Текст книги "Animorphs - 06 - The Capture"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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Even in my condition I could see that Ax and Cassie couldn't last. I needed to morph, to join the battle. But I could not seem to do it. The pain ... or maybe the lack of oxygen ... I couldn't concentrate. My brain was fuzzy, drift ing ...

I heard a rumbling, pounding noise from the hallway outside. There were cries and screams of rage. Suddenly, into the room burst a huge black gorilla and a second wolf.

Marco and Rachel.

They had driven the attackers away, but only for a few seconds.

"Jake's hurt," I heard Cassie say. "He fell in the Yeerk pool."

"Marco, grab Jake," Rachel ordered. "Get something to cover his face. Ax, Cassie, keep holding the door. I'm going to change morph. We need more firepower."

I felt myself lifted up off the floor. A white cloth was wrapped around my head. One of the lab coats from an injured Controller, I guessed. I was cradled in the huge arms of a gorilla.

"Rock-a-bye baby," Marco joked. "Hang in there, man. We're getting you out of here." 55 I was still coughing and gasping, but my breathing was at least improving. Not enough to speak, but I could breathe enough to keep from passing out.

At the same time, something had happened to the pain in my head. It was diminishing. And yet, instead of feeling more clearheaded, I felt more confused.

"Get them!" a Controller was yelling outside the door. "Attack. Attack!"

"It doesn't look like I'm gonna fit through this doorway." It was Rachel. "So I guess I'll have to make the door a little bigger."

I caught just a glimpse through the fabric that hid my face. A flash of something huge and gray.

Rachel's elephant morph.

"Rachel?" a voice in my head wondered. The voice was surprised. "A human?" BOOOM! WHUMP! CRRRUUUUNNCH!

"Now the door is plenty big," Rachel said.

Wild screams! Panic! Cries of pain!

I was bounced and slammed against walls and even dropped at one point. I felt us go down a set of stairs. I felt hands grabbing at me and slipping away.

Finally, fresh air. We were running like mad for the shelter of a stand of trees that fronted the hospital.

"Cassie!" Marco said. "You have a horse morph, right? Quick. Before they figure out how to follow us."

I was tossed onto the dirt.

The gorilla peeled back the coat that was over my face. "You alive? Man! That was intense.

That is one hospital that's going to need some redecorating. We're gonna put you on Cassie. Then we'll try to cover your retreat."

"My . . . head ..." I said.

"Headache? No surprise, dude."

"Something . . . wrong ... I can't. . . think."

"Don't worry. Take a break. We have it under control. More or less."

"Unbelievable," said a voice in my head. "Can it be? Humans?" 56 What was that voice? Where was it coming from?

Marco lifted me and slung me over a horse's back. Cassie.

"Cassie? A human, yes. And Rachel? The cousin? Human as well." My hand tried to pull the coat away from my face.

What was happening? There was a voice in side my head.

We were running now, running and running at full gallop, through trees, across lawns, down suburban streets where Cassie's hooves clattered loudly.

We jumped a fence. I flew through the air and landed hard on the dirt.

I felt pain, but it came from far away.

The coat was loose. I looked around. Trees, everywhere. A panting horse standing nearby.

I saw all this, but in a distant way, as if I were watching it all on TV. My eyes moved left, right.

They moved all on their own. Like someone else was focusing them.

Cassie. I tried to say her name. Cassie.

But no sound came from my mouth.

"Don't struggle, Jake, a voice in my head said. It's pointless." What? Who was saying that? What was . . . ?

Then, a laugh only I could hear. "Put that primitive human brain to work, Jake. Jake, the Animorph," it sneered. "Jake, the servant of the Andalite filth!" Then I knew.

I knew what the voice was.

A Yeerk!

A Yeerk in my own head.

I was a Controller.

57 Chapter 15

Very good. You figured it out," said the silent voice in my head, mocking me.

"NO! NO! NO!"

"Jake, are you all right?" Cassie asked. For a moment I thought she had heard me cry out. But no, she was just concerned.

