

"We don't have access to weapons," Marco action. It is as if someone were trying to control pointed out.

the flight of the Pool ship with an oar. The Pool I nodded. "Yeah. But Visser One does."

ship will enter orbit and not leave it until the

"Use Visser One to disable the Blade ship?"

Yeerks can perform a major system overhaul re-Marco frowned.

quiring many hours. The Pool ship is useless as a I took a couple of deep breaths. Tried to fo-weapons platform, except perhaps for one or two cus. There was a clock in my brain going tick quick shots.>

tock, tick tock, time's up. Had to stick to the plan.

"Which we can't take because we can't ac-

"It's time," I said. "I have to call Toby."

145

I began to morph tiger. I needed the morph and more importantly, I needed the thought-speak.

<Don't let her die,> Tobias said quietly. <Find a way, Jake. Don't you let her die.> Once I was ready I called to Toby. <Toby, we're on track and on schedule. By now the bulk of available shock troops are in the engineering section, along with Visser One. Get into position: Close the engineering doors and shoot anything that tries to get out. And Toby, hold that position, no matter what. To the last person, Toby.>

"Anyone who can morph can escape that room," Cassie pointed out. "And Visser One can e blew out of that room and tore down the morph. He can get past Toby's people and take them from behind."

corridor, heading directly away from engineering.

Heading, in fact, for the pool itself.

I nodded. <Yeah. But he won't go after Toby's After all the pent-up watching and waiting it people. He'll come after us because he'll know was good to have claws and teeth and enemies to we're after his precious bridge.> face.

"He doesn't even know we're here," she said.

From time to time as we went, lone Hork-Bajir-

survived. Others did not run. A small patrol of what had to be some sort of Yeerk military police stood and did battle with us. They slowed us for only a few seconds.

We were moving almost too easily, encounter-ing almost too little resistance. Visser One had to 146

147

learn of our presence. He had to rush from the badly enough that his brother would finish him battle in engineering to confront a greater threat.

off.

There were guards at the entrance to the pool More Hork-Bajir. A slashing, close-in battle, itself, a pair of Hork-Bajir talking nervously about and we were away again.

the distant firefight in engineering.

Now the word would reach Visser One. I I was on the first one before he could yell. I hoped. Hoped. He had to come to the bridge. If carried him down with the momentum of my leap he stayed in engineering he would turn the tide and slapped him with the kind of blow that only a of battle against Toby's people.

tiger can deliver.

Ax said, <Prince Jake! Inside that booth, Ax took out the other guard and, all at once, we those must be controls for the pool.> were in the holy of holys, the pool itself. It was

<Yeah?> I didn't get it.

perfectly round, dimly lit, under a low ceiling. It

<They must occasionally repair the pool it-was a gray steel swimming pool lined with cages self,> Ax said. <That would mean draining it.> where uncooperative host bodies were kept while

<Let's go!>

their Yeerks soaked up nutrients. The cages held A bonus. Another new element. Was that a maybe twenty or twenty-five humans and Hork-good thing or a bad thing?

Bajir, all temporarily Yeerk-free.

Good. Good. Maybe. I knew the way the plan I hadn't considered the possibility of freeing played out, knew what would happen. Rachel.

hosts. <Marco! The cages!>

Tom. Inevitable.

<On it, man,> he said happily.

Maybe new elements, maybe the freed pris-A Hork-Bajir voice cried, "Andal ite!"

oners, maybe this new opening, maybe the in-A gaggle of unprepared human-Controllers evitable need not occur.

began to charge at us, drawing Dracon weapons Maybe we could save her.

but afraid of firing here in the sanctuary.

The booth Ax had spotted looked absurdly We blew through them before they could like a toll-collector's booth on the highway. It was make up their minds. A pair of Taxxons, evidently clear plastic and perched just above the pool, not members of Arbron's group, came slithering jutting slightly out. There was a single Hork-Bajir out to do battle. Cassie and Tobias tore one up inside. There were eight Hork-Bajir outside, un-148

149

armed but ready for trouble, ready to stand and Then Marco held the door open like a hotel fight.

doorman and grinned a rubbery gorilla grin.

No time to think, attack!

<Gentlemen?>

Ax and I raced straight at them. I slashed and Ax pushed past me, began punching at active opened my nearest foe from belly to neck. Ax's screens and arrays of controls.

tail whipped. Cassie came bounding up behind

<There is a flush sequence,> he said. <I have us and launched herself into the battle.

to override the safety protocols.> But the area was too n a r r o w , we were He turned his stalk eyes to me even as his hemmed i n . Like being shoved down inside a main eyes guided swift, nimble fingers.

blender set on puree. The Hork-Bajir were all

around us, beating us down, slashing, cutting,

<Okay,> I said.

pounding, tearing at us with their clawed feet.

<The pool is full to capacity. These are the No way to get free! I couldn't strike without Yeerks that were rescued from the earth-based hitting Ax who was shoved hard against me.

