Текст книги "Animorphs - 07 - The Stranger"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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Suddenly a shadow fell over us. Something huge was overhead, blocking out the harsh fluorescent light.

"Now, that. . . that is not a human smell." Ax said.

"I smell it, too." I said.

"It's familiar. I don't like it. Something . . . I've smelled it before . ., it's ... I can't get my human memory and my roach senses together. It smells like . . ."

"Taxxon!" Cassie said suddenly. "Look. That tree-looking thing up there. I think it's a Taxxon leg!"

"Oh, gross. I hate those things." I said.

"LOOK OUT!"

Hurtling down from the fluorescent sky at incredible speed came something like a bright red whip.

I powered my six legs in instant response.

It was too fast!

32 The red whip slapped the ground all around me. It fell over me like an awful, wet quilt. Some thing like glue oozed around me, seeping under my shell, gumming up my legs.

"Nooo!" I screamed.

"I'm trapped!" Marco cried.

I was lifted up off the ground. My back was glued to the red whip, and I was hurtling through space. I caught a wild glimpse of the others, stuck to the red whip just like me.

"What's happening?!" Cassie cried.

"It's the Taxxon." Ax said. "I think he's about to consume us!" We were stuck to the frog-like tongue of the Taxxon, as the evil creature slurped his tongue back down his throat.

33 Chapter 10

"I can't get loose!" Jake yelled. In an instant, without warning, death had come for us. I was glued down, helpless, as the Taxxon's red tongue sucked back into its mouth.

And then . . .

And then . . . everything, everywhere, stopped.

The sticky red whip of the Taxxon's tongue stopped moving.

But it was more than that. Nothing was vibrating against my antennae. There were no sounds.

There were no smells, because the air itself had stopped moving. Then, without meaning to, I began to demorph.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"I'm demorphing." Cassie said. "But it wasn't me doing it. "

"Are we dead? Is this some kind of hallucination?" I asked.

"If it is, I'm having it, too." Jake said.

I swiftly grew larger and larger. My center pair of cockroach legs dwindled and disappeared.

My lower legs swelled and grew skin.

I fell from the Taxxon's tongue to the ground, too large and heavy to be stuck any longer.

Toes appeared. Fingers appeared. My true human eyes opened.

I looked around, dazed and disoriented. The others were all there. We were all human again, barefoot and dressed in our skin-tight morphing outfits, like we always were when we came out of a morph.

Ax was back in his Andalite body, just adding to the general weirdness of the scene.

We were inside a building. As we had guessed, it was a lunchroom. There was a kitchen to one side.

There were a dozen long tables down the middle of the room.

People sat at the tables, eating. Only . . . they weren't eating. They were holding forks. They were looking down at plates of food. They were getting ready to speak. They were holding mugs of coffee.

But no one was moving.

No one was breathing.

The steam rising from the mugs of coffee was frozen and still as a photograph.

"Okay. I'm ready to wake up now," Marco said. "This dream is getting weird."

34 "Look," I said. "Hork-Bajir."

Two Hork-Bajir were standing by the door. I had never seen one standing still before. Even frozen in place they were frightening – seven feet of knife-edged arms, legs, head, and tail.

Salad Shooters on legs, as Marco said. Walking razor blades.

And then there was the Taxxon. The one who had been about to eat us. It was a monstrously big centipede, as big around as a concrete sewer pipe. It had a round, red mouth at the very top of its worm body. The long, red whip of a tongue stuck out and hung in the air.

"I have an idea," Marco said. "Even if this is a dream . . . let's get OUT of here!"

"Definitely," I agreed.

"MOVE!" Jake said loudly.

We ran for the door of the lunchroom. Out into the vast, intimidating openness of the cavern.

Outside, the same freeze had occurred. The surface of the Yeerk pool was still. The humans and Hork-Bajir who were involuntary hosts were frozen in their cages, screaming and crying and shouting without a sound or a movement.

