The Test
Author: K. A. Applegate
Date: 2000-07-01 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Extraterrestrial beings; Juvenile Fiction; Fantasy & Magic; Fiction; Science fiction; Horror & Ghost Stories; Metamorphosis; Children's stories
Description: SUMMARY: Tobias's worst nightmare has come back to haunt him. Taylor, the evil Yeerk who enslaved his brain, has returned. But this time, Taylor wants Tobias's help to overthrow their common foe: Visser Three. Should the Animorphs do the unthinkable and join forces with a Yeerk?
Publisher: New York : Scholastic, 2000.

OCRed By Arpit Nathany

The author wishes to thank Ellen Geroux for her
help in preparing this manuscript.

For Michael and Jake

Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly

Art Direction/Design by Karen Hudson/Ursula Albano

My name is Tobias. Still a freak of nature.

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the Part human. Part bird. Confused? Don't worry, it
publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any pay-gets better.

ment for this "stripped book."

I am flying over the forest. The air is thick. A

No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, storm is approaching. It is only early afternoon,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to but the sky is growing black as the front moves in

Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 555 Broadway, on the city. A towering wall of rain, wind, and cu-New York, NY 10012.

mulus clouds.

ISBN 0-439-11517-5

I had to find food before the storm. I was hun-

Copyright © 2000 by Katherine Applegate.

gry. But then, I'm always looking for food. That's

All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc.

SCHOLASTIC, APPLE PAPERBACKS, ANIMORPHS and associated logos life for a bird of prey. Hunger.

are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

A shrew stepped out from its burrow. It loi-

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5/0
tered nervously, sniffing the moisture. We had the

Printed in the U.S.A.

same thought, me and the shrew. Hunker down

First Scholastic printing, July 2000
against nature's wrath, but fill your belly first.

1

I was higher on the food chain. I tucked into a
persing terrified crows in all directions. If I were
dive.

a true hawk, I'd have cleared out with the other

My wings pressed tight to my body. Air whis-
birds. Instead, I circled around and flapped
tled past. Mountains, forest, and sky. All a blur, a
toward the turbulence.

flashing streak. Everything but the shrew, shift-

My friends, the Animorphs, the ones who
ing agitatedly, chomping on a seed . . .

fight the Yeerk invasion of Earth, say that since

My talons struck, embedded, and squeezed.

my capture, I live too much of life in my head.

Drained life instantly.

They must be right. I'd almost missed every-

Wonder what it's like? Dig your fingernails
thing.

into a too-ripe peach. Rip sections off with your

Not just the helicopter. The humans below,
teeth. Gulp them without chewing. The kill is
streaming across rough forest floor, the tires of
something like that.

their ATV's scoring the soil. The searchlights

I downed the shrew and lifted off.

streaking the trees in the daytime darkness, mak-

I don't think about the kill anymore. I'm hawk
ing rabbits and deer dart in alarm.

and human. I'll explain later. Just try to under-

I flew to the nearest ranger station. It was
stand that the hawk must feed the human. It has
ringed by squad cars and TV news vans. I swooped
to happen.

down, closer to the action. Landed on a low

I don't think about it anymore.

branch. A blond woman in a raincoat held a mi-

That's a lie.

crophone close to her lips and swatted wind-

"You vile little bird! Do you realize what
whipped hair away from her face.

you've done? Do you realize what you've become?

"Bobby Mclntire," she shouted above the

You're trapped! You have to live out your life as a
noise of the vehicles, "missing now for two full
bird!"

days since he wandered away from his camping

Her name was Taylor. My Yeerk torturer. Her
party. Hope that he'll be found alive is fading.

voice screeching. Bruising my ears. Tormenting

But it's not just a race against time and the
me after every kill. Other times, too. Still, after
weather." Lightning struck the sky above her,
all this time . . .

imparting urgency to her words. "Little Bobby

THWOK! THWOK! THWOK! THWOK!

is deaf and can't hear the desperate calls of

A helicopter! Hovering low over the trees, dis-
rescuers. Kelly King," she concluded, looking sky-

2

3
ward, "reporting live." She held a frozen, concerned assaulted with memories, images of all the times
expression until the producer gave her the all
clear.

I've been weak. Or think I might have been . . .

Like my first time at the Yeerk pool.

"I will break you." It was Taylor's voice again, My mind flashed back to it now, to the scene
whispering in my mind. "You can't win."

at Yeerk Central, that echoing underground dome

I set a course for the storm front. A strange
with a sludgy pool churning at its core. The Yeerk
thing to do, to turn toward the lightning. To fly
pool. That's where the Yeerks do their dirtiest
into the line of rain, the thunderclaps, the wind.

dirty work, where parasitic, sluglike aliens dunk

But it made me feel like Lindbergh over the
your head in the muck and force one of their kind

Atlantic. Fearless and strong. Maybe even a little
heroic.

through your ear.

The Yeerks squeeze your brain and wring out

I wanted those feelings.

your freedom. They control all thoughts and move-

See, it wasn't long ago that the Yeerks cap-
ments. They silence your howls and screams of
tured me. A crazed and insane human-Controller
grief until you are nothing but a slave. A stupid
made my life a hell for several excruciating hours.

puppet. An unwilling soldier of the Yeerk Empire. A

I survived. I even thought the torture was over. I
threat to all humanity.

didn't realize that torture doesn't end when you're
freed.

But you've probably heard about all this by
now. Right?

People think it does. People who've never

Tha-BOOM! Boom!

been through torture think that when the phys-

A thunderclap roared and half brought me
ical injuries heal, you're healed, too. They're
wrong.

back to the present. The other half of me was
still at the Yeerk pool that first, horrible time.

Torture plays tricks on your mind. "You're weak

Clinging to the rock face, praying for camouflage,
and scared," it says. "You think you're in control?

searching the colossal cavern for a way to es-

Hah!" it says. "Doubt yourself. Worry, and ques-
cape. A way to get past Visser Three's men.

tion, and fear," it tells you.

<Where's Tobias?> I'd heard Rachel say,

Pain can be very convincing.

faintly.

Sometime during my capture, my mind was

How long since I'd morphed to red-tailed

4

5
hawk? An hour and fifty minutes? An hour and

I let a fading thermal lift me into the atmos-
fifty-five?

phere.

How long?!

My name is Tobias. I'm a human. I'm a hawk.

The others had escaped already. The other

If you want to find something in the forest, you'd

Animorphs, I mean. They'd dodged the visser's
do well to ask me.

fireball gauntlet. They'd slipped out to safety,

There's nothing I don't see.

back through the janitor's closet, back into the
school. Rachel, Cassie, Marco, Jake.

Had I missed the deadline? Had I been more
than two hours in morph?

Couldn't have. Can't have. No. I'd be trapped
forever. A bird.

Independent, free, alone.

Forever.

Images of the human life I'd led till then
flooded my mind. The images were dark. My apa-
thetic aunt. My alcoholic uncle.

Then, something brighter, something power-
ful surged through my mind. Something else.

Shoring me up. Drawing me in. A wave of. . .

What? What had I felt then, at that moment,
with the seconds ticking down? With the dead-
line chasing me . . .

Weakness or strength?

"You'll never know," Taylor said. "You won't know who or what you are when I'm done with
you."

Bobby Mclntire needed to be found.

6

7

Quiet as a glider, my personal search plane
swept huge, broad strokes above the trees.

My friends, the other Animorphs — the other
kids who knew the great Andalite warrior Elfan-
gor, who'd been there as he died, and who'd ac-
cepted the Yeerk-fighting Andalite technology to
become any animal they can touch — they were
expecting me to show up at Cassie's barn. There
was a meeting scheduled for after school. If I
wanted to make it, I had to travel east.

I edged west, following the search party's tire
tracks. Tracing the lines as they crossed and con-
verged in a half-mile section of sparse tree cover.

Tha-BOOM! Boom!

I was guessing that this was the last place the

Thunderclaps. I let the warm air draw me up.

boy was seen. Good place to start. I dove to fifty

Three hundred feet. Higher. I could see through
feet, skimming the treetops, looking for a sign, a
the haze, from city's edge to the mountains.

clue. Anything.

The national park is a very big place. You

Nothing.

could hike for days and never see anyone. Spot-

A raindrop struck my wing. No, not yet! Three
ting a boy from a helicopter would be like finding
more drops hit me like BB's.

the needle in the haystack. And the haystack was

A whistling gale pushed me back into the air
about to get really wet.

and blew me away from the search party tracks.

Binoculars, infrared goggles, and laser sights

I flapped harder to fight the strengthening wind.

flipped on. I don't mean to brag, but nature gave

It was pushing me toward mudflats. Forcing me
me excellent tools. I can see a hiker's broken
toward a dried up stream.

shoelace. A robin's chicks.

The raindrops were starting to feel like war-

I can pick out deer poop.

game paint pellets. I remember. My uncle took

"You vile little bird!" Taylor's voice, always me to do the paint-ball thing. I hated it, but it
humming in my ear.

was one of the only things we'd done together.

8

9

Anyway, I was going to have to stop. The down-
out. Hork-Bajir? I wasn't practiced enough with
pour was starting.

the blades not to lacerate the kid and I definitely

Suddenly — a splash of red against brown. A
couldn't let him see an alien. <Hang tight, Bobby.

shred of bright cloth caught on a bramble.

I'll be back soon. It'll be okay.> A lightning bolt

Yes.

sizzled the ground nearby. Not good.

<Bobby?> I chanced in open thought-speak.

The trip to the ranger station was probably the

<lf you're here, show me where you are.> Brush-
worst flight of my life. The rain pummeled me.

ing the treetops, I scanned the mud. Nothing.

The wind screwed up my feathers. But the very

The wind was absurd. Violent one minute,
worst part was the dead air. By the time I reached
dead the next.

the ranger station, my body was burning liga-

Then — a single footprint. A kid's footprint.

ments for fuel.

<Bobby!> I called again. <lf you can hear me,

Through the windows I saw most of the search
wave. Or move. Do something!>
party, inside and drying off. Getting ready for an-

A faint rustling of brush. Then, more move-
other round of wet and nasty searching. Then I
ment. I circled in to land. A dirt clod shot
saw a guy who looked like he needed a miracle.

straight up into the air, grazing my beak.

He was sitting outside on a stump, letting the

<Whoa, okay! Great, Bobby. Good work.>
rain drench him through. The ink from his name

I didn't see the giant sinkhole until I almost
tag was running down his chest, but I could still
landed in it. It was a pit so invisible under the
read the letters. "Mr. Mclntire." Bobby's dad? He
overgrowth, it would have taken searchers months
fixed his sad stare on the mountains.

to find it.

I touched down just feet from him. Didn't

I peered down at the kid. He was searching
once think about the consequences. <Listen,> I
wildly for the source of my voice. His eyes were
said, <l know this is going to sound crazy. I know
swollen from crying. His hands were raw from try-
you'll think you're losing your mind. But I can
ing to climb up the vertical, featureless sinkhole
take you to Bobby.>
wall. He stood in stagnant water a foot deep. And

You can tell a lot about a person by the
a flash flood was on the way.

way they respond to a talking hawk. There's the

<We're gonna get you out of there,> I said.

run-away-screaming type. The bring-palms-to-

But I didn't have a morph that could haul him
head-to-squeeze-out-demons reflex. Even the kill-

10

11
the-animal maneuver. Most people don't do too

<Overthe hill,> I directed.

well when their reality's challenged.

Then we crested the rise and I saw something

But Bobby's dad was cool. I mean, he looked

I didn't think was possible. Sheets of rain pun-
kind of freaked at first. His eyes bugged out and
ished the earth to our right and our left, but over
he spun around frantically, looking for the

Bobby's sinkhole . . . unbelievable. A corridor of
prankster who was fooling with him. But once the
rainless clouds with two ends of a weak rainbow
initial surprise faded, he quickly regained his
marking the borders.

composure.

I was sure my mind was making the scene up.

"Okay," he said. "Lead the way."

It couldn't turn out this well. Nothing ever did.

He probably thought he was nuts, but I don't

Taylor wouldn't let it . . .

think it would have mattered whether he was

<Bobby!> I called. I pumped my wings and
hearing voices or talking with aliens. He just
found him, the water rising around his knees. I
wanted his son back.

perched on a low branch and watched as three

That kind of love . . . it made me feel . . .

powerful rangers pulled him to safety. Watched
strange.

as Bobby collapsed in his dad's arms, shaking, as

I flew from tree to tree, a few hundred feet at
joy replaced fear.

a time, waiting for Mr. Mclntire and three rangers

Bobby's dad glanced up at me, gratitude in
he'd convinced to come along. All the while I
his eyes.

gave him directions in private thought-speak. At

Ever have something work out so perfectly,
least I could stay a good distance from the men,
you feel you could fly? That's how I felt — and
to keep it uncertain whether a hawk was really
the cool thing was, I could actually do it. I could
running the show.

actually fly.

I pictured Bobby in the pit, the torrential rain

I took off down the swath of rainless sky
tunneling into channels, forming a raging ar-
toward Cassie's barn. It felt so good. I played in
royo. Racing like a hungry, deadly snake. A mas-
the air like a pilot at an air show, awed the audi-
sive, silent snake that Bobby's deaf ears wouldn't
ence with my death-defying stunts. I cut my en-
hear.

gines, fell into a nosedive, ready to pull up just

"You will die, Andalite. "Taylor's hateful voice, seconds before I hit the ground.

droning in my head.

And then . . .

12

13

A golden eagle, twice my size, screeching
toward me like a wrecking ball . . .

WHAM!

And all was blackness.

I never even had a chance.

This hawk's gonna feel that wing. Hero or
not, when he wakes up, he'll hurt like crazy."

My eyes snapped open. Through the links of
my cage I spied the faces of two concerned, lab-
coated veterinarians. Both women. One brunette,
one blond. The words University Clinic were
stitched on their pockets.

"Do you think Superbird needs an epidural?"

I tensed my extremities. Right wing not re-
sponding. A sore and twisted neck. That nasty
golden eagle had banged me up pretty bad. The
memory of the impact got my hawk heart pump-
ing. Fear, territoriality, confusion.

"No, I gave him enough medication to keep
him comfy till morning. Hey, look, he's awake.

14

15

Feeling better, Mr. Hawk?" the blond one said,

This was bad. What was I thinking?

with the gentle condescension appropriate for

My friends, they'd be looking for me, too. I'd
wildlife who can't make it in the wild.

endangered our own security. By trying to fight

I could have found both vets extremely annoy-

Taylor's ghost, I'd dragged my friends into danger.

ing. But as it was, with an ugly vulture in the

Stupid. Weak.

cage next to mine, and a prehistoric egret two

I had to morph! Morph and get out before . . .

doors down, I was actually glad to hear a human

But no. I couldn't morph in front of the vets.

voice.

And there were video cameras, mounted up in

How much time had passed? What day was it?

the corners of the lab, recording everything.

"Seen the headlines?" the brunette asked

Who'd get to me first?

me, as if in answer to my question.

"What's he doing? Flapping his wing? Hey,

Sometimes, not always, if you ask questions
he's gonna get hurt. Chloe, quick! We need to se-
you want answers to, the universe will respond.

date him."

It was the evening edition newspaper that she

Sedate me?

held in her hands, and it confirmed that I'd been

I fell back to the floor of the cage and lay mo-
asleep way too long. "'Father Claims Hawk Led
tionless.

Searchers to Lost Boy.'" She smiled at me, then

No way would I be sedated.

summed it up.