Yeerk pool. Plus the bulk of the unhosted Yeerks And then, on my back, snarling but helpless, I recently transported here.>

saw a Hork-Bajir leap high over my head and

<Some reason you're telling me all this, Ax-land like a mosh-pit surfer on my tormentors.

man?>

The prisoners! One of the Hork-Bajir prison-

<Jake, there are seventeen thousand, three ers Marco had released.

hundred seventy-two Yeerks in this pool.> Marco was there now, too, but most of all, it That rocked me.

was the freed prisoners. They turned the tide, at-Visser One had to know we were here, on the tacking their tormentors with awesome rage.

loose. He had to run for the bridge and not stay Ax was on his hooves again, bloody, hurt, but to win the fight in engineering.

well enough to swing his tail and cut the lock to Seventeen thousand. Living creatures. Think-the control booth.

ing creatures. How could I give this order? Even A gorilla yanked the door open and said, <Hi, for victory. Even to save Rachel. How could I give there! You want to live? Then lie down right this kind of order?

now!> He grabbed the unresisting Hork-Bajir and They could have stayed home, I thought. No threw him out into the fracas.

150

151

one had asked them to come to Earth. Not my fault. Not my fault, theirs.

No more than they deserved.

Aliens. Parasites. Subhuman.

<Flush them,> I said.

The Pool ship's main pool went through its standard cleaning cycle, draining the gray, sludgy water out into the vacuum of space.

The water, and the parasite creatures within it, froze instantly. The pool became an ice cloud falling away from the slow-moving Pool ship.

How many had Ax said? Seventeen thousand and . . . how many? How many Yeerks had felt the sudden stab of terror as they realized what was happening?

Frozen now. Crystals. An orbiting graveyard.

<Let's go,> I said.

We ran from that place, ran from thoughts of what we'd done. Ran for the bridge. His fault, it 152

153

was Visser One's fault, all of it. Who had started could have beaten me. I was not beaten by you, this war? Not us. We hadn't asked for it.

human, or by your pet Andalite there. I was un-It was him. Him and his filthy, subhuman, done by my trusting nature.>

parasitic race.

Marco laughed then stopped himself.

His fault. Not mine. Not mine.

trollers, human and Hork-Bajir. But he seemed

<Visser, you can still get off one or two shots almost alone.

at the Blade ship. Take out his engines.> The main view screen showed a cloud of

<Yes, we will try that very thing,> he said sparkling ice shards.

dryly. <But you see, someone is bleeding power Visser One watched it, almost oblivious to us, out of the Dracon beams. Power is being di-though he surely knew we were there. Finally, he verted. One of the traitors at work, I suppose. We turned, and looked at me with all four of his An-will get off one or two shots, but at one-quarter dalite eyes.

strength. Will they be enough? Unlikely.>

<So,> he said almost softly, <still not dead.>

<Erek!> I raged in private thought-speak.

<No, Visser. Not quite dead.>

<You're the one called Jake, aren't you? The No answer of course.

brother of my security chief's host body.>

<Erek, I know you think you're doing the right

<That's me.>

thing, but you're making it worse!> He nodded slightly. He motioned toward the Visser One sighed. <My one consolation is view screen as the picture changed. <As you see, that when the traitor murders me with my own my Blade ship is approaching.> ship, it will at least finally be the end of you!>

<I don't think they'll be much help to you,

"Targeting the Blade ship's starboard engine.

Visser.>

We are ready to fire," one of the humans re-

<No. It took me a while to see what had hap-ported.

pened. But I see it now. The Blade ship will at-Visser One waved a lazy hand. <Fire.> tack, and I am helpless, unable to control this On the screen I saw the beam reach out ship.> He laughed mirthlessly. <Only a traitor through space. Once. Twice. Both missed.

154

155

The Blade ship reacted swiftly to avoid the

"You're not dead!"

slow retargeting of the Pool ship's big Dracon

Visser One said cannon.

dryly.

The Blade ship fired. The explosion reverber-Tom snapped an order to his crew. "Bring us ated through the ship.

around to target the Pool ship's bridge. Do it!

"Engine number one is destroyed, Visser."

Now! Now! Bring us around!"

The Blade ship fired again. Again.

<Jake,> Tobias said, pleading, knowing, but Two more explosions.

pleading anyway.

"We are without propulsion, Visser."

<Yes. I noticed that,> Visser One said. <No engines. And all our brothers in the pool murdered by these humans.>

"We are being hailed."

<Of course,> Visser One muttered. <By all means. We must play it out.>

It was Tom's face that appeared on the screen. And Tom's voice that spoke. But the smug, hard, derisive tone was that of a Yeerk.

"You seem to be experiencing some engine trouble, Visser," Tom gloated.

"Oh, I doubt it. I think the Empire will have its hands full," Tom's Yeerk said cheerfully. "The Andalite fleet is rather close by. It's possible that I misled you on that point."

Then he caught sight of me.

His face paled. His eyes went wide. All at once, he knew.

157

156