Tobias landed on a branch overhead. "Is he okay?"

"I can't tell. He's alive. He's breathing. But it's like he's zoned out or something. We may have to take him to a doctor."

I wanted to tell them both. To scream "They have me! They are inside me!" But I couldn't make my mouth move. It was like there was a roadblock. Like I could form the thoughts, give the order to my lips and tongue to speak, but the order never got there.

"Struggle all you like, human. Fight me!" the Yeerk gloated. "Go ahead. It won't matter, in the end. I am in your head. I am wrapped around your brain like a living blanket."

"NO!"

"I can read your thoughts. I control your body. I am tapped into your memory. I can read it like a book."

"Get out of my head! No! No!"

"Oh, I don't think I want to do that, Jake. Why would I abandon such an interesting host? So you are the one who has driven Visser Three half-mad with rage. A kid. The midget."

"Midget? How do – "

"You're surprised I know what Tom calls you? Ha ha ha. Oh, the irony really is sweet. Don't you get it, clever Jake? Don't you see what's happened, my little Animorph." Cassie had become human again. She knelt down beside me and looked down into my eyes.

"He's alert. His eyes are tracking. Jake? Jake, can you talk to me?"

It was a nightmare. That's what it was. Another nightmare. I would wake up soon. I would wake up and laugh and laugh.

"I am Temrash one-one-four," the Yeerk said proudly. "Formerly Temrash two-five-two, of the Sulp Niar pool. I have been promoted. No doubt you are happy for me."

"You filthy slug! Get out of my head!"

"Do you know what my last host was? Who it was?" the Yeerk taunted.

58 "Shut up! Shut up! Stop talking to me! Go away." It wasn't real. It couldn't be real!

"It was Tom, of course. Your brother. I am the Yeerk who controlled your brother." That cut through my growing hysteria. "What?"

"Ah, I thought that might interest you. Yes, Tom was my host."

"Then . . . he's . . ."

"Free? Ha ha ha." The Yeerk laughed in my head. "You're even stupider than your brother. No, your brother's body has been given to a new Yeerk. Someone with a lower rank. I am too important now to be wasted on Tom. I am to take on a new and important project. A very special host."

"The governor!"

"Jake," Tobias tried thought-speaking to me. "lf you can hear me, move your hand."

"Well, well. Not a complete idiot, are you?" the Yeerk said. "Yes. I was to be given the most important post on this planet. But this is better still. Visser Three is very determined to catch you and your friends. He will be surprised to learn that you are human."

"I'll never tell you who the – "

"The others? You mean, Cassie, Marco, Rachel? Tobias, who's sitting in the tree over our heads?

And of course the one remaining Andalite, Aximili Esgarrouth Isthill?"

"We have to get him to a doctor," Cassie told Tobias.

Just then, Marco arrived. He was fully human again. He was dressed in his morph clothes and walking gingerly without shoes. "Doctor? He needs a doctor? What's the matter with him?"

"Nothing is the matter with me," I said, quite suddenly. "I'm fine."

Only I didn't say it. My mouth spoke the words. But I didn't say it.

The Yeerk had spoken through my mouth.

"No way," Cassie said. "We're taking you to a doctor. You didn't answer me for like five min utes. Maybe you have a concussion."

My body sat up. "Sorry I scared you, Cassie. But I'm fine. And where are you going to take me?

Back to that hospital? What if some doctor does a blood test and he sees something that shows him I'm an Animorph?"

"Like what?" Marco asked, sounding skeptical.59 "How do I know? Maybe some leftover roach DNA. Look, I'm fine, okay?"

"I'm going back up," Tobias said. "Make sure no one is after us, and see if Rachel and Ax are okay." He flapped his wings and flew away through the trees.

"As soon as we know Rachel and Ax are safe, we need to break up and go our separate ways,"

my mouth said.

The Yeerk was considering his next move. I could not "hear" his thoughts. But I could feel him using my brain. He was digging through my memory. Trying to learn quickly about the others.

He was using my brain. Using me.

