Текст книги "Animorphs - 03 - The Encounter"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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"Gurrawwwrr!" the Hork-Bajir yelled. He clutched at his eyes.

The human was up and running again.

"Gurr gafrasch! To me! Getting away! Hilch nahurrn!",the Hork-Bajir yelled, in the strange combination of human and alien speech that they use when working with humans.

He was calling for help. I used my momentum to soar up over the tops of the trees. He had plenty of help available. Another Hork-Bajir about a thousand yards off. And two of the bogus Park Rangers were nearer.

It was all coming back to me. The fake Park Rangers. The Hork-Bajir enforcers. This was the lake. A Yeerk supply ship must be on its way in.

Yeerks. Andalites.

My friends, the Animorphs.

Yes, my friends. I remembered now. But this human was not one of them. This human prey was older. A stranger.

The freed hawk was watching me. I could almost feel her drawing me toward her. It was like a magnet. She was my kind. She was like me.

But the Park Rangers were in hot pursuit of the human now. The human was nothing like me.

Poor, clumsy ground runner that he was. He was just prey.

And yet, for some reason, I couldn't let him be prey.

I couldn't. Me.

Tobias.

53 CHAPTER 17

I landed on the perch outside Rachel's window. It was night. But she wasn't asleep. She was reading a book in bed, propped up by several pillows.

I fluttered a wing against the glass.

"Rachel?"

She started. The book went flying. She jumped up and ran to the window, throwing it open.

"Tobias?"

"More or less," I said wryly.

She started to hug me, to put her arms around me. But then she realized that wasn't possible.

Birds aren't exactly made for hugging.

"Are you okay? We've all been terrified. Cassie said maybe you were killed or something.

There are all kinds of things that can happen. Jake is so depressed."

"I'm okay," I said. I flapped over to her dresser.

Now that she was sure I was safe, she started getting mad. It made me smile inwardly. That was Rachel for you.

"Tobias, what is the deal with you? Why would you just disappear and leave us all worrying for days?"

"It's hard to explain," I said. "I guess . . . the hawk sort of won out over me. Not that it's really that way. I mean, the hawk instincts . . . they're strong." I told her about my first kill.

About how much it horrified me.

I don't know how I expected her to react. She tried to look sympathetic, but I could see it bothered her.

"I lost control," I admitted. "For the last couple of days I've been living like a hawk. All the way, like a hawk. I think I was starting to forget . . . me. I was starting to lose touch with humans. Then something happened"

"What?" She went to check her door and make sure neither of her sisters was nearby. I could hear that the house was quiet. "What happened?"

I told her about going to the lake. I told her about the guy being chased by Hork-Bajir.

"Fortunately, I can see the terrain better than the Hork-Bajir or those human-Controller Park Rangers. I led him away from them. I told him when to hide and when to run."

"You talked to him?"

"I thought-spoke, yes. There was no alternative. I couldn't let them catch him. He had seen a Hork-Bajir. They would never have let him 54 Rachel looked stunned. "But now he knows about you! And he knows about the Hork-Bajir."

"What's he going to do? Go tell people he was chased through the woods by an alien monster, and rescued by a telepathic bird?"

Rachel laughed. "Yeah, good point. People would just think he was insane. Besides, if he started talking openly about the Yeerks, they would find him and silence him."

"Exactly what I explained to him. I think he'll probably keep quiet. He'll try to forget it ever happened."

"You saved him," Rachel said.

"I almost didn't," I admitted. "At first I just saw another predator and his prey. No different from watching the owls at night. No different from what I do myself. Kill to eat." Rachel thought about that for a moment. "The Yeerks and their slaves aren't killing to eat,"

she said. "They are killing to control and dominate. Killing because it's the only way you can eat, because that's the way nature designed you, that's one thing. Killing because you want power or control is evil."

"I guess you're right," I said. "I hadn't thought about it that way."

"What you did . . . eating . . . you know, whatever. Well, that's natural for the hawk. Nothing a Hork-Bajir does is natural. They aren't even in control of their own bodies or minds. They are tools of the Yeerks. And the Yeerks only want power and domination."

"I know," I said. But I wasn't totally convinced. Still, it was comforting to be talking to Rachel.

"You are human, Tobias," she told me softly.

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Sometimes I just feel so trapped. I want to move my fingers, but I don't have any. I want to speak out loud, but I have a mouth that's only good for ripping and tearing."

Rachel looked like she might start crying. It was alarming to me, because Rachel isn't a girl who bursts out in tears, ever.