Not with two groups looking for me. Two

"You da bird!"

groups I knew would take that headline very seri-

The vets chuckled. They didn't know this was
ously.

no laughing matter. They didn't understand . . .

Group One: my friends.

It hit me, right at that moment. I'd messed up

Group Two: my enemies.

big time. That headline . . . the kiss of death . . .

"Wait," the vet said. "Forget it. He calmed
if the Yeerks found me first. . .

down. He's fine. I don't know what that was

I was stupid. So stupid!

about."

Any time you get an animal doing unusual

"Okay, Superbird. Stay out of trouble. We'll
stuff, you get Yeerks. To Yeerks, all animals are
see you in the morning."

suspects, possible "Andalite bandits" disguised

They were going away? They were leaving me
in morph.

here!

16

17

Why did everyone leave? Why . . .

They walked to the door, switched off the
main fluorescent overheads, deadbolted the door
behind them.

They were going home. They had homes to
goto.

They were leaving me to face my fate alone.

The room was cold and sterile. Sick and in-
jured birds squawked and cooed in the partial
darkness.

Alone.

And all I could do was wait.

Sccreeeeech!

The sound jarred me from a restless half-
sleep. I looked at the clock: 1:12 A.M. Scanned
for the source of the sound.

For a moment, glowing metal blinded my sen-
sitive hawk vision. When my sight returned, the
lock on the door was sizzling. Evaporating . . .

Behind the door, heavy, punishing footsteps
slammed down the hallway. A sound that meant
only one thing.

Hork-Bajir.

The door burst open.

Tseew! Tseew!

Seven-foot-tall bladed bodies charged into

18

19
the room! Video cameras disintegrated in flashes

"Drop the bird," a man with a mustache or-
of Dracon fire.

dered. "Now!" The Hork-Bajir snorted a laugh at No time to morph!

the wiry man. "Bird is visser's. You rebel make

I pressed myself to the back of the cage. Tried
mistake." Quick as lightning, he raised his arm
to cover my reddish tail, tried to pretend I wasn't
and opened fire on the humans.

there.

The human-Controllers were agile and dove

They were on me instantly, scowling with fiery
for cover. They just weren't agile enough. An ab-
eyes. Holding weapons to my head.

breviated scream echoed down the hall. The

"You mine, Andalite!" asserted the Hork-Bajir
mustached man vanished in a flash of light and
with the worst breath. "Visser Three will give
heat, a silhouette scorched against the white-
praise."

washed wall. The other humans didn't seem to

This guy obviously hadn't been on Earth very
notice the loss of their comrade. Or else, they
long. Getting praise from Visser Three would be
didn't care.

like trying to stop a brushfire with a glass of wa-

Only Yeerks can lose a teammate and not bat
ter. But I wasn't about to burst his bubble.

an eye.

He hefted my cage into the air and ran for the

BLAAAAM!

door, banging me roughly. His henchmen, two in

Four more humans coming up from behind!

front, two behind, surrounded him. Their weapons

Slamming the Hork-Bajir before they knew what
were drawn, their eyes were searching. They were
hit them.

tense as we moved into the hall. On guard. Almost

I didn't know who to root for. Hork-Bajir or hu-
as though they expected . . .

man? Visser Three or. . . who? Who were these

Tseew. Tseew.

people?

Three humans appeared twenty feet down the

A long, sharp, Hork-Bajir blade caught my
corridor. Their Dracon rounds ricocheted off the
cage and lifted it. He ran swiftly toward the exit.

walls.

This guy could move! Smashed over a stainless

What was going on?

steel medical cart. Crashed into empty cages

Humans firing Dracons at Hork-Bajir!

stacked against the wall.

Controller versus Controller?

Blocked!

20

21

Three more people! Large ones, dressed in
tie. Deafening Dracon fire was followed by a
dark leather, with straps and metal clasps cover-
momentary stillness. Heavy footsteps marched
ing their bodies. Bodies that blocked the exit.

my way. Four Hork-Bajir feet came to a halt be-

My captor halted, claws screeching across the
fore my cage.

polished floor.

"Gafrash!" one roared. A hideous appendage He turned back and moved toward a window.

reached for me. I cringed, waiting to be taken

Three new Dracon-packing people moved in to
again, waiting to be seized.

block his path.

The Hork-Bajir arm jerked back.

Surrounded!

The feet tensed and turned to run, but there

My cage dangled precariously from the Hork-
was nowhere to go.

Bajir's blade. Aliens and humans froze in a grim,

Because four more feet, twice as large, gigan-
momentary standoff.

tic and familiar, landed with a thunder-thud.

Suddenly, my captor leaped at the smallest

Rachel!

person. A woman. It was a low move, a desperate

One Hork-Bajir was down. The other snatched
attempt at escape. Foolish, too. The others were
up my cage.

on him instantly.

<Oh, no you don't!> Rachel cried, baring her

We crashed to the floor, my cage caving be-
massive, flesh-tearing teeth. Her wild grizzly bear
neath the Hork-Bajir's weight until the cold steel
claws flashed like giant steel rigatoni and lashed
bars pressed tight against my feathers. Around
my captor's arm.

me swirled a sea of hands and claws, clutching

<The cavalry's here, Tobias,> she huffed.

wildly. For me. The prize.

<Hangon!>

I couldn't keep track of what happened next.

I just know that someone sent the cage careening
across the floor. My frail, injured body tumbled
like a rag in the dryer. The cage lodged under the
large sink of a utility closet, my hawk body even
more bruised and damaged.

I heard frantic shuffling from the fight be-
yond, but from my position, I could see very lit-

22

23

up. Sleek, suede boots. Fashionably worn jeans.

The torso and head were in shadow. Who was
this? Some innocent vet student, trapped by the
battle?

Her arm appeared from behind her back. Her
fingers clutched a Dracon beam . . .

My heart stopped.

The girl's fingers glistened and sparkled in
the semidarkness. The way real flesh fingers
never do.

<Taylor,> Rachel hissed, her voice rough with
rage.

"Make one move, bear, and your next stop is
the taxidermist."

"Ga

Tafrash horlit!"

<Yeah, right!> Rachel leaped, claws slashing.

The Hork-Bajir let go. My cage hit the floor

Tseew!

with another painful crash.

Taylor seared a hole in Rachel's flank.

<Get Tobias!> Rachel cried.

"HhhhoooRRRAAWWRRR!" Rachel dropped,

Marco, in gorilla morph, was the only one with
groaning with pain.

an opposable thumb, an often undervalued ap-

And Taylor grabbed my cage with her artificial
pendage. He reached for me, but a downed Hork-
hand. The hand she had accepted in exchange

Bajir grabbed his leg and yanked him backward.

for her freedom. Taylor's story was a sad one. A

So Rachel nudged me with her massive front
story of a girl who'd lost her face, arm, and leg in
paws, pushing my cage across the floor, down the
a terrible fire. The Sharing, the Yeerk front orga-
hall, away from the fight.

nization, had been there for her. Offering her a

Suddenly, the cage stopped. We'd run into
new face and arm and leg. All she had to do was
something. We'd hit human feet.

agree to be infested. A voluntary Controller. All

Rachel froze, sniffing the air hard. I looked
she had to do was let a vile gray slug wrap around

24

25
her brain. But the Yeerk that infested Taylor was
shut my ears, shut it all out. The animal screams,
nuts. Taylor had pretty much lost it, too. Not a
the grunts, the human shouts. The horror of reliv-
very stable situation. And there I was.

ing a nightmare.

I couldn't believe what was happening. My

Acquire her. Acquire her. Become her.

torturer had captured me. Again.

A nauseating idea. Necessary.

No.

I clutched her fingers tighter. To Taylor, it

The fingers of her real hand poked through
must have seemed like a pitiful attempt to fight
the bars of my cage, threatening to touch me as
back, but she didn't know the truth. She didn't
she lifted the cage right up to her face.

know that I felt her DNA flow into me. Felt her

NO!

body relax, slacken under the acquiring trance.

She didn't speak a word but her icy stare said

The gaseous powder stung and tingled, prick-
it all. Thought you'd seen the last of me, Andalite
ing my skin like invisible nettles.

fool? Well, you thought wrong.

But Taylor, too, was immobile! Paralyzed! For

Taylor straightened her pearly, plastic fingers.

an instant, I'd slowed her down. Incapacitated

I knew what she was going to do. I'd known since
her.

the moment I recognized her in the shadows.

Not enough. Not nearly enough.

"I love surprises," she whispered. And with-

My talon went limp. My body fell numb. Tay-
out any further warning, snowy particles frothed
lor's eyes buzzed back to life just in time to
from the fingertips of her prosthesis.

watch me realize that this gas was different from

Gas!

the stuff I'd experienced before.

She was gassing me just like the time she'd

"Version 2.0," Taylor laughed. "Enough gen-
captured me under the grounds of The Sharing's
eral anesthetic to knock you out completely."

new community center. In moments, I'd be para-

Blackness rushed in from all sides as my vi-
lyzed. The only difference was that she didn't re-
sion dimmed.

alize I was the same "Andalite" she'd previously

<Rachel?> I called weakly. <Jake?>
captured. I could only hope she didn't remem-

If they answered, I didn't hear them.

ber.

Why me? What had I done to deserve this?

I stretched out my talon. I gripped the fleshy

Foolish questions, useless self-pity . . . I was a
fingers of her real hand. Then I closed my eyes,
warrior.

26

27

All I could do was look straight ahead. Into
the dismal depths of Taylor's mad, hypnotic eyes.

In that moment, I saw clearly. I saw that I was
just a blob of mud bobbing through the raging
stream of her thoughts. The stream couldn't be
stopped and it would destroy me.

It would break me apart.

Skrrr-eeeek!

The sound of a metal spoon dragged across
the bottom of a pan. The smell of canned tomato
soup warming on a stove. These ordinary things
drew me out of darkness. I opened my eyes.

I was still caged, but now there were half a
dozen Dracon beams aimed at my head, clamped
to my cage with vises. Not high-tech mecha-
nisms fresh off the Yeerk drawing board, but the
kind of clamps you pick up at Ace Hardware.

It didn't matter. Point was, I didn't have any
hands. My captors knew that hawk beak and
talons couldn't unscrew anything.

Blinking beneath each mounted Dracon was a
red light. A sensor? I didn't move. I didn't dare.

28

29

The thought of more torture set my bones
you that option." She paused to take a slurp of
knocking. I couldn't take any more.

soup, her eyes still fixed on me.

I started to tremble, uncontrollably. I watched

I looked at the kitchen, and at the small,
the sensors with both minds, hawk and human.

shoddily built, low-ceilinged structure. Something

Each had been almost destroyed and both parts
was definitely wrong with this picture. Yeerks
of me remembered . . . the pain, the hopeless-
choose the best. They take the best of everything
ness! Impossible to escape . . . red light, blue
we humans have, and when the best we have to
light. Agony . . . endless . . .

offer isn't good enough, they use stolen alien

Morph. I could morph to something small and
technologies to make it shine. This was . . .

crawl away. Undetected. Steal away. Do it, To-
what? Some sort of hovel. My cage rested on a
bias. Do it.

Formica table scarred with cigarette burns.

"Morph, my friend," Taylor warned, her voice

"Choose death," she repeated casually, "or. . .

cold and confident, "and the beams will fire au-
listen to what I have to say." She rose, dropped
tomatically."

her mug in the sink of the strange little kitchen,

I hadn't seen her there, sitting at a kitchen
and returned to her seat. "I have a deal for you,
chair, mug in hand, sipping soup.

Andalite."

I'd felt her, though. Her evil had a way of

She was so casual. Not the Taylor I'd known.

dominating the very nature of a room, of coloring

What trick, what scheme did she have up her
everything around her and stoking my fear.

sleeve?

I couldn't escape. I never really thought I

"Good," she said, seeing that I'd decided to
could. Not then, not now. Taylor was back, just as
postpone death. "It would be much harder to so-

I guessed she would be.

licit help from an Andalite who's dead."

"The computer controlling the Dracon beams

Help?

is sensitive to basic changes in shape. You can-

Yeah, and Rachel will pass up a sale at Ex-
not escape."

press, Crayak will win the Nobel Peace Prize, a

Wait. That wasn't true. I could escape. I could

Yeerk slug will turn down a promotion.

morph. Morph and die!

What did she have up her sleeve?

"Yes, you could choose death," Taylor said,

"Civil war is coming, Andalite," she began.

answering my thoughts. "I've deliberately given

"Yeerk versus Yeerk. We've had enough of the

30

31
petty visser fights, the favoritism, the punish-
mans." Her teeth snapped a crisp carrot in two.

ments . . . the Council makes us sick."

Her eyes stared at me. "We want to move toward

Anger flushed her face. She'd said the last
democracy and we need your help to do it."

sentence with such vehemence that for a fleeting

It was like the world's weirdest press confer-
instant, I knew I could believe her. The Council
ence.

did make her sick.

I didn't believe a word she said.

But then, her guard went up again. The spark

Not a word.

in her eye made her look part politician and part

So I tested her. <l suppose all you need from
actor, part trial lawyer, and part scheming teen-
me are the names and locations of the remaining
aged girl. It was a face shrouded in lies.

Andalite bandits? You know, as a token of my co-

"The Yeerks must move on as a race," she
operation?>
continued. "The time has come." She got up

Taylor laughed. She was a violent, aggressive,
again and opened the ancient refrigerator. "We
and ruthless personality. Personalities don't
need to make a civilization with the hosts we
change. Not much, anyway. I waited for her to
have." She glanced at me. "Many of us realize
prove me right. I waited for proof that she was
that the eternal wars have to end and that the
still working for Visser Three. That this talk of
loss on Leera, the stalled offensive on Earth, and
rebels was all a ruse.

now the apparent bungling on the Anati planet

"Nice to hear your voice again, Andalite. The
have discredited the current leadership enough

Andalite with the power to stay in morph for more
that it cannot survive."

than the two-hour time limit. Your voice brings

She pulled a bag of carrots from the fridge.

back such sweet memories." The tone in her voice

Seriously bizarre. She was talking political strat-
set me shaking again. "I learned a lot about you
egy while she snacked. Like we were hanging out
during our time together, Andalite. I saw your
at her house after school, planning the rigging of
mind. I saw your courage dribble away. I would
the homecoming queen election.

enjoy finishing you now. Breaking you." She

She continued. "We want to be more like you,
slinked toward my cage. "Right here and right

Andalite. We need a structure that will transform
now. You think you're strong, but I know you're
us from rebels to leaders. We want to be more
weak. It would take seconds!" She paused just
like Andalite society. Even more like the hu-
enough to let the thought rattle me. "But this

32

33

time, Andalite, it's your cooperation I require. I
need you and your fellow Andalites. I need you to
help me destroy Visser Three."

She wasn't working for the visser. She was out
to destroy him. That's what she'd said.

Unguarded anger seethed from her face. If
she was lying, it was impossible for me to tell.

"You've fared badly as a bird." She looked at
my bandaged wing, at my matted feathers, my
twisted neck. "You have Visser Three to thank for
that. His Hork-Bajir aren't big on gentle."

She wanted me to become angry, too, and
take revenge, get back at the visser, join forces
with her. . .

"Don't answer now." She pulled a scrap of

The red sensors flickered out.

paper from her pocket and pushed it through the

I hobbled from the cage, hopped to the win-
bars of my cage. "Here." It was a Web address.

dow. The ground was a few feet below me. I fell

"Talk things over with your comrades and leave
outside. Taylor. Visser Three. Civil war. Weak-
me a message there. Sign it 'Bandits.'"

ness . . .