On the infestation pier, a woman was bent low over the water, held down by a Hork-Bajir. A Yeerk was halfway into her ear. She was crying. Her tears were motionless on her cheeks.

Then I saw something moving. One single thing in all that eerie stillness.

A boy. He was tall, a little gangly. He had hair that looked as if it had never been combed.

"Oh ..."

I whispered. "Oh . . . look! It's Tobias!"

The others all turned to see.

Tobias shrugged his human shoulders. He held up his hands to stare at his own fingers. "It isme." he said, sounding like he doubted it. "My old body. Here."

I ran to him. I don't really know why, I just did. I wanted to touch him. To know he was real.

"Ah! Ah! Ah!" he yelled. He jumped back and suddenly threw his arms up and down.

He was flapping, trying to get away. Trying to fly. I had scared him by rushing at him.

"Sorry," he whispered, terribly embarrassed. "Sorry."

I put my arms around him and hugged him tightly.

"Tobias, what's going on?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he said. "I was flying . . . then suddenly, I was here. Like this."

35 "Time has stopped." Ax said. "For everyone but us. I can feel it. "

"Something is very, very wrong," Cassie said darkly.

"Is this some trick of Visser Three's?"

"This is not Yeerk technology, I can tell you that." Ax said. "This is far beyond them; Far beyond us Andalites, as well."

WHAT? HUMILITY? FROM AN ANDALITE?

"Yaaahhh!" Marco screamed.

The voice came from everywhere at once. And from nowhere. It wasn't a voice, not really. It wasn't even thought-speak. It was like an idea that simply popped into your head. The words exploded like bursting balloons inside your own thoughts.

I spun around, looking for the source, ready to fight if necessary.

NO, RACHEL. THERE IS NO THREAT.

"It knows your name!" Tobias hissed.

I glanced at Ax. He had gone rigid. He wasn't frozen like all the world around us, he was afraid. He was shaking.

AXIMILI.-ESGARROUTH-ISTHILL HAS BEGUN TO GUESS WHAT I AM.

"Ellimist!" Ax said.

DO NOT BE AFRAID. I WILL APPEAR IN A PHYSICAL FORM YOU CAN

UNDERSTAND.

The air directly in front of me ... no, not in front, behind. Beside. Around. I can't explain it.

The air just opened up. As if there were a door in nothingness. As if air were solid and ... it is just impossible to explain. The air opened. He appeared.

He was humanoid. Two arms, two legs, a head where a human head would be. His skin was glowing blue, as if he were a lightbulb that had been painted over so that light still shone from him.

He seemed like an old man, but with a force of energy that was definitely not frail. His hair was long and white. His ears were swept up into points. His eyes were black holes that seemed to be full of stars.

"I am an Ellimist," he said, speaking with an actual voice, "as your Andalite friend guessed."

Ax was shaking so badly he looked like he might fall down.

"Be at peace, Andalite," the Ellimist said. "Look at your human friends. They do not fear me.

"

36 "They don't know what you are." Ax managed to say.

The Ellimist smiled. "Neither do you. All you know are the fairy stories your people tell to children."

"Well, how about if someone tells us who and what you are?" I said. I was not in the best mood ever. It was extremely bizarre and unnerving to be surrounded by human-Controllers, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxons, in the very heart of the enemy's stronghold. They were all frozen, but that could change.

To be honest, I was scared. And when I'm scared, I get mad.

The Ellimist looked at me. "You cannot begin to understand what I am."

"They are all-powerful." Ax said simply.

"They can cross a million light-years in a single instant. They can make entire worlds disappear. They can stop time itself. "

"This one doesn't look all that powerful," Marco said skeptically.

"Don't be a fool." Ax snapped. "That's not his body. He has no body. He is ... everywhere at once. Inside your head. Inside this planet. Inside the fabric of space and time. "

"So why are you here?" Jake asked the Ellimist. "Why all of this? Why did you bring Tobias here?"

"Obviously, you saw right through our morphs," Marco said. "You knew who we were. You even know our names. You brought us all here together. Why?"