"Anyway, look, I'm sorry I ruined your exhibition at the mall the other day." She smiled. "What do you mean? It was perfect. I was just starting my routine, and you know how much I hate to have to do public shows like that. You put an end to the whole thing real fast."

I laughed silently. "I can imagine. I hope no one was hurt by the falling glass."

"No, everyone was fine. But what were you going to do if Marco had missed with that baseball? You would have hit the glass awfully hard."

55 I didn't know what to say.

Rachel came closer and stroked my crest with her hand. It made the hawk in me uncomfortable. But at the same time, it was similar to preening, which is kind of pleasurable.

"What I told you the other day, Tobias . . . remember? You're not lost as long as you have Jake and Cassie and me. Even Marco. He came through for you, big time. We're your friends.

You're not alone."

I think I would have cried then. But hawks can't cry.

"And someday, the Andalites will come. . . ."

"Someday," I said, trying to sound confident. "Well, I better go see Jake. The mission is supposed to begin tomorrows "We don't have to go through with that," Rachel said.

"Yes, we do," I said. "More than ever, I understand that. See . . . there are human beings all over, trapped in bodies controlled by Yeerks. Trapped. Unable to escape. Rachel, I know how they feel. Maybe I can't escape. Maybe I am trapped forever. But if we can free some of those others. Maybe . . . I don't know. Maybe that's what I need to do to stay human." 56 CHAPTER 18

The next day, we went ahead with the mission. I flew cover overhead while four gray wolves ran beneath me. We timed it so we would arrive in the area very early in the morning, many hours before the Yeerks would arrive to hunt intruders.

"So, let me get this straight, Tobias," Marco said. "You're taking us to a bear cave? As in big grizzly bears? And this is a good thing?"

"Not grizzlies," Cassie interrupted. "Not in this area. We'd be talking black bears. They're much smaller."

"Swell. I am totally reassured. Just a small bear cave."

"The bears are long gone," I said. "There are just a few bears around, and this cave is empty.

Trust me. I spied it out yesterday. I've seen raccoons and skunks running in and out of there.

They wouldn't be doing that if there were bears."

"Excuse me. Jake? Did Tobias just say 'skunks'? I must have heard wrong, because only an idiot would think hanging out with skunks is a good idea."

"We're not going to hang out with skunks," Jake said patiently.

"The skunks don't live there," I said. "They just run in there to get away from predators." I didn't have to explain any more. I think everyone guessed how I knew that skunks ran in there to get away from predators.

"Look, it's close to the lake but I don't think the Yeerks know about it," I said. "Sorry, but there wasn't a convenient Marriott hotel where I could get you a room for the night."

"So, that means no room service, either?" Marco asked. "Well, okay. As long as this cave gets cable. The big game's on ESPN tonight."

I was carrying a tiny nylon pouch that Rachel had put together. It was tan in color, so a casual observer wouldn't notice it and wonder why a red-tail hawk was carrying luggage.

In the sack was a small watch. It weighed almost nothing. There were also some fish hooks, fishing line, and a small lighter. All together it only weighed about two ounces. But it did slow me down a little.

We reached the cave with plenty of time to spare on the two-hour deadline.

"Oh, this looks lovely," Marco said, looking at the thorns and a scrub brush around the cave entrance.

"I haven't really been inside," I admitted.

I landed outside the entrance. The opening to the cave was no more than two feet across and about four feet high. It was easy for Jake and Rachel, in their wolf morphs, to leap nimbly through. Unless there really was a bear inside, they would scare off whatever might be in there.

57 "Empty," Rachel reported. "Nothing in here but a couple of spiders and a scared mouse." I decided to try a joke. "Chase him out here. I'm hungry." Only Marco laughed. The others all acted like I'd said something embarrassing. Maybe I had.

"Let's morph back," Marco suggested. "One close call with being trapped as a wolf is plenty for me."

"I'll go look around," I said. Sometimes I didn't like being there when they morphed.

A few minutes later they all came out. Marco was complaining, as usual. "You know, we really have to figure out how to deal with the shoe situation," he muttered. "Thorns and no shoes. Not a good combination."

The four of them were barefoot and dressed only in their morphing outfits: leotards for the girls, bike shorts and tight T-shirts for Jake and Marco.

"We need to gather firewood," Jake said, with his hands on his hips. "It wouldn't hurt to warm that cave up a little before the Yeerks get here."

"Don't you love it when Jake's all masterful like that?" Rachel teased.

"I'm just trying to get us organized," Jake said defensively.