Then she unlatched the cage door, threw

She'd let me go.

open the nearest window, and disappeared be-

It was too much to sort out. I needed my
hind a curtain, leaving her dirty dishes in the
friends. I needed Rachel.

sink.

I dragged myself into the shadows, morphed
and demorphed to repair injuries. Injuries which
by this time were so painful they bordered on tor-
ture themselves. I lifted off. Free, but my mind
was weighted.

As I rose into the air, I saw the place I'd been
held. An old trailer, parked by a junkyard. A rebel

34

35
hideout. Far from the city and the Yeerk pool.

Okay. Okay. No easy answers. Just complica-

Could she be telling the truth?

tions.

I flapped toward town, toward the lights,

I demorphed and rocketed past street-
toward Rachel's. Over buildings topped by digital
lights, car headlights, and neon signs to Rachel's
dishes and cell phone relays. Suddenly, I cut the
house. Her window was open. I shot through and
gas, strained my wings, dropped to a roof.

planted my talons on the bedpost, swishing my

If she weren't telling the truth, if she were
feathers as I came to a stop. She jolted out of
feeding me lies . . .

sleep.

She'd have planted a tracking device on my

"Thank God!" she whispered. I fluttered down
body. Of course! The Yeerks were tailing me. I
next to her. She touched me gently. A smile filled
was bringing them straight to my friends. Straight
her face, then was replaced by rage. "That jerk!"

to the Andalite bandits.

Her voice hardened. "That scum."

When I'd finished kicking myself, I picked the

<l'm okay,> I said. <Taylor let me go.> I felt
smallest morph I had. Flea. I focused on the tiny
safe in RacheJ's presence, but my voice still
blood-sucking body.

sounded raw.

SCHWOOOP!

"We searched for you for hours. I wanted to

The roof rushed at me. Slate shingles became
kill her."

slick and huge as glaciers. My vision fractured

<l think I wanted you to.>
like light through a prism and my hearing cut. It

"What's her deal?"

was all about the other senses. Taste, smell.

<She wants to work with us,> I said. My

Feeling. I waited for the corner of a tiny chip
words sounded preposterous. I wondered for a
to bust out of my skin. Any tracking device would
second if I hadn't dreamed it all. <lt's weird. She
fall away from a flea's body. It would prove that
says that if we give her help, she gives us Visser

Taylor's words were meaningless. That I could

Three. >
write her off forever. I wanted to.

"Don't believe it," Rachel muttered, charging

I grew smaller and smaller. Nothing snagged,
out of bed. "C'mon. Let's get the others."

nothing stretched my stretchable skin. Nothing

An hour later, we had all assembled in Cassie's
bulged from my body. No global positioning chip.

barn.

I was unmarked.

"A deal?! Come on. Our help?! Puh-leeze. If

36

37
some Yeerk contracts a democracy virus, I m
ing. She's probably been plotting revenge ever
supposed to care?" Marco said skeptically. "I
since."

don't think so."

For a second, nobody spoke. Jake glared at

<l agree with Marco. I do not think her telling

Marco and I was pretty sure I knew why. I was
the truth is likely. We cannot forget that she was
guessing it was probably also the reason no one
a sub-visser. She rose to her position by being
had mentioned how I'd been recaptured in the
ruthless. I do not believe the Yeerk,> Ax nearly
first place. No one had mentioned that I'd made
sneered.

a huge mistake by rescuing the lost kid. Now I re-

"But what if she's telling the truth?" Cassie
alized why. Marco'd mentioned torture, some-
countered. Cassie was the only one of us who'd be-
thing he was apparently not supposed to do when
friended a Yeerk before. Who'd actually morphed

I was around, not even in passing.

a Yeerk. I knew she, at least, would want to give

Their hypersensitivity made me mad. Did they
my story some consideration. "Maybe she really
think the memory would mess me up? Couldn't
does believe in a better way. She wouldn't be the
they see me getting stronger? Couldn't they tell
first Yeerk to have a change of heart."

I'd be fine?

"No, she'd be the last. That creep wouldn't

"Tobias, what's your take?" Jake said, break-
even breathe if it didn't serve her," Rachel
ing the silence. "You know more about her than
sneered. "She's not about to found a democratic
anyone."

leadership because it's a just philosophy. She

What was my take, now that I wasn't locked in
wants something else."

a cage, waiting to be tortured? Rachel looked at

"Seems obvious to me," Marco answered.

me. Her eyes gave me strength.

"It's the means, not the end, that interest her.

<Power,> I said, suddenly knowing the truth.

She's keen on democracy because it's a process

<Power is the one thing in the world I know Tay-
that will eject Visser Three."

lor wants. Using me to get Visser Three must

"Do you always assume ttie worst of people?"

strike her as irresistible irony.>

Cassie asked.

"Know what would be even more irresist-

"Always." Marco smiled. "People are who they
ible?" Marco added. "Get Visser Three and the
are. My bet is that when Taylor fatted to break

Andalite bandits both killed in the process. Two

Tobias with torture, the visser sent her pack-
birds, one stone."

38

39

Rachel nodded. "Marco has a point. An irony

If you look at the moon through a camera lens,
in itself."

it's just a dinky dot in the sky. Our minds make it

"We've had other chances to get Visser Three
bigger than it is.

and we've blown them," Jake said. "We might not

<She's dangerous,> I said after a moment,
get a shot like this again. Can we afford to pass

<but if we face her together. . .>
it up?"

I stopped. What if Taylor was all I knew she

<Civil war means Yeerk against Yeerk,> Ax ob-
was and worse? I looked back at the orange-white
served. <lt means confusion, betrayal within en-
moon. I knew it was just an illusion, but I
emy ranks, a foe distracted by internal strife. It is
couldn't take my eyes off it, immense and amaz-
a unique opportunity.>
ing.

"Right," Marco agreed. "Capitalize on the

<l don't know,> \ said finally. <But I think we chaos. Divide and conquer."

have to deal.>

"We tried that, remember?" Rachel said.

Win or lose, / had to deal.

"The time we pretended to help Visser One de-
stroy Visser Three. It didn't go over real well."

"This is different," Marco replied flatly. "It's not about my mother this time. It's not personal."

Not personal? Marco didn't know how wrong
he was.

"Tobias," Jake said. "I still think this should be your call." He looked up at my perch on the
rafter. "Do we deal with Taylor or not?"

I looked away from the group, out through the
loft window. Out at the moon, gigantic on the
horizon.

People have told me that when the moon fills
the sky like that, when it looms huge like a glow-
in-the-dark beach ball, it's really just an illusion.

It's your mind playing tricks on you. And it's true.

40

41

<lt has not been easy,> Ax said somberly. He
was using an old car battery for power. All the
wires and tape patches spilling from the jerry-
rigged setup made Ax look pretty clever to me. <l
reconditioned several other discarded computing
modules and sold them to Computer Renais-
sance. I thought the money would be sufficient. I
did not know that cell phones and Net access re-
quire a credit card.>

"The bank wasn't reassured by the whole

'unemployed alien' aspect of your application?"

Marco said.

"That's right," Cassie said. "So I'm helping
him. You know the cell phone I'm supposed to

I he freak and geek club. The middle of the
take with me, for emergencies only? Well, Dad
night, deep in the forest. Four kids and a bird
made a deal with me. I can talk for half an hour a
crowded around a laptop salvaged from a Dump-
week if I do Saturday morning meds." I watched
ster and repaired by an alien kid and friend, Ax.

her locate the cell phone. It was opened up and

An Andalite and brother of Elfangor. Ax's four-
tangled in a nest of wires. "Ax, you can put that
teen fingers deftly powered up the unit and di-
back together, right?" she said, a bit nervously.

aled up the Internet.

<l assure you, Cassie, I know what I am do-

"Ax, this is way cool," Rachel whispered, "but ings The screen dimmed and revived. Rachel
how did you do it? A cell phone? Internet access?

raised an eyebrow. But then, sure enough, the

That's more allowance than I'll ever see."

AOL welcome screen loaded.

"You mean because Macy's has you on that

"Excellent," Marco said, smiling. "Oh, wait,
pesky outfit-per-week plan?" Marco sneered.

wait! The James Bond home page! Play the

"I'd like to think that an Andalite who once
teaser trailer. Ax. Listen to me!"

made contact with his home world could arrange

Ax ignored him and typed in the address to

Web access," Jake said.

Taylor's Web page: http://www.EarthlsOurs.com.

42

43

We got a message. "The URL cannot be
lose," it read. "The plan is to attack and seize
found."

the 'Pool.' Your special skills are needed. Meet

<l do not understand. If this address existed,
me in a public place. Let's say Borders book-
we would have located it,> Ax explained.

store. The wildlife section seems appropriate."

"Uh, Ax-man?" Marco pointed to the flicker-

Everyone spoke at the same time.

ing screen and sounded out the address. "You

"Seize the Yeerk pool?" Jake repeated.

typed Earth-l-saurus.com. You made it a dino.

"An attack?" Cassie.

It's Earth-ls-Ours."

"I'm there!" Rachel, of course.

<Perhaps fourteen fingers are four too many.>

"The wildlife section!" Marco.

Ax, being uncharacteristically funny. He typed in

<The computer has, as you say, crashed,> Ax
the right address.

announced coolly.

Taylor's Web page took a while to download and

"We'll need a human morph that won't give
the image was fuzzy at first. Slowly, the screen
us away," Marco echoed. "It ain't gonna be Ax.

became clearer. It was a picture of the earth from

He attracts too many girls. And of course I can't
outer space, a beautiful blue-green sphere cov-
go. Same reason."

ered with clouds. There was a caption, "Triumph

"Guys," I said, half-scared, half-thrilled by
will be ours," and a box to send a message.

the meaning of my words, "I just happen to have

Ax waited for my dictation. I thought about
the perfect morph."

what to say. I wanted to intimidate her, cut her

Six hours later, when its doors opened, I
down to size, make her wonder if we'd bite, make
strolled into Borders bookshop. Strode past piles
her worry that we wouldn't. I wanted ambiguity. I
of self-help books and tiers of best-sellers. De-
wanted to see her squirm.

spite Rachel's objections and Marco's security

In the end, all I wrote was, "Okay, we'll play."

concerns, Jake had let me go. I needed to be the

Jake signed off with the word "Bandits." Ax
one to deal with Taylor. Jake knew that.

clicked "send."

But even Jake had some reservations about

And then we waited. The others took turns
this morph. About the victim becoming the vic-
playing minesweeper and solitaire. This time,
timizer. So for a variety of security reasons,

Ax's extra fingers somehow gave him an edge.

watching from various stations both in and out-

Taylor's reply came an hour later. "No time to
side the store, were my friends.

44

45

Two seagulls on the roof, Ax and Cassie,
seized up. I'd just given myself away. But she'd
watching the front door and the sky. A fluffy cat,
never figure it out. Would she? She'd never know
prowling the back alley, keeping an eye on the
the whole story, that my true form was hawk, that
back door. In the magazine section, a short kid

I was no Andalite. But already, I'd given her more
with pants as wide as a tent, huge bug-eyed sun-
than I'd wanted to.

glasses, headphones, and a knit ski cap disguis-

I searched the brain of my new body for a
ing nine-tenths of his face. And in a stall in the
savvy reply. A strategic comeback. I searched it
men's room, waiting for a signal, Jake, ready to
for the ruthless, crushing Yeerk. What I found
provide immediate firepower if necessary.

was gentleness, fear, and joy. Very little cunning.

Rachel chose the outfit, so I was dressed to

Almost no hate. The human Taylor had once been
kill. And I would have looked great in rags. See,
an average kid. Like me. Like I'd been.

morphing uses DNA, and I'd morphed her body

The realization steeled me against the ner-
as it would have been before the fire, before the
vousness that gnawed at my stomach.

accident. No artificial arm. No reconstructed

"You're not the only ones with scientists," I
said guardedly.

beauty.

She accepted that answer. We walked toward

I was a cover girl who could give even An-
the cafe.

gelina Jolie a run for her money. I was . . .

"Taylor," I said easily, coming up behind the
tall blond wandering the wildlife section. She
spun around, surprised and off guard. Her mouth
dropped open. She was face-to-face with herself.

And for a second, I'd trumped her. She was
mine.

"That's clever," she conceded, recovering
quickly like a good detached Yeerk should. "Yeah,
a nice touch. But how? Is there some new, im-
proved Andalite morphing technology that allows
you to acquire while in morph?"

I smiled on the outside. On the inside, I

46

47

The kid raised his eyebrows. "Grass?" he said.

"I can juice you some wheat grass, but that's all
we have."

Taylor glared at the boy. I laughed. We were
mirror images, literal carbon copies. But I was
alive. Taylor wasn't. Not really. I had a sense of hu-
mor. Taylor had a coldness that enclosed her like
a shield. The kid could see this. Anybody could.

We brought our drinks to a table and sat in
opposing chairs. Three college kids were study-
ing together nearby, but out of earshot. A writer
was reading her work to an enraptured public
thirty feet away. Salsa music spilled out of the
speakers.

The high school kid behind the counter

Taylor gripped her mug like it was the enemy.

stared wide-eyed. One, make that two very at-

"I suppose you want details," she said icily.

tractive girls were closing in on him.

"Of course."

"Uh, what can I get you?" he asked shakily.

"Listen carefully," she began, her voice

"Decaf latte with skim," Taylor purred.

hushed. "There's a natural gas pipeline, a large

The kid turned to take my order. I smiled and
one, that runs a half mile from the Yeerk pool.

he almost fell over. It was crazy to have such

We need to dig a connecting tunnel from that
power. I'd been on the receiving end before. I'd
pipeline to the pool."

just never been the source. Is this what Rachel

"Why?"

experienced? Was this part of what made her so

Taylor huffed, arrogant and exasperated. "So
brave?

that the pipe can be ruptured. So that thousands

"Triple espresso. Heavy on the cream and the
of tons of natural gas will spew into the Yeerk
sugar."

pool complex. And so that the gas, when ex-

Taylor turned to me. "You dare abuse my
ploded, will kill everyone exposed. The hosts.

body, you filthy grass eater?"

TheYeerks."

48

49

But then, suddenly, her face transformed. All

It was a disgusting plan. It was even more
at once, her blue eyes filled with desperation.

horrible than I expected.

Her pink lips parted in wordless horror. A different

I took a sip of coffee, to keep it looking nat-
voice, a frightened, abused little voice, called
ural. Twin teens, probably comparing notes on
across the table in a toneless whisper.

last night's dates. "That's what you call a giant

"Don't listen," it said. "Don't listen to her!"

leap for democracy? I don't get it. You want to

I sat transfixed as Taylor's hand blazed across
end the violence with a big bang of your own?

the tabletop, crashing into her latte, smashing

You think the violence will end there?"

the mug to the floor. There was a huge racket as

"Surely you see that we need a bargaining
ceramic clattered across tile.

chip," Taylor replied. "We have to take control of The writer stopped her public reading. The
the place and oust Visser Three. We have to get
students raised their heads. The salsa music
some leverage. Without this plan — if the rebels
trumpeted on.

tried a more peaceful protest — the Yeerks in or-

"Miss, are you okay?" The high school kid
bit would oppose us. But if the plan works, we
was instantly at Taylor's side. She was crouched
have a Yeerk pool full of hostages. They couldn't
on the floor, her head in her arms. A second
attack us without putting their own at risk."

passed. Two seconds. Silence. On the third, her

"That never stopped you Yeerks before," I re-
head snapped up.

torted.