"Because you must decide," the Ellimist said.

"Decide what?" I demanded.

"The fate of your race," the Ellimist said.

"The fate of the human race."

That's all?" Marco asked. "Just the fate of the human race? Don't you have something more challenging for us?"

But the Ellimist wasn't paying attention to Marco. "We do not interfere in the private affairs of other beings," he said. "But when they are in danger of becoming extinct, we step in to save a few members. We love life. All life, but especially sentient life forms, like Homo sapiens. Your species. This is a very beautiful planet. A priceless work of art."

"You've obviously never seen our school," Marco said, still giddily trying to joke.

Suddenly, without warning, the Ellimist did it again. He opened space.

37 We were no longer standing in the Yeerk pool. We were no longer underground at all. We were underwater. Deep underwater. But the water did not seem to touch my skin. And when I breathed, there was air. Still, I felt fear tingle the back of my neck.

We stood – me, Cassie, Jake, Marco, Ax, and Tobias . . . Tobias, in his own human body – in the middle of an ocean. Suspended in the water, but dry. The Ellimist could no longer be seen. We were floating above a coral reef. And everything was moving again.

All around us, fish swam by in swift-darting schools. Fish in every color and shape, reflecting the dappled sunlight from above. Sharks prowled. Stingrays seemed to fly. Squid pulsated.

Crabs scuttled across fabulous extrusions of coral. Tuna as big as sheep drifted past. Swift, grinning dolphins raced by in pursuit of their next meal.

LOVELY.

The Ellimist's voice once more seemed to grow from deep within my own heart.

LOVELY.

And then, as quickly as we had been plunged into the ocean, we were drifting above the waving golden grass of the African savannah. A pride of lions lazed in the sun below us, looking sleepily content. Wildebeest and gazelles and impalas grazed, then broke into wild, springing, bouncing races that forced you to smile at the sheer energy of it all.

There were hyenas, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, cheetahs, baboons, zebras. Hawks and eagles and buzzards wheeled overhead.

LOOK AT IT.

Then, in an instant, deep jungle. A lithe jaguar prowled while monkeys chattered in the tree canopy above. Snakes as long as a person slithered across tree branches. The air reeked of the heavy perfume of a million flowers. We heard the sounds of frogs, insects, monkeys, and wild, screaming birds.

IN ALL THE UNIVERSE, NO GREATER BEAUTY. IN A THOUSAND, THOUSAND

WORLDS, NO GREATER ART THAN THIS.

Then the Ellimist showed us the human race. We flew, invisible, through the steel-and-glass canyons of New York City.

We drifted above villages at the edges of jungle rivers. We watched a rock concert in Rio de Janeiro, and a political meeting in Seoul, and a soccer game in Durban, and an open-air market in the Philippines.

HUMANS. CRUDE. PRIMITIVE. BUT CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

Suddenly, all the movement stopped. We were staring at a picture. A painting. I'd seen the painting somewhere before.

38 It was a wild swirl of color. A painting of purple flowers. Irises, I think, although I'm no big expert on flowers. The artist had seen the beauty of those flowers and captured some small bit of it on canvas.

CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING.

Then, without warning, we were back in the Yeerk pool. The images were all gone. We were in the land of despair once again. Surrounded by frozen images of horror. The Ellimist – or at least the body he had made for us to look at – reappeared.

"That was a nice tour," I said. I was trying to sound tough. But I felt as if I had been turned inside out. As if my mind had exploded into a thousand sparkling pieces. I was overwhelmed.

"But what's it all about?"

"Humans are an endangered species. Soon you will disappear."

I thought of a couple things to say. But I said nothing.

No one said anything.

"The Yeerk race is also sentient," the Ellimist said. "And they are technologically more advanced than you. They will continue to infest the human race. The Andalites will try to stop them, but they will fail. The Yeerks will win. And soon, the only humans left will be what you call human-Controllers."