I had to do something quick. Something to warn Cassie and Marco. Surely they would guess what was happening. They were the two people in the whole world who were closest to me.

Surely they would realize that I was no longer myself.

Wouldn't they?

"I don't think there's all that much the Yeerks can do right now," Marco said to Cassie. "We're deep in the national forest. It would take a while for them to organize a search. They'd need helicopters and lots of human-Controllers. And they don't even know what they're looking for."

He laughed. "After all, they still think we're Andalites."

"Yeah, but it means we're going to have to be very careful with Ax," my mouth said. "We'll need to hide him. I think we may have parboiled quite a few Yeerks in that whirlpool. They're going to be very upset."

It was incredible. It was shocking to listen to. The Yeerk was using my voice. My inflection. He was saying the words I would have said.

Marco and Cassie would never guess. As far as they could see or hear, the Yeerk in my brain was me.

"Yes, little human," the Yeerk sneered silently. "Your body is my home now. Mine. Body and mind, under my control. Forget resistance. It is futile. No host has ever overpowered a Yeerk. It is impossible."

I felt a dark wave of terror wash over me. He was telling the truth. I knew he was. No host had ever defeated a Yeerk.

Resistance was futile.

Futile.

60 I would never be free. Just like Tom. If this Yeerk moved on, they would give me to another. I was a slave.

Forever.

There was a noise behind me. Footsteps on the pine needles and leaves. At the same time, Tobias came swooping down to land on a nearby branch.

I turned around. Rachel.

"Hey, cousin," I said. "I see you made it okay."

Then, a touch on my shoulder.

I spun suddenly. I hadn't heard anyone else arriving.

Ax! Just behind me. His Andalite face close to mine. His big eyes watching me.

And in that split second, hatred revealed itself. A hatred that had crossed light years of space to play itself out on planet Earth.

"Andalite!" the Yeerk hissed silently. And in that one word I heard the same fury and contempt I heard whenever Ax said the word "Yeerk."

Only I heard it. The Yeerk did not say a thing.

But surprised, unaware, unprepared, he did curl my lip in an instinctive expression of revulsion.

It was a small thing. It lasted only a second. And then the Yeerk was using my mouth to say, "Hey, Ax. You did great back there when – "

In a movement too fast for me to see, Ax whipped his tail forward. In the blink of an eye, his scythe blade was leveled a quarter-inch from my throat.

"Yeerk!" he said.

61 Chapter 16

"Ax! What are you doing?" Cassie demanded.

"Are you NUTS?" Marco cried.

"What's your problem, Ax?" my voice asked the Andalite.

But he did not waver. And he did not pull that deadly tail away from my throat. "Prince Jake has been taken. He is a Controller."

"What?" Rachel snapped. "Back off, Ax. You're crazy."

"His head was in the Yeerk pool long enough for a Yeerk to enter his head," Ax said. "And just now . . . you all saw his expression when he was surprised to see me. I am not human. I do not know every human expression. So tell me. What was that look?"

"This is crazy." The Yeerk tried a disbelieving laugh. "Marco . . . Cassie . . . would you please tell this nut that I am okay?"

But I saw doubt in Marco's shrewd eyes. "Yeah, I'm sure you're fine, Jake. But Cassie? Didn't you say Jake seemed zoned out? Like he wouldn't answer for a few minutes, even though he was awake?"

Cassie nodded her head. She, too, was looking suspicious. "Yeah. He seemed normal and all, but he wouldn't answer me." She shrugged. "Sorry, Jake, but you did act funny."

"It takes a while for the Yeerk to take full control of the host brain," Ax said. "During that time the host will be passive. He may even seem to be in a coma."

I swear, I could have kissed the Andalite right then. I wanted to yell "Yes! Yes!"

"You guys can't possibly believe this," my mouth said. "I mean, okay, we have to be careful. But it's me. It's me, Jake, all right?"

"Being Jake and all, you'll understand if we take a minute to think this through," Rachel said.

"Ax? How are we supposed to know one way or the other?"

