Текст книги "Animorphs - 07 - The Stranger"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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17 "Dad, Carla Belnikoff isn't going to take me on as a student. She handles professional-level gymnasts. I'm too tall, and not good enough to ... besides, you're saying I should move out?

Leave Mom and Sara and Jordan?"

"You're the only one who can decide that," my dad said. "But as for Coach Belnikoff, you're wrong. You have the talent. I know. If that's something you want to do, if you want to make that your life, you could go places in gymnastics."

I shook my head. Not to say no, just to try and clear out the confusion. "Dad, are you asking me to go with you when you move?"

"Yes. I know it would be hard on you and your mom and your sisters, but we could make it work. I mean, this job pays a lot of money. You could fly back here any time you wanted.

Every week if you wanted."

Was he serious? It sounded ridiculous. Was he actually serious? I sat down on the edge of my bed. My thoughts were everywhere all at once. Leave? Leave my mom and my sisters?

This was just because my dad felt guilty. He felt bad about leaving. This was about pity. He felt sorry for me or something.

"And I know it would mean changing schools," he said, "but, gee, Rachel, I think it could be okay, you know? I mean, for one thing, they have serious mountains there. We could do some rock climbing together on weekends. Go hiking.

And it's a huge sports town. I need someone to go with me to games. It would be like in the old days." Then he winked. "And hey, it's a much bigger city, so think of all the shopping."

No, it wasn't pity or guilt, I realized. At least not completely. I think my dad was feeling lonely. He was picturing himself lonely in the new town.

"Oh, man," I said. "I don't know what to say."

My dad nodded his head. "Don't decide now. I wouldn't want you to. Talk to your mom. And Jordan and Sara, too. You think about it. I just think . . . you know, I've just missed you, sweet heart. We have fun trash-talking the umpires at games, don't we? And hiking?

Remember the time we got lost?"

"Of course, I remember," I said. "I just ... I just have to think it over. You know."

I wanted to say, Dad, you don't understand. It isn't just about Mom and Sara and Jordan. I have a date, Dad. To go back to the Yeerk pool. My friends are counting on me. See, I'm supposed to be Xena, Warrior Princess. I'm supposed to go back down there . . . down into the last place on Earth I want to go.

"I have to think it over," I repeated.

"Yeah. Anyway, I'm gonna go now."

"Okay, Dad," I said.

18 "I love you, Rachel."

I wish he hadn't said that. I was doing fine till he said that, and then the tears started.

After my dad left, I talked to my mom. She said what I expected: She wanted me to stay. But it was up to me. She trusted me to think it through.

Up to me. Great. I could hurt my mom and my sisters, or I could hurt my dad. Perfect.Isn't divorce fun?

After I went to bed, I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. My brain kept churning like a computer you can't turn off. Too many things to think about. My dad. My mom.

And the big, huge, massive thing I didn't even want to start thinking about: my friends. The An-imorphs. The war against the Yeerks. Finally, I knew I had to get out of there. I needed air and open spaces. The walls were just way too close around me.

I climbed out of bed and opened my window all the way. I changed from the T-shirt I sleep in to the black leotard I usually wore under my clothes.

My morphing outfit.

I couldn't think about it anymore. I just needed some space to not think about my father. Not think about choices.

I focused my mind. I concentrated. Just some time to think, I told myself, as my fingers be came feathers and my toes curled into talons.

I guess every kid has times he wants to just get away. But I had the power to do it. I could even get away from myself.

I launched myself into the night.

19 Chapter 6

I flew in absolute silence. The wind rushing over the top of my wings never ruffled a feather.

The moon was low on the horizon, just a sliver. High clouds blocked the starlight. The grassy field just a few feet below me would have been black and featureless to human eyes. But I was not looking through human eyes.

My eyes were so large, they nearly filled my head. They looked through the darkness like it was noon on a sunny day. I could see individual blades of grass. I could see the ants crawling beneath the grass.

My hearing was so acute that I could hear a mouse step on a twig from seventy-five feet away.

I could hear the beating wings of a sparrow that was flitting from tree to tree. I had morphed into a great horned owl. The night killer. The predator of darkness. I flew lower still, closer to the ground, letting the owl's mind search out prey. Here a mouse. There a shrew. There a vole. And all the many little birds.

They were all meat to the owl. I could descend, silent and deadly, on a rat or rabbit, spread my talons wide, and strike.

