Текст книги "Animorphs - 10 - The Android"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 6 страниц)

I held up my hand. Between my thick, brute fingers I held the Pemalite crystal.

The woman turned as pale as her hair.

"Give me that."

I shook my big gorilla head.

"Lower those guns," the woman snapped.

"What?" some guy behind her yelled. "We have them! We have them cold!"

The woman's jaw twitched again, but she stayed in control. "What do you think a bullet would do to that crystal?"

"But the odds that a bullet would hit the crystal ... It's not going to happen."

The woman smiled grimly. "That crystal is worth more than the mother ship and everything in it," she said.

Then she started yelling. "You want to shoot? Go ahead, fool! If you hit the crystal, you can explain it to Visser Three."

She got a grip on herself while the guy who had spoken out decided he was not interested in explaining anything to Visser Three.

"All human-Controllers, back. Weapons on safety," the woman snapped.

The rifles faltered, then lowered toward the ground.

But I knew better than to breathe a sigh of relief. See, I knew what was coming next.

The woman looked right at me and smiled.

"Hork-Bajir, forward."

The Andalite who'd given us our powers had told us that the Hork-Bajir had once been a gentle, decent race before they were all enslaved by the Yeerks. All Hork-Bajir were Controllers now.

But it was hard to believe the Hork-Bajir had ever been the sweethearts of the galaxy. They were death on two legs: seven feet tall, eight, if you counted the forward-raked blades that protruded from the top of their snake-heads. They had blades at their elbows, blades at their wrists, blades at their knees. They had huge claw-feet like tyrannosaurs, and a short, thick tail that ended in cruel-looking spikes.

They were walking razor blades. All sharp edges and lightning speed.

I've fought Hork-Bajir before. And I can count. Two dozen Hork-Bajir was at least a dozen more than we had any hope of defeating.

Then, behind the Hork-Bajir, beyond the retreating human-Controllers, outside the building, staring horror-stricken through the glass, I saw Erek.

Erek, who could do nothing at all to help us. Who was helpless to do anything but witness our slaughter. I felt like throwing up. The fear was all over me. The fear was surging through me, washing over me, drowning me from inside and out.

We were going to lose.

We were going to die.

And life, any kind of life almost, is so much better than being dead.

"Attack," the woman said. Her voice was nearly a whisper.

The Hork-Bajir leaped forward, a wall of slashing, whirling blades.

Right in front of me! SEEEEWWW! A huge Hork-Bajir slashed and a bright red line cut across my black leather chest! I swung my fist and hit the Hork-Bajir hard enough to fold him in two. But another leaped over him and came at me. I blocked his arm, but he kicked at me with his clawed foot.

I fell back. I looked down and saw a hole in my stomach.

A hole! I could see the gorilla's insides! My insides. My insides! "Ahhhhh!" I screamed in thought-speak, as the gorilla bellowed in agony.

The Hork-Bajir leaped on top of me. I swung again and knocked his legs out from under him. He toppled down, but landed beside me. My left hand went to his throat and I squeezed. I squeezed with all the strength I had. The Hork-Bajir slashed at me again and opened a gash in my hairy arm. But I kept my grip tight.

I screamed as the Hork-Bajir twitched and scrabbled wildly and began to jerk uncontrollably.

The battle raged all around me.

Screams. Cries. Bellows of animal rage. The garbled roars of the Hork-Bajir. Even the guttural roar of the human-Controllers, who watched and cheered the Hork-Bajir on.

I saw Jake leap through the air and close his jaws around a Hork-Bajir's face.

I saw Rachel swing her paw and open up a Hork-Bajir like someone cleaning a fish.

I saw Cassie dodging swiftly, biting, backing away, lunging to bite again, red foam flying from her muzzle.

And Ax, striking again . . . again . . . again with the deadly speed and perfect accuracy of his Andalite tail.

But we were losing. It would be over in a few seconds. We were losing.

"0h, God!"

someone screamed. Maybe it was me, I don't know.

"Help! Help! Get him off me!"

"Look ou!"

"No! Nooooo!"

It was all one combined thought-speech scream.

And still the alarm howled its screeEEEEET! I felt my grip weaken on the throat of the Hork-Bajir. But it didn't matter anymore.

It was safe to let him go.

My vision was red. Red and fading.

I felt a sharp stab as another Hork-Bajir sunk a blade into my gorilla heart.

None of it mattered, though. It was all coming to an end ... all coming to an end. . . .

Through a red mist I saw a face on the other side of the glass. Erek. Somehow, in the battle, I had ended up not far from the wall of windows.

Erek was just a few feet away. Just on the other side of the glass.

I felt something hard in my palm. The crystal.

I crawled. A vicious Hork-Bajir kick, and I went sprawling right against the glass.