"We'd better get started fishing," Cassie pointed out. "If we don't catch a fish, we're pretty much wasting our time."

The plan was to morph into fish to enter the Yeerk ship's water pipes. Of course, in order to morph into something, you first have to "acquire" it. Which means being able to touch it.

"Shouldn't be any big problem," Jake said confidently.

"Uh-huh," Cassie said dryly. "And how many times have you gone fishing?"

"Counting this time? Once." He laughed.

Cassie rolled her eyes. "Typical suburban boy," she said affectionately. "It isn't all that easy."

"Then you guys better get started," I advised. "I'll go look around."

"Take care of yourself, Tobias," Rachel called out as I took wing.

I watched from on high as they made one failed attempt after another to convince a fish to bite one of our hooks.

It seemed ridiculous, but the entire plan was hanging on the question of whether or not we could catch a fish. And time was running out. The day wore on. Still no fish.

58 Jake was getting edgy. Rachel was downright cranky. And Marco? Forget Marco. "This is ridiculous!" he raged. "We're four – I mean, five – fairly intelligent human beings. And we can't outsmart one fish that probably has an IQ of four?"

Cassie was the only one remaining calm. "Fishing is a matter of skill and luck," she said placidly. "A smart fisherman learns not to become frustrated."

Jake looked at the little watch we'd brought along. "From what we know, the Yeerks will start arriving in an hour to clear the area."

Rachel nodded. "Even if we catch a fish now, we won't have time to test the morph."

"Maybe we should back off for today," I suggested. "You really ought to test out the fish morph. You guys all know how much trouble a morph can be at first." Jake shook his head firmly. "I don't think so, Tobias. We'd have to wait till we had another day off. Tomorrow's no good because I have stuff with my parents. So does Marco. Which means we'd have to wait a whole week."

"So we try again next weekend. What's the hurry?"

"The hurry is that the Yeerks can't keep coming to this same lake forever. Sooner or later the level of the water will start dropping, from them taking so much. They must use one lake for a while, then move on to another. It could take forever for us to find where they move to next."

It made sense. But that didn't make me feel any better about it.

"This is the first water animal any of us have morphed. You don't have any idea what it's going to be like."

"I know," Jake snapped. "Look, Tobias, I know it's not exactly ideal."

"Hah!" Cassie yelped. She yanked at the line she was holding. "I believe we may have a fishy."

It took just a few seconds to haul in the fish.

"Trout," she said, looking it over as it flopped in the shallow water. The hook was poked through its lip. It was about ten inches long, not very big.

The four of them stared blankly at it.

"We have to become that?" Marco asked.

"It's a fish," Cassie said. "What did you expect?"

Marco shrugged. "I don't know. Something more like Jaws. This is just a fish. I mean, we could clean him and eat him with a little lemon juice. Maybe some fries on the side."

The others turned and gave him a dirty look.

59 Cassie reached down into the water and took hold of the squirmy gray thing. She concentrated. Her eyes closed halfway. She was acquiring it. The fish DNA was being absorbed into Cassie's body.

The gift of the Andalite. The curse of the Andalite – the power to morph.

60 CHAPTER 19

"I don't like this plan," I blurted.

Jake looked up at me in surprise. "Tobias, you were in on the planning right from the start."

"Look, don't you guys realize how dangerous this could be?"

"I realize," Marco said. "I realize it plenty. But I thought you were the big, gung-ho Yeerk-killer. Suddenly now you're afraid?"

"I'm not afraid for me," I said. "I'll be flying around safely while the four of you go up into that ship."

Cassie nodded. "It's hard standing by while someone else is risking their life," she said. "I understand how you feel. But there have been times when you were the one taking the risks."

"Look, we don't have time to debate this," Jake said. "We have a plan we've all agreed to.

Let's get on with it before the Yeerks show up." Jake gets peevish when someone questions things after everything has already been decided. Usually it's Marco getting on his nerves.

"We'll be okay," Rachel said confidently. Rachel took the fish in her hand. The fish went limp, as usual, while the acquiring was happening.

Suddenly I couldn't watch anymore. I'd just had a flash of memory, watching the four of them straining to get out of their wolf bodies. What if they were trapped in fish morph?

The idea of being trapped was still not something any of them really understood. I mean, they knew it had happened to me. But people are funny – they never think something bad will happen to them. I knew it could happen.

And to be trapped as a fish? It made me sick just thinking about it. The rest of your life in the body of a fish? Being trapped in a hawk's body seemed downright pleasant by comparison.