I could squeeze my talons until they burst the skulls of my prey and... no. No, I told myself. I was not Tobias. He had no choice but to be a predator. I had a choice.

Like my father had a choice. He could just not move. And then I wouldn't have to make this awful decision. If he knew... if he understood everything...he wouldn't do this. He would understand that I was part of the battle to help save Earth.

But I couldn't tell him. Not even my dad. He could be one of them.

That's what knowing about the Yeerks does to you. You look at everyone and wonder what's living inside their brains. Even though I felt like somehow I would just know if my dad were a Controller.

I guess I've always had a close relationship with my dad. Right from the start, going back as far as I can remember, we were always doing stuff together. I mean, I have this photograph of me when I was three years old, standing on a balance beam, with my dad holding me up and grinning at the camera. I love that picture, even though I look lame in the outfit I had on. I keep it on my desk in my room.

When my mom was pregnant with my littlest sister, Sara, .I overheard my parents talking.

My mom was saying maybe this time she would have a boy. "I know you've always wanted a boy," she told my dad.

"Oh, come on," he answered. "That was years ago. I thought I had to have a boy to do all the fun 'dad" stuff with. But I have Rachel. She's as good as any boy. She's already tougher than most boys her age. Have you seen the vaults she can do?"

My mom groaned. "Don't ever let her hear you say that. Little girls do not want to be told they are as good as a boy."

20 But she was wrong. I know it was sexist and all, but I still just thought it was great. My dad thought I was as tough as any boy. Cool.

If only he knew what I was doing now, I thought.

How could he expect me to make this decision? I couldn't leave my friends. I couldn't. They were counting on me. We were going back to the Yeerk pool, and they were counting on me to be brave and strong. That's what they thought I was.

But if I was so brave and so strong, why was I suddenly imagining a very different life, a long, long way from the war with the Yeerks?

Why was I imagining a life of gymnastics classes and ball games with my dad – a place where I was just a person? Where no one expected me to go back down into that hell of screams and despair called the Yeerk pool?

If I was so brave and so tough, why was I imagining a normal life?

21 Chapter 7

I flew into Tobias's territory. It was also the territory of at least one real horned owl, who would not be happy to have me around. It belonged to Tobias by day and to the owl by night.

I knew a tree where Tobias often slept. Sure enough, he was there. I stopped beating my wings and glided up.

I was already flaring my wings to come in for a landing when Tobias noticed me.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's me, Rachel."

"Oh, man! You almost gave me heart attack!"

"Sorry."

"Sorry?" he demanded angrily. "It's night, we're in the woods, I'm a hawk and you're an owl who comes zooming up in attack mode. Don't do that kind of stuff, Rachel. "

"I'm just an owl, not an eagle." I protested. I knew that some eagles and some falcons will attack hawks.

"Okay, okay. It's just that hungry owls have been known to go after hawks. It doesn't happen a lot, but owls scare me. I know everybody sees cute cartoon owls and thinks all they do is say "hoot, hoot" and act wise. But let me tell you, I've watched owls work. They aren't cute.

They're tough. I don't ever want to have to fight one. "

I settled on the branch beside him, sinking my talons into the soft bark. I could see why Tobias liked this perch. It gave a perfect view of the meadow, with all its tasty prey.

"I'm really sorry, Tobias. I guess I forget that your life can be so dangerous. "

"Yeah, well, it has advantages, too." he said. "No more first period gym class. So what are you doing out here playing owl?"

"I had to get out of the house. "

"Ah. Why? Unless it's not any of my business."

"I don't know. Nothing. Nothing. I was just hyper. "

Tobias didn't say anything. Obviously, he knew I was lying. He just waited for me to tell him, watching me with gold-brown eyes that seemed to drill holes through me.

But I didn't really want to tell him. I mean, I guess I had wanted to, or why else would I have flown out to see him? But now it just seemed ridiculous to lay my problems on him.

"I was just thinking about going down into the Yeerk pool again." I said.

"You're worried?" he teased. "You?"

22 "I get worried sometimes." I said defensively. "I was thinking about flying out to The Gardens, to the zoo. Maybe acquiring some new morph. Something really strong and mean in case we get into a fight down there. A lion. Or a grizzly bear or something. Thought maybe you'd want to fly over there with me. "

"Rachel, you know I don't fly much at night. I can't see that well in the dark. Plus, there aren't any thermals at night, so I can't soar. I just have to flap the whole time, and that's miles away.

