Текст книги "Animorphs - 14 - The Unknown"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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"Well, that was stupid from start to finish," Rachel said as we got far from Zone 91. "We could have gotten killed. And for what? Over something even the Yeerks don't recognize."

"Whatever that thing is, it sure doesn't look like a spaceships Marco admitted.

"Or a secret weapon," Jake said. "And it doesn't look human, but who knows?"

"lt is not a spaceships Ax said. "0r a weapon. But it is also nothuman."

"Well, I guess we'll probably never find out what it is," I said with a sigh.

"Why won't you find out?" Ax asked.

"Because it's not worth risking our lives again," I said. "lf the Yeerks don't even know what it is —"

"Of course the Yeerks don't know what it is," Ax said calmly. "They have never been aboard an Andalite Dome ship."

One by one, we each stopped walking. One by one we turned to face Ax.

"Ax, are you telling us you do know what that thing is?" Tobias asked.

"Of course. I started to tell you, but we were interrupted."

"So? So what is it?" Marco demanded.

"lt's a disposable module of a type used in the old days on the first generation of Andalite Dome ships. When the modules were used up, they were jettisoned into space. They were supposed to be aimed toward a star, so they'd be burned up without a trace. This one must have .

drifted through space, eventually being caught by Earth's gravity."

"So it's a space engine?"

"lt's a weapon?"

"No, of course not. It's . . . well, this is a bit embarrassing. It's an Andalite Dome ship's modular waste disposal system."

For about a full minute, no one said anything. Then Marco spoke.

"You're telling me the Most Secret Place On Earth, the fabled Zone Ninety-one, the Holy Grail of conspiracy nuts, is hiding the secret of an Andalite toilet?"

"Only a very primitive model," Ax said condescendingly. "Since those days there have been huge technological improvements."

Chapter 21

We got out of horse morph and into bird morph and flew home.

We alone now knew the secret of Zone 91. An entire base built to analyze what they thought was an alien spaceship but was, in reality, a high-tech Andalite Porta-John.

There was, according to Ax, absolutely zero chance that the Andalite toilet would give humans the ability to fly through space.

We had done some very important things as Animorphs. We had fought some terrible and vital battles.

This wasn't one of them.

I got home just in time to walk into my living room and realize both my parents were waiting for me.

They had their angry-parent faces on.

"Where have you been?" my mother demanded.

Mom always takes the lead in discipline. She knows my dad will give in too easily. She thinks she's tougher. She thinks that because it happens to be true.

"I was out with Rachel," I said, more or less truthfully.

"Out with Rachel doing what?" my mom hissed. "You missed dinner. It's dark out. You didn't tell us where you were going."

My mom isn't a real big person. Until she's mad. Then she somehow gets larger. She seems to rise up and tower over me. It's weird. I mean, normally she's maybe two inches taller than me, but right then she was at least eight feet tall.

"We were very worried," my father said in a soft, quiet voice.

I sighed. I could feel the guilt welling up inside me. I hate it when they say they've been worried. See, I understand about worry now. I feel worry all the time for Rachel and Jake and the others. Sometimes I lie in bed at night and worry for the whole human race.

"I'm really sorry," I said.

"Where. Were. You. Young. Lady?" my mom asked, doing her one-word-at-a-time voice.

"I was just with Rachel," I said. "And Jake."

My parents exchanged a look. My dad put his hand over his mouth. He was hiding a smile. At the same time, he was trying to look extra stern.

My mom leaned back and put her hands on her hips. "You know we have discussed your dating," she said, "and I thought we decided you were still too young."

"Dating?" I said weakly.

My mom sighed. Then she shook her head. "Maybe it's time for us to have another talk about the birds and the bees."

I swear the blood drained out of my whole head. Then it came rushing back into just my cheeks and neck so that they burned. "Urn . . . I'm not dating."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," my dad said gruffly. "You're a normal young girl, you have certain . . . interests, certain . . . fascinations, a natural . . . curiosity."

At this point I wanted to dig a hole right in the living room floor, crawl in, and pull the rug over me.