"0h . . . no." I said.

I could see the damage the kick had done.

I was dead. I could feel my brain shutting down.

Human-Controllers were closing in around me, hammering me with the butts of their rifles.

With my last ounce of strength, I rammed my fist through the glass.

I felt strong fingers pry open my hand. I felt the fingers lift out the crystal.

And then . . . later, much later, someone slapped my face.

"Morph back, Marco. Morph back! Do it!"

–L woke up on the ground. Not a floor, the ground. Dirt and leaves.

I sat up very fast. I looked at my body.

"Human!" I said. I wanted to cry from the sheer relief of being myself again. Myself and alive.

I looked around. Jake. Cassie. Rachel.

Ax. All there! All human! Except for Ax, of course.

Tobias was perched in the tree above us.

Someone else was there, too. I heard a voice sobbing.

"You okay, Marco?" Jake asked.

"Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Man, I was so close to being dead!"

"You were," Jake said solemnly. "He gave you an electric shock to start your heart again."

"Who did?"

Jake jerked his head toward the source of the crying.

It was Erek, sitting in the dirt with his head down.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Little bunch of trees, just down from Mat-corn.

Or what's left of Matcom."

"How did we get here? How did we get out of that place? We were toast!"

Cassie came over and sat beside me. "You saved us by getting the crystal to Erek. He used it. He rewrote his programming. He's the one who . .

." She looked away. "He . . ."

"He took care of the Hork-Bajir," Rachel said. "I saw some of it. I was still conscious."

I was confused. "How did Erek take care of the Hork-Bajir?"

"He destroyed them all."

Ax said.

I almost laughed. "Erek took out two dozen Hork-Bajir?"

No one laughed with me. Erek had stopped sobbing.

I thought, Why would a robot cry? "AII the Hork-Bajir."

Ax said. "AII the human-Controllers. All of them."

I stood up. I could see the Matcom building. It was only a few hundred yards away. There was a big hole in the front glass.

I had a very bad feel– ing about what was on the other side of that glass.

All I could think of to say was, "All of them?"

"It lasted about ten seconds," Rachel said.

She closed her eyes, trying not to remember what she had seen. But I guess the images weren't easily shut out. She opened her eyes again, and to my utter amazement, I saw tears.

That's what brought the horror home to me – Rachel's tears.

"lt was extremely brutal." Ax said. "Very brutal, and very swift. He carried us here. He revived you. He even reattached my arm."

I saw a scar on Ax's left arm.

"He hasn't said anything since then,"

Cassie said sadly. "He won't talk to any of us."

"He saved us, though, right?" I said.

"Yeah," Cassie agreed, smiling a deeply sad smile. "He saved our lives. And lost his own soul."

I went to Erek. I wanted to thank him. I wanted to tell him he'd done what was right. He'd beaten the bad guys. Saved the good guys.

He stood up as I came over.

"You okay, man?" I asked him.

He looked at me with holographic human eyes. Maybe he had to choose to make them cry. Maybe he had to choose to give them that empty, hollow look. I don't know what the connection is between the android Chee and his projected human body.

But his expression answered my question.

No. Erek was not okay.

"You saved our lives, Erek," I said.

"How do you . . . how do you live with the memory?"

he asked me.

I knew what he meant. See, win or lose, right or wrong, the memory of violence sits inside your head. It sits there, like some lump you can't quite swallow. It sits there, a black hole that darkens hope, and eats away at everyday happiness like a cancer. It's the shadow you take into your own heart and try to live with.

I shrugged. "I guess I try not to think about it. I try and forget. And after a while, the nightmares don't happen as much."

Erek put a finger to his head. "Android," he said. He made a bitter, ruined smile. "I can't forget. See? I can never forget . . .

anything."

I looked at him. Already in my own human mind, the memories of that night's horror were fading. The flash of blades and the pain and the sickening feeling of my fist closing around the Hork-Bajir's throat . . . they were being covered over by scar tissue.

What if I could never forget? What if all those memories were fresh forever? I realized then why the Pemalites had forbidden their creatures to kill. The Chee lived forever. Forever was a long time to remember what Erek had done.

"I'm sorry," I said.

Erek nodded. "Yes." He held out his clenched fist, palm down. I knew what he was doing. I didn't want it. But I held out my own hand, and took the Pemalite crystal from him.

"I've changed my programming back," Erek said. "We ... I ... maybe at times I can tell you things. Information. But I'll never fight again. I can't join this war, my friend."

He walked away. We went to our homes and crawled into beds our parents never knew we'd left.

I was beyond exhausted. But I couldn't sleep.

Too many images. Too many memories. And I was afraid of the nightmares.

There are evil things in life, and I guess there are times when a human being has to fight those evils.