I mean, a little trip around here, sure, if you want to go flying. But that's a haul. "

"Yeah, okay. Forget it. "

"I have an idea. Why don't you tell me what's really bothering you? You're all ... weird. You don't seem like yourself."

"It's nothing." I said. "Sorry I scared you. I'm going to head on home."

"Rachel, you know you can always talk to me, right?"

"Yeah. Look... I have a question for you. Do you ever think about years from now? Like when it's time for college and stuff?" As soon as the words were out of my head I wished I could call them back.

But Tobias was cool. He just laughed silently.

"Yeah, I'm thinking I could get easy A's in – ornithology – the study of birds. "

"You could definitely be the professor." I said. "I just meant that sooner or later most of us are going to leave. Move somewhere else. What do we do then, if the Yeerks are still around?"

Tobias began preening his feathers. It's some thing he has to do, but it's also a habit he has when he's bothered by something. "I haven't really looked that far ahead. But I guess I figured this whole thing would sort itself out, one way or the other, long before then. The Yeerks win, and you don't have to worry about college. Or they lose, and we each go back to our normal lives. Some of us more normal than others." he added dryly.

For a while I didn't say anything. I couldn't.

I was too busy hating myself for bringing this up with Tobias. Tobias, of all people! He was already a casualty in this war. He was trapped in a hawk morph. And here I was thinking of bailing out? What was the matter with me? I couldn't leave. Leave Tobias living in the forest?

Leave my best friend Cassie to fight, maybe to die, so I could cut and run? Leave Jake and Marco and Ax?

Why? Because my dad was lonely and I could take gymnastics classes?

"Rachel? You okay?"

No. I wasn't okay. I felt sick. What was the matter with me? I couldn't leave. I couldn't give up. "Me? Of course I'm okay." I lied. "Just the same, I think I will go get myself some firepower.

23 It's time for Yeerk Pool Two: Animorphs' Revenge, right?"

"I don't know. It looks like I'll be sitting out this battle." Tobias said.

"Don't worry." I said. "I'll get a Hork-Bajir for you. "

"You're okay? Really? It seemed like you were upset. "

"Tobias, I am more than okay. Gotta go. "

"Rachel, go home." Tobias advised.

I opened my wings and beat them powerfully, sliding through the dead air of night.

But I did not go home. I flew around a while, trying to get a grip on the confusion in my head. But I couldn't. And I couldn't go home yet. I knew I would just lay there in bed, eyes wide open.

I turned and headed south.

From the air, The Gardens looks very different than it does from the ground. The roller coaster doesn't look nearly as tall or scary. And flying above the zoo area, you mostly just see the roofs of the various interior exhibits. The rest of it seems, at first, to be sparse woods, with cement pathways winding in and around and through, like curled ribbons.

Looking closer, I could see the separate habitats. The trees and the running stream of the tiger area. The open field for the bison, separated by a tall fence from the impalas. I glided over the lions. Most were sleeping by a tree. One female was ranging around restlessly, like she was looking for something. It took a while to find the bears. I wasn't interested in the little black bears. Or the polar bears. I was looking for the grizzlies.

I wanted power. There they were in a habitat of trees and rocks and a deep water-filled moat fed by a tumbling, rushing stream.

There were two, a male and female pair. Both were asleep, sprawled across the rocks. The male was bigger: That's what I wanted. Big. Powerful. Fearless. If I was going back to the Yeerk pool, I wanted something desperately dangerous.

Leave? Move out of town? Give up? No way. No way.

And my dad? I would still see him when he came to town. That's what jets were for. I landed and began to morph back. To revert to my true human form. My feathers melted and ran together and became pink. My beak broke into teeth. My talons became smooth toes. My insides gurgled and squished and sloshed as some organs grew and others changed and others reappeared from nothing.

The bear heard the sounds of my bones stretching, and the faint rustle of feathers melting together to become flesh. He opened one eye and looked at me without understanding or fear.

24 He was well fed. He had been in the zoo for many years, and had all but forgotten the wariness of living in the wild. I was just something that smelled a little like a bird and a little like a human.

I reached a trembling human hand down to touch the rough coat of the grizzly bear. His nearsighted eyes watched me. I was nothing to him. I could not hurt him. He could destroy me without bothering even to wake up fully.

He was beyond fear. Beyond doubt. Beyond pain.

"It must be nice," I whispered to him.