"I'm going to go upstairs and see if anyone's coming," I said. I caught a small breeze and flapped hard to clear the treetops.

It was tough work gaining enough altitude to get a good view of the area. It was mostly dead air all around. But I was glad for the workout. It took my mind off imagining what life would be like if my only friends in the world were trapped as fish in a mountain lake.

I would have laughed if it weren't so serious. I mean, come on, how many kids have to worry about all their friends becoming fish? Life had definitely gotten strange since that night when we saw the Andalite landing in the construction site.

I circled higher and higher till I could see the entire lake and most of the surrounding area.

No Park Rangers. Yet. I wondered if Jake was right and maybe the Yeerks would move on to another lake. Maybe they already had.

Then, there, way down below, on a branch . . . the hawk. The female I had freed from captivity.

61 She was watching me. I could see her eyes follow me across the sky. In part, I knew, she was merely watching me for the simple reason that I was in her territory. Hawks are defensive about their territory. They don't want strangers coming and grabbing all the best prey.

But I had the feeling that there was something more going on. She wanted me to join her. I don't know how I knew that, but I did. She wanted me-to fly down to her.

Some people think hawks mate for just a season. Some people think they mate for life, and I don't really know which is true.

One thing I knew for sure: I wasn't ready to settle down with anyone. Especially not a hawk.

And yet there was this feeling in me. Like . . . like I belonged with her.

I looked away. I would be glad when this mission was over and I no longer had to come here to her territory. She confused me.

Suddenly, movement!

I had let myself be distracted.

Trucks! Jeeps! They were rolling down the road. They were within a mile and moving fast.

I looked frantically for my friends. There they were! I shrugged off the wind beneath my wings and dropped toward them.

"Here they come!" I cried. "Get to the cave!"

They ran for the cave. But it was harder to crawl inside in their human bodies. The wolves' thick pelts had protected them against the scratches and tears of the bushes.

Thwak thwak thwak thwak thwak!

Helicopters skimming above the trees!

Too fast. My friends were still struggling to make it to the shelter of the cave. One of the helicopters was on a straight line to them.

"Oh, man," I muttered. I still had a lot of my speed from the dive. I flapped hard, powering up to maximum speed. Straight at the helicopter.

Straight at it.

I could see the pilot. A human-Controller. Beside him sat a Hork-Bajir.

Straight at them!

The chopper was doing ninety. I was doing a little less. The distance between me and the chopper's windshield shortened very fast.

They weren't going to pull up!

62 CHAPTER 20

Thwak thwak thwak thwak thwak!

The sound of the rotors was a roar.

They were not going to pull up! We were going to hit.

But then, a flicker of the pilot's eyes, a twitch of his hand on the control stick.

I cranked right.

The helicopter cranked left.

It blew past me like a tornado. The backwash of the rotors caught me and tumbled me through the air.

I fell, upside down. I folded my wings, flared my tail, and spun around. I opened my wings and swooped neatly between two trees.

I banked left and flew over the cave. Rachel was the last one in. She was still clearly visible.

The helicopter would almost certainly have seen her.

I watched till she was safely inside.

"Okay, you guys, I don't think anyone saw you. Be cool till I tell you it's time." They couldn't answer, of course. They were still fully human, so they could hear my thought-speech, but could not respond in kind.

The Yeerks went through the familiar routine. The phony Park Rangers fanned out around the lake with automatic weapons ready. The helicopters buzzed around until they decided the area was free of witnesses.

The helicopters landed and the Hork-Bajir jumped out. They seemed extra careful. Probably Visser Three had given them all kinds of grief over the guy I had helped to escape the day before.

Visser Three was not a creature you wanted mad at you.

Then, I felt it. The emptiness in the sky. The sense of something monstrously huge moving slowly through the air.

It was above me.

Slowly it appeared, shimmering into reality like some kind of magic trick.

You could never get used to how big that thing was. It felt like someone was hanging a small moon over your head.

I flew out from under it, over closer to the cave. "It's here," I announced.

63 From behind the truck ship came the usual guard of Bug fighters. Only instead of two Bug fighters, there were four. The Yeerks were definitely nervous this time. Two of the Bug fighters remained on patrol. The other two landed in the clearing beside the helicopters.

Why? Why the extra security? Was it just because of the guy I had helped to escape?

I felt something new in the air above the hovering truck ship. Another cloaked ship!

Not as large, but from that emptiness in the sky I felt a dread that I had felt before.

The cloak shimmered out and the ship appeared.