I closed my eyes and wandered lost and afraid through my nightmares.

And already, my mind was forgetting.

Teah! Yeah! Go boy!"

Homer ran flat out, kicking up divots of sand as the Frisbee soared over his head. With a burst of speed, Homer got out in front of the Frisbee, jumped, pivoted in midair, and snatched the disc out of the air. His jump carried him to the water's edge and he landed in the surf.

"Yeah! Good boy!" Jake said.

"Not bad," I said. "He's not quite that Frisbee dog we saw on TV, but he's not bad."

"Hey, that was a professional Frisbee dog. Homer's just in it for the sport.

Homer doesn't even have any endorsements."

Homer came trotting back across the sand with the Frisbee in his mouth.

It was a week after our battle for the Pemalite crystal. Jake and I were at the beach. Tobias was high overhead, riding the thermals. I didn't know where the others were.

And my hair had finally grown out a little. But I'd gotten used to having it shorter. I decided to keep it that way, just to spite everyone.

There weren't that many people on the beach because it was a little too chilly for lying out. Instead, people came down and flew kites, or walked along, looking for sand dollars and shells. And they played with their dogs.

Jake knelt down and tried to take the Frisbee from Homer. But Homer, like just about every dog in all of history, refused to give it up.

"They just don't get the point of this whole game," I said. "You throw, they catch, they bring it back for you to throw again. Why is that so hard to figure out?"

Jake scratched right behind Homer's ear, and Homer dropped the Frisbee. "Oh, they know how to play the game, all right," Jake said with a laugh.

"For them, the game is "I throw, they catch, they bring it back, they get a good head scratch, then they give up the Frisbee.""

But just then, Homer lost all interest in the Frisbee. Two dogs were trotting by, tails in the air. Homer jogged over to greet them. They sniffed each other by way of introduction, then took off, running like the giddy, happy, always-excited, dog goofs they were.

It made me smile to watch them.

"It must have been a nice place," I said.

Jake knew exactly what I was talking about.

"Yeah. A planet where the people were as sweet and decent as dogs. Yeah, that would have been okay."

"I ran into Erek at the 7-Eleven yesterday,"

I said. "I think he was looking for a place to "accidentally" run into me. Anyway, he gave me a phone number. He says it's an absolutely safe phone. He says the Yeerks couldn't tap it or trace it if they tried."

"Yeah? So?" Jake asked.

I shrugged. "So, he says if we ever need him we could leave a message at that number. And if he has something to tell us, he'll record a message for us."

"Huh," Jake grunted. "Think anything will ever come of it?"

"I don't know," I said honestly. "But I think the Chee are going to go on fighting the Yeerks.

They'll just be doing it in their own way."

I reached into my pocket and drew out the small, diamondlike crystal. "I still have this, by the way.

I don't know what to do about it. Erek didn't even want to talk about it. But this is the most powerful computer ever created. It could rewrite the Ghees' programming. It could take over every computer on Earth. The Pemalite crystal. We almost died getting it. What am I supposed to do with it?"

Jake and I stood there, looking down at more power than any human had ever held in his hand.

Suddenly, I realized we weren't alone.

Homer and the other two dogs were standing right in front of us, watching us. I know this sounds crazy, but I swear some flicker of intelligence appeared in those laughing dog eyes.

The three of them looked at us, and we looked back.

I held out my hand, palm up, to show the dogs the crystal. Homer scarfed the crystal out of my hand as if it were a dog biscuit. But he didn't swallow it, just held it in his teeth, where it glittered like a diamond.

The three dogs turned and ran down the beach.

They ran into the surf and splashed out into the water, paddling for a dozen feet or so.

Then they came back to shore, and had a glorious time shaking themselves violently and spraying water all over two old ladies who were hunting shells.

Maybe someday the Pemalite crystal will wash back up on some beach somewhere. Maybe by the time it does, we'll be as wise as the race that created it.

"Homer!" Jake yelled. He threw the Frisbee.

And all three of the dogs, happy, silly, loving fools that they were, went racing after it.

Don't; miss

It was crowded inside the Bug fighter.

Especially because Ax takes up a lot of room.

But we huddled together and looked over Ax's shoulders as he worked the controls. And we looked past Ax, out through the transparent panels at the front of the Bug fighter.

"This ship is very difficult to handle." Ax said. "The design is strange. Some controls are psychotronic. But others require physical handling. Unfortunately, those controls are designed for Taxxons. They have more hands than like."

"Can we do anything to help?" I asked.

"Someone should take the weapons station." Ax said.

"Cool," Marco said. He leaped forward, but I was closer.

I slipped into the area beside Ax. Ax's pilot "seat" wasn't a seat at all, of course.