"All we're saying is be honest with us," my mom said, all stern again. "Do not make us worry about you."

"Absolutely! I swear! I will never make you worry again! Can I go now?"

I raced from the living room into the kitchen. I wanted to make myself a sandwich, carry it up to my room, and try to do at least some of my homework.

And I really did not want to be subjected to a big talk abut boys. Good grief!

I was just getting the turkey from the refrigerator when a thought occurred to me. I tiptoed back to the kitchen door and pressed my ear against it.

"See?" I heard my mother say smugly.

"You were right, as usual," my dad said.

"It's the only way. Let's face it, Cassie works so hard already, what can you do? You can't give her punishment work or make her stay in her room."

"We have a very cool kid."

That kind of gave me a warm feeling. Your parents have to love you. But I felt as if my parents liked me, too. As a person.

"Yes, we do have a cool kid," my mom agreed. "But on those rare occasions when she screws up the only way to really discipline her is to embarrass her."

They both laughed. Hah-hah-hah.

"Next time we can tell her we're going to have Jake and his parents over to discuss rules for their relationship," my mom said.

More laughter. Hee-hee-hee.

"Or as a backup plan, we could threaten to take her in to Father Banion for a family discussion about intimacy." That was my dad's suggestion.

So much for my warm inner glow. So my parents knew I liked Jake. And they knew that any discussion of that fact would embarrass me to death.

Parents. You can never completely trust them.

I finished making my sandwich and went upstairs. My room was a disaster area. I am not a neat person. I went to my desk, moved some of my junk aside to clear a work space and opened my binder to find my – Backup plan?

That's the phrase my dad had used. And Visser Three had said it, too.

Backup plan? Why would the Yeerks want a backup plan? After all, they'd penetrated the big secret of Zone 91 and it was a toilet. True, they had not understood what they'd seen, but they obviously knew whatever it was wasn't a Yeerk ship or a weapon.

So why would they still be interested?

I shook it off. Who cared now? We'd wasted enough time at Zone 91.1 had better things to worry about. Like homework. And the discovery that my parents knew more about me than I wanted them to.

I did some homework and I went to bed. At four o'clock in the morning, I woke up. I sat bolt upright and stared into the darkness.

"So it's a toilet," I cried. "That's not important. It's an alientoilet! An alien toilet! That's the point!"

Of course! Even if it was just a toilet, it meant the government had proof of life on other planets. Proof that the Yeerks did not want them to have.

The Yeerks were invading Earth. One of the reasons they were getting away with it was that no sensible person would ever believe it. Even if I went on national TV and announced that aliens were invading, who'd ever believe me? Even if I morphed right in front of people, they'd figure it was just some other kind of weirdness.

But if the government came out and said, "Look, we have proof that aliens exist," then people would start listening. People might even be prepared to believe that the Yeerks were among us.

That's why the Yeerks couldn't just forget about Zone 91. They couldn't allow the government to have any kind of proof of alien life.

There was a backup plan. That's what the visser had said.

And I suddenly had a pretty good suspicion what it was. Tomorrow evening at nineteen hundred hours, The Gardens would be full of people who worked at Zone 91. Just like the sign-up sheet at the base had said.

I was willing to bet the Yeerks would strike then. What better place to grab some key people from Zone 91 and fill their heads with Yeerk slugs?

Well, there were probably plenty of better places, actually. But Visser Three was not known for being patient. And the trip to The Gardens would be his soonest opportunity to strike.

Chapter 22

The Gardens is a combination zoo and amusement park. The two sections are separate, of course. Roller coasters and bumper cars on one side of an artificial lagoon, and animal habitats on the other.

I've spent lots of time at the zoo part of The Gardens. I've spent very little time on the rides. I don't like roller coasters.

From the air it all looks smaller than it does from the ground. Down on the ground, walking along the pink-and-green concrete walkways, it seems endless. But from the air in owl morph, you can see how the pathways curve inside each other like a circular maze. You can see the edges of the park and the world beyond The Gardens.