Black within black, an outthrust spear, razor-edged – I had seen this ship before. The Blade ship! I had seen it first at the construction site where the Andalite had been murdered while we cried helplessly.

No wonder the Yeerks were nervous.

The Blade ship lowered toward the landing area. The Hork-Bajir on the ground and the Park Rangers were in a frenzy now, searching the woods as if their lives depended on it.

Tssewww!

Someone had fired a Dracon beam. I looked and saw a deer in mid-leap sizzle and disappear.

The Yeerks were shooting anything that moved.

The doors of the Blade ship opened. More Hork-Bajir poured out, Dracon beams leveled.

Behind them came a pair of Taxxons, slithering and shimmying on their needle legs, undulating their gross caterpillar bodies.

And last, he stepped out: dainty Andalite hooves. Deadly Andalite tail, like a scorpion's. The mouthless Andalite face. The two small Andalite arms with too many fingers. The two mobile eyes mounted on antlerlike stalks that turned this way and that, always searching, so that the large main eyes could focus on one thing at a time.

An Andalite body.

But not an Andalite mind. For in that Andalite body lived a Yeerk. The only Andalite-Controller. The only Yeerk ever to enslave an Andalite. And thus, the only Yeerk to have the power to morph.

I dropped down into the trees. I waited till a patrolling Hork-Bajir had walked past the cave where my friends hid.

When I was sure no one would see, I fluttered down and into the cave, scraping the bushes on either side.

"Tobias? Is that you?" Jake whispered.

"Yes."

64 "What are you doing here? That's not the plan."

"Forget the plan. He's here."

No one asked who. They all knew from the way I had said it.

He was here.

Visser Three.

65 CHAPTER 21

"What is he doing here?" Cassie asked in a low, frightened whisper.

"I guess he just came to oversee this trip. Maybe it was because they let that guy get away."

"He's here to kick butt on his boys," Marco said, trying to sound tough. "They screwed up and-now he's here to make sure they don't do it again."

"It doesn't really matter why he's here," I pointed out. "He's here. And there are extra Hork-Bajir and the whole crowd is way nervous. One of the Hork-Bajir Draconed a deer that just happened to be walking by."

"A deer?" Cassie cried. "Those stupid jerks. Deer never hurt anyone."

"The plan was for you to sneak down to the water, morph as soon as you got there, and head out for the ship's water-intake pipe," I reminded them. "It was always a dangerous plan, but now it's impossible. Four of you walking down to the water, then morphing? That's not going to happen. Not as alert as these guys are now."

"Not with Visser Three-hanging around," Marco agreed.

"I disagree." It was Rachel. "I think we should still try this. Look, if we pull this off, if we manage to get inside that ship and disable the cloaking device while they're over the city . . .

this whole thing will be over."

Jake jumped in to support her. "We've always said, if there was just some way to show the world what was happening . . . well, this is the way. This would be way too big for the Controllers to cover up. I don't care what they are. Even if the mayor and the governor and the entire police force were Controllers, they couldn't cover up something like this."

"Jake, you're not listening. I'm telling you: There is no way you four can cruise down to the lake. You'll be dead before you take five steps!"

For a while no one spoke. It was Cassie who finally broke the silence. "There may be a way,"

she said. "See, a fish can survive out of water for a couple of minutes. And the fish we're morphing is small." She looked at me. "Small enough for a red-tailed hawk to carry."

Well. That idea got everyone's attention, I can tell you.

"Excuse me?" Marco shrilled. "Are you saying you want me to not just morph into a fish, but to morph into a fish out of water and then be carried through the air by a bird?"

Cassie bit her lip. "I'm just saying it could work."

"It would work," Jake said. He and Rachel exchanged a slightly insane look that said, "Okay, let's try it!"

"No way," I said. "You guys are-crazy. No offense, but this raises the danger level way beyond what it was to start with."

"I know it's dangerous," Jake said. "But we may never get a chance this good."

66 Marco whined. I argued. But in the end it was three against two. Besides, Jake was right: We had a chance to seriously mess up the Yeerks.

I have watched Marco morph into a gorilla, Rachel become an elephant and a shrew and a cat, Cassie become a horse, and Jake become a tiger and a flea (man, was that weird!). But this was the first time anyone had tried morphing into an animal that lived in water.

Cassie insisted on going first. "It was my idea," she pointed out. She did not point out that she was also the best morpher.

"If you feel like you're suffocating, you have to back out of the morph," Jake told her. He took her hand. "Are you listening to me? You have to back out if it gets bad. You can't pass out halfway into a morph."

