Текст книги "Animorphs - 04 - The Message"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 1 (всего у книги 5 страниц)

1 Animorphs Volume 04 The Message K.A. Applegate *Converted to EBook by Dace K 2 Chapter 1

M y name is Cassie.

I can't tell you my last name. I wish I could. But I can't even tell you what town I live in or what state. We have to disguise our identities, we Animorphs. It's not about being shy. It's about staying alive.

If the Yeerks ever learn who we are, we'll be done for. If they don't kill us outright, they'll make us Controllers. They'll force a Yeerk slug into our brains, where it will take control of us, making us slaves – tools of the Yeerk invasion of Earth.

And I really don't like the idea of being under the control of an alien. I don't like the idea of being dead, either.

On the other hand, there are some things I do like about being an Animorph. Some very cool things.

Take the other night. It was late. I should have been in bed. Instead I was in the barn, get ting ready to turn into a squirrel.

Technically, the barn is really the Wildlife Re habilitation Clinic. My dad is a vet. So is my mom, but she works at The Gardens, this big zoo. The Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic is just my dad and me. We take in injured birds and animals and try to save them, then release them back into their natural habitats.

That's where I was. In the barn. Surrounded by dozens of cages full of birds, from a mourning dove who'd run into a car windshield to a golden eagle who'd almost been electrocuted by a power line.

In another part of the barn we have bigger cages for the badgers and opossums and skunks and deer and even a pair of wolves who'd been poisoned. At the other end (far from the wolves) we keep our own horses.

There's an operating room and a couple of small recovery rooms, too.

Back to that night. Have you ever watched a squirrel in the park? They are constantly alert.

Constantly looking around. It's like every minute of every day they're thinking, "Hey! What's that?"

So I knew that if I morphed into a squirrel, all that nervousness and fear would become a part of me. It's something we've all had to deal with: controlling the animal instincts, the animal mind that comes along with the animal body.

Anyway, that's where I was, in a gloomy barn with just the yellow overhead bulbs to light the room. Why was I there? Because someone, or something, had been sneaking in and getting at the birds. We'd lost a patient just the night before. A duck.

And because I couldn't sleep, anyway. I kept having these dreams. Only they weren't like normal dreams, somehow. More like ... I don't know. Just really strange, that's all.

3 "Relax, Magilla," I whispered to the squirrel in my hands. "This won't hurt at all." I pulled some chestnuts from my pocket and handed him one. Another nut fell to the floor.

Some morphs are easy. Some are terrifying. When I was a horse, that was cool. When I had to become a trout, well, that was a little more weird. The whole time I just kept thinking how someone could fry me and serve me with tartar sauce.

And I don't like tartar sauce.

"Squirrel," I told myself. I always try to get into the feeling of what it might be like to be the animal before I even start morphing.

The first physical change was in my size. I started shrinking. It's a very bizarre feeling. See, you feel like you're standing totally still, but the ground keeps coming up toward you. And the ceiling is moving away. Door handles aren't where they should be anymore. All of a sudden they're over your head.

I had shrunk to maybe two, two-and-a-half feet tall when my arms came sucking back into my body. Right about that point, the real Magilla tore out of there. He ran back to his cage, got in, and – I swear this is true – closed the door. Anyway, I still had normal (although short) legs, but my arms were stunted. I still had the normal number of fingers, but they were teeny tiny now, way too small for my body.

My ears traveled up the side of my head to rest on top. Soft gray fur spread across my body in a wave. My face puffed out and grew pointed.

Then, the wildest thing! My tail sprouted out of my body! And what was cool was that I wasn't a squirrel yet. I was still about half human, the size of a small child, and my tail just shot out, about two feet long! Much longer and bigger than it would be once I was totally squirrelified.

I tilted my head back and I could see this bushy gray tail arched up over me. Way cool.

My legs sucked in and I was down on the ground, down on the cement floor of the barn.

I suddenly discovered I hadn't swept and mopped as well as I thought I had. Amazing what you can see when your face is just an inch from the floor.

Then the squirrel brain kicked in.

WHOA! YOW!

Man, did I have energy!

It was like I was plugged into a million volts. I was supercharged! My slow, sluggish human brain was just blown away by the sudden explosion of energy.

A noise!

What's that? I cocked my ears. I swung my head, focusing my big eyes. A bird in a cage!

4 A new sound! What was it? I spun around.

No, wait! What was that? And that? And the other sound?

PREDATORS! They were everywhere! I was surrounded! PREDATORS!