You can see the endless neon golden arches and Best Western hotels and water slides and putt-putt golf courses.

Of course, in owl morph you can even see the mice cowering down inside the dark bushes. In owl morph there isn't much you can't see.

The Gardens at night is two very different halves. Down below us, the tigers were prowling the limits of their wooded, moat-ringed habitat. And the camels were dozing. And the sea lions were huddled together on their blue-painted concrete island. And the monkeys were sleeping and fussing and occasionally picking bugs out of their ears and eating them.

Over in the amusement park, however, it was a flashing neon extravaganza. The Tilt-a-Whirl was a blaze of blue; the merry-go-round was red and yellow; the roller coasters were wild dragons of racing sequential lights.

I saw a flash! It was the log ride. They shoot photographs of the people in the logs as they fall down the final drop. I heard screams of giddy excitement and fake fear.

In addition to having wonderful eyes, owls can hear a mosquito's wings beating from ten feet away. Tobias was not so lucky. He didn't have an owl morph, so he was his usual red-tailed self. Red-tails don't see or fly well at night.

Wait a minute! Flashbulbs at the log ride?

"Hey! There are people down there! There aren't supposed to be people.

The people aren't supposed to be here till eight o'clock!"

"lf they'rehere, then the Yeerks are here, too," Rachel said grimly.

"What are they doing here? I thought you said the sign-up sheet at the base said eight o'clock!"

"Actually, it said nineteen hundred hours. But that's eight. Right?"

"Uh, no,"Marco said. "Oh, man, these guys have been here for an hour already! The Yeerks may have already infested their targets!"

"Are those the right guys down there? Are they Zone Ninety-one guys?" I wondered aloud.

Jake kept his tone carefully neutral, not wanting to make me feel bad.

"There are a lot of sort of twenty– and thirty-year-old guys down there with short hair. Definitely a military-looking crowd. "

I had put it all together veryearly that morning. The Gardens occasionally leases out the entire amusement park to private groups. Es– pecially on slow nights like Sundays.

Zone 91 had leased the park for its soldiers and their families. Of course, on the reservation they were not listed as "Zone 91." They were listed as "Gondor Industries."

I'd spent the day researching on the Internet, just to be totally sure.

There was no Gondor Industries. It was a fake corporation. I was totally prepared and proud of myself for being so smart.

Unfortunately, the hour we should have had to prepare was already gone. All because I could not read military time.

"So who's back at Zone Ninety-one guarding the Toilet From Outer Space, I wonder?" Marco asked.

"l'm sure there are still plenty of guys back there," Jake said, "and in any case, that's not our problem. Our problem is we have zero time to figure out the rest of the Yeerk plan. All we know is that they may be attempting to use this night to infest several members of the Zone Ninety-one force. But where? Where in all this big amusement park would they do it?"

No time! And it was my screwup. Myscrewup. Oh, man, I had totally messed up. Now innocent men and women might be turned into Controllers because of my stupidity!

Think! Where? Where would the Yeerks try it?"Two possible places," I said. "They need someplace where they can grab people without being seen, right? The log ride is dark inside. Or the House of Horrors Ride.

Those are the only two places."

"Okay. We split up," Jake said tersely.

"Cassie, you and Marco come with me for the log ride. Rachel, Tobias, and Ax check out the House of Horrors."

We split into two separate groups. Jake, Marco, and I flew swiftly toward the log ride, me cursing myself the whole time. "How could I have been so dumb?"

"You weren't dumb," Jake said. "We wouldn't even have known about this if you hadn't figured it out."

"For future reference, all you have to do is subtract twelve," Marco said.

"Huh?"

"To translate military time. Just subtract twelve." Then, as an afterthought he added, "Duh."

The log ride was made to look like a mountain. Of course it was really just cement and fake bushes, but it was kind of convincing. We landed on top of it.

"Now what?" Marco asked. "We need to get inside. Can we fly in?"

"Yes, but if we're in owl morph we won't be able to do anything much except flap our wings," Jake pointed out. "We need to get human again."