"I'm fine," she said, climbing back into her

"Well, the Yeerks in orbit have to feed, don't
chair. "Get me a refill." Her face was strong again, they?" she shot back angrily. "There's no way
controlled. And I knew what I'd just seen.

around that. Within three days every Yeerk will

Taylor the Yeerk had a rigid command over
need Kandrona rays. They will be forced to ac-
her host body. No longer did she let her human
cept rebel leadership. If they want to survive."

speak independently. No. Somehow, she'd sev-

I forced a false tone of admiration. A little
ered their collaboration. Except they'd been part-
flattery wouldn't hurt with this egomaniacal Yeerk.

ners for so long, the host could still break in, on

"This plan is your brainchild, isn't it? It's brutal,
occasion. Taylor the girl could still break in. Did
ruthless. Brilliant, really."

break in . . .

"You know me well, Andalite." A smile washed

Why? Why would the Yeerk watt until this mo-
over her face.

51

50
ment to fully enslave her host? She claimed to

"What morph?" I asked. She wrapped the fin-
be interested in democracy and peace. It didn't
gers of her artificial hand around my arm and
started to squeeze.

compute.

"I have a morph that will leave behind a tun-

"Any questions?" Taylor inquired, as if noth-
nel at least as large in circumference as the pipe
ing had happened. As if the conversation hadn't
itself."

been disrupted by a distinctly Yeerk version of

"What morph?" I repeated.

multiple personality disorder.

"Taxxon, my Andalite friend. Taxxon!"

"Yeah," I said. "First one. A natural gas ex-
plosion as large as the one you're planning will
collapse the Yeerk pool. And the city built above
it. It will devastate everything for miles."

"My allies are in control of the pumping sta-
tion," Taylor answered calmly. "The amount of gas
will be carefully controlled. The Yeerk pool will
not collapse."

"Fine. Question two. Just how do you plan to
tunnel through the earth, from the pipeline to the
pool?"

"I don't. That's where you come in."

"That's absurd," I laughed. "No earth animal, no morph we Andalites have, could do that kind
of job in less than weeks. And even then, it would
just be a tiny tunnel. Not nearly enough to move
the volume of gas you're talking about."

"That's why I selected an animal for you to
morph that can do the job in hours, not days or
weeks." Her lips curled into a devilish smile.

"You always underestimate me, Andalite."

52

53

The Gap and bought a couple of T-shirts. No moss
grows on that girl. "But I can handle it. I'm in."

"Whoa." Cassie held up an arm. "Wait a
minute. Who says we're even gonna do this?"

I'd demorphed in the Borders bathroom. Jake
had left a bag of clothing behind a trash con-
tainer. I remorphed as my human self, and crossed
the street to the mall. Now I sat in the food court
listening to my friends freak out.

"When do we have to give her an answer?"

Jake asked me.

"We don't. We just show up at the natural gas
pumping facility tonight. Or we don't."

"Answer me this," Marco said, rolling a plas-

"Is she insane?" Marco cried. He'd ditched
tic straw between his palms. "If Taxxons are all
the ski cap and sunglasses but the headphones

Controllers, why doesn't She-Yeerk just ask a fel-
still hung around his neck.

low Controller with a Taxxon host to do the dig-

"Yes. I believe we established that during our
ging?"

last encounter." Ax, of course. He'd gone from

I explained. "She says Yeerks are only ever
seagull to Andalite to eerily attractive human boy
partly in control of their Taxxon hosts. It's impos-
in a Dumpster conveniently located behind the
sible to master the Taxxon hunger, the murderous
bookstore.

tendencies, the cannibalistic urges. Taxxon hosts

"Taxxon! I'd rather morph E. colt. I'd rather
are given only to low-ranking Yeerks and, big sur-
morph an ant again."

prise, soon they're more Taxxon than Yeerk."

"That's kind of what Taxxons are like, isn't

"But I've seen them take orders. I've watched
it?" Jake said. "Brainless, driven, starved."

Taxxons move on command," Marco persisted.

"Who knows?" Rachel shrugged impatiently.

"They fly Bug fighters for. . ."

In the time between demorphing from cat and

"Right. But no one would ever trust a Taxxon
joining the rest of us, Rachel had slipped into
to be part of a conspiracy. You can't count on a

54

55
guy who'll sell out for a chunk of rotting meat.

We all needed to think. Ax wanted to eat. So,

Most of her allies are human-Controllers, any-

Marco and Jake volunteered to get food.

way," I added.

Cassie, Rachel, and Ax sat silently. I looked

Ax broke in. "I was once told that controlling
around. It was Friday, so the food court was
a Taxxon morph is like facing the ultimate temp-
crowded. Packed with a bunch of normal people,
tation. Tay-shun. The more you resist the tempta-
leading normal lives. Ordinary, mundane, won-
tion, the stronger it becomes, until it ends by
derful lives. All these normal people — moms
carrying you so far beyond the realm of con-
and dads, kids and grandparents — represented
scious, controllable thought you become lost in
the very thing we were fighting for. Humanity.

the Taxxon's most basic instincts."

Marco returned and set nachos for me and Ax

"Well then, what am I waiting for?" Marco
on the table. I wasn't very hungry. I wasn't used
said sarcastically. "Sign me up! An army of cold,
to eating with others around and there were
power-hungry Yeerks can't control the Taxxons.

people everywhere. Very different from my life as

Not to worry. The short kid who got a B-minus in
a hawk. When you're a hawk, you get nervous
gym won't have any problems."

when you can't feed in peace. Someone could

Rachel smirked. "You got a B-minus in
swoop in and steal your dinner. Or someone
gym?"

could swoop in and eat you.

Marco rolled his eyes and looked exasperated.

Jake reappeared and placed a large plastic

"People, if the Yeerks can't control a Taxxon, how
tray piled with two hamburgers, three fries, a
veggie wrap, and three large plastic cups on the
in the world can we?"

table.

"Taylor says we'd only stay morphed for short

"Cassie, veggie wrap and orange soda," he
periods," I said, feeling like her press secretary.

said, handing her one of the cups and the sand-

Like part of her team. It was definitely weird.

wich. "7-up, Rachel. Coke, me. So," he added,

"And we'd morph one at a time, surrounded by
sitting, "where are we?"

enough force to control any out-of-control behav-

"Seems clear enough to me," Rachel said
ior."

with a mouth half-stuffed with hamburger. "De-

Jake frowned. Marco looked skeptical. Cassie's
stroying the Yeerk pool can only be a good thing.

eyes were darkening with some serious issues.

56

57

It's the chance we've been waiting for. It could
his free will replaced by a slimy, stinking slug
be the beginning of the end." She paused and
that will take over his brain, say, 'yea.' Those op-
swallowed. "Let's fry some Yeerk butt."

posed say, 'nay.'"

"I agree with Rachel," Ax said, looking up

"Okay," Jake interrupted. "We get it. We all
from the plastic Radio Shack bag he was rum-
admit that Taylor can't be trusted. Marco and To-
maging through and reaching for a tub of nachos.

bias saw her lose it at Borders. She's obviously

"Strategically speaking, this is a very interesting
got some problems. But even given the weird-
opportunity. Even in spite of the risk."

ness, I think we agree this could be one of the

Jake looked up at me with an encouraging
most important missions we've had."

nod.

"Just remember, she can't be trusted," I re-
minded everyone. "She . . . " I paused. The oth-
ers were looking at me like they were being extra
careful to be polite. Just like at the barn, they
were waiting for me to finish. No interruptions.

No snide remarks.

The Borders meeting should have proved to
them that I was over the fear! I'd handled it fine.

I wasn't the one who'd broken down.

I tried to sound extra calm and sure of myself
so they would stop worrying, stop doubting. "Even
if she doesn't have it in for us, our work is only
going to make her more power hungry. You can
count on it. It's not like she's suddenly had a
change of heart. That democracy stuff has got to
be BS."

"Absolutely," Marco said. "A free Yeerk soci-
ety? Give me a break. Let's just imagine the sce-
nario for a second. Everyone in favor of having

58

59

encouraged her to sit back down. No one seemed
to know what to say. She continued. She spoke
very quietly, but urgently.

"Has anyone stopped to think that we'll be
responsible for the death of hundreds, maybe
thousands of people? People who already suffer
the worst fate imaginable? And not that any of
you care, but we'll be killing thousands of de-
fenseless Yeerks right along with them."

"My God, you mean we'd be killing Yeerks?"

Marco said with a straight face. "That's...

that's unthinkable!"

No one laughed.

"Let her finish," Rachel whispered.

No one said anything. Silent agreement.

"They're not all like Visser Three," Cassie went

Except for Cassie.

on. "We know that. Some of the Yeerks and Con-

Her eyes got wide. She began to stand up.

trollers are just kids like us. They never had a

"None of you guys are really thinking about
choice. They participate or they're eliminated.

this," she said in a voice that made a couple of

And it's not like they get the information they
older kids sitting at the table next to ours look up.

need to make an informed decision. If you'd been

"Shhh."

raised since birth on empire propaganda, you'd

"No," she said. "It's wrong. I won't. I don't fight to take over Earth, too."

want to judge you guys, but you're talking about

"You make an interesting argument," Ax said
strategy and risk like this is some computer
through a mouthful of nachos. "But there are a
game. Like there aren't others involved. Have you
lot of inconsistencies between what you say and
forgotten that we're supposed to be in this to
what you do." He swallowed noisily. "How can
save lives?"

you make this argument knowing what you've

Jake put his hand on her shoulder and gently
done in the past?"

60

61

"That's different," Cassie responded forcefully.

Yeerk military activity. They recharge there so

"I'm not against defending myself and you guys.

they can continue their conquest."

I hate violence, but self-defense is justified, in

"Not true," Cassie insisted, regaining her
all societies. Unlike murdering people . . ."

voice. She leaned forward. "What about Tidwell,

"Killing slugs," Marco corrected.

and others like him in the peace movement?

"Killing Yeerks when they're defenseless,

They have to go to the pool because they'll die if
when they're not engaged in battle, when they're
they don't feed. For them, it's no different than
not actively threatening our lives . . . no! You
eating."

don't. . . why can't you . . . can't you see!" She

"The peace movement Yeerks are a small mi-
stopped. I could almost feel the passion radiat-
nority," Jake countered coldly. "We can't really
ing from her body. "It's . . . it's just not right."

consider them, except maybe to warn them."

"But they are threatening our lives," Rachel

"Not consider them!" Cassie repeated disbe-
insisted. "Not just ours, everyone's. Just by being
lievingly. "What if your brother's at the pool when
who they are."

the gas explodes?"

"Yeah, and why do you think they're at the

Jake looked at his hands. "I guess it's a sac-

Yeerk pool?" Marco put in. "I can tell you this
rifice I have to deal with in order to protect
much. It's not because they're planning Earth
thousands more," Jake said, his voice now ex-

Day activities.

pressionless.

"Look, during World War Two we bombed fac-

"Jake, I don't believe you!"

tories and highways and railroads. Even regular

"You should," he said, looking back to Cassie.

cities. Just because someone's not wearing a

To me. "Besides, family involvement doesn't really
uniform or carrying a weapon doesn't mean
come into play here. It can't. The Yeerk pool is a
they're not fighting a war. I know this plan is
target. End of discussion. It's not like we're bomb-
bad, Cassie, but we've gotta think of the big pic-
ing a bunch of innocent people at the mall on a
ture." He looked at her and touched her shoulder

Friday afternoon . . . "

again.

Again, I looked at the people all around us.

"Yes," Ax said calmly. "The Yeerk pool is a

Families, couples, kids like us. Enjoying them-
command and control center. It is central to
selves. Here to see a movie, meet their friends,

62

63

shop for clothes. They'd done the jobs they had
to do at work or at school. Now was their chance
to relax. Have fun.

Cassie looked around the food court, too, and
then back at Jake.

"Isn't it?"

That's pretty much when Cassie decided she
couldn't do it. She decided to sit the mission
out. I admired her. I even thought about pulling
out myself.

But who would be around to figure out Taylor?

Who would be there to watch for sabotage? I'm
not really sure how or why we decided I was the
best one for the job. But I decided to do it.

Early that evening Ax and I flew together, an
owl and a red-tailed hawk, high up into the night
sky so we could get a good look at the place be-
fore we landed. We wanted to be as sure as possi-
ble that we weren't flying into a trap. The natural
gas pumping station came into view.

64

65

<The coast appears to be clear,> Ax relayed.

An unwavering optimism that's invaluable when

<Why do humans refer to the "coast" when talk-
you're up against pure evil.

ing about a precarious situation?>

We finished morphing and Ax trotted up be-

<l don't know,> I said. <lt's just what we
side me. His main eyes studied me. His stalk
say.>
eyes scanned the area around us. Then, sud-

There wasn't anything within a half mile of
denly, his tail snapped and zipped across the
the structure. Just trees and bushes. I swooped
blue-and-tan fur on my chest.

low to check out an abandoned van left a few

<Hey, watch it! What are you doing?>
hundred feet from the pumping station. No hid-

<l am removing portions of your fur. We call it
den group of Hork-Bajir waiting for us.

"unschweet." I believe you say haircut. I must The pumping station was pretty small, just a
make you look less like my genetic double.>
square building almost as big as a house. Secu-

<Fine,> I said. <But be careful. No razor
rity lights brightened it like a baseball stadium
burn.>
just before a night game. The lights made my

<When an Andalite warrior is reprimanded for
hawk vision work almost as well as the owl's.

his conduct,> Ax continued, <a superior officer

Through the few windows, I could see a maze of
removes some of the offender's fur so that the
pipes.

transgression is not soon forgotten. In the ritual

We landed on the ground behind a line of
of unschweet, the wrongdoer is not punished in
heavy brush. It's hard to land directly on the
the traditional sense. He must live with the con-
ground. It's easier when you can grab on to some-
stant reminder of his error, and the scrutiny of
thing with your talons. I skidded a little. Ax was
his peers. As his fur grows back, he is slowly re-
right behind me.

deemed until, finally, the incident is laid to rest

<Well, Ax-man, I guess it's now or never —
and the warrior is whole again.>
and, boy, do I wish it was never,> I said.

<l've had bad haircuts before but I never

I morphed and Ax demorphed. Two identical
knew what to call them. So Ax, do I deserve un-
blue aliens began to sprout from the bushes. I
schweet? >
like the way Andalite morph feels. It's about

<No,> Ax answered. <But it is the only way I
strength and agility. A focused yet playful mind.

know to cut fur. Sorry.>

66

67

<lt's cool. Let's just get this over with.>
very big, very mean — to show my appreciation

We walked cautiously toward the pumping
for your help. Follow me."

station, staying out of the brightest lights and

She disappeared into the pumping station. Ax
watching our backs with our stalk eyes. A tall cy-
followed her. I followed Ax.

clone fence topped with barbed wire ran all

We had to duck low to clear some of the pipes.

around the structure, but the rear gate was open

The noise was unbearable, a constant clanging
a crack. Someone was expecting us.

that made my head hurt. Taylor descended a

I pointed a slender finger toward the gate.

twisting metal ramp into the basement. We fol-

Ax moved out in front. An eerie squeak cut
lowed, stepping carefully on the slick surface.

the still air as we slipped through the gate.

Downstairs it was considerably darker, though

We moved quickly toward the shadows that
there were fewer pipes. Taylor stopped in a cor-
clung to the wall of the building.

ner of the room and gestured to an iron handle

"Evening, boys."

protruding from the smooth concrete floor. Then

She stepped out of nowhere. A dark, human
she backed up, leaned against the wall, and
form with a voice that sent chills down my spine.

crossed her arms over her chest.

