Текст книги "Animorphs - 07 - The Stranger"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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82 I felt the bear weakening as he was cut again and again by Hork-Bajir blades. I was losing blood. The human part of me knew that. I could feel my strength ebbing.

I charged again and hit a Hork-Bajir in the stomach. I carried him along with my momentum as he slashed wildly at me.

CRAAAASSSSHHHH!

I'd hit something! Glass. It had shattered.

A window! I had shoved the Hork-Bajir through the window.

"AAAAAA-AAAARRRRR!"

I heard the Hork-Bajir's cry, dying away as it fell.

A sudden flash of movement, as something came zooming through the shattered window.

"Tseeeeeerrr!"

Tobias screamed as he spread his talons forward and struck the closest Hork-Bajir, raking his eyes.

The battle had turned!

The Hork-Bajir had had enough. Maybe it was hearing one of their fellows fall sixty stories.

Or maybe it was Tobias's arrival, strengthening our side. But whatever it was, the remaining Hork-Bajir ran.

Three of them ran. The rest would not be running anywhere.

Marco grabbed the crumpled door and slammed it back in place. Then, with what must have been the last of his strength, he shoved a desk in place to block the door.

"I'm hurt bad." Marco said. "I gotta morph out, man."

"Do it." Jake said.

"Everyone. Demorph. "

"I'm okay." I said weakly.

"Rachel." Tobias said. "Your left arm. "

I stared blankly at my left paw. It wasn't there. It was a stump.

"Demorphing." I said. I focused on my human body. My weak but healthy human body.

83 Morphing is done from DNA, fortunately. DNA is not affected by injuries, so injuries do not follow you from one morph to another.

Exhaustion does.

As my human body emerged from the vast bulk of the grizzly, I felt so weary I was afraid I might faint.

Through human eyes, I saw a scene of carnage. The Hork-Bajir lay sprawled around the room. Most seemed to be breathing. None were conscious. All were bleeding from claw-and-teeth wounds.

Unfortunately for the Hork-Bajir, they could not simply morph out of their injured bodies.

"Everyone okay?" Jake asked, sounding as weary as I felt.

"Yeah, but that was way too close," Cassie said.

We were in a large office. I could see that now with my human eyes. Desks lay splintered.

The carpet was ripped into ribbons. The walls were gouged. Floor-to-ceiling windows formed one wall. They were shattered. I remembered the Hork-Bajir falling, and shuddered. There was a door in one wall.

"Through there?" Marco suggested.

"Let's try it," I said. I staggered toward the door. It was not locked.

A bare room. Tile floor. White painted walls.

The wall of windows was blocked by heavy curtains. The room was empty but for a large, massively built platform in the very center.

It was a steel pedestal, maybe three-feet-high, eight-feet-long.

And atop that pedestal was a machine the size of a small car. It was shaped like a cylinder, tapered to dull points on both ends.

It gleamed brightly, like new chrome, as if it had just been polished. And it made a slight, low humming noise. As I approached I felt my hair stand on end from the static electricity. It was warm in the room, very warm. It smelled like lightning.

"The Kandrona." Ax said.

"The Kandrona," I echoed.

For a full minute we all just stood there, gaping at it.

"Rachel?" Jake said at last. "We need you to morph again. Can you do it?"

I nodded slowly. "Elephant?"

"Elephant. I don't know how else we're going to do it. We don't have any tools or anything."

84 I morphed the elephant.

Tobias flew outside to make sure there were no pedestrians below on the dark sidewalk. It took every last ounce of power that elephant had. But the Kandrona did move.

It did, slowly, in jerks and starts, slide across the floor.

And when at last I shoved it through the windows, it did fall the sixty stories, to smash into the concrete below.

We did it," I whispered as I returned to my normal body. "We destroyed the Kandrona."

"We have to get out of here," Jake said. "The Yeerks will know. They'll be all over this place.

"

"So, what does this mean?" Marco asked. "We did it. But, what does it mean? Have we changed the future?"

EVERYTHING CHANGES THE FUTURE.

I groaned. "Somehow I knew we'd hear from that guy again."

A REPLACEMENT KANDRONA WILL BE HERE IN THREE OF YOUR WEEKS.

IT WAS ALREADY ON ITS WAY.

"Are you telling us this was all a waste?" Marco demanded.

Ax said, "No, Marco, it was not a waste. Three weeks with only the Kandrona aboard the mother ship?

In three weeks' time they will suffer greatly.

They will fall behind in their schedule. Many Yeerks will perish. Three weeks is not a waste."

"Don't you mean three of our weeks, Ax?" Marco teased.

"Is it enough?" Jake demanded loudly. "Is it enough? Have we changed the future?"

There was no answer. Just silence.

"I don't think he knows," I said. "He showed us a possible future. But you know what? I don't believe the Ellimist really knows the future any more than we do."

"What makes you so sure?"

I laughed. "Because wherever it is that the Ellimist exists, and whatever he's up to, and whatever game he's playing, and no matter how mighty he is, he has butterflies, too."

Then, an amazing thing. Laughter that welled up from inside us, and echoed through us, and made us all smile as if we were fresh and full of energy.

85 HA, HA, HA, HA. AS I SAID, YOU ARE A PRIMITIVE RACE, AND YET YOU ARE

CAPABLE OF LEARNING.

I smiled. "Come on, guys. Do you have the energy for one more morph? I feel like flying."

86 CHAPTER 22

At first we saw no evidence that the Yeerks were suffering. I don't know how they did it, but the Yeerks managed to maintain. It wasn't until later that we learned we had done them terrible damage.

But that is another story.

Two days later, I took the bus over to my dad's apartment. He was packing up his suitcase to leave.

"Hi, Rachel," he said when he opened his door. "I wasn't sure you were coming over." I shrugged. "You're too disorganized to be able to pack all by yourself."

He smiled a sad smile. "Thanks."

"Yeah. No big thing."

"I would have come and picked you up," he said. "Sweetheart," my dad said, "you know you can always change your mind. You can always come live with me."

"I know, Dad."

He smiled sadly. "You know I'll miss seeing you as much. Even though I'll be here every chance I get."

"I know that, too, Dad," I said. I gave him a little kiss on his cheek. He patted my hair and I cried.

I closed up his suitcase and zipped it.

"You going to be okay without me here to take care of you?" he asked.

"I can take care of myself," I said, wiping away the tears.

We took the elevator down to a taxi that was waiting.

"Come with me to the airport. I'll send you home in the cab."

I shook my head. "No, I have stuff to do."

He smiled. "I understand. You probably have something very important to do with your friends." It was a joke.

"Absolutely," I said. "We have to save the world."

My dad laughed. "If anyone can do it, honey, it would be you."

Then the taxi drove off.

I looked up in the sky. A lone hawk circled high overhead.

87 "You coming, Rachel?" Tobias called down to me in thought-speak.

I nodded my head so he could see. Yes. I was coming.

88