I had stopped breathing. The way he said it... it was like you couldn't argue. Like you couldn't say anything. He spoke every word with utter and complete certainty.

He wasn't guessing. He knew.

He knew that we would lose.

39 Chapter 11

We had been terrified a few moments before, as the Taxxon prepared to swallow us. I had been afraid for my own life and the lives of my friends. Now, as the Yeerk pool hung suspended in time, I felt a deeper fear. My head was still swimming from all the images the Ellimist had shown us.

"Why come here just to tell us we're dead meat?" I managed to ask.

"We have an offer for you," the Ellimist said. "You see, we can save a small sample of the human race. We have a planet where we would relocate you. You . . . some members of your family. A few others, chosen to get a good genetic sampling. As well as a few non-human Earth species that are of special interest to us."

I was surprised to hear Cassie actually laugh. "He's some kind of environmentalist," she said.

"That's what he is. We're the spotted owls. We're the rhinos. We're the whales. We're the endangered species, and he's the environmentalist trying to save us."

"We have a planet set aside for you," the Ellimist said. "It will seem very much like Earth.

You would be free to evolve naturally, as your species should."

"This is insane," Marco said. "It's like Noah's ark. The Yeerk flood is coming. Load up the boat."

"No," Tobias said, staring at the Ellimist.

"It's a zoo. That's what he has for us – a zoo."

The Ellimist said, "We do not impose our will on sentient species. The decision is yours. I have chosen you to decide, because only you, of all free humans, know what is happening.

You must decide – to stay on Earth and fight a battle you are certain to lose. Or to leave this planet behind and form part of a new colony of humans."

"How long do we have to decide?" Jake asked.

"You must decide now," the Ellimist said.

"What?" I yelled. "What? What are you up to? What do you mean, we have to decide now."

This was beyond insane. This was a dream. This couldn't even be real. I was imagining it all.

"If you decide the answer is yes, you, and some of those you are close to, will be instantly taken to your new home. If the answer is no, I will return everything to the way it was when I interrupted time."

"You mean we're back in roach morph headed down that Taxxon's throat?" I asked.

"Everything as it was," the Ellimist said. "Our purpose is not to interfere."

I looked at Tobias. His face showed nothing.

Maybe he had forgotten how to show emotion.

40 "And our friend Tobias?" Cassie asked softly.

"Everything as it was," the Ellimist repeated.

"Oh, that's real fair," Marco said. "You ask us this just as we're about to be some Taxxon's lunch?"

"This is ridiculous," Jake said angrily. "You can't just tell us we have to make a decision like this. We are not the ones who should be deciding this. I mean, maybe you're trying to do the right thing for us, but this is nuts."

"Ellimists are not interested in what is fair." Ax said. "Ellimists give you a choice that is no choice at all. Then they can claim that they do not interfere. They will pretend it was a human decision."

It was hard to argue with Ax's opinion. The Ellimist had totally rigged this decision.

Realizing that made me want to resist. The Ellimist wanted us to say yes. He wanted us to abandon the fight against the Yeerks.

And yet... a place where we would have peace. A place where the fighting would be over.

Where we could be normal kids. No more decisions. No more battles. The Ellimist had said we would be with some of the people we were close to. Who? Who would be saved?

"I vote no," Tobias said, with sharp, angry defiance. "You're using me. You're using my friends" affection for me as a tool. And I'm not going for it."

"Let's think this over a little first, Tobias," Cassie pleaded. "I mean, just because we're upset.

This decision is for the whole human race. Do you understand that? He's talking about humanity becoming extinct."

"Tobias, you personally have a lot to lose," Jake reminded him. "If we say no, you're right back in your hawk body."

"So we have two votes no, Tobias and Rachel, one vote yes from Cassie," Marco said. But I hadn't voted. Marco had just assumed. . . . And he was right, I realized with a sick churning in my stomach. Marco was right about me. I had to vote no. If Tobias was ready to stay in the fight, with all he had to lose, I couldn't do less.