It was Taylor.

"He's in there."

"Nice to see you. I've been waiting."

Ax and I looked more carefully. The iron han-

She'd been there the whole time. I couldn't
dle was attached to a large slab of concrete set
believe it. We'd been so careful. How had we
into the floor.

missed her?

<This is it,> I said to Ax. Trying to forget I was

She was wearing dark leather from head to
in the same room with the monster who'd come
toe. Tall boots that came up to her knees. Her
close to destroying what little peace of mind I'd
long blond hair was tucked into a high leather
ever had. I bent down and grabbed the iron han-
collar. It was a new look. Good-bye preppy. Hello
dle with my relatively weak Andalite arm. It didn't
soldier. We stared.

budge.

"I'm not here to be gawked at. I'm here to de-

<l will assist you,> Ax announced. Together
liver a present," she sneered. "I know how much
we pulled with all our strength. The slab rose
you both like Taxxons. I found a choice one —
out of the floor. With great effort, we set it to one

68

69

side. A snort from below sent us both jumping
back.

"How cute," Taylor said. "You're scared."

<We are not frightened,> Ax said coldly. <We
are cautious.> He stepped up to the hole and
peered inside. <l see no sign of the Taxxon.>

Taylor tilted her head to one side and looked
at Ax mockingly. "Then go get him, silly."

The cavern was dark. I could just make out
the bottom, about ten feet away. It seemed to
curve slightly. I guessed it was a tank, an old fuel
storage reservoir or something.

The last thing I wanted to do was jump into a
dark tank with a Taxxon waiting to eat me.

Again, Ax led the way. If he wasn't fearless,
he was putting on a good show.

<lt is a long way down, Tobias,> he called
from below. <Bend your knees on impact.>

Taylor was watching, her beautiful face wear-
ing the look of perpetual disdain she'd perfected.

I couldn't let her see my fear. I hopped over the
edge and braced for impact.

WHAAAMMM!

70

71

My hooves hit hard on the concrete bottom.

teeth shredded my flesh and muscle. He didn't

Damp darkness enveloped me. I could just make
sever my arm and have a quick snack. No. He
out Ax at my side.

sucked with iron jaws. Pulling me in. Dragging

<Where is he?> I asked. <What if there's no
me closer to his stomach.

Taxxon at all? What if it's a trap?> I thought of

I swung my tail blade, but lost my balance on
the others waiting outside, hidden in various
the smooth, curved floor. My hooves skidded
morphs, watching. They were ready to storm the
wildly as the vile mouth chewed. I was caught in
place if we got into trouble. But how long would
a slow-motion wood chipper!

it take them to reach us? I looked up and imag-

Glowing red eyes, inching toward me . . .

ined being sealed in the tank. But then I remem-

I whipped my tail blade frantically, slashing
bered that Taylor couldn't lift the cover alone.

the blackness, missing the Taxxon. The force of

Or could she? How strong was that artificial
his jaws would rip off my arm!

arm?

<Ax!>

It didn't matter. No. Between the two of us,

FWAP!

Ax and I could probably come up with a few

Razor teeth withdrew and I stumbled back,
morphs that would get us out. But that comfort-
clutching my mutilated arm. I looked up. Dizzy.

ing thought came too late to stop my hearts from

III.

racing. We stared into darkness, searching for

<Hurry,> Ax said. <We must move quickly. I
the Taxxon.

fear I have mortally wounded the Taxxon.>

Before he found us.

Stupefying pain throbbed in what was left of

Ax moved forward and disappeared. I strained
my arm. I backed away. I could feel a wet, sticky
to catch sight of him in the blackness. I saw
ooze beneath my hooves. The Taxxon's vital fluids
slight movement to my right.

were spilling across the bottom of the tank.

<ls that you, Ax?> I reached out to make sure

I bent down. Reached out my good hand and
of where he stood and . . .

touched the Taxxon's side. His soft side heaved

<Ahhhhhhh!>
laboriously, up and down, as he struggled to

Agony shot up my arm.

breathe. Yes, he was dying.

<Ax!>

I could see Ax in the faint light, already ac-

The Taxxon bit down hard. A thousand razor
quiring him. I began to demorph. When the tran-

72

73

sition was complete, I reached out a talon and
placed it on the disgusting flesh.

I could feel life draining from his body, and
the firm folds of bloated tissue collapsing like a
torn hot air balloon. I concentrated on the acqui-
sition.

Usually, you don't feel anything about an
animal while you acquire it. This time, I sensed
something. Fierce and elemental, like a scream
of rage.

I finished acquiring the Taxxon's DNA. And
realized there was something inside me unlike
anything I had ever known.

Maybe it was just my own tormented mind at
work. Or maybe it really was the DNA, screaming

< It's sure enough about time, Bird-boy.>
at me on some microscopic level. It was some-

Marco's thought-speak greeted me at about three
thing terrible.

hundred feet. He was flying in, too, and was just

Something dangerous.

as late as I was. It was dawn. We were both work-

A tortured shudder moved the length of the
ing hard to stay up in the cool air.

Taxxon's body, from head to tail and back again.

<Enjoying a leisurely breakfast while the rest

He shook for one violent instant, then stopped.

of us get ready to work?> he continued.

And I realized that he now lived only in Ax

Actually, breakfast was why I was late. This
and me.

morning, the meadow had been unusually still.

Not a field mouse anywhere. Kind of ominous,
like they knew something I didn't. Like they knew
it was better to stay at home.

I'd set out hungry, but along the way I'd spot-
ted a gray squirrel. It was bigger than I like, but
food is all I think about. In nature, in my world,

74

75
hunger doesn't just mean you'll be crabby in the
she couldn't come within a mile of the dig or the
car on the way to Taco Bell. It carries undertones
pumping station before 8:00 A.M. If she did, the
deal was off. When she did show up, she had to
of death.

hang with us as we dug.

I'd dived, silent and swift. With wide-open

She had agreed to Jake's conditions with an
talons I snatched it, unsuspecting, from the
eagerness I found disconcerting. I didn't mention
power line it was making its way across. The
it to the others. I knew it was nerves.

squirrel was heavier than I'd guessed. It yanked

I could see the manhole cover next to where
on my legs, sent me tumbling for the ground. I
the others were standing. It was partly covered
held tight. I even regained control, feet above the
with sand and stuck out above the ground a few
ground, flapping like mad to stay aloft.

inches. This was a good place to work, with little

But then, the squirrel's teeth pierced my leg.

chance of being seen. We weren't far from the

Sharp pain from the incision shot to my brain. I
pumping station but were concealed by trees
released one talon and let go of my would-be
and brush on all sides. Taylor knew what she was
breakfast.

doing.

<Some of us actually have to work for our

The sewer cap was in a cul-de-sac, on the
food,> I called to Marco. <But then, it's probably
side of a gravel road that hadn't been paved. The
a huge deal for you to get the Pop-Tart in the
concrete curbs were in place and the gravel was
toaster. >
carefully compacted a few inches below, ready

I landed gently on a tree branch. Marco was
for a layer of asphalt. It had been this way for a
already demorphing. The others had gathered a
while. The site was supposed to be a new indus-
few feet away. All but Ax, who was hiding in the
trial park. But local residents didn't want the
thick grass, keeping an eye on the pumping sta-
noise and the traffic, so construction had been
tion.

temporarily stopped, leaving sewers and electric-

Jake had changed plans on Taylor at the last
ity, but little else.

minute. He had to balance the danger of not hav-

"Your left talon's bleeding," Rachel said.

ing her accounted for as we dug with the risk of

I didn't answer at first. I didn't feel like ex-
having our true identities discovered when we
plaining. But Rachel's concern was genuine. It
demorphed.

wasn't fair to blow her off.

So Jake had let Taylor know, by E-mail, that

76

77

<Breakfast sometimes bites back,> I an-
for him. He feared that his internal clock might
swered.

be thrown off by the power of the Taxxon morph.

"You're telling me," Marco broke in. "I was

He and I were going to take turns wearing it while
looking in the toaster to see if my Pop-Tart was

Andalite.

done and wham, the thing shot out and hit me in

He moved briskly to the manhole cover, stuck
the eye."

the tip of his tail blade in the small hole intended

<l'll be fine,> I said, looking Rachel's way.

for the crowbar and, with one swift, fluid twist of

"Let me have a look," Cassie said. She was
his tail, sent the fifty-pound steel cap tumbling
still adamant about not going on this mission,
through the air. It landed with dull resonance
but she wanted to know where we were digging.

inches from Jake's feet.

In case we didn't come back.

"Smooth," Jake commented dryly. "You should

Cassie's being there was a little awkward.

work for the city."

Maybe least so for me, I don't know. She wasn't

I dropped from my perch to the edge of the
there to wish us luck. And although Jake always
hole. I could see that at the bottom of an eight-
gives us the option, it's really rare that one of us
foot shaft was a cylindrical chamber.

decides not to fight.

<l think I'll morph when I get down there,> I

"You should morph to fix the cut," Jake said.

said. <Wouldn't want to be responsible for any-

"That thing's going to get infected. So I guess
one spewing their breakfast.>
you'll go first."

I hopped over the edge of the hole into the

I'd go first? That slammed me into the reality
darkness, falling slowly, with partially open wings.

I'd been trying to avoid. I wasn't looking forward

A real hawk would never drop into such a tight
to the work that lay ahead. Or to the creature I
space. I could feel the raptor's anxiety. I landed
had to become.

softly on the surface of the curved concrete.

<The time is now 7:50.> Ax came trotting out

"Take it easy, Tobias," Jake encouraged. "Nice of the bushes and stopped next to Jake. <The
and steady. If you have problems, we're here."

pumping station is clear, Prince Jake. We should

<Remember that you may not be able to
start diggings
control it like other morphs,> Ax instructed. <lt

Ax was wearing a Timex Triathlon timepiece
might be too overwhelming to suppress. The few
around his front ankle. Rachel had picked it out

Andalites who have successfully used the Taxxon

78

79

morph speak of becoming one with the animals
nature, of channeling the violent energy. It can-
not be stopped. But you can try to direct it. Use
it, do not try to overcome i t >

"I'm right here, Tobias," Rachel called.

"Be careful." Cassie. "And . . . I'll see you guys later."

"Tobias . . ." Jake began.

<l can handle it, you guys,> I said, assuring
myself as much as my friends. <l'll be okay.>

I closed my eyes and focused on the DNA I
carried within me.

The changes started immediately. Continued
concentration wasn't necessary. Once it began,
the morph gained momentum on its own, like a
rock dislodged from a hilltop.

Hisssssss . . .

I felt my bones disintegrating. No, melting.

All the hard parts of my body — talons, beak,
feather shafts — softened and liquefied. Usually
when you morph, you feel the firm shape of new
organs forming. This morph was exactly the op-
posite. Everything was dissolving, then congeal-
ing into one hideous continuum.

I fell down on the cement as my legs melted

80

81
away, only to be lifted up again as hundreds of

I could smell the others. Up aboveground. I
cone-shaped appendages shot out of a soft, rapidly
knew exactly where they stood. I heard vibrations.

extending belly.

Their feet through the soil.

I was taking on the shape of a worm. Long

I was over ten feet long. Long enough to crawl
and formless.

up and squirm through the hole. I pictured Marco.

Crystal-clear hawk vision blurred. Think about

And the next thing I knew I imagined him in my
driving into the rain without turning on the wind-
mouth, his soft tan flesh, sawed up. Swallowed.

shield wipers. Then this murky vision was traded

And Ja&e. Bigger. And Ax . . .

for —

My worm body lunged for the hole. Before I

Whoa! A thousand tiny fragments of my sur-
could stop it. Before I could think. I didn't know
roundings. Visual shards, like a kaleidoscope im-
what was happening/The smell was so strong.

age with blurred edges.

The imagined taste so real. The Taxxon mind so

I knew that Taxxons had compound eyes, like
in need!

flies. Each red eye is really a thousand smaller

Noxious digestive acid poured from my
eyes, each scanning a small piece of the world.

mouth. My soft head pushed against the iron

What I hadn't known was that Taxxon brains aren't
cover Marco and Jake had put partially back in
quite sophisticated enough to put all the pieces
place.

together.

I would devour them. Lunge and devour.

The mouth formed last. The center of the

Marco and Jake and Ax and . . .

Taxxon's existence.

Rachel.

The changes stopped.

My Taxxon body twitched. The thought of

Then, all at once, I felt it coming. An unstop-
even more food excited it. But something . . .

pable tidal wave riding up the shore.

something way in the back of my mind, way deep

Insane, insane hunger.

in there, spoke out.

Desperate, all-consuming hunger. Like noth-

Rachel?

ing you can begin to imagine. It reared up, larger

I stopped. I heard something. The tiny, in-
than any urge I had ever experienced. Blocking
significant voice of a kid. Tobias, the human in
out everything else.

me, was struggling to make his presence known.

Everything.

Somewhere beneath the Taxxon's evil and unimag-

82

83
inable power, the kid in me was ranting like a lu-
ing away the excavated dirt. I was an all-in-one
natic. Stop, he cried. Stop! Stop! Stop!

machine. Earthmover, waste disposal system.

I can't say that I regained control. That would

And that waste, that soil by-product, passed out
be a lie. Like saying that the captain of a sailboat
of my Taxxon body as a thick, sludgy layer. A goo,
can take control of a storm.

that coated all surfaces of the tunnel that began

But somehow I steered the enormous beast
to develop as I tried desperately to satisfy an un-
away from the other Animorphs. Somehow.

satisfiable hunger.

It was impossible to stop the hunger, impossi-

"Tobias? Ugh! Man, what's that stench?"

ble to slow it down, but Ax had told me I could

Jake's voice reached me as a weak distraction, a
focus it on something else. Okay. I turned it to
vague disturbance. "Tobias, are you okay down
the job at hand.

there?"

We had heard that the Taxxon was a great dig-

I ignored him. I just kept eating. Or digging.

ger. But that's not true. Not exactly. The Taxxon

Just like an earthworm, passing dirt right through
is great at one thing. Eating.

my system to extract the organic material. Except

Suddenly, ravenously, I began to devour the
that unlike an earthworm, I had a ring of razor
dirt beside the hole Taylor's people had jack-
teeth to speed things up. Multiply an earth-
hammered in the concrete pipe. I turned the full
worm's speed and size by about a million and you
force of the Taxxon's hunger on the dirt.

begin to get the picture.

I was inhaling soil like I hadn't eaten in forty

Except that with a Taxxon, there's no hope of
days. I bit off large chunks, coated them with di-
satisfying the hunger with dirt, not even momen-
gestive enzymes, and swallowed the sticky gobs.

tarily. There aren't enough nutrients in the soil.

Bite after bite. After bite after bite. The Taxxon

Just enough to smell, to trigger the urge to eat.

was insatiable.

Just enough to keep me wanting more.

In no time at all I had excavated a body-sized

"Look at him move!" It was Marco's voice. They
chamber. Dirt walls grew up around me as I
were nearer now. They must have dropped into the
lunged and gobbled and swallowed and secreted.

sewer. "He can't get no . . ." Marco gasped, proba-That's right. Secreted. I was scarfing down
bly from the stink of my secretion. "Satisfaction."

pounds per second. I was the dump truck haul-

He gasped again.

84

85

The longer I dug, the hungrier and more fran-
tic I got. I didn't learn until later that a Taxxon
will dig, starved and exhausted, until he dies.