5 Chapter 2

Birds! Big birds with nasty claws. All around me.

Wait. There was a nut. Oooh. A nut.

PREDATORS! Alert!

I scampered across the floor. Look left. Look right. Sniff sniff sniff the air.

Oh, yes. Predators. I smelled them. I heard them. Birds. A wolf. A badger.

PREDATORS! RUN RUN RUN!

Oh, wait. Was that a nut? I hopped over to the nut. YES! A chestnut! I seized it in my little front claws and began immediately to chew a hole in it. Excellent! Wonderful! Chestnut! And I had it! No one could take it away. Hah hah!

A noise! What?

PREDATORS!

Don't drop the nut! Run with the nut! RUN!

With the nut stuffed into my jaw, I ran.

I ran straight up the wall. Straight up.

And that was the moment when Tobias decided to show up.

Tobias flew in through the hayloft overhead.

Unfortunately, in my squirrel mentality, with my human brain just barely holding on, I didn't realize it was Tobias.

What it looked like to me was a red-tailed hawk. A bird of prey. And this one was not in a cage.

No, this one was flapping around the high rafters of the barn. The hawk had talons like steel and a hooked beak that could open me up like a can of beans.

I felt his hawk's eyes on me.

RUN RUNRUNRUNRUN!

I didn't know what to do. I mean, me, the human being named Cassie. I didn't know what to do. I knew I had to get control over the squirrel. But it was so hyper!

However, the squirrel knew just what to do.

ZOOOM!

6 I ran straight up the wall. My little claws grabbed at tiny splinters and cracks in the wood, and shot up at a terrifying speed. If you've never been a squirrel – and let's face it, you haven't – you probably don't have any idea what it's like to run up. The wooden wall was like a floor under me. But at the same time I knew the difference between up and down. I knew if I fell it would be down. It's as if you were running across the floor in your house, but if you tripped you'd fall back against the wall.

Very strange.

Tobias had come to rest on a rafter. But I could feel his eyes on me. I froze. I froze completely. Not even my tail twitched. I just clutched onto the wall and froze.

But I couldn't keep it up. That torrent of squirrel energy would not let me stand still for long.

Suddenly, with barely a glance to the side, I launched myself through space. I flew. I mean, I just jumped and hurtled through the air for what seemed like half a mile, but was actually just ten feet.

SLAM! I landed on the wooden beam that runs above the horse stalls.

Bad move. Tobias had seen my movement. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his vast wings open. He swooped down, talons raked forward.

But then ... a new movement. Something large and furtive. A board in the side of the barn pushed open. A head poked inside. It was just below me. An intelligent, alert face, looking up at me and wondering if I was dinner.

A fox! Aha! My mystery bird-killer.

I had to get control of the squirrel brain. It al ways takes a minute in any new morph, at least, to control those wild animal instincts, but I didn't have a minute.

Tobias swooped.

Suddenly it was insanity everywhere. Birds in every cage began to squawk and shriek! The wolves in the next room decided to start howling. The horses were whinnying shrilly.

Tobias sheered away, startled.

Too late. I had jumped again, and now I was falling toward the straw-covered floor of a stall.

Fall ing toward the fox.

I hit the ground and blew out of there, leaving a storm of dust and straw in my wake.

The fox came after me. He was fast. Very fast.

"Tobias! Help!" I yelled in thought-speak.

"What the ... Is that you, Cassie?"

I dodged left. The fox dodged after me.

7 He was faster than me and almost as agile. Unless I could find a place to climb up and away, I was done for!

"Yes, it's me!"

"Well, why didn't you tell me?!" he said, sounding grumpy in my head. "l was considering eating you."

"l just morphed. I just got control of this crazy squirrel brain. Now would you PLEASE save me?"

The fox's jaw snapped at my tail. I felt his teeth comb the fur.

"Good grief," Tobias said. He opened his wings and came hurtling down, straight at the fox.

The fox saw the shadow of the big hawk. He stopped dead in his tracks.

Too late. Tobias raked him with his talons and shot past.

The fox decided this was more trouble than he needed. He bolted for his secret passageway.

Tobias came to rest on a crossbeam and looked down at me with his fierce hawk's gaze.

"Cassie? Why are you out here at midnight turning into a squirrel?" I was already starting to morph back to human shape. "Well, we've had some birds taken in the last couple of days. We figured it was a badger or a raccoon or a fox, but we couldn't figure out how he was getting in. So I decided to morph and wait to see when he showed up."