Tobias answered for him. "The Yeerk needs to return to the Yeerk pool and absorb Kandrona rays every three days. If we hold him for three days, we'll know." Now I felt just the slightest edge of fear from the Yeerk. He was measuring the odds. Trying to decide what to do. But with Ax's tail blade at my throat, the Yeerk kept my body very still.

"We can't hold him for three days," Cassie argued. "His family would go ballistic. They'll call the cops. Chapman will realize he's not in school. The bad guys will put two and two together."

"Look. Hello. Hello-o-o? It's me, Jake. Remember? I am not a Controller."

62 Marco shook his head. "If he is ... if there's a Yeerk in his head, then he knows all our secrets. If he gets in touch with any other Yeerk, we are all dead. We can't take the chance. Maybe Ax is right. Maybe not.

But we can't guess wrong."

"I agree," Tobias said. "lf he's still Jake, he'll understand. If he's a Controller, well, I guess we'll find out, won't we?"

"Rachel?" Marco asked.

Rachel met my gaze. "Sorry, Jake. But we have to play it safe. You know that."

"Look," I argued. "It's like Cassie said. My folks will go nuts. They'll call the police. They'll go on TV asking if anyone has seen me. They'll be putting up posters all over town. I mean, no offense, Tobias, but I have an actual family, not some messed-up aunts and uncles who didn't want to be taking care of me in the first place. People will notice if I disappear." I turned to Cassie. "Cassie, come on. Explain it to them."

Come on, Cassie, I thought. Come on, be hard for once. Don't feel for me. Don't be sweet, just this once.

"There is a way," Cassie said hesitantly.

"To be sure whether he's a Controller?" Rachel asked.

"No," Cassie said. Her voice grew stronger. "A way to keep his family and the school from knowing he's gone. Ax could do it. Ax could morph into Jake."

Cassie. The amazing Cassie. She had hit on the one possible solution. I wished so badly I could tell her right then what an amazingly smart, incredibly cool person she was.

The Yeerk in my head was not happy.

"What's the matter, Temrash one-one-four of the Sulp Niar pool?" I asked. "Not feeling quite so cocky anymore?"

Ax reached one of his delicate, many-fingered hands toward my face. He pressed his fingers against my forehead.

"I will acquire your DNA now Prince Jake," he said.

The Yeerk could not stand it anymore. The Andalite's touch made him so furious it was like a physical illness.

"Get your hand off me, Andalite filth!" he screamed aloud in a distorted version of my voice.

63 But Ax's tail was still within an inch of my jugular. And the Yeerk knew very well how deadly fast that tail was. He did not move.

The others all stared, wide-eyed.

"Well," Rachel said. "At least now we're sure."

"No, you're wrong," my voice pleaded. "He's just making me mad. Hey, it's been a stressful morning, all right? Give me a break."

"'Andalite filth'?" Tobias repeated the Yeerk's words. "We're supposed to believe Jake would say that? Jake? Because he was stressed out? Nah. Not in this universe."

"Jake," Cassie said, looking into my eyes. "I know you're still in there. I know you're probably afraid. But we will get that thing out of your head, Jake. We will."

Okay ," Marco said. "We need a place to keep him."

"We can't use anyone's home," Cassie said, thinking aloud. "We can't use my barn. My dad is in and out of there constantly."

"I know a place," Tobias said. "It's not far from here. An old shack back in the woods."

"We can tie him up," Rachel said. "But we'll still have to have at least one of us there all the time, to make sure he doesn't get away."

"I cannot help very much," Ax said. "l will be pretending to be Jake."

"Okay," Marco said, "then the rest of us, Cassie, Rachel, and I, will rotate shifts, along with Tobias. Tobias can stay the whole time, except when he has to go hunting."

"Okay, let's go," Rachel said. "Come on, Jake. Get up. We're out of here."

Cassie came over and gave me her hand. She helped pull me to my feet.

It was an odd moment, because I could feel Cassie's touch. And yet I had no power to squeeze her hand, or give her any assurance.

The Yeerk did that for me. He deliberately held her hand an extra few seconds.