We demorphed as fast as we could and a few minutes later we were climbing down the side of the fake cement mountain, wearing our morphing outfits. And no shoes. Fortunately, at The Gardens people dress even more strangely than that. Some people turned to stare, but not for very long.

The lines were short since the only people in the park were a thousand or so people from Zone 91. Some had brought their kids, so we fit in okay, even though most of the people in line were older guys with short hair and neatly trimmed mustaches.

Into the log ride we went. We took a log, me and Jake in the front, Marco behind us, and a man and woman behind him in the last seat.

The log slipped along the water channel toward the chain lift.

"This would be fun if it wasn't a matter of life and death," Marco said. "I love the log ride. Not as good as the coaster, of course. But the big splash at the end is cool."

"That voice!" someone said. "I know that voice!"

I turned around and looked to see who was talking. To my complete horror, I found myself making eye contact with none other than Captain Torrelli, our interrogator from Zone 91. And at just that moment, the log hit the chain lift and engaged with a loud CHUNK!

"You!" the captain said.

Marco turned around. "Uh-oh."

"What?" Jake asked.

CLANKCLANKCLANKCLANKCLANKCLANK! Up the slope we went, pressed back into our damp seats.

"You are under arrest!" Captain Torreli said.

"Honey, what is going on?" his date asked.

"Yeah, what is going on?" Jake asked me.

"It's the guy from Zone Ninety-one," I whispered in Jake's ear. "He's recognized me and Marco."

"Uh-oh."

"None of you better move!" the captain said.

And at that point we reached the top of the lift. For a second we were poised there. Then the log tipped forward and gravity took over.

"Ahhhhhh!" the captain's date yelled.

"Ahhhhhh!" I yelled because I hate thrill rides.

"You two are mine1."the captain yelled.

And down we went.

WHOOOOOOOSH!

Then . . . spuh-LOOOOOSH!

Water everywhere! The log careened along the narrow channel past big fake models of a logging camp dominated by some great big plaster Paul Bunyan thing.

"If the Yeerks are going to strike, they'll do it in the tunnel up ahead,"

Jake whispered. "It's like a tunnel of love thing. Real dark."

I wanted to ask how he knew about a tunnel of love. But I stuck to business. "Either way, we need to bail out there. Otherwise we'll never lose the captain."

Marco turned back in his seat, draping his arm over the partition between him and the captain. "You know, I don't think you can really arrest us. I mean, you're military police, right? And this is nota military base."

The captain glowered. He whipped a cell phone from his jacket pocket and punched in a number. "Hello? Gardens security? This is Captain Torrelli, security code number eight-seven-two-niner-niner. I need —"

"Good work, Marco," Jake said, rolling his eyes.

"This really complicates things," I whispered.

"Here comes the tunnel," Jake said. "Get ready."

The log boat banged through a doorway into total, absolute darkness.

"Now!" Jake hissed.

I stood up. I turned left. Nothing but darkness. I turned right. Just as dark.

Not dark like in-your-room dark when you sleep at night. This was dark like you might as well be blind.

I stepped off the boat, trusting everything to luck.

Chapter 23

Never trust anything to luck.

My foot didn't touch anything. I tried to pull back, but it was too late. I pitched forward.

"Aaaahhh!"

SPLASH! Water up to my waist! BANG! The side of the channel. "Owww!

My head!" I slipped and fell face-first in the water. I felt the current carry me away.

Then Marco's voice: "Ooof! Owww!"

"You kids aren't going to get away that easy!"

PUH-LOOOSH! "Aaarg!"

"Owww!"

"Hey! Watch where you're driving that boat!"

BONK!

A hand grabbed me! I swung a clenched fist.

"Oww! I need that shoulder!" Jake yelled.

"Sorry!"

"You kids stop where you are!"

Suddenly, there were lights! Lights everywhere! I had been swept along in the current back out of the tunnel. I was back in the night air again, gazing up at neon and incandescence.

I stood up. But the current was too strong. It swept my feet out from under me. I fell and floated.