I touched him and felt his power flow into me. And yet, as I absorbed his DNA and imagined myself becoming this fearless creature, I still could not forget the look in my father's eyes, or the quaver in his voice saying, "But, gee, Rachel, I think it could be okay, you know?"

I could already feel the emptiness his moving would leave in my life. He could say he'd come back every other week. He could say we'd still see each other just as much. But I knew it wouldn't be that way.

I could imagine him packing up to go.

I could remember the screams in the Yeerk pool.

I could remember Tobias trying to joke about college.

Too much. Things that were small and personal, and things that were huge, all swirled together in my head. Nothing made sense. It was too much stuff. Too much fear and guilt and loneliness. Too many decisions. Too much.

You know, there are days when I just don't feel brave and fearless. There are days when I just want to go to a ball game with my dad and eat popcorn and tune out everything else that's going on. Be a normal kid.

But that wasn't the life I had. Not anymore.

25 Chapter 8

The next evening, as planned, we all arrived at the mall separately. I hooked up with Cassie at the food court.

"Hi. What a huge surprise to see you here," I said.

"Uh-huh."

We did a little act for any curious Controller who might be watching, pretending to be surprised to see each other.

I looked at my watch. "Perfect. We have fifteen minutes to wander slowly toward The Gap."

"I saw Jake and Ax down playing video games," Cassie said. "Poor Jake. Ax is a little unpredictable when he's in human morph. While I was watching, he tried to eat a cigarette butt out of an ashtray."

Andalites have no mouths and no sense of taste. So whenever Ax played human, he found the sense of taste extremely exciting. He would try to eat everything around him.

I laughed at the image of Ax chewing on a cigarette butt. I was surprised I could laugh. This was not a mission I was looking forward to.

We arrived at the store.

"Marco says it's in the last dressing room," I reminded Cassie. "And we have to assume the people who work here in the store are all Controllers. Speaking of Marco, I wonder if he made it on time?"

"I'm sure he did," Cassie said. "He seems to be kind of into all this lately."

"Yeah, what's that about?" I muttered. Cassie shrugged. "People change, I guess. I feel sorry for Tobias, not being able to come along. It'll tear him up. On the other hand, I'm jealous."

I nodded in agreement. I was feeling hyper again. Jazzed. The way I usually did before we set out to do something dangerous. Only more so this time. I'll admit it – the Yeerk pool scared me. The idea of that awful place made me sick at heart. And now we were going back down there.

"Time to go to the dressing room," I said. "Pick something out you want to try on."

Cassie looked at me blankly. "Like what?"

I rolled my eyes. Cassie cannot shop. She is shopping-impaired. "Just pretend you're me.

Grab a sweater or something."

I spotted Jake and Ax across the room. Ax's human morph is always a little surprising to see because it's a combination of DNA from Jake, Marco, Cassie, and me. He's a guy, but sort of pretty, and witha definite hint of weirdness about him.

I grabbed a sweater for Cassie and held it out for her.

26 "Like I would ever wear that," she said. "It says 'dry clean only'."

We went to the next-to-last dressing room and closed the door behind us.

"Let's do this," I said tersely. We had all decided the best way to go was in cockroach morph.

The last time we'd morphed into roaches, things had not gone well. But roaches were fast, and their senses were good enough to use for our purposes. Also, they might go unnoticed.

I was not looking forward to doing the roach body again. I don't like becoming anything that can be stepped on. Besides, if you think looking at a cockroach is gross, try being one.

I looked at Cassie and let out a yelp. Two hugely long antennae were sprouting from her forehead.

"Jeez, you could have warned me you were starting."

Morphing is not some neat, sensible process where you just gradually become something else. It is much weirder than that. Different changes happen at different times. Body parts appear suddenly, other parts disappear. And the sizes don't always match up till the end.

The first change on Cassie was the sudden appearance of the antennae, which shot straight out of her forehead like two fishing poles. Then her skin started to get crispy-looking. At the same time, we were both shrinking, which feels just like falling. I mean, you see the walls shooting up, higher and higher. You see the ground rushing up at you like you're a parachutist whose chute didn't open.

Unfortunately, since it was a dressing room, there were mirrors on two sides.

"AAHHH!" I cried, startled by the nauseating sight of the skin of my back melting into two huge, hard, brown wings.

Cassie was too far gone to say "shh," but she held one of her hands up to what was left of her lips. Just then her extra legs came popping out of her stomach, and I think I would have yelped again except that I no longer had a mouth.