"She cares for you," the Yeerk said. "She is their weak link. Rachel will be strong. So will the hawk and the Andalite. But Marco ... he thinks too much. And he has an interesting history. He is open to persuasion."

I felt sick. The Yeerk was opening my mind at will. Reading whatever he wanted. I had no secrets from him. None. He already knew everything I knew about my friends. If he got away . . .

My feet began walking. Tobias led the way, appearing and disappearing in the trees above.

64 Rachel walked ahead of me. Behind me, Marco and Ax. Cassie stayed at my side.

"From all we know, Jake, you can still hear me and understand me," Cassie said. "I know you can't answer. Or if you do answer it won't be you, anyway – "

"But it is me," said the Yeerk. "Who else would it be?"

"The Yeerk," Cassie said calmly.

"You think I'm a Controller just because I yelled at Ax? Like I've never lost my temper be fore?

Come on. It was a bad day. For all of us, but especially for me."

"Not so bad a day," Ax piped up from behind. "How many Yeerks were in that pool? How many survived those temperatures? Only you, by getting inside Prince Jake. How many of your pool-fellows died today?"

I could feel the Yeerk boiling with rage. It was shocking and bizarre to feel so much emotion. It was something he could not hide from me. I could feel his emotions, even though I could not penetrate his thoughts.

"Ax," the Yeerk said, "I'm never happy when any creature has to be destroyed. But I don't feel any pity for those Yeerks. They are out to enslave us. We did what we had to do."

It was perfect. Exactly what I would have said. Because it was exactly what I felt.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cassie looking at me with a puzzled expression.

"See? Already she has doubts," the Yeerk said to me. "She is bothered by the Andalite's bloodthirstiness. She liked what I said more."

Was he right? Would all of my friends stand firm? How could they, when every word I spoke sounded exactly like me?

We marched through the woods for what seemed like a very long time. None of us could move very fast because we were without shoes. Tobias knew these woods well and led us around brambles and rough patches, but still, my feet were tender after an hour of walking on pine needles and twigs.

But the pain was so far away. ... I was feel ing it from a distance. It was like I was shackled.

Chained to a wall. I could not move a hand, or even a finger. I did not blink my own eyes. I did not decide which direction to look, or what sounds to focus on.

The Yeerk's control was absolute.

"Almost there," Tobias said. "I'm going higher to make sure the area is completely clear." 65 "All this walking. Such a waste of effort," the Yeerk commented to me. "They cannot possibly hold me against my will. Not even for three hours, let alone three days."

"You heard Tobias, right, Jake?" Cassie asked. "Almost there. It's a good thing. My feet are killing me. I need to walk barefoot more often. Like I did when I was little. Toughen up, for times like these. Getting home will be easier. I can just use my osprey morph and fly home."

"Cassie, listen," the Yeerk said. "I know you guys think you're doing the right thing. But there's no way Ax can pull off being me. My parents will figure it out. Or worse yet, Tom will figure it out. Then we'll all be dead. Don't you see what's happening here?"

"Shut up, Yeerk," Rachel snapped. "I've known Jake all my life. Marco has known him since they were kids. And Cassie has known him for years. Between the three of us, we can teach Ax to pass for Jake."

"It will never work," the Yeerk said.

Rachel stopped walking. She turned to face me, blocking the way. She was smirking, but she seemed to be looking past me, over my shoulder. "No? You don't think so, Yeerk?"

The Yeerk stopped walking. "Rachel, you don't have to try and impress me with how tough you are. I know you're too smart to really believe any of this. And you know as well as I do, this is not going to work."

"I disagree," a voice behind me said. "Humans believe what they see."

The Yeerk whipped my head around.

There, standing a few feet from me was . , . me.

Totally, absolutely, me.

66 Chapter 17

Tie was a perfect copy of me. Like looking in a mirror.

"I morphed a while back," Ax said. "I've been watching the way you walk and move. To copy you better. Ter. Bet. Ter."

The Yeerk grinned. "You may look like me, but that isn't going to be enough. I give it an hour before Tom figures it out."