Behind me, another log boat filled with crew-cut guys. Between me and that boat, three heads bobbed in the water: Jake, Marco, and a really angry Captain Torrelli.

"Cassie! Climb out!"

"Oh, no, this is insane!" Marco moaned.

"You kids are gonna do time for this, I swear it!" Captain Torrelli yelled.

BUMPBUMPBUMP. SQUUUEEEEEEGEEE!

I was scraped along a sharp turn. I tried to grab the lip of the boat channel and pull myself out, but I was too weak and the force of the water was too strong.

What to do? I couldn't morph. There were witnesses. I'd just have to float along until...

Until the big huge drop!

"Ahhhhh!" I cried.

"I think Cassie just figured out where we're headed," Marco said.

"Ahhhhh!" I confirmed.

Another sharp turn. BUMPBUMPBUMP! SQUUUUEEEEGEEE!

And then, just a few dozen feet ahead, just ahead of the log boat we had been in, I saw another boat suddenly disappear. And I heard screams.

Happy screams. Totally different from my scream.

"Aaaaaahhhhhh!"

I was racing toward a waterfall. And there was nothing I could do to stop it!

"No! No! Noooooo!"

"Oh, man! No! No! Noooooo!"

"This is insaaaaane! Nooooo!"

"I'll get you kids for this! Nooooooo!"

And over the edge we went. I skidded on my butt down a fifty-foot water slide. Which was bad enough. But just a few feet behind me were two guys and an angry man.

And just a few feet farther back was another log boat. A log boat that would squash us all like bugs if it hit us.

Down I fell, screaming the entire way!

BAH-LOOOOSH!

I hit the lagoon and rolled to my left as fast as I could move my waterlogged body. Something hit me, but it wasn't a boat.

"Hah! Cindy Crawford! You think I don't remember your name? You are under arrest!" Captain Torrelli cried exultantly.

But then he slipped and his head went under the water and I was out of there.

We joined up just outside the exit from the log ride. Three extremely wet, barefoot kids in bike shorts and aerobics suits.

"You know, basically that was fun," Marco said. "If you set aside the whole could-have-been-crushed-by-a-log-boat thing."

Jake squeegeed the water out of his hair. "Okay, so it's not the log ride.

No Yeerks there."

"House of Horrors," I agreed. "Definitely the House of Horrors."

We ran for the House of Horrors. But as we ran there came the sound of a not-too-distant voice crying, "Po ice! Security! Police!"

So we ran faster.

Chapter 24

We ran for the House of Horrors, bare wet feet SLAP-SLAP-SLAPPING all the way. It was halfway across the amusement park. I was panting and sweating and holding my sides from the pain by the time we got there.

"Now what?" Marco asked.

"Now we find the others," Jake said.

"But they could be in morph. We don't even know what we're looking for,"

I pointed out.

"Exactly. And then we have to figure out if the Yeerks are using the House of Horrors to kidnap and infest guys from Zone Ninety-one."

"Even though we don't know if the Yeerks will be plain old human– Controllers or Hork-Bajir or whatever," I said.

"Exactly."

"And in the meantime," I concluded, "we have to avoid getting arrested by an Air Force captain who is frantically trying to protect the Most Secret Place On Earth, where they are hiding an old Andalite toilet."

Marco laughed sardonically. "Does anyone else ever think maybe we've all just lost our minds? You know, like maybe none of this is real and we're escaped lunatics from the local hospital for the hopelessly wacko?"

"Hey, we're saving the world here, Marco," I said.

"That's what all lunatics say."

"Come along, my wacko friends." Jake led the way toward the House of Horrors entrance.

This ride involved cars on tracks as opposed to log boats in water. I was relieved that at least there wasn't any water.

The three of us piled into one of the cars. A fourth person was seated with us. He was a man, maybe thirty years old. He smiled at me.

"Sure this isn't too scary for you kids?"

"No, sir. We're pretty good at handling scary stuff," I said.

"I don't see the others," Jake muttered under his breath as the car lurched away down the track.