"Well, I certainly can't criticize anyone who wants to rescue birds," he said. He fluffed his wings and began preening some ruffled feathers.

I was halfway back to human shape, growing up from the floor, feeling my legs sprout beneath me. But my human mouth was not back yet. "So, what are you doing here, Tobias?

Looking for a squirrel sandwich?"

Tobias had almost completely accepted the fact that he was permanently stuck in the body of a red-tailed hawk. Recently he had begun to hunt and eat like a hawk. He was still a little sensitive about it, but I thought if I just made a joke out of it, he would realize I wasn't grossed out or any thing.

"Squirrel sandwich?" he said. "No, I was thinking barbecue. Sorry I scared you."

"It's okay, my friend," I said in my own voice. My mouth had formed. I was almost back to normal, all but this huge tail, which was still poking out of the back of my morphing outfit.

Normal, for me, is about average height, I guess. Whatever "average" is. I'm kind of solidly built, not skinny and not fat, with hair I keep short because I don't like messing with it. As my friends would tell you, I'm not exactly Ms. Fashion. Mostly, if you want to know what I look like, picture a girl in overalls and leather work gloves, biting her lip as she concentrates on trying to force a pill down the throat of a badger.

8 Jake once took a picture of me doing exactly that. He has it next to his computer in his room.

Don't ask me why. I would be glad to give him a picture of me in a dress or something.

Rachel could loan me the dress. But Jake says he likes the picture he has.

"l hear something," Tobias said, suddenly alert.

I strained my ears. Human ears are so lame. Almost any animal can hear better. But then I heard it, too. A voice.

"Is someone in there?"

"My father!"

"You still have a tail!"

Too late. The barn door swung open. My fa ther stood there, blinking sleepily and holding a flashlight. "Cass? What are you doing out here?"

I stuck my hands behind my back and tried to hold my big squirrel tail down while I attempted to morph it away at maximum speed. "N-n-noth– ing, Dad. I-I-I just couldn't sleep.

"

He nodded. "Okay. Well, go to bed now," he said crankily. My father is one of those people who needs about an hour and three cups of coffee to wake up.

"Okay, Daddy," I said.

He hesitated. "Cassie? Turn around."

"Turn around?" I repeated in a squeaky voice.

"Yeah. Turn around. It's . . . just turn around."

Slowly I turned. As I did, the last of the tail shwooped back into my spine.

"Huh," my dad said. "I gotta get back to sleep. I swear I thought you had a tail."

"Heh heh," I laughed weakly.

When he left I collapsed back on the straw. "I really should have just stayed in bed," I said to Tobias. "Dreams or no dreams."

"Dreams?" he snapped. "What kind of dreams?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. These kind of weird dreams about the sea."

"The sea," he echoed. "And a voice, calling out to you from beneath the water." It was warm in the barn, but suddenly I felt really cold.

9 Chapter 3

N o, I haven't had any weird dreams about the sea," Marco said. "I've had weird dreams about my sheets trying to strangle me. I've had weird dreams about falling from way up high and when I finally land I'm in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood talking to King Friday. I've had weird dreams about that woman on Baywatch . . . hmm, well, that does kind of involve the ocean, I guess."

"You have dreams about King Friday?" Rachel asked him. She put on a worried look. "I see."

She shook her head slowly and made a tsk, tsk sound.

"What? What's the matter with dreaming about King Friday?" Marco demanded.

Rachel shrugged. "All I'm going to say is you should think about seeing a counselor before your condition worsens." Rachel turned so Marco couldn't see her and gave me a wink.

"Very funny," Marco sneered. But he still looked a little worried.

We were in Rachel's room the next day, af ter school. Her room is so neat. Straight out of a magazine, you know? Like everything matches or goes together. She has this bulletin board where she puts little wise sayings on Post-it notes.

I drifted over to the bulletin board and read '"Don't think there are no crocodiles just be cause the water is calm.' – Malayan Proverb."

Just beside that was '"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.' – Sun Tzu."

It made me a little sad. In the good old days, Rachel would have had a bunch of quotes about being a good person or whatever. It just showed how much our lives had changed.

In a very short time we had all grown accustomed to a world of fear and danger. We had arrived at Rachel's house separately. We had each checked to make sure we weren't being followed. We had planned the afternoon in advance to be sure that Rachel's mom and her two sisters would be out. We had even had Tobias fly over the area looking for anything unusual.

That's what our lives had become. That and quotations full of paranoia and battle.

Jake hadn't said anything yet. Tobias and I had both told everyone about our strangely iden tical dreams. About the voice that seemed to come from beneath the sea. The strange voice that called to us.