Marco looked at Rachel and cocked an eyebrow. Rachel looked at Cassie, who sighed and nodded her head.

"See, that was a stupid way to play it, Yeerk," Marco said. "If you really were Jake, you might be frustrated that we wrongly suspected you. But you'd figure the smart thing would be to help Ax play the role. If you were you, so to speak, you'd have to hope Ax pulled it off."

Rachel curled her lip contemptuously. "You just blew final Jeopardy. You're still trying to make us let you go. By now Jake would have realized he had to help us succeed."

The Yeerk said nothing. I think he knew he'd made an error. But I still sensed absolute confidence from him. Like a poker player holding an extra ace.

We reached the shack. It was a depressing, half-fallen-down mess with a wood floor and log walls and a roof that only covered half the place.

There was a bird's nest of some type in the rafters. Bushes had grown in through a hole in one wall. There were beer cans and soda cans strewn around, but they all looked pretty old. Nothing recent.

Tobias had chosen well. We would probably be left alone for the three days.

Tobias, with his laser vision, had found a few feet of rope in an old campground. He flew back with it in his talons and Marco and Rachel tied my hands behind my back.

"Sorry, Jake," Marco said. "But that's the way it is. If you're still in there, you understand."

"We'll loosen the rope every couple of hours so the circulation isn't cut off," Rachel said. "I'll be here for the first shift. Cassie and Marco are going back with Ax, to get him prepared to play you." She smiled. "He already has the serious, responsible-sounding thing down. They just need to give him a sense of humor and stop him from playing with every sound he says."

It sounded fairly good to me. But I was nervous that only two of them would be around to guard me.

Of course, one of those two was Tobias. I could never run fast enough to hide from him. And Rachel could morph into a wolf and run me down.

67 But it bothered me that the Yeerk in my head had not lost his cockiness.

In fact, he was reveling in a fantasy of promotions and power. "Within a few hours I will be back with my kind. I will personally tell Visser Three all I know. It will be the end of your little band. The end! Visser Three will promote me again. It will be the fastest series of promotions ever. I'm already in the one-hundreds. I could rise to the nineties. I will be an Under-Visser. In a few of your years, who knows? I could be a Visser!"

But it was more than just talk. I could see the pictures, too. The images his mind conjured up.

They were sketchy, but I saw Visser Three nodding his head as my Yeerk, still in my body, showed him my friends. They were all bound and gagged and lying helpless on the floor of Visser Three's Blade ship.

Why was I seeing this? The Yeerk was able to shield his other thoughts. Was this fantasy too emotional for him to hide from me? Or was he actually showing off for my benefit?

"Do you have these fantasies a lot?" I said, as cruelly as I could.

"You want to laugh at my fantasies? Shall I delve into a few of yours? Let's see what's hidden deep in your brain, human."

And then, to my horror, I was no longer in the cabin. It was a bright, huge gymnasium. But not exactly a gym. A sports arena. Yes. With thousands and thousands of fans.

I felt like crawling away. I knew this fantasy. It was kind of lame, I guess. But I could not escape. The Yeerk could play my fantasies as easily as sticking a cassette into a VCR.

In my fantasy people were cheering. And there I was. In a pro uniform. I was older. But I still looked pretty much like myself.

The game clock was at five seconds. Four. Three. I set up and took an incredible three-point shot from mid-court.

Swish!

The stadium went crazy! Cheering. Horns sounding. People chanting my name.

And there was Cassie, in the stands. Smiling at me. She was sitting with my parents.

And there was Tom.

He walked out onto the court and threw his arms around me. He patted me on the back.

"Great game," he said. "As usual."

End of fantasy. The images disappeared.

68 I felt very small suddenly. Very unimportant. Very weak.

"Ah, yes," the Yeerk said, and laughed. "It shocks you that I can play your thoughts back for you. Your brain is no different to me than one of your primitive human computers. I open any file I like. I play any software. I use you. I own you. I dominate you. You are nothing anymore.

Just an echo. Just a ghost haunting the machine of your own brain!"