<Tobias,> Rachel called in thought-speak.

She had already morphed. The others must be
right behind her. <Answer us. Say something.>

<More!>

< Tobias, time's up, man. Take a break. De-
morph.>

Jake.

The reminder of human flesh was more than I
could resist.

I sped backward, sloshing through the goo,
racing toward the others. I flew out of the hole
into the underground area. A slithering worm.

Massive, starved, desperate.

<Whoa,> Jake cautioned.

<Whoahh!> Marco agreed.

My compound eyes filled with the broken blue
form of an Andalite, the hulking masses of a go-
rilla and a grizzly bear, the sharp stripes of a tiger.

No pink flesh! No soft pink flesh!

86

87

I'd make do.

me." She turned back to me. "I'd love to have an

The Andalite was nearest. I smelled the flesh
excuse to finish you off." Her voice wavered
under his fur, the muscles under his flesh. I was
slightly, almost nervously. I continued inching to-
aware of his tail blade. It even triggered a danger
ward her. "But then, if you're the coward I know,
alarm in the Taxxon mind. But the siren was faint,
you'd rather be stuck as a Taxxon nothlit than die
nearly insignificant. The tail blade could slash me
with courage."

in two, but I didn't care. I might get a bite in first!

My Taxxon hunger fused with human hatred. I

<Watch yourself, Ax-man!> Jake called. <He's
realized how much easier it would be to eat her
coming at you. Tobias! Get a grip on the morph.

than to fight the urge. How much easier it would

Get a grip!>
be even to die than to face Yeerk-girl. This mon-

I rushed full speed at Ax. I'd body-slam him.

ster who haunted me day and night. With con-

Knock him to the ground. Lock my teeth in his
tempt. Arrogance. Power over me!

skin and eat him whole!

Had it been like this at the Yeerk pool? Deep

But then I saw something else. Something
beneath the murderous hunger, my mind won-
that made even the Taxxon stop. My legs froze.

dered. Had I overstayed the two-hour time limit

Taylor. Dressed in a tank top and soft, thin,
so I wouldn't have to face simple facts of life?

cotton khakis.

Being a boy, living with foster parents, school,

Her clothes would melt in my mouth. Her soft

Rachel, Taylor. . .

pink shoulders beckoned to be devoured.

Marco grabbed me gently, attempting to stop

I heaved my bulk in her direction. Began to
me. I hissed and shook him off.

move toward her. Crawling. Slinking.

<Tobias,> Rachel called. <Stop. Just stop!>

"Just try, worm," she hissed, aiming a Dracon

But she didn't block my path.

beam at my head, "and I'll fry you on setting

Was I a coward?

six."

In the wild, there's only life or death. You feed

<You gave us your word, Yeerk,> Ax objected,
your belly or you die. Success is survival. Failure
edging toward her. <You promised not to use a
is death. It's simple. There's no middle ground.

setting higher than three.>

At least, not for very long.

"Did I?" Taylor laughed. "Then try and stop

Was I a coward?

88

89

I hated Taylor.

I'd already slipped once, at Borders. Not

Because she knew the answer to that ques-
again.

tion.

I focused harder and tried to do something

Because she saw weakness in me. She saw it
that can't really be done. Morph directly from
because she was weak herself. People recognize

Taxxon to Andalite. The instant my hawk parts
their own kind. She'd sold out to save face. Liter-
emerged, I focused on remorphing them to An-
ally. She'd become a voluntary Controller and be-
dalite. It was excruciating, exhausting. Probably
trayed her own mother because she wanted to be
not very convincing.

pretty again.

Was she looking? Could she tell? Would she

It was beyond sad. It was pathetic.

see what she shouldn't see?

Was I different, or was I just like her?

The others were smart. Smarter than I was.

I'd trapped myself. Why?

Rachel and Marco had backed Taylor against a

I hated Taylor because she knew.

wall, blocking her view with their gigantic bodies.

I was going to destroy her.

As I demorphed and remorphed, Jake kept guard

I rushed forward. Opened my mouth. Scram-
and talked.

bled for her legs.

<l said you could carry a Dracon beam for

Tseew!

protections Jake said firmly. <But we had an

A bolt of Dracon fire knocked me down. Not
agreement. You would not fire above setting
strong enough to kill, but tough enough to para-
three.>
lyze the Taxxon body and keep me down long

"Yeah, well, it didn't even work. What's wrong
enough to regain control. And begin to demorph.

with this beam?"

I focused hard. The bloated worm began to

<You're one lucky worm,> Jake said to me pri-
disappear. I imagined the first signs of my famil-
vately. <Ax saved your butt. He modified her
iar hawk body emerging from the pool of Taxxon
weapon so it wouldn't fire beyond setting three.>
slime. And then I remembered . . .

<She lied,> Rachel said coldly in private

Taylor was watching this! She couldn't see me
thought-speak. <Strike one. She'd have fried you
go from Taxxon to bird. She couldn't know I was a
if she could, Tobias. You'd be a smoldering pile
nothlit. She thought I was Andalite. A mighty An-
of slime if she'd had her way. I say we end this
dalite.

right here. She can't keep a deal.>

90

91

<Wait,> I said, finishing the morph to An-
dalite. <l'm fine. I'm okay. Maybe she knew
you'd tampered with the Dracon. Maybe she was
just playing it up to scare me.>

<She did not know,> Ax said as Taylor threw
the Dracon beam to the floor. He moved behind

Jake to give my Andalite fur a quick tail-blade
trim.

<Well, I was about to take a bite out of her.

She acted in self-defense.>

<She knows that's why we're here,> Marco
answered angrily. <To keep you under control.

Even if it means killing you.>

<Well . . .> Why was I making excuses for
her? Why? I couldn't make any more. She wasn't

< Careful, Ax,> I reminded him. <lt's . . .

my friend. She wasn't my kind.

well, it's worse than you said. Let the Taxxon smell

We'd made a deal with the devil and the devil
the soil. Just let it dig and eat. Try not to think of
had just shown herself for what she was.

us.>

<She's gonna get us Visser Three,> I said.

<l will try to keep control of the morph,> said

<Remember? That's what this is about.>

Ax. <As a young cadet, I researched the recorded
successes and failures of Taxxon morphing. I once
gave a presentation on physiological mecha-
nisms for notallssith, the condition of being un-
able to control a morph.>

<Why didn't you tell us this before?!> Marco
asked.

<The results of my research were not encour-
aging^

<Oooookay.>

92

93

Ax began to morph at the opening to the tun-
hensive system failure. Can't be fixed on-site.

nel that I had started. Taylor watched with fasci-

We'll have to haul this beauty back to the shop.>
nation. I was just grossed out.

<l am okay,> Ax protested, speaking at last.

Andalite features melted into a blue-black

<l have been practicing control. By temporarily
pool until nothing was left but an oily slick. It
triggering Taxxon hibernation, I am able to resist
was as if everything Andalite had to be forsaken
the urge to eat you.>
before the Taxxon could be born.

<Thanks for telling me about hibernation be-

But then, out of the pool, the beast took
fore, Ax-man,> I grumbled.

shape. Four round, red, jiggling eyes shook in the

<l did not understand it until now.>
pool like tiny internal organs. The body grew

<Good,> Jake said tersely. <Now dig.>
larger and larger. It was like watching time-lapse

Before you could blink an eye, Ax shot down
photography of a fungus. First it grew out, flat
the tunnel.

along the floor, then up. It was hideous. The

<Okay,> Marco said. <So I was wrong.>
strong, beautiful Andalite body transformed and

I held my breath, wanting to be sure he
corrupted.

wasn't going to come racing back for a quick

The bloated worm neared full size.

lunch. It was a good distance to where Ax was

We waited anxiously, silent, ready.

working, farther than you could see. But you

Ax didn't move. The big Taxxon just stood
could hear — no, you could feel — the sound of
there motionless, as if in a trance.

digging. A high-pitched, far-off ringing. The sound

<Hey,> Jake snapped, <let's get moving.>
of teeth scraping dirt. Of dirt being devoured.

<Ax?> Rachel said, more kindly. <Everything

The sound sneaked up on you because it was
all right?> She inched tentatively toward him,
so soft, barely audible. But it filled your head un-
the way you'd approach a chained dog you didn't
til all you could imagine was the Taxxon digging.

know.

And digging. Yard after stinking, slimy yard.

<Give him a little nudge,> Marco suggested.

I shook my Andalite head, trying to break the

He sauntered up beside Rachel, toward the big
trance. Beads of sweat flew off. I hadn't realized
worm, his ape arms dangling loosely. He looked
how hot it was below ground. Four large animals
at Ax with exaggerated puzzlement, strolled the
make a cavern oppressive.

length of him, then announced, <lt's a compre-

"Did you like it, Andalite?" The voice came

94

95
from the far corner of the chamber where the gi-

<No, not that. I mean about us being like her.

gantic steel gas main intersected it. Taylor leaned

Opportunists of the worse kind.>
against the pipe. She was the only one who looked

Rachel let out a small roar. She rolled her
relaxed.

huge head from side to side. <l'm sick and tired

"Well?"

of this are-we-doing-the-right-thing, self-doubt

<Did I like what?> I said.

crap!> she announced in thought-speak that every-

"Being a Taxxon, silly," she replied. "I bet you one but Taylor could hear. <The Yeerks are killing
did. Some individuals are cut out to be lower life-
people. They're destroying Earth. Hello! What's
forms."

gotten into you guys? If someone starts shooting

<You'd know about that,> Rachel said angrily.

up your town and you shoot back in self-defense,

<No living thing is lower than a Yeerk.> A low
do you ask if it's justified?>
growl rumbled through her bared fangs.

Marco was uncharacteristically silent.

"You know I'm right," Taylor said to Rachel.

Jake paced back and forth, a big cat in a

"You know this one is weak." She gestured at me.

small, confining cage. I moved nearer to Rachel,

<l'll show you weak!> Rachel slashed the air.

brushing Jake in the process. He let out a re-

"You wouldn't dare. Hurt me and there's no
pressed snarl.

explosion. You won't let this opportunity pass.

<Watch it!>

You won't let emotions get in the way. You An-

<What's wrong with everybody?> Rachel asked
dalite bandits — you're too much like us."

me. <Everyone's falling apart.>

Rachel growled and snapped her jaws, but

<lt could be her,> I said, looking at Taylor
backed away. Taylor's words hung in my mind.

with both stalk eyes, keeping my main eyes on

This was a Yeerk plan. Every deadly detail was

Rachel. <She has a way of setting the mood. Or

Yeerk. Mass destruction. No provisions to protect
maybe,> I said, <maybe we're in too deep and we
the innocent. That was to be expected, I guess.

know it.>

But we'd jumped on board.

<Don't talk like that. After tonight, it's going

<ls she right?> I said privately to Rachel.

to be different. We'll fry the Yeerk pool. The bal-

<Are you crazy? The way you live, the things
ance will tip. We'll drive them out.> She was get-
you do? I don't know anyone stronger. You're not
ting excited again, the way she does when she
weak.>
talks about the fight. But she sounded a little des-

96

97
perate, too. Like she needed to convince me. And

A Yeerk was in the corner, not twenty feet away.

herself.

A creature capable of the greatest evil, cowardly

<Then what?> I said.

hiding inside a human so that no one would see

<We could be together.> She paused. <AII of
the threat. How many were there now? Thou-
us, I mean. Do normal stuff.>
sands? Fewer? More? Every day there were more

<Yeah,> I said. <Rachel, do we know how
human slaves. It was my first thought in the
many Yeerks there really are? On the Andalite
morning and my last thought before I slept.

home world? Invading other species? What if it's

They'd killed Elfangor, my father. The father I
never over? Sure, maybe we pull this off today.

never knew.

But it doesn't change our numbers. There are

The day would come when there would be no
still only six of us. One, two, three, four. . .>
one left. An entire planet erased. I couldn't let

<Stop it!> she yelled suddenly. <Tobias, I
that happen.

can't get the image out of my head. The way it

<They're Yeerks,> I repeated. <That's all.>
will play out tonight. A Yeerk pool full of hosts.

Humans and Hork-Bajir. They smell natural gas.

They feel it pouring in. They look around, up, con-
fused, puzzled. They start to worry. Panic. The
smell gets so strong they can't breathe and they
know . . . they know natural gas can blow . . .

they run . . . too late. Suddenly . . . Ka-boom!

A scorching, burning fireball destroys everything
it touches. They're vaporized . . . Cassie was
right . . >

<They're Yeerks,> I said.

<They're humans, too.>

I thought of all the stories Ax had told us of
entire planets enslaved. Of how what couldn't be
enslaved was killed. Of great and peaceful soci-
eties destroyed by Yeerks.

98

99

head. I didn't answer. I wouldn't let her affect
me. When she walked slowly up to me, I didn't
move. When she reached out with her real hand
and touched the fur just above my shoulders, I
didn't breathe.

"A handsome species," she complimented,
sounding not like a teenage girl, but like a sly,
sophisticated Yeerk. "You deserve more than your
tradition allows."

I backed away.

"Your friends don't understand how power-
ful we Yeerks are," she continued. "But I know that you do. We will have no place for your friends in our
new society, but you . . . every comfort you wish

Rachel rose on hind legs and cautiously
would be yours. We could rule together. Join us."

lifted the sewer cap just enough to peer out.

I jerked away, shocked that I'd let her go on so

Standing erect, she was taller than the ceiling.

long. She laughed. A long and confident laugh.

She pushed the cap aside. Jake followed her out

<l thought you were moving toward democ-
with a lightning leap. Marco brought up the rear.

racy^ I said quietly.

Their time in morph was almost up. They

"Of course we are. Of course we are. But
needed to demorph and remorph, and Rachel
think . . . democracies need leaders, and laws to
needed to do a quick check-in at home. I'd been
protect the citizens. Someone has to make the
in morph about an hour and a half. Ax's turn at
laws . . . "

digging was almost up.

<lt will never be me.>

They put the cap partially back and disap-

"You deserve more," she persisted, then
peared. It was just Taylor and me underground.

grinned, turned, and walked away. It was an odd

"Your friends have left you," she observed.

thing to say. I felt like a doomed mouse, poked

"What if they don't come back?"

and prodded by a clawed cat. I couldn't respond.

This was part of Taylor's fun. To play with my

I could only look away.

100

101

A crescent of light illuminated the chamber. I

I looked at Taylor. She sat with her back
heard yelping and looked up to see two wolves
against the wall and glanced from me to Jake to
pawing and pushing at the heavy iron cap. They

Marco with casual suspicion. I looked hesitantly
slid it open and leaped down, landing very hard.

at the opening of the tunnel. It wasn't really large

<We wanted to be smaller,> Marco explained
enough for our power morphs.

privately. <But we have to keep Taxxon-Ax in line,

<l have an idea,> I said. I took off the watch,
and Yeerk-girl intimidated.>
checked the glow-in-the-dark numbers. Put it

Jake paced back and forth before the tunnel
around Jake's right front leg. <Cover me.> I trotted
opening. The new morph allowed him eight
several feet into the tunnel. When I saw, through
paces before he had to turn around. Better than
swiveled stalk eyes, that Jake and Marco had
the five in tiger. He was silent for a minute, then,
planted themselves in front of the entrance and
looking at the watch I wore, <Guys, uh, we've got
masked me from Taylor's view, I demorphed. Then
a problem. Ax was due back by now. I've been

I began to morph again.

calling him, but he doesn't answer. Did you

Feathers turned to thin skin that stretched
change plans, Tobias?>
tight as an umbrella over wing bones. Blindness

<No.> I raised an arm to silence everyone. We
banished all trace of light. It had been dark al-
listened. Marco pressed an ear to the side of the
ready, but now there was a vision void. A nothing-
tunnel. I could just make out a very faint grating
ness that made my heart pound.

sound, much fainter than before. Maybe it was

Then, a new sense. A kind of hearing. The

Andalite hearing. Or maybe Ax was . . .

sharpest hearing you've ever known. I couldn't

<He's still going at it,> Marco announced.

make out everything, but the higher sounds were

<The boy's gonna dig to China.>
crystal clear.