No one else had heard the voice in their dreams. Marco had made jokes. Rachel had been supportive but skeptical. Only Jake had remained silent.

I suppose you could say Jake is sort of our "leader," although he's not bossy in any way. It's more like this natural aspect of his personality. He's the one you just automatically look to when there's trouble.

Of course, I look to him for other reasons. Not that I would ever tell him or anything, but I really like Jake. You know, as in like.

10 He's very cute, in a big, strong kind of way. He has brown hair and dark, dark eyes. He seems very serious until you get to know him. And then you realize he's still pretty serious, but he also knows when to laugh.

Jake has to know when to laugh because Marco has been his best friend since they were both in diapers. They've competed and foughtand disagreed the whole time. Marco's mission in life is to find the humor in everything. Even in his best friend.

Marco is kind of cute, too, although he's not my type. He wears his brown hair long and has these amazing eyelashes that I would love to have myself.

Marco isn't interested in being in charge, or even in being part of a team. He wants us to just quit the whole thing. He wants us to forget the Yeerks and forget morphing and just try and stay alive.

But at the same time, it's Marco who is very aware of all the security problems. He's the one who makes sure we never discuss anything on the phone, where enemy ears might be listening in.

Rachel is my closest friend. She has been for years. How can I explain Rachel? First of all, she and Jake are cousins, and they have a lot in common. They seem to grow strong people in that family, because Rachel is the strongest person I know. It's like nothing ever intimidates her. She's totally fearless, or at least that's how she seems.

To look at her you'd think, Oh, she'll grow up to be some airheaded model, because she's very tall and pretty and blond. But I pity anyone who mistakes Rachel for a wimpy airhead.

Sometimes I think Rachel likes the way everything has worked out. It's like all along there was this Amazon warrior locked up inside of her, and now she has an excuse to bring it out.

But she was not a person who believed in dreams very much. "Well, okay," she said, "if we're done with the dreams, let's – "

"Rachel," Jake interrupted, "I think I have something that may be interesting." He pulled a videocassette out of his bag.

"Cool. Let's watch a movie," Marco said.

"Not a movie," Jake said. "I guess no one else watched the late news last night?"

"I was busy watching my taped reruns of Mis ter Rogers' Neighborhood," Marco said, giving Rachel a sly look. "Last night it was the one where it was a beautiful day in the neighborhood."

Jake rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, the way he'd done a million times before when Marco said something irrelevant or annoying. "Rachel, can we go downstairs and use your VCR?"

"Sure," Rachel said.

We trooped down the stairs. Except for Tobias, who fluttered down above our heads.

11 "Hey, Tobias," Marco said, "I've been mean ing to ask you, are hawks like seagulls? I mean, do they poop while they're flying?"

"Depends on who's down below," Tobias shot back. "Let me just put it this way – if you get on my nerves, you'd better buy a hat."

Down in Rachel's living room, Jake turned on the TV and popped in his cassette.

"There was just this one small story," he narrated, as, on the screen, an old guy in a bathing suit held up a piece of what looked like metal.

"So now we're interested in hairy old guys who should be wearing shirts?" Marco asked.

"This old guy says he found that on the beach. It washed up during the storm a couple of days ago. Watch."

The camera focused on what looked like a jagged piece of metal, about two feet long and one foot wide. As the camera zoomed in, I saw what looked like letters. Only they weren't any alphabet I had ever seen.

Now the tape was showing the anchorwoman smiling, and then it went blank. Jake turned the VCR off.

"Okay . . . so?" Marco prodded.

Jake sighed. "So the night the Andalite landed, when I went inside his ship to get the cube that gave us our morphing powers, I saw writing."

I felt a chill creep up the back of my neck.

"I could be wrong, I mean, I'm not some expert," Jake said. "But I think it was that same alphabet. Those same kinds of letters."

Suddenly no one was laughing. Not even Marco.

"I think what washed up on the beach is a piece of an Andalite ship," Jake said.

Suddenly, without warning, I felt the ground swirl beneath me. I fell straight back, not even caring that Jake caught me in his arms just before I hit the carpet.

12 Chapter 4

I was falling, falling, falling.

Falling into the sea.

Splash! I hit the water. But still I fell. Down and down and down through blue-green, sunlit layers of water.

"I 'm here," a voice called to me. "l am here. I cannot survive much longer. If you hear me ...

come. If you hear me ... come."

Suddenly I opened my eyes. I stared up at Jake's concerned face.