"What this character wants us to do is run away," I said. "He wants us to abandon our people and our planet just to save ourselves and the people we care about personally."

Tobias met my gaze. There appeared a faint flicker of his old, human smile.

"This is a decision for humans." Ax said. "I fight the Yeerks. I follow Prince Jake. But I don't trust this Ellimist, however great his power."

"Guys, I know how you feel," Cassie said, "But think about this. We may not even get out of this Yeerk pool alive. And if we die, then what chance do humans have against the Yeerks?

And anyway, he says that humans will lose. Isn't it better to save some humans, rather than losing everyone?"

41 Jake and Marco had still not voted. I noticed that they were looking back toward the building we had come from. And past the building, to what looked like a tall, circular column rising straight up to the rock ceiling of the cavern.

The column was a mix of steel and clear glass. Inside the column was a human-Controller, seemingly frozen in mid-air. She looked like she had been falling down the long tube. Or else flying up it.

A dropshaft! We had used one aboard the Yeerk mother ship. It was a sort of elevator that worked on some invisible force to let you fall safely from one level to another. But did it go up, as well as down? That was the question. Was the human-Controller in the shaft falling or rising?

Jake cocked an eyebrow at me. He looked back to the column, making sure I had noticed it.

I squinted closely at the frozen Controller. She had shoulder-length hair. If she were falling, it should have been swept upward. It was down around her neck.

"Mr. Ellimist," Marco said, "thanks for your offer. But I don't think so. I don't think I want to be in your zoo. And I don't like being muscled like this. I'm glad you like Earth, but we'll take care of it the best way we can."

That made it four against. Me, Marco, Tobias, and Ax. I counted Ax, even if he said it wasn't up to him.

Cassie was alone in leaning in favor of the Ellimist offer. "You all know I take care of lots of sick animals. They are always afraid of me, even though I am trying to help them. Are we being brave saying no? Or are we just being foolish, resisting someone who is trying to save us?"

What she said made me think. With a shock, I pictured nature films I had seen. I remembered one that showed environmentalists attempting to capture some tigers. They were trying to move the tigers to a game preserve where they would be safe. Tigers are almost extinct, and the humans were trying to save a few.

But the tigers had resisted. They had growled and fought and avoided the capture nets.

Was that us? were we animals on the edge of extinction, resisting the being who'd come to save us?

I wondered if I should change my vote. Save myself. Save my family. What would they say, if they had a vote? My mom? She would never risk the lives of her children. She would vote yes. And my dad? If we were all magically transported to a safe place together, and I had to explain what I had done? That I had voted to save all of us and give up the fight? What would he think of that decision?

"You know what bothers me?" I heard Jake tell the Ellimist. "You say the human race will lose to the Yeerks. But I don't believe you can tell the future. See, you don't know how we're going to vote. If you did, you wouldn't bother to be here, would you?" He looked around at each of us.

42 Cassie smiled sadly. "If you guys vote to stay, I will, too."

Jake reached out and took her hand. "Mr. Ellimist, I guess you have your answer."

Instantly, we were back in our roach bodies.

IF YOU LIVE, I WILL ASK ONCE MORE.

IF YOU LIVE.

43 Chapter 12

The red whip of the Taxxon's tongue held me glued down, helpless!

"Morph! Morph out!" Jake yelled in my head.

I didn't need to be told twice.

Through the fear, I focused my mind on my own human body. Suddenly all around me went dark.

"We're inside the Taxxon!" I yelled.

"Focus on morphing!" Jake yelled. "We are busting out of here." A gush of stinging liquid, like a tidal wave, washed me from the sticky tongue. I tumbled blind and terrified through hot, viscous goo. But at the same time I could feel that I was growing. My roach antennae brushed against something very close to me. Another cockroach. But bigger than it should have been.

"Demorphing!" Cassie yelled.

"Right with you." I yelled back.

Everything was closing in around me. The bodies of the others were shoved against mine as we all grew out of our roach morphs. I felt the gut of the Taxxon spasming as it tried to deal with this deadly growing meal.