I took a few steps into the tunnel. <Ax, can

Then suddenly, it was more than mere hear-
you hear me? You have to stop. You'll die of ex-
ing. I could tell exactly where all sounds came
haustions There was no reply, thought-speak or
from. They formed a picture of my surroundings.

otherwise. <He must be fixated. We have to stop

So much like sight. So different, too.

him.>

I was echolocating. I was a bat.

<Just what do you have in mind?> Marco

<Jake, Marco, follow me,> I called. I flapped
asked.

my thin wings far faster than a hawk ever does

102

103
and flew easily along the tunnel. The sonic chirps

<Too weak. Can . . . not. . . can . . . not

I emitted told me exactly where the sides were.

move.>

The bat felt at home.

The tunnel had narrowed to barely bigger than

<Ax?>
the circumference of the Taxxon. Usually a Taxxon's

No answer. I flew a long way, maybe a quarter
vigor made its tunnel at least large enough for it to
mile, until I came to something strange. The tun-
comfortably wiggle out.

nel became something else, something expanded.

<Tobias, what's going on?> Jake, sounding

A hollowed-out space. A large cavern-room. Like
understandably edgy. <We can't see anything.>
maybe Ax had gone nuts and circled up and down

<Follow the tunnel,> I said shortly. <Ax is
ten or twelve times.

stuck. An overeating stupor. He's dying here

I could hear Ax now. Closer. The high-pitched
with, like, seven minutes left in morph. You have
screeching of Taxxon teeth on dirt and small
to pull him out.>
rocks was almost deafening to bat senses. Extra-

<You want us to march straight toward a
loud echolocation was necessary to see over the

Taxxon? Whose side are you on?>
noise. The tunnel continued on the far side of the

<He's too weak to turn around or hurt you.>
chamber. I flapped my wings and flew in.

<l better get overtime for this,> Marco said.

<Ax, is that you?> My chirps weren't return-

<Serious overtimes
ing. They were being absorbed. By something

Marco and Jake crawled through the pitch-
soft, something . . .

black until they bumped into Ax.

WHAP!

<0h, man!> Marco gasped. <Wolf sense of

I flew into Ax's backside and slapped to the
smell is way too good.> The stench was over-
tunnel floor.

whelming.

<Ax, stop!> I focused all my energy on that

They bit into the soft baggy flesh and pulled.

thought-speak command, trying to penetrate his

"Skreeeee!" Ax cried involuntarily.

trance. It worked. He stopped digging.

<Hurry,> I said to Jake. <There's no time!>

<Cannot go on,> he groaned faintly.

The hulking worm began to move. Marco

<Darn straight. You've got minutes left in
strained and fought. Jake snarled and pulled.

morph, Ax-man. Let's clear out.>

Inch by inch they dragged Ax out. By the watch

104

105

around Jake's leg, it took a full five minutes to
reach the carved out, earthen cavern.

Less than two minutes to go.

<l think he's unconscious,> Jake said.

<His skin has no bulge. It's like he's deflat-
ing^

<Demorph,> I urged. <Please, Ax, demorph!>

No answer.

<Ax, now!> Jake ordered.

<We were too late,> Marco said flatly. <He's
going to die.>

<Ax!> I cried. Panic gripped my tiny bat
heart. <Ax! Ax! Ax!>

<Yes, Tobias, it is me.> I caught the echo of
something larger and more reflective than a Taxxon.

A form that was changing. Becoming taller than a
wolf. . . four legs . .. two arms . . .

We collapsed in the darkness, exhausted and
terrified, thankful to be together.

I demorphed and prepared to dig again as a

Taxxon. But then . . .

"Hey, what's going on?"

A faint light, way down the tunnel. It was
coming nearer, bobbing as it came.

Jake and Marco saw the light, too. We watched
as it increased in size and brightness until at last

106

107

Taylor emerged into the earth-cavern. Rachel was

I didn't need to be reminded. Jake didn't
in grizzly morph right behind her, her body wedged
want me eating them. He also didn't want Taylor
tight in the tunnel.

seeing me morph straight from hawk to Taxxon.

Taylor crawled on hands and knees in the

I hopped to the opening of the tunnel Ax had

Taxxon goo. There was no question the Yeerk was
dug and flapped a little to get out of sight. My
in full control. It was the kind of thing Taylor-the-
wings scraped the tunnel sides and I crash-landed
girl would never do. Her hair was a mess, plas-
about fifty feet in.

tered to her face by Taxxon slime. One hand

<l'm going Taxxon,> I warned.

gripped an electric fluorescent lantern.

I was better prepared this time. I was ready

"What happened here?" Taylor demanded,
when the instincts reared up and told me to fol-
looking at the cavern. When my eyes adjusted, I
low the smell of my friends.

saw what a strange place the cavern was. It

I turned my ravenous, empty belly to the tun-
wasn't square or round or ovoid. Nothing normal.

nel instead. I rushed forward to the place where

It was an undulating, chaotic intersection of

Ax had stopped. Fierce hunger propelled me into
many different, smaller tunnels.

the soil wall.

<l lost control of the morph,> Ax answered

I was more aware this time. I felt what was
honestly. <l do not remember everything. I know
going on around me. What was going on inside
that I became confused. I dug and ate in circles
the Taxxon mind. It wasn't simple hunger. It wasn't
for many minutes before regaining focus.>
pure rage.

<He ate himself to exhaustions Jake added,

No. What drove the Taxxon to eat and dig was
more for Rachel than for Taylor. <We had to drag
more complicated. It was something I under-
him out.>
stood. A sort of insecurity or fear.

<l do not remember,> Ax confessed.

Yes, a fear. . . grossly exaggerated ... be-

"Andalite incompetent," Taylor raged suddenly.

yond anything humans experience . . . a desper-

<Watch yourself, Yeerk,> Rachel roared back.

ate fear of not having enough . . . a terror of

<lt's okay, Ax-man,> Jake said privately. <You
starvation . . . a horror that your essential needs
dug about ten times farther than we expected.

will go unfulfilled . . . a horror demented and con-

Tobias, take it easy this time. And, uh, don't
torted by the Taxxon mind until it became a sick,
morph or demorph near us, okay?>
murderous evil.

108

109

I wouldn't have understood, or even noticed,

Soon there were more and more rocks in the
if I hadn't been hawk for so long. I've experi-
dirt. Small at first, then larger. Bigger than even
enced just enough of that feeling to recognize it.

a Taxxon could swallow. I pushed the rocks aside

A whole species of terrified overeaters. It made
and continued until I hit a smooth, continuous
me almost sorry for them.

surface. Probably the remnants of an old build-

Almost.

ing foundation.

I dug and thought of Taylor. The Yeerk and the

I tried to go around. It curved up and up, like
girl. What they'd let themselves become . . .

the crest of a dome.

Was anyone all evil? That couldn't be possi-

Then it hit me. I'd reached it. I'd found the
ble. I've heard that even Hitler was good to his

Yeerk pool.

dogs.

I continued along the surface until it became

Taylor had been too insecure to face her peers
almost flat and I found what I thought was the
without her beauty. She'd done what she had to
top. Taylor said we would strike fairly high. I never
do to make the fear go away.

guessed we would strike at the center.

Evil, even the worst evil, has banal origins every

There were no cracks or openings anywhere.

human can understand.

It was completely continuous. How could I break

Weakness. Fear. Insecurity.

through?

I understood Taylor. I understood the Taxxon.

The Taxxon knew what to do.

The realization frightened me as nothing ever

I opened my Taxxon mouth wide. Full capac-
has.

ity. I swiveled my teeth so they scraped the con-

Suddenly, the Taxxon's pace began to slow. I
crete like a drill. A hundred teeth screeched
was getting tired, if you can call it that. A digging
across the stone. Friction made my mouth hot.

Taxxon doesn't get tired the way people do. It

Caustic Taxxon spit burned and dissolved the rock.

doesn't notice it's tired. It doesn't decide to slow.

I gnawed deep into the shell of the dome, a

It just fades away, like a drained battery.

hole four or more feet across and almost as deep.

I'd lost track of time. Must have been digging

My body felt heavy and ill. And at last I saw a
for over an hour. I pressed on. Eating. Expelling.

flicker of red light.

The dirt tasted good. It wasn't flesh, but it wasn't
bad.

110

111
have multiplied since I'd seen them last. It was
like a bizarre sort of amphitheater. The specta-
tors were the people from town. Some of them I
knew. Like Ms. Powell, my old math teacher, and

Brent Starr, the anchor from the news.

Others were strangers to me. Mothers and fa-
thers. Young kids. Bus drivers. Lawyers. Artists.

C-H--R-PT-E-R S D

Government employees. Everyone, from every walk
of life. All screaming. Burning out their vocal
cords. Tears pouring from eyes. Veins bulging from
foreheads. Sweat coursing from brows.

They wanted to be free! They wanted nothing
more than to be free.

Then I realized that a great number of the
thousand horrors. A crazy, mixed-up hell
caged prisoners weren't crying out. They watched
right here on Earth. A melting pot of enslaved,
the proceedings with distaste, but they didn't
alien races. A sea of two kinds of motion: the
rage with anger. They stood immobile and calm.

slow, deliberate movements of bodies who aren't

I'd seen voluntary hosts before. Voluntary hosts
free, and the wild, desperate spasms of doomed,
enjoyed the show. These weren't voluntary.

caged prisoners.

Who were they? What had happened to these

From my vantage point, the pool itself churned
hosts? It was like they'd passed a point beyond the
directly below. Hard to say how far down. Not more
point of caring. Like they were zombies or some-
than a hundred feet. Then there was the infesta-
thing. But that was impossible. Everyone fights for
tion pier, built out above the slugs. Human after
freedom to the bitter end. Everyone has to!

human cursed or spit or wailed before the Hork-

These hosts had an air about them. They

Bajir forced their head under to accept a Yeerk
stared off into the vast space with a look of. . .

master.

pride? Conviction? They looked almost as if they

The cages that ringed the pool seemed to
had purpose.

112

113

Maybe they were Yeerks from the peace fac-

<How did you get here? The others would
tion? So many of them here? Now? Oh, man, not
never let you walk away from them.>
now . . .

"You don't think they trust me? I'm hurt.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" whispered a female voice

Really."

inches from my head. I jerked against the tunnel

<What did you do to them?>
wall.

"You know me, Andalite. I wouldn't hurt a fly.

It was Taylor. Taylor!

I temporarily incapacitated them, yes. I needed

How did she crawl down the tunnel alone?

to talk to you."

How did she get away from the others?

<We're in,> I said. I began now to broadcast

Who cared?

my thought-speak, hoping the others would hear

Every inch of me wanted to bite her head off.

me, wherever they were.

She was a fleshy meal ready-made. Plus, she was

"I can see that," she mocked. "But I don't care the scum of the universe. Would it be so bad to
right now. I want to talk to you." I stayed quiet. I
get rid of her?

felt sick. It wasn't the Taxxon's problem. It was

I opened my mouth, moved in for the at-
mine. Taylor had me cornered.

tack . . .

"Relax," she continued. "You're shaking like

And was suddenly paralyzed. I couldn't move
one of Visser Three's personal guards. It's just
my mouthparts or upper body. How stupid was I?

me. Remember me?"

She'd zapped me.

<What do you want?> I asked.

"Don't be dumb," she said. "Get control of

"Look down there," she said, glancing at the
your morph."

Yeerk pool. "We are so organized. We run with

Ax had said something about a hibernation
the precision of a Swiss watch. We are invincible.

state. I searched the Taxxon consciousness for a

When I take command, we will reach new heights."

clue. I found it suddenly in a mental vision, an

<What are you talking about? Take command?

image of bodies mounded into an endless moun-

You mean, when you introduce democracy.>
tain. The picture relaxed me. I could feast for-

"Yes, of course that's what I mean," she said,
ever. I didn't have to find food, I had enough
the corners of her mouth turning upward with a
right there.

shocking lack of subtlety. "I want you to join me.

I was in control enough to speak.

I think you know how smart I am. I think you

114

115
know my will to succeed. I want you to cofound

I looked back at the rock face, my nothlit birth-
the new Yeerk society."

place. I'd made a decision. Had I made a bad de-

Suddenly, Taylor's words seemed distant. Be-
cision? I didn't know. And suddenly, I realized that
cause I saw the hidden spot, down by the Yeerk

I would never know. I know that I stuck with my
pool. I saw the place where I had perched as the
choice. And that I had followed it through to the
seconds counted down. The seconds before I be-
very end.

came a nothlit.

I looked at Taylor. For the first time, her phys-

"What do you get as an underling with An-
ical beauty was difficult to see. Her hair and face
dalite bandits?" she went on, her voice seduc-
were covered in dirt. Her expression was the
tive. "You are obviously not a leader. You are not
twisted, power-hungry look of a dictator. The only
even second-in-command. You are a nobody."

thing that could have made her beautiful now

I flashed back to that night at the Yeerk pool.

was her inside. And there certainly wasn't any-

Remembered how carefully I had weighed my op-
thing beautiful there.

tions. Since then I'd been telling myself there

<l'm stronger than that,> I said slowly. <You're
was no choice. That if I'd demorphed, the visser
only out for power and control. That's it. And when
would have been on me in a flash. He would have
you get it — if you get it — you'll only want more.

known that we were human. He would have

I think that power as your only goal is pointless.>
found my friends.

"You don't really believe that," she mocked.

But there is always a choice. In any and every

<Don't l?> I said. <lf I didn't, why would I
situation. It's usually the choice between bad
find you so gross? How would I see that you're
and worse. But it's still a choice.

weak? All you're about is envy and power.>

"Come on," she said again. "Be my host. Of-

She looked at me, then at the pool, then back
fer me your body and you can have anything you
down the tunnel. "And it will be my pleasure,"

want."

she rasped, "to prove you right."

Choice. Traitor or. . .

<Can I have freedom?> I asked.

"It is a kind of freedom," she answered.

<Can I be happy?> I asked.

"It is a kind of happiness," she replied.

116

117

could run just as fast backward. But I wanted my
mouth, my weapon, to be ready.

I called again. <Stop!>

No answer.

I powered my legs like there was a raw T-bone
six inches from my face. With the speed of a
greyhound and the mass of a tree trunk, I skittered
into blackness, after my prey.

My throat and neck were still numb. My tongue
dangled from my mouth like a three-foot leash.

<Hey!> I called to the others. <Taylor's com-
ing back through. Stop her!>

My needle-legs continued to scrape through
the dirt, like the gallop of a hundred tiny horses.

She jabbed her synthetic fist in my still-

<We can't move!> Jake yelled to me. <How
paralyzed throat and left me gagging. Then she
long does this stuff last?>
turned away from the view of the Yeerk pool and

<Not long. Try. Try!>
shot off down the tunnel as fast as human legs

<Here she comes,> Rachel yelled. <Here she
would carry her.

comes!>

<Where are you going?> I choked out. Her

<Get her!>
lantern disappeared from view.