I heard a slurping sound as the last of my bones dissolved, and I sagged into my exoskeleton.

My clothing was piled around me like a huge collapsed tent.

Human sight was gone now. What I could see was vague and muddy and shattered into a thousand pieces. But I'd had practice being a roach. I could make some sense of the roach's confusing way of seeing.

And there were compensations. The antennae that had sprouted from my head were amazingly good at reading vibrations and smells.

"You okay?" I asked Cassie.

"I'm trapped under my own jeans." she said.

"No, wait. There. I'm out."

27 "I see you." I said.

"Yikes! Look out! There are pins all over the carpet. "

The straight pins were steel shafts that looked as big around as the crossbar of a swing set.

The sharp ends didn't seem very sharp at this size. And the blunt ends were like big steel beach balls.

"Okay, let's get out of the way." I said. We scurried on our six legs over to a corner underneath the small triangular seat.

"Man, this roach brain really wants to run." Cassie said.

"Tell me about it." I agreed. When you first morph an animal, it is almost always a struggle to adjust to its particular instincts. We had morphed roaches before, so we were prepared, but the first time I had become a roach it was all I could do to control the panic.

Even now, the roach's jumpy instincts were barely under control. "Run!" it said. "Run!" I heard loud, crashing vibrations. Something huge moved over our heads. I couldn't see well enough to recognize him, but a few seconds later he began to morph down into our world.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Me, Marco. What, you don't recognize me?"

After that came Ax, who had to morph back into his Andalite body and then into a roach.

Jake grabbed all the clothing we had shed, stuffed it into a bag, and took it away to store in one of the coin lockers out in the mall. Then he came back and morphed into his own cockroach form. His own outer clothing would be sacrificed, left in the dressing room. That would look strange, but not as strange as five separate sets of clothing.

"Okay, boys, girls, and bugs." Marco said, "this has taken about fifteen minutes, which means we are already down to an hour and forty-five minutes in morph. And this is NOT a morph I want to be stuck in. "

"Amen. Let's move out." Jake said.

We scampered like a very tiny, very gross army beneath the divider that separated us from the next dressing room. This was the dressing room Marco believed led to the Yeerk pool.

"We can hide up under the seat." I said.

One of the cooler parts of being a roach is the ability to walk right up most walls. We shot up the wall and cowered beneath the roof formed by the little triangular seat. I rested, facing straight up on the wall. Tiny spines at the end of my legs gripped the small bumps of the painted wall. I could see two of the others just above me, parked like low-slung tobacco-brown cars. Their antennae waved around, just as mine did, picking up scents, feeling vibrations.

28 And then, quite suddenly, it happened. The door of the dressing room opened. A shape so tall, it might as well have been a skyscraper, came into the room.

"We have company." Marco announced. As if we hadn't noticed. As if our little roach brains weren't screaming at us, "Run! Run! Run!"

Then, I heard a soft snap.

The mirror on the back wall of the dressing room swung open. I felt an assault of damp air, rich with a mineral scent. I had smelled that aroma before. Memories came rushing into my head. Memories I wished I could forget.

"Let's go!" Jake yelled.

We tore down the wall, hit the carpet, and blazed for the doorway. The feet of the Controller were just ahead of us, monstrous building-sized shoes that lifted and swung ahead, disappearing from sight.

In we went after the Controller. The door closed behind us.

"We're in." Jake said.

"Oh, goody." Marco replied.

Down into the Yeerk pool.

The very last place I ever wanted to go again.

29 Chapter 9

The first time we went to the Yeerk pool complex, we had taken an incredibly long stairway.

This time it was more of a ramp. It wound downward at an easy angle, no worse than walking down a driveway. And to our roach bodies, which barely experienced gravity, it was like walking on level ground.

Under our scampering feet there was bare dirt, covered by footprints. We climbed in and out of depressions that seemed to be several feet deep, by our cockroach standards.

We let the Controller pull away from us, even though we could have moved as fast as he was.

No point in taking the risk of getting stepped on.

It was dark all around, with only an occasional bare electric bulb, high, high overhead like some dim sun. Still, we wanted to be careful not to be seen. My antennae were tuned in for any vibration that might be another Controller on the path.

Down, down we went, curving and twisting between rock walls.

"Ax, how are we doing on time?" Jake asked. Ax has the ability to keep perfect track of time, even without a watch. It's a very useful talent.