Cassie smiled. "I will. Don't worry about me."

She closed her eyes and began to concentrate.

I've told you that Cassie is always the best at controlling a morph. She has an almost artistic talent, where she can make it all look kind of cool and not so gross.

But not this time.

As I watched, her hair disappeared completely. Her skin began to harden, like it was coated with varnish or something. Like she had been dipped in clear plastic.

Her eyes swung around to the side of her head. Her face bulged out into a huge mouth that gaped and seemed to be blowing invisible bubbles.

As this happened, she was shrinking. But not fast enough. I could still see every nightmare change in her body. The way her legs shriveled up, smaller and smaller, till her legless body fell to the ground.

From her lower back her body stretched out, elongated.

"Ooohhh!" Rachel cried.

A tail had just suddenly spurted from Cassie's behind. A fish tail.

Now her varnished-looking skin cracked and split into a million scales.

Her ears were gone. Her arms were shriveling. She was no more than two feet long, lying helpless, a monster, on the floor of the cave.

"So far I'm fine," she said, but her thought-speech was shaky. "Still . . . breathing . . . with my lungs."

But at that moment, two slits appeared in her neck.

Gills.

67 "Aaaah!" she cried.

"Cassie, pull out of it!" Jake cried in an urgent whisper.

"No. No. Almost done. Tobias . . . "

"I'm ready," I said grimly.

She was tiny now. Less than a foot long. All that was left of her human body were two very tiny doll hands. They made little fins.

Cassie flopped wildly. Her mouth gasped silently.

"Go!" Jake said.

I closed careful talons around Cassie's squirming fish body, aimed for the small sliver of sky that I could see through the cave's opening, and flapped my powerful wings.

I burst out of the cave into fresh air.

"Are you okay, Cassie?"

"Fish mind . . . panicky . . . water. Water now!"

"Hang in there. You've been through this before. You know how it is when you first go into a morph. You have to get control of the fish's instincts."

"Water! Water! I can't breathe!"

I was about ten feet up, racing for the water's edge. Suddenly, below me, a Hork-Bajir.

He looked up and saw me. A bird with a fish in his talons.

I doubted the Hork-Bajir would realize that red-tails don't catch fish. At least I hoped he wouldn't.

I swooped down over the water. The huge Yeerk ship was just lowering its intake pipes into the water. I dropped behind a stand of trees that hugged the shoreline.

"Get ready!" I warned Cassie. I Jet her go like one of those old World War Two planes dropping its torpedo.

She hit the water with a small splash.

"Are you all right?"

No answer.

"Cassie! I said, are you all right?"

"Y-y-yeah," she said at last. "I'm here."

68 "Are you dealing with the fish okay?"

Again, no answer. Then, "Whoa. Cool! I'm underwater!"

I relaxed. "Yes, you sure are underwater," I said with a laugh.

"I was scared," she admitted. "I . . . I know this sounds crazy. But I just keep seeing myself.

Fried. With a wedge of lemon and some tartar sauce. "

69 CHAPTER 22

Jake was next. He morphed and I flew him over the heads of two patrolling Park Rangers who did not even seem to notice me.

Then came Marco. When I exited the cave with him I practically ran into a big Hork-Bajir.

He didn't take any notice of me, either.

Cassie's plan was working. Even with all the Controllers on maximum alert, it never occurred to them that their enemy might be a bird with a fish in its talons.

Back in the cave, it was just Rachel.

"So far so good," I said.

"Yeah. I guess so."

"Are you nervous?"

"I'd have to be crazy not to be nervous. Oh well. Here goes."

She started to morph. I'd seen three others do it now, so it wasn't a surprise to me. But it was still horrifying to watch a friend, someone you cared about, twist and deform and mutate before your eyes.

I don't think any of us will ever get used to morphing. Maybe the Andalites are used to it. I don't know. But I'll bet it creeps them out, too, when they have to change.

I looked away as Rachel began to get strange and hideous.

She was almost completely a fish when it happened.

Crash! Crash! Someone was forcing their way through the bushes at the mouth of the cave.

"Heffrach neeth there." A Hork-Bajir!

"Yes, I see it," a human voice said grumpily. "You know, these human bodies aren't blind.

Just because you're in a Hork-Bajir, don't get delusions. Use those blades of yours to hack some of these thorns out of the way."

I heard a sound like fast machetes, slicing away the vines and thorns.

"Better not find anything in here," the human-Controller said. "The Visser will do to you what was done to that poor fool yesterday who let the human escape."