"Boo-ah-ah-hah-HAH!" a mechanical skeleton shrieked.

"Beware! Beware all ye who enter here!" a loud, booming recorded voice cried. "Beware the horrors that lie within!"

Then, "Aaaaaarrrggghh!" A mechanical pirate holding his own severed head jerkily waved a sword at us.

A huge snake turned and aimed its cobralike head at us, staring with glittering green eyes.

"Yeah, yeah, big deal," Marco said. "Could this get any faker?"

"Why are you kids so cynical?" the crew-cut man asked.

"We watch too much TV," Marco answered.

The car spun and banged backward through a doorway into the next room of the House of Horrors. In a flash of lightning I saw the car behind us. In it were also four people. Captain Torrelli and three uniformed Gardens security guys.

"What is with thaiguy?" I asked.

"Hey, Captain, havin' fun?" crew cut yelled back to Torrelli.

"Airman Jones!" Torrelli yelled. "Don't let those kids get away!"

"These kids?" Airman Jones asked, pointing at us.

"Yeah. Thosekids! At least that girl and the boy with the smirk!"

Our car jerked violently back around and we were being shrieked at by a flight of ghosts passing overhead.

"That Captain Torrelli. What a joker that guy is," I said weakly to Airman Jones.

"Captain Torrelli has never joked in his life," Jones growled. "You kids are gonna have to stay with me till the captain can talk to you."

We passed beneath the flying ghosts. And that's when the ride got weird.

Really weird.

See, somehow, whoever had built the ride seemed to have created perfect, life-size replicas of six Hork-Bajir warriors. And standing behind them, also frozen in place, was a creature with the body of a deer, the tail of a scorpion, and a mouthless face. They were all very lifelike. Probably because they were alive.

Visser Three was in the House of Horrors.

"Okay, now'mscared," Marco said.

"Where are Rachel and Tobias and Ax?" Jake asked in a low voice.

"There," I said. I pointed to a frozen, life-size replica of one of the scariest things on Earth: an eight-hundred-pound grizzly bear. The grizzly was on its hind legs, reared up. It was standing perfectly still. Except for the fact that you could see it breathing.

Sitting atop the grizzly bear was a bird. It was too dark to make out the tail feathers, but I could guess what color they were.

And completing this odd tableau, a rattlesnake was coiled around the grizzly bear's up-stretched paw.

Rachel and the others must have seen the Yeerks moving into place.

They'd gotten there first and were now waiting for the Yeerks to make their move.

The loudspeaker blared. "Nyah-hah-hah-hah! Beware the graveyard ghouls!"

In between the Hork-Bajir, the visser, and my friends the bear, the hawk, and the snake, were really fake-looking tombstones topped with greenish skulls.

"This is the best part of the ride," Jones said. "Those big blade monsters there are really cool!"

I rolled my eyes. My stomach rolled all on its on.

"This is so totally going to turn ugly," Marco said.

Chapter 25

Have you ever known something was going to happen right before it did happen? It almost seems like you're psychic. But usually it's just that your brain has put things together and figured something out.

Well, in the split second before everything cut loose, I realized something: Out in the Dry Lands, the visser had talked about having a list of the humans who would be useful. And who would be more useful to the Yeerks than the head of security for Zone 91?

No time to be subtle. "They'll go for Torrelli!" I yelled.

Our car was turned forward and we were past the tableau of Hork-Bajir and Animorphs. But I heard a loud scream and I knew it wasn't one of those giddy, happy, fun-house screams.

Jake leaped from the car. I leaped after him and collided with Marco. The three of us barely missed being cut in two as the car we'd been in slammed through a narrow door.

I fell to my knees. We were on the tableau! We were suddenly a part of the House of Horrors Ride. And that ride had gone totally gruesome.

Six big Hork-Bajir bounded toward Captain Torrelli's car. It had been his scream we'd heard.

One of the uniformed guards raised his gun. Too slow! A hundred times too slow to beat a Hork-Bajir!

SLASH!

The Hork-Bajir swept its wrist blade.