"Yeah?" I managed to say. "Well, you're a screw-up who is tied up in a cabin in the woods. In three days, you're dead."

"I won't be here three days," he said.

"You'll be here, far from your stinking Yeerk pool. No Kandrona rays. And you'll shrivel and die and crawl out of me." I had been calm. But then, I lost control. "You'll die! You'll die like the others died! You think you'll win? You'll lose! You'll LOSE! You can't control me! You can't control me! You can't control me!"

"Oh?" the Yeerk asked with silky menace. "That's just what your brother said. At first. Shall I show you? Shall I play one of Tom's memories for you? I can feel you cringe. I can feel your fear. Yes. Yes, I will. Here, enjoy a preview of your future."

It was as if a third mind had joined us. It was real. So completely real. Not like a vision or a movie or something. I felt this. I felt it exactly as if I were there.

My brother's mind. His thoughts. His memories, as clear as if I were seeing them myself. Tom . .

. some piece of Tom that the Yeerk still carried with him . . .

It was from just a few days earlier.

He was sitting at the breakfast table, across from me. I saw myself through his eyes. I looked . . .

distant. Distracted. Preoccupied.

"Hey, midget. What's up?" he asked me.

"Not much. How about you?"

"Oh, I'm going to a meeting."

"The Sharing?" I asked him.

"Yeah. We're doing some cleanup in the park. You know, do our part for the community and all.

Then we're having a barbecue afterward. You really should join, you know. We'd get to spend more time together."

It was just as I remembered it. Except that now, I felt Tom's emotions, not mine.

The real Tom. The true Tom who was crushed beneath the Yeerk's control.

69 He was crying. Sobbing, helplessly, silently.

"Not Jake," he cried. "Leave Jake alone. Leave my brother alone. I'll . . . look, I'll never trouble you again. I swear it. Just leave Jake alone."

The Yeerk waited while the full impact of direct contact with Tom's mind sank into my own.

Tom was defeated. Desperate. He spent his time wishing he could die.

He had given up any hope of escape. Given up.

"That's how it always is," the Yeerk said. "At first the host fights, or at least tries. But hour after hour and day after day they see that they cannot rule their own bodies. The host sees that no-one even knows what has happened to him. No one knows he is lost in his own head. And, over time, hope dies. The host becomes a faint, shattered creature. Like your brother." The Yeerk was telling the truth. That was what made it so terrible. It was true. I could feel Tom's complete, utter despair.

I could feel that he had accepted defeat.

I knew that all he wished for now was an end.

And I knew, also, that I was no stronger than Tom.

But still, one hope lingered in me. "Three days," I told the Yeerk. "In three days you will die."

"Wait and see, human. Just wait and see."

70 Chapter 18

I found out very late that first night why the Yeerk was so confident.

Rachel was keeping guard. Tobias was nearby in a tree.

They had brought food – some sandwiches and some juice, which "I" had eaten. Then, as Rachel sat nearby, reading a book by the light of a flashlight, the Yeerk pretended to sleep.

I guess in a way I did actually sleep. I was mentally exhausted. I was weary and depressed. More tired than I have ever been in my life. And yet afraid that if I dreamed, the Yeerk would watch my dreams.

My fear was justified. I did dream. The same dream I'd had before.

I was the tiger. Tom was my prey.

We were in the dark, deep woods, and I was hunting him with all my tiger skill. He was stumbling and noisy and weak.

I knew I would take him.

At last, too tired to run any further, Tom fell. He waited, helpless, while I gathered the power of my tiger body and prepared to leap . . .

And then, I was no longer the tiger. I was my own prey. I watched through eyes wide with terror as the tiger sprang.

I woke up. My eyes were already open.

"Interesting dream," the Yeerk said. "Very metaphorical." I looked out through the eyes the Yeerk had opened. Rachel was still sitting back against the wall. Her book was open on her lap. But her breathing was heavy and regular. Her eyes were closed.

She had fallen asleep!

Her flashlight was still on. It shone across the rough wood floor. It illuminated my right arm and leg.