My human lungs were growing back, and as they grew they began to need air. I was suffocating! My body was not as durable as the roach form.

"Air!" I heard Marco cry. "I can't breathe. "

"Just keep morphing." Jake said. "We'll try and pop this worm open. "

"I have my tail again." Ax said. "Should I – "

"YES!" Jake said. "Do it!"

The darkness around us split open suddenly. I caught a glimpse of Ax's scythe-like Andalite tail slicing the Taxxon open from the inside.

Air! Air rushed in. Stinking, foul, vile air, but air.

We exploded from the inside of the Taxxon, wrapped in its guts, covered with green-blue slime.

We were not fully human yet, still some awful melding of human and bug, but we were finishing our demorphing as fast as we ever had.

Air!

44 I sucked it into my still-forming lungs.

The Taxxon lay ruined and reeking all around us. The room full of human-Controllers eating dinner was no longer frozen by the Ellimist.

Now they were frozen by sheer disbelief. "Let's bail!" I yelled. "Before they can think about it."

We ran. Slipping and slithering through the Taxxon's guts, still forming the last of our fingers and toes, we tore out of there.

"Get them!" a human voice yelled. "Get them, you fools, or Visser Three will chew your bones!"

Suddenly, with a roar, the human-Controllers surged up out of their chairs.

A Hork-Bajir near the door moved swiftly to cut us off. Ax swung his tail with blinding speed. It hit the Hork-Bajir in his shoulder.

"Head for the dropshaft!" Marco cried as he led the way from the room.

"Everyone but Ax, if you can morph again, do it!" Jake yelled as we raced for the dropshaft.

"We need firepower!"

I didn't need to be told. The only one of us who had any kind of natural ability to fight was Ax. I was already trying to focus my mind on the bear that I had made a part of me.

Part of me knew it was foolish. I should morph the elephant, or a wolf. I knew both of those morphs, I could handle them. But I also knew the elephant might not fit in the dropshaft. And I wanted power.

"Whumpf!"

Something hit me and I went sprawling across the dirt.

A man stood over me. A grown man! He had slammed into me. For some reason, this outraged me.

What kind of a creep would hit a girl half his size?

Of course I knew the answer. I knew the man was not really a man at all, but a Controller.

The Yeerk in his head didn't know or care about chivalry.

The man bent over me and began to put his hands around my throat. Suddenly, he only had one hand.

"Aaarrrgghhh!" he cried, falling back.

"Thanks, Ax," I said.

"We are trapped." he said.

45 I looked past him. The others had all reached the dropshaft, a hundred feet away. Between the two of us and them was a small army of human– Controllers and Hork-Bajir.

As I watched, Marco, and then Cassie, were swept up the dropshaft. Only Jake was still standing there. He looked back at us with an expression of horror.

"Jake, get OUT of here!" I screamed. "We'll be okay!"

Several of the Controllers began closing in on Jake. But most of them only had eyes for Ax.

They could see that he was an Andalite – the deadly enemy of all Yeerks. I don't know what they thought I was, still dripping with Taxxon goo.

Suddenly, a pair of Hork-Bajir warriors rushed at us. Their bladed arms slashed the air. They came at us like a pair of chainsaws on high speed.

Ax struck!

But the Hork-Bajir were too fast.

"Aaaarrrhh!"

There was a deep gash down Ax's flank.

He struck again and again, his scorpion tail almost invisible. The human-Controllers stayed prudently back, as much afraid of getting sliced and diced by the angry Hork-Bajir as by Ax.

But more Hork-Bajir were rushing up, and Ax was losing ground.

Then... I realized I was no longer afraid. A deep confidence had welled up inside of me. Utter confidence. Utter fearlessness. I realized I was no longer standing erect. I was on all fours.

When I looked down I expected to see my two hands splayed on the dirt. Instead I saw massive paws. Coarse, dark brown fur. Black claws, each like the point of a pickax. I had become the bear. It was his confidence I felt. It was his total lack of fear.