"Aaaaahhhhh! Aaaahhhh! Aaaaahhhh!" the man bellowed in pain.

The Hork-Bajir yanked the guards up out of their seats and literally threw them back into the scenery. Captain Torrelli was alone in the car. But then two Hork-Bajir grabbed him, careful not to injure him, and lifted him up like he was a doll.

And all the while, the stupid loudspeaker was yammering, "Nyah-hah– hah-hah! Beware the graveyard ghouls!"

But Captain Torrelli was not alone.

"RRRRRAAAWWWRRR!" Rachel roared in her big grizzly bear voice. She flung the rattlesnake straight at the nearest Hork-Bajir.

The snake – Ax in morph – wrapped itself tightly around the alien's neck and sank poisonous fangs deep.

"Tseeeeeer!" Tobias launched himself, talons outstretched, and ripped at the vulnerable eyes of a second Hork-Bajir.

But that still left four of the big, bladed monsters, not to mention the visser himself. And not even Rachel could handle them all. Although she tried. I swear she grinned a bear grin as she swung one frying-pan-sized paw into the head of a Hork-Bajir.

FWUMP! The Hork-Bajir rocked back and fell unconscious.

SHLUMP! He hit the floor.

"The Andalite bandits!" Visser Three cried in thought-speak.

That's what the Yeerks think we are: An-dalites. They know whoever we are, we can morph. And they know only Andalites have mor-phing technology.

"We can't stay and fight," the visser pouted. "Much as I would enjoy destroying these vermin! We have priorities. Bring the human!"

"We have to morph!" Jake hissed to me and Marco. "Into the shadows!

Before the visser gets away!"

I had already started. This was a fight. I needed something powerful.

Something extremely dangerous.

"They're taking the captain!" Marco yelled.

"We can't stop them! We need more firepower," Jake yelled. "Morph!"

My morph was already under way. Thick gray fur was sprouting from every inch of my body. My mouth was becoming a muzzle. A muzzle filled with long, sharp teeth.

"l could use some help here!" Rachel called as she knocked another Hork-Bajir into a wall.

The Hork-Bajir Ax had filled with rattlesnake venom was staggering.

But Visser Three and two of the Hork-Bajir had disappeared from view with Captain Torrelli.

"Cool!" a voice squealed. "Now, this part of the ride is excellent!"

To my amazement, people were still passing by on the ride! Every few seconds another carload rattled past, filled with people who must have thought they were watching the most realistic House of Horrors Ride in all history.

"Look! It's a werewolf!" someone said. He pointed. Right at me.

Fortunately, we were all three in deep shadows. No one would ever be able to recognize us.

I was just finishing my morph. I had gone, as quickly as I possibly could, from human to wolf.

Rachel was roaring and belowing. Tobias was shrieking and flapping his wings. Ax was looking for another victim. But the fact was, Visser Three had Captain Torrelli. And the visser was gone.

I looked at Jake. He was just completing his tiger morph. I looked at Marco. He was almost all the way into his gorilla morph. I felt my wolf senses turn on. It was a powerful moment. There is nothing on Earth like a wolf's sense of smell. And nothing much like a wolf's sense of hearing.

I could tell exactly, precisely where Captain Torrelli had gone. I could smell every dragging footstep he had taken.

Then, suddenly, the remaining Hork-Bajir warriors bolted. They raced after Visser Three and Captain Torrelli.

"After them!" Jake yelled.

FWAPP! FWAPP! FWAPP! CA-RUNNCH!

Bright lights! Blazing neon! It took a few seconds for me to figure out what had happened. Then I saw: Visser Three had used his Andalite tail to slice through the back wall of the House of Horrors. His Hork-Bajir had knocked the wall down.

Visser Three, his Hork-Bajir, and poor Captain Torrelli were loose on the grounds of The Gardens.

Chapter 26

One evil Andalite-Controller and six Hork-Bajir – several of which were staggering from the wounds Rachel, Tobias, and Ax had inflicted – barrelled into the neon night, dragging a helpless Captain Torrelli.