Taxxons are like huge centipedes, so they can't really sit. Which was good, because Ax doesn't sit, either.

But the weapons station was built for Hork-Bajir. Hork-Bajir are seven feet tall and have thick, spikey tails, but they do sit.

"No way you should handle the weapons," Marco said, leaning over my shoulder. "I kick your butt in video games."

"Yeah, right," I said. "In some alternate universe, maybe."

"Grab the joystick," Marco suggested.

As strange as it seems, there actually was a joystick. It was for much bigger hands than mine, and the two buttons on it were clumsy to reach. But it was a joystick.

"Maybe I should test the weapons," I said to Ax.

"Yes." he said tersely, distracted.

We were rising up through the atmosphere. We were above the clouds already. I could see brief flashes of the lights of the city down below, but mostly it was clouds and more clouds.

But we weren't rising as fast as I would have expected. Ax was definitely working to control the ship.

I looked ahead, saw nothing in the way, and pressed one of the buttons on the joystick.

Nothing.

Ax glanced over. "That was the safety.

The Dracon beam should be armed now. See the screen before you? The red circle is how you aim. Use a combination of moving the joystick, but also use your mind." Marco put his hand on my shoulder. "Phasers on full power!" he said in a Captain Picard English accent. "Arm photon torpedoes! If the Borg want a fight, we'll give them one! Make it so!"

I moved the joystick and watched the target circle track across the screen. It still showed nothing but starry sky. That should be safe enough.

I squeezed the second button.

TSEWWWW! TSEWWWW! Twin red beams of light fired forward, converging too far away for me to see.

"Yes! Most splendid!" Marco yelled.

"Okay, that was cool,"

I admitted, trying not to cackle like an idiot with his first video game.

"Boys with their toys," Cassie teased gently.

"Prince Jake?" Ax said.

"I must apologize."

"Why?"

"I did not at first realize: This Bug fighter's cloaking field is not working."

It took a few seconds for me to track on that. "You mean . . . people can see us?"

"The clouds will hide us from people on the ground." Ax said. "But human radar will observe us. In fact, they have already observed us."

"Uh-oh. Maybe we better get higher," I suggested.

"Yes. But we are rising slowly. I don't know why. And there are two objects approaching us."

"Probably just airliners," Rachel said.

"The objects are moving at one-and-a-half times the speed of sound."

Ax said.

"Okay, that's not a passenger plane," Marco said.

I groaned. "Military jets. Oh, man, it's the Air Force after us. They're "good guys." They're on our side. We can't shoot them down."

Suddenly . . .

SWOOOOOSH! SWOOOOOSH! Two pale gray jets blew past us. The backwash rattled the Bug fighter.

"I can access their radio signals." Ax said. And a second later we heard the voice of one of the pilots.

"Urn . . . Base Control, I ... um ... Bogie is of an unknown type. Say again, unknown type."

"Definitely unknown," the other pilot said.

"Way unknown."

"We're coming around for another pass."

I looked at Ax. "We really don't want to get shot down by a couple of F-sixteens."

"No, Prince Jake. That would be embarrassing. I believe I now know how to increase com"

FAH-WHICH 0000000 M! Suddenly, we were outta there. Out of the clouds. Out of the atmosphere.

"Yes! This thing can move!" Marco exulted.

"We need to buy this game."

We heard a fainter, crackling voice over the radio. "Did you see that? Did you see that thing move, Colonel? Did you see that? What the -"

Then we were out of range, still zooming straight up into black space. Below us I could see the curvature of the earth. It looked just like one of those pictures the shuttle astronauts take from up in orbit.

"That's so beautiful," Cassie said. "Look at that! You can see daylight coming up over the Red Sea."

"Excuse me." Tobias said, "but I don't think the Red Sea is exactly on the way to Washington, D.c."

"Yeah, I guess not," I said. Although it was such a wonderful sight that I almost didn't want to worry about where we were going. "Ax, maybe we'd better slow down, get some idea of where Washington is and -"

"No! No!" Ax snapped.

I was shocked. Ax is always polite.

"No, Prince Jake." he said, a little more calmly.

"We cannot slow down."

"What's the matter?" Cassie asked him.

Ax pointed at one of the view screens before him.

On the screen I saw stars. Then the moon came into view, a vast gray-and-white lightbulb.

And silhouetted against the glowing moon was a shape.

It was like some medieval battle-ax. The rear half was a two-headed blade. From the middle, like an ax handle, extended a long shaft. At the end of the shaft was a triangular head, very much like an arrow's point.

It was black on black. And even if you had never seen it before and had no idea what it was, you'd know right away it was death.

I had seen it. I stggnew what it was.

"The Blade ship," I whispered.

The Blade ship of Visser Three.