I was an animal that had never, in a thousand generations of grizzly bears, known an instant of real fear.

Suddenly, I felt a terrible pain in my shoulder. One of the Hork-Bajir had slashed me. I glared with nearsighted eyes and saw nothing but a tall blur.

I had never morphed the bear before. I had never learned to control its brain, its instincts. The bear mind was focused completely on one basic fact – it had been challenged. There was exactly one response to being challenged.

Attack!

"Grrooowwwrrrr!" I roared. I charged the Hork-Bajir.

He cut me again. It didn't matter. I barreled into him, eight hundred pounds of very angry grizzly.

The power!

46 I was a truck doing seventy miles an hour! I was a tank!

I was the largest carnivore on land and nothing, NOTHING challenged me and survived!

I could barely see the Hork-Bajir through the bear's weak eyes, but I smelled him and felt him, and I swung my massive paw and hit him full in the chest. I struck him with a blow that would have knocked a train off its tracks.

The Hork-Bajir went flying. More came.

More discovered why part of the Latin name for the grizzly species is horribilis.

I barely remember what happened next. I gave myself up to the bear's rage. Its anger and my own became one. All the tension within me, all the uncertainty, all the doubts were swept away as I gave myself up to the bear's violence.

I remember that at some point, Jake got into his tiger morph and joined the fight. And I have flashing images from my memory of terrible destruction. Of ripping claws and crushing jaws.

But the next thing I clearly remember is flying up the long dropshaft, while Jake's voice in my head kept saying, "Rachel, morph out. Morph out. You're out of control! You are OUT of control! Morph!"

I was clawing wildly at the air, trying to kill the tiger that was suspended above me in the dropshaft.

Trying to kill Jake.

I felt as if I had snapped awake from a dream.

Slowly, as we rose toward the surface, I left the bear and returned to myself.

The soaring rush up the dropshaft seemed to last forever.

The dropshaft entered solid rock, and as I rose, I shed the last of my bear form. I felt the return of my human reason. But I was still confused and disconnected from what was going on.

Then, quite suddenly, I was at the top of the dropshaft. I stepped off onto solid concrete. The others were all there. Ax was trying to morph into his human body, but he was having trouble. Morphing is exhausting. Morphing rapidly from one form to the next more than once makes you feel like you want to just crawl in a corner and die.

I knew how he felt. I stumbled from sheer weariness as I stepped onto the cement floor. It was dark, with just enough faint light to see the faces around me.

"Careful," Cassie said, taking my arm. "We're okay. We're safe. We're in the base of the water tower behind the school."

"Gotta get out of here. Yeerks will be watching."

47 "Yeah, they were," Marco said. He jerked his head over to the corner where two human-Controllers lay unconscious.

"Let's get out of here," Jake said. "You okay, Rachel?"

"Yeah. Tired is all. I...I never morphed the bear before. Didn't have time to get control. Sorry.

"

"It's okay, Rachel. That grizzly got us all out of there. But get some rest, huh?"

"Yeah. Rest would be nice."

Somehow I made it home. I crawled into my bed and fell instantly asleep.

48 49 Chapter 13

I didn't wake up till the next morning when my alarm went off. I was groggy, barely able to read the numbers on my clock.

"Rachel? Are you up?" my mom called through the door.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm up," I said. I crawled out of bed and staggered toward the bathroom. Jordan was in the bathroom we share.

I went out into the hall toward my mother's bathroom.

She was already up and dressed in a tan business suit. She was adjusting her nylons. "You don't look too good," she said, giving me a sideways look.

"Uh," I said. "Can I use your shower?"

"You're wearing the clothes you came home in last night," she said accusingly. "You came wandering in at nine-thirty, barefoot and wearing your leotard. That's what you're still wearing."

I stared stupidly down at myself. Yes, I was wearing my morphing outfit. "Um...my, um, I left my shoes over at Cassie's. I was showing her some gymnastics stuff. Can I use your shower or not?"