Glancing across the room, I saw Rachel with the telephone to her ear, preparing to dial.

"She's awake!" Jake said.

"I'd better still call an ambulance," Rachel said.

"No!" Marco snapped, "Not unless we know she's hurt. It's too big a risk."

Rachel's eyes flared the way they do when someone tells her something she doesn't want to hear. "I'm calling nine-one-one," she said tersely.

"No, Rachel, I'm okay," I said. I sat up. My head felt a little woozy, but I was all right.

Rachel hesitated, her fingers just above the keypad. "What about Tobias?"

I looked around the room and saw Tobias spread out on the floor, one wing crumpled beneath him.

He looked dead.

I jumped up and ran to him.

"Rachel, Cassie seems okay, and nine-one-one can't help Tobias," Jake said.

Rachel replaced the receiver and ran over to Tobias.

"He's not dead," I said. I could feel him breathing. Then, just as suddenly as I had, he woke up. His enormous brown hawk's eyes opened, instantly fierce.

His first reaction was pure hawk. He hopped up and flared. Hawks flare just the way cats do when they're trying to intimidate someone. They hunch their shoulders and fluff up their feathers to make themselves look bigger than they are.

"Everybody stand still," I said quickly. "It's okay, Tobias, you were just out for a minute there."

He quickly gained control over the hawk instincts. "That was strange," he said.

13 "It happened to me, too," I said. "I passed out. And then I had the dream again. Only this time I could hear an actual voice. Or at least I heard thought-speech."

"Me, too," Tobias confirmed.

"Okay, now this is getting weird," Rachel said. "Because at the same time I thought I kind of felt something."

"Yeah," Jake agreed. Marco nodded.

"l know this sounds crazy, but ... but it's like someone is sending out a distress signal. Like they are calling for help."

"Only this someone is in the water, or under the water, or something," I said. "Seeing that video, seeing that writing, it was like suddenly the message grew stronger."

"Or it may have just been a coincidence," Jake said. "This isn't a dream. I don't know what it is, but it isn't a dream. Even I halfway saw something. This is some kind of a communication.

"

"Well, this is all very interesting," Marco said, "but so what? I mean, are we getting some kind of psychic message from the Little Mermaid? What are we supposed to do about it?"

Jake looked closely at me. "Cassie? Was the voice in your dream a human voice?"

I was startled by the question. I hadn't really thought about it. I actually laughed. "When you asked me, the first thing that popped into my head was no, it isn't human." I laughed again.

"But that doesn't make any sense."

"It's not human," Tobias said suddenly. "l understand the meaning of what it's saying, but it's not human. It's not 'speaking' in words, really."

"So what is it?" Rachel asked. "Yeerk?"

I let my mind drift back to the dream. I tried to hear the sound in my head again. "No, not Yeerk. It reminds me of something ... of some one."

"The Andalite," Tobias blurted.

I snapped my fingers. "Yes! That's it! It re minds me of the Andalite. When he first thought-spoke to us. That's what it's like."

"The Andalite," Marco muttered. He looked away. I knew he was remembering. We all were.

We had been walking home from the mall at night. Walking through a big abandoned construction site, when the Andalite ship had ap peared above us.

It landed, and out came the Andalite prince, fatally wounded in a battle with the Yeerks some where in space.

14 He was the one who had warned us of the Yeerks – the parasite species that inhabited the brains of other creatures and enslaved them, making them Controllers. It was the Andalite who had warned us, and who, in desperation, had given us the great and terrible weapon – the power to morph.

We had been hiding, cringing in terror, when the Yeerks caught up with the Andalite. When Visser Three himself, the Yeerk leader, had murdered im.

I shuddered at the terrible memory of the An– dalite's last, despairing ry.

"Yes," I whispered. "Tobias is right. It's an Andalite. That's who is alling to us from the sea.

An Andalite."

For a few minutes no one said anything.

Then Rachel said, "He died trying to save us." She looked defiantly at Marco. "I know that doesn't mean anything to you. But the Andalite died trying to save Earth."

Marco nodded. "I know. And you're wrong, Rachel. That means plenty to me."

"Yeah? Well, if there's some Andalite calling for help, I'm going to try and help him," Rachel said.

I looked over at Jake and we shared this look, like "Oh, big surprise, Rachel is ready to go." I hid my smile and Jake kept a straight face.

"Tobias?" Jake asked. "What do you say?"