<We can't!>

"You'll know soon enough, Andalite!" she cried.

Whoooomp!

I shed all thoughts of hibernation and sum-

My body burst from the tunnel like a cork
moned the hunger that had been sitting on the
from a bottle. I was in the cavern Ax had carved
edge of my consciousness.

out. I slowed just enough to catch sight of the

I focused on the image of the girl and my legs
others. An Andalite, two wolves, and a bear,
began to scratch and scrape against the rocky
sprawled on the floor like they were taking a nap.

tunnel walls. I squished my body into an impos-

<Go!> Rachel cried.

sible U-shape. I needed to turn around. Sure, I

I crossed the cavern and dove into the tun-

118

119
nel's first half. I knew I was close. I could smell

"Scum!" She was free and running for the
her shampoo.

pipeline. I revved my feet and shot forward.

I was close. Her footfalls thumped the tunnel

"Stop right there!" she cried. "Come an inch
floor. Faint lantern light filled the darkness. Then
closer and I'll blow a hole through this steel."

more.

I froze.

<Stop!> I cried.

<You said that once the tunnel was dug, we'd

"Never!" she screamed.

have twenty minutes to get away.>

I saw Taylor's form, and then I saw beyond

"You believed me?"

her. The sewer chamber was just yards ahead.

<l did and I do,> I lied. <You can't blow a

Her lantern reflected off the pipeline's polished
hole in that pipe because you know. You know
steel.

that if we die in this explosion, you die, t o o

I suddenly knew what she meant to do.

Her lips twisted into the now-familiar fiendish

<No!> I lunged. Missed. I lunged again. Full
smile. Pure Yeerk and proud of it. "Wrong, An-
feeling returned to my mouth.

dalite. You forget that I am not bound to this

"Arghhh!" she cried. I clamped down on her
body. I am the Yeerk inside. And a skull entirely
heel. Not hard enough to sever her foot, but hard
replaced, bone by bone, by heat-proof, blast-
enough for her to feel that I was in control. Shark
proof polymer protects me. This body will burn,
teeth? Bear fangs? Neither comes close to inflict-
but I will survive."

ing the kind of agony a Taxxon inflicts.

I heard movement behind me. I glanced back.

"Worm! Slime! Get off me!" With her real

It was Rachel in the lead, followed by the others.

arm, she punched my face. Only a distraction.

Dragging their still partially paralyzed bodies out

Out of the corner of one eye I saw a flash — her
of the tunnel and into the sewer chamber.

fake arm, her fake fingers.

<Get her!> Rachel cried. <Tobias, get her!>

I released her foot, and twisted the upper

Taylor's smile broadened. She turned toward
third of my body so that it slapped her artificial
the pipeline. She extended her artificial arm.

arm. Paralyzing particulates shot from her fin-

<No!> Rachel yelled.

gers. But not at me. They were wasted, flung at

Taylor blew a hole clean through the metal.

the far wall.

And in an instant, reality changed.

120

121

Fwooooosh!

A pressure wave of natural gas shot from the
pipe. It ripped across the chamber and sent us
tumbling through the air. Taylor. Me. The others.

Tumbling . . .

Straight for the tunnel!

<Ahhhh!>

Taylor blew right past me, propelled by the
gas, a swirl of blond hair and pink flesh.

And she was laughing.

F weeeeWOOOOOOOOS H!

The force of a fire hose. A hurricane.

<Ahhhhhh!>

We were shoved down the tunnel at breakneck
speed. We slapped the sides. Slipped on slime.

Gasped for air.

We were absolutely powerless!

Dirt scratched my tender eyes, blinded me.

Bammm!

I slammed the dirt wall. It knocked the wind
out of me so I couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

<l cannot. . . stop!> Ax exclaimed.

<Grab onto each other,> Jake yelled. <Bite
into each other. Anything!>

<No air!> Rachel gasped.

122

123

The tunnel was narrowing. The Yeerk pool was
circle that glowed like a harvest moon. Coming
near. I was farthest down the tunnel, out in front.

nearer and nearer. It was now. Or it was never.

We were going to fly from a hole in the dome with

<Ahhhhhl> I cried, and dug in what legs I
me in the lead. We were going to burst from the
had left. They punctured the dirt, scraped the
opening. BASE jumpers with no chutes.

stone, snapped like twigs.

We were going to die.

"Skreeeeeeyaaaaaa.'" A shrill scream from

It would end for me where it had all begun. That
the Taxxon. A primal yelp of despair.

cavernous hell. In seconds, we'd be five blobs on

But the legs were slowing me. They were
the pavement, gobbled up by Taxxon guards.

slowing us!

Ba-BAMMM!

Still, the force of the gas, of the others press-

Marco slammed into my rump.

ing against me — I'd explode.' I was a balloon

<Ugh.'>
about to pop. My thin skin was being pushed to

Jake plowed into Marco. Rachel plowed into
the limit. . .

Jake.

But the pressure of the wall was slowing us

KA-bam!

down.

Ax careened into Jake's rib cage, crushing

I felt blood vessels fail, blood course into my
him. Crushing us all.

eyes. My head was even with the Yeerk pool hole.

My legs, dozens of sharp sticks, scraped the

It was all a blur. We inched forward, against our
tunnel sides. I stretched them out as far as they
will. Sheer agony. The march toward death.

would open. Strained to make them catch hold.

<Can . . . not. . . breathe,> Ax whispered.

<Can't breathe!> Marco gasped.

Six inches, five inches, four inches . . .

Acute pain shot to my core. Momentum

Four inches and holding.

snapped off my legs. I was insane to think I

The pressure didn't push us any farther. It
could stop us.' It was like trying to stop a car trav-
eased. And then it disappeared.

eling seventy by opening the door and dragging

No one said anything. I called to them. Their
your foot on the pavement. Not happening.

one-word answers came in gasps. We all needed

But I had a hundred legs. And the tunnel was
air.

narrowing.

<Move, guys. Move.'> I said. <We have to get

<l see light.'> I yelled. There it was. The red
back.> I twisted my massive body up and around

124

125

and only then did I realize that the Taxxon was
less affected by the gas. My alien physiology let
me breathe in the noxious environment.

<Lungs . . . buming!> Jake sighed.

Their bodies, dark forms in the dim, distant
light from the Yeerk pool, straggled lethargically
along the tunnel.

<l can't,> Rachel said slowly.

<You have to!> I said. Marco dropped to
the floor. The others stumbled like drunks. They
weren't going to make it.

The tunnel was slick with Taxxon slime. I de-
cided to use it for the one thing it was good for.

<C'mon!> I roared, then I charged. I plowed
into them and pushed them along. Slowly at first,

We were conscious. We were breathing. We
then faster and faster.

were alive.

My hunger reemerged.

. Barely.

There they were. Four weak, dying animals.

No one needed to say, <Demorph.> No thought

Mine for the feasting. Their smells. Their warmth.

had ever been stronger in my mind.

It was the hardest thing I've ever done.

"The gas is off." Those were the first words

<They're not food,> I chanted. <They're not
out of Jake's mouth when he'd finished demorph-
food.>
ing, the only words anyone managed to form.

The legs I had left were on fire. My hunger

"How?" he whispered. He stood for a minute,
was alive. I slid my friends along the tunnel with
numb and dazed. Incredulous. "How?"

my big Taxxon head.

Silently, we followed Jake up and out of the

<They're not food!> I screamed.

sewer chamber. He began to remorph to pere-

After far too long, the dirt gave way to con-
grine falcon. Marco, Rachel, and Ax followed his
crete. It was the sewer chamber.

lead, went raptor.

We'd made it.

<Let's go,> Jake commanded.

126

127

There was only one place the gas could have
landed on the pavement, morphed Andalite, and
been turned off.

joined the others. We crunched over glass and

The pumping station.

stepped through what was left of the door frame.

I got a funny feeling as we got closer to it.

Moved into the building.

Flashing lights by the doors and on the roof

<Oh, man,> I heard Rachel say. <Oh, man!>
doused the surrounding trees in red. I knew some-

I stepped around her. My rear legs weakened.

thing was up, the way you do when a police car

Then I saw the bodies. Human bodies. Maybe
rockets past you on the street, no sirens, but
half a dozen. Male and female. Suited to look
lights flashing. There was definitely trouble.

like gas company workers.

The others landed behind the bushes where

Sprawled now every which way. They were

Ax and I had morphed earlier. They demorphed,
alive — barely. They'd obviously been on the los-
crouching low as their bodies rose from the earth.

ing end of one very fierce battle. None seemed

And even though I knew they were all exhausted,
conscious.

they slowly morphed again. Battle morphs. We

Yeerk slugs wriggled and writhed helplessly
weren't taking any chances.

on the floor.

The plate glass door was shattered. A thou-

<Who could have done this?> Jake gasped.

sand shards sparkled on the sidewalk.

<l think why is the better questions Marco

<Somebody charged this place,> I said.

added.

<Somebody wild.>

<Taylor,> Rachel said, her voice grim. <But

<Come on. Who'd break into a pumping sta-
no, that's impossible. 'Cause she was with us.

tion? No cash. No goods,> Marco said.

This was her plan and she needed these people.

<Maybe their gas bill was too much to take,>

Visser Three?>

Rachel answered.

I moved forward, stepping carefully over the

The others stole along the perimeter single file,
bodies with my four legs. I heard a police siren
an absurd and unlikely circus troupe. I circled
wail in the distance and I knew. I knew they were
above. No one hiding in the bushes. No snipers
coming here. Maybe real cops. Maybe Controller-
posted on the roof.

cops. It didn't matter. No time either way. We

<Weird,> I said. <l don't see anyone.> I
had to get out.

128

129

But I kept going. I kept going because before
the siren wailed, I'd heard a noise. A sound of
life farther on in the building.

<Tobias, we've gotta get out of here. We're
not going to figure this out,> Rachel said. <At
least not now.>

I didn't turn back. I moved into the guts of
the building, where compressors and pumps that
once hummed smoothly sat silent and immobile.

I followed the sound. There was a door to
what looked like a little office. I peered in.

And then I saw her, sitting with her elbows on
a table, her head in her hands.

Cassie. Crying.

She had turned off the gas and saved our

It was the next day. The sun beat down. And
lives. She had done this.

produced columns of rising hot air. I must have

<Cassie, it's me.> She didn't look up. She
gone twelve minutes without flapping a wing.

didn't move. <Cassie.>

Rachel, too. Nature was giving us a free ride.

With delicate Andalite arms, I tried to lift her

We were way up. So high. You can't even see
from the chair. She stood but was limp in my
prey from that height. But what's cool is that we
arms.

weren't the only birds up there. I guess true

<C'mon, Cassie. We have to get out of here.

hawks need to get away, too, sometimes.

It's okay. Everything's okay.>

Why? I don't know. Maybe they need the per-

Her sobs stopped. Halting half-gasps took
spective. Maybe they need to feel that they're not
their place. She turned in my arms, turned so
tied to the world of their meadow. Maybe they're
that she stood and faced me. Her eyes, red and
pushing the boundaries, seeing how high they
wet, stared up at mine. Salt streaks dried on her
can sail before the air gets too thin.

face.

Or maybejhey don't know why they do any-

"No," she said. "It will never be okay."

thing.

130

131

<The beach?> Rachel called.

"I'm not sure," I said. "Did you talk to Cassie?

<Yeah. How about the cove?> We turned like

Did she tell you what happened?"

fighter planes and pulled out of our ascent. The

"Yeah. Jake took her home last night, but I
trees and hills raced toward us, the ocean frothed
stopped by this morning."

not far beyond.

"Well?"

I thought of the sinkhole where Bobby nearly

"She contacted Tidwell because Jake said
drowned. The dirt flat where his father gripped
she could warn him. While we were digging the
him lovingly.

tunnel, Cassie talked to the Yeerk peace faction.

I spotted the pumping station as we de-

Guess what Tidwell told her?"

scended. It was roped off by caution tape. Still

I raised my eyebrows.

buzzing with cops and investigators.

"Tidwell and all the peacenik Yeerks try to

I thought of the last second in which I'd seen
feed at the same time. They try to show up at the

Taylor, blown through the tunnel, Barbie doll hair

Yeerk pool together so they can exchange infor-
streaming. Her image remained but her voice
mation and make plans."

was gone. Maybe just for now, maybe forever. Too

"We know that," I interrupted.

soon to tell.

"Right. But we didn't know that they'd reor-

The cove is the closest thing to a secret beach
ganized their feeding schedule. We didn't know
that we know about. It's all jutting rocks and
that they'd rescheduled so they'd predominate
twenty-foot drops to the sea, so it's not too popu-
on Saturday afternoons."

lar with the regular beach crowd. You practically

There was a long pause as I calculated just
have to be a bird to get to it.

what that meant.

Rachel demorphed and I morphed to my hu-

"Somehow Visser Three got the news? He was
man self. The sun was warm. The air was salty.

going to kill off all his opposition in one day! The

We were together.

AndaTite bandits. The Yeerk peace faction. Two

"There was no way we could -have known,"

groups, one plan."

she said, sensing my mood, knowing where my

"Yeah. And Cassie thinks he wanted more
mind was. "We were acting on the best informa-
than our lives," she said. "She thinks Visser
tion we had."

Three planned to pin the atrocity on the peace

132

133
faction. That he was going to weaken them by
wouldn t have worried about us. But she did. And
frying all their hosts, then discredit them by
it opened up a course of events that couldn't
making it look like they were responsible for ar-
have occurred otherwise. It ended up saving the
ranging the gas explosion and for engineering

Yeerk peace faction. It was a good investment."

massive loss of Yeerk life."

"Cassie battled a bunch of humans. Alone.

"That sounds like the visser we know and

You're saying that's a good thing?"

love."

"Of course not," Rachel said emphatically.

"And if he sacrificed some innocent Yeerks

"But it was the lesser of two evils."

along the way," Rachel continued, "it would be a

I sat down on a rock slab. The waves crashed.

small price for a plan that would also, thanks to

The wind whipped. Rachel sat down next to me.

Taylor, annihilate us."

Maybe I was weak, but at least I was free. My

"So Taylor was working with Visser Three all
choices were my own. No matter what.

along. She pretended to be against him to get us

Was it over for Taylor? Did she blow through
to cooperate." I took a deep breath over the pain
the hole in the Yeerk pool dome? Lodge in a
in my chest. "After all the clues! All the gut feel-
crevice of the tunnel till the gas pressure died?

ings! I don't believe I didn't see more clearly. I

Catch a crag of rock and hang on? Did she live?

should have looked at the bigger picture . . ."

Would Taylor-the-girl ever live again?

"Hey. No matter what you think, Tobias, Taylor's

Would I ever stop caring?

not your responsibility. Besides, how often is it pos-

"You never really know how some things will
sible to see the big picture, really?" Rachel said.

turn out," I said. A twig blew across the surface

"Things happen fast. You just have to make the
of ayrock, swept along by the wind. I reached out
best decision you can and then go for it. You know
to catch it. Rachel moved to stop it, too. Our
what? I'd do the same thing again, if I had to."

hands collided gently. I took her hand. The twig

"How can you say that?"

blew past us, and fell into a crack.

"With me, it's about instinct. I knew we had

"Yeah," she answered, smiling. "There's no
to dig that tunnel. Turns out I was right, but for
real point in worrying about what you might have
the wrong reasons. If we hadn't gotten involved
done. The past is the past, Tobias. Let it go."

with Taylor, Cassie wouldn't have known about
the plan, wouldn't have talked to Tidwell,

134

135