"Twenty-eight of your minutes have passed since Cassie and Rachel entered morph."

"You know, Ax, they're your minutes now, too." Marco said, just to make conversation. "I mean, we are all here together on good old Earth where we only have one type of minute. " We had two hours total in any morph. At two hours and one minute, we would be stuck. Like Tobias. And this was one time I actually agreed with Marco. I was not interested in being a roach forever.

"Stairs up ahead." Cassie reported.

Over, down. Over, down. Over, down. Seventy-five steps.

At last we sensed that the walls were no longer hemming us in. The path had emerged into the cavern itself.

Our roach "eyes" could not see it, but I remembered the first time I had looked down on the Yeerk pool.

It was a vast underground cavern. Larger than one of those big sports domes. The stairways and paths emerged from all sides, right about where the upper tier of seats would have been in a sports dome.

In the center of the area was the pool itself, a sludgy, muddy-looking lake that seemed to see the with the mass of Yeerk slugs in it. But that was not the worst of it. Two piers were built out over the lake. One was where the Controllers – human, Hork-Bajir, Taxxon, and other species – disgorged the Yeerks from their heads. Hork-Bajir guards would watch carefully as each Controller knelt at the far end of the pier and held his head down close to the surface of 30 the lake. The Yeerk slug would then slither out of the host's ear and drop with a flat splash into the lake.

That's when you would discover whether the Controller was a "voluntary" host, or someone who had been taken against his will. See, the voluntary hosts – the ones who had chosen to turn themselves over to the Yeerks – would stand up and calmly walk away. The involuntary hosts would realize that they were temporarily free of the evil alien in their heads. That they once more had control over their own minds and bodies. Some would scream. Some would cry. Many would beg to be released.

A few would try to escape. But the Hork-Bajir were there to grab them and haul them to cages. That's where they would await the moment when they would be taken to the second pier. The second pier was the place where Yeerks, now strong from their swim in the pool and full of the nutrition of Kandrona rays, would slither back inside their hosts.

When I had nightmares about the Yeerk pool . . . and I had those nightmares a lot ... it would always be about that second pier. The voluntary hosts would kneel and receive the Yeerks back into their brains.

The involuntaries would struggle. They would fight. Curse. Some would dare the Hork-Bajir to kill them. We were on a ramp again. No one had said anything for a while as we still raced lower and lower, deeper and deeper, closer and closer. That memory was in all of our minds.

All except Ax, who had not been there.

"I wish I could see more clearly." Ax said. "I wish I could see all that is going on. "

"No. You don't." I told him.

We were at the end of the ramp. We reached the flat floor of the cavern.

"Okay, now what?" Cassie wondered. "We've used up at least three-quarters of an hour. "

"Forty-one of your minutes." Ax said.

"Okay." Jake said.

"You guys remember there were buildings all around the edge of the cavern, set back from the Yeerk pool? Most are probably storage. Some may be generators and air purifiers. But some may be offices, control rooms, or even hold the Kandrona itself. We need to check out some of those buildings. "

"Well, that's what bugs do best." Marco joked.

"I wish we could have found a bug morph with better eyes." I said. "How are we going to even find these buildings? I can't see more than a couple of feet in front of me. "

"Don't need to." Cassie said. "We can smell. They have humans down here. I don't know about Hork-Bajir and Taxxons, but if there are humans down here, they must eat somewhere.

And I swear I smell french fries. "

She was right. I don't know if they were fries, but my roach brain definitely detected food.

31 "Go for the fries!" Jake said with a laugh. We barreled away across the dusty ground. Just ahead, a wall loomed. It was easy enough to find a crack. A roach can slide through a crack no thicker than a quarter.

We emerged into brilliant light and an assault of sounds and smells.

"So. Where do you think we are?" Marco asked.

"This looks like linoleum under us." I said. "Dirty linoleum. I feel a lot of vibrations – lots of feet, I'm guessing. And voices. Too many for me to make sense of them. "

"I smell humans." Ax confirmed.

"Humans don't smell." I said, only half-joking.

"Oh, humans smell." Ax argued. "It's not a bad smell. Sort of like an animal we have back on my planet called a flaar. "

"So we have french fries and humans." Marco said. "Are you telling me we have reached the Yeerk pool McDonald's?"

"If it's some kind of lunchroom or something, it would be a good place to listen in on conversations," Cassie said. "Maybe we can get closer. Crawl up under a table. We should be able to – "