"l don't know if I should have a vote. I'm the one person here who isn't going to be much help dealing with water. Besides, you guys all know how I'd vote." Of all of us, it was Tobias who had stayed longest at the Andalite's side, even as the Andalite ordered him to get to safety. Something really deep had gone on between the Andalite prince and Tobias.

It was my turn. "I can't just ignore someone crying out for help, if that's what this is."

We all looked at Marco. I could see Rachel getting angry, like she was ready to jump all over Marco if, as usual, he disagreed.

Marco just grinned. "I really hate to do this. I really hate to disappoint you all." Then he grew serious. "But I was there at the construction site, same as all of you. I was there when Visser Three – " Suddenly his voice choked. "What I mean is, if there's an Andalite who needs any thing, I'm there."

15 Chapter 5

You do realize that if we're down here at the beach because of that news story, some Controllers are probably down here, too?" Marco asked for about the tenth time.

"Yes, Marco," Jake said patiently. "But maybe Cassie and Tobias can get some feeling from being down here, closer to the sea."

"So let me get this straight – we are now making decisions based on Tobias and Cassie's dreams, right?" Marco said. "And yet my dreams are totally ignored. The fact that I once dreamed about staying home and watching TV in total safety, that means nothing, right?"

"Right," Jake said flatly.

We were at the beach. The same beach where the guy on the news had found what we now believed was a piece of an Andalite ship. It was night, with a sliver of moon that painted ripples of silver across the black water. A salt breeze blew off the water, making me feel peaceful and yet a little overwhelmed, intimidated, the way the ocean always makes me feel.

There is nothing as big as the ocean. It's like this entirely different planet, full of strange plants and fantastic animals. Valleys and mountains and caves and broad, flat plains, all hidden from our sight.

All I could see was the surface. All I could feel was the barest edge of the ocean, rushing over my toes as each wave crashed ashore.

But I could sense it out there. I could sense how vast it was, and how tiny I was.

"How about my dream of living long enough to get a driver's license?"

Jake gave Marco an exasperated look. "Marco, you can turn into a bird and fly. You could do it right now. Why would you care about driving a car a few years from now?"

"The babes," Marco said instantly. "Duh. You can't pick up girls when you're a bird." He glanced overhead, where we could see just the hint of dark wings against the canopy of stars.

"No offense, Tobias. The wings are great, but I'm thinking of something bright red with about four hundred horsepower."

Marco's cooperative mood hadn't lasted long. I knew it wouldn't. Marco is never happy unless he's complaining about something. Just like Rachel is never happy unless she has something to fight against. And Tobias is never happy, period. He thinks if he's ever happy, someone will just come along and take his happiness away.

"So, Cassie?" Rachel said. "Do you feel any thing?"

"Well, I feel a little embarrassed," I admitted. "And a little foolish."

"Maybe we could try calling the Psychic Friends," Marco suggested. "Hi, is this Psychic Friends? I've been dreaming about aliens lately – "

16 "Why Cassie and Tobias?" Rachel wondered aloud, ignoring Marco. "Why would they get these images so clearly and the rest of us barely felt anything?"

Jake shook his head. "I don't know. I mean, okay, say you're an Andalite. And you want to call for help. Who do you want to come and rescue you? Other Andalites, obviously."

"Tobias isn't an Andalite, and neither am I," I pointed out.

"I know," Jake said. "But maybe this communication, whatever it is, is tied into the ability to morph. You know, like morphing ability makes you able to 'hear' it. That way, only Andalites would be able to receive the call for help."

"Which still doesn't explain why Tobias and I _"

"Maybe it does," Marco interrupted, serious again. "Look, Tobias is permanently in morph.

And Cassie, you're the one who has the most talent for morphing." Then he flashed white teeth in the dark. "Besides, you know you like animals more than humans, so it's like you're halfway into morph, anyway."

Suddenly a dark shape swooped low over our heads. "Lights!" Tobias said. "Up ahead on the beach. There's a bunch of people moving in a line with flashlights, like they're searching for something. You can't see them yet because they're hidden by that dune. But they'll be here in a couple of minutes."

"Who are they?" Jake demanded.

"l can't tell," Tobias said. "My eyes may be great during the day, but at night I don't see any better than you do. I'm a hawk, not an owl. Fortunately, I still hear pretty well. You guys hide in the dunes. I'll be right back."

With that he was gone.

"Come on," Jake said. "He's right. Let's hide in the dunes."

We crouched down in a pocket between two dunes. I lay flat on my belly in the cold sand and peered through the tall sea grass, focusing on the bright line of the surf.

Tobias was back a few minutes later.