Текст книги "Animorphs - 02 - The Visitor"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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Like I should be doing, I thought. I had a pang of guilt. Instead of doing my homework, I was creeping around my friend's house spying on her and her parents.

I tried to find a clock. I had to watch the time. At nine forty-five my two hours would be up. I wanted to be out of morph and back in my normal body long before then. Hopefully, I could still get home and do my math homework and at least do some of the reading for social studies class.

I spotted a clock. It was over the mantel, between pictures of the Chapmans and Melissa.

The clock said three minutes until eight. I had plenty of time.

Sudden movement!

Oh, just Chapman standing up.

The cat part of me wasn't interested in Chapman one way or the other. But I forced myself to pay attention. It was important to watch him. That was why I was here.

Is he prey?The cat brain seemed to be asking.

Yes. Yes,I told the cat brain. Chapman is our prey.

I followed Chapman as he headed down the hallway. Either he didn't notice me, or else he didn't care. He opened a door that let loose a flood of smells. Dampness. Mildew. Bugs.

"Rachel? How are you doing in there?"

51 I jerked in surprise. A very un-catlike movement.

It was Tobias. He had to be fairly close for me to be able to hear his thought-speech. He must be on the roof or perched on a nearby tree branch. I strained my sensitive cat hearing. The birds under the eaves were silent. They were afraid of the big hawk.

"I'm fine," I said. "But you scared me half to death!"

"Sorry. I was just worried."

"Well, don't worry. I'm following Chapman down to the basement. "

"Why?"

"Because that's where he's going. Duh," I said. Somehow, Tobias's human words were annoying me. He wanted me to pay attention to him and it was hard to do. The cat didn't care about his words. The cat just wanted to go down and look around the basement. Fortunately, that's what I wanted to do, too.

I trotted down the rough wooden stairs after Chapman. Very weird, by the way. Going downstairs as a cat gave me a feeling of vertigo. I mean, I was going down head first. It's strange.

"Look, Tobias, I appreciate you looking out for me. But I'm kind of busy right now."

"I understand. I can't hear you very well, anyway. You're getting farther away. "

"Yeah, I'm going down." I waited. He said nothing. "Tobias?" I called. But there was no answer. We're still learning about thought-speech. We know there are limits on how far it can be "heard." But we aren't sure what the limits are.

The basement had paneling all around. The ceiling was bare wood and full of spiders and other interesting things. No mice, though. Nothing that could be considered actual prey. But many things that might be fun to chase.

Chapman is the prey, I reminded myself. We are hunting Chapman.

There was a sort of TV room with a pool table and some old chairs and a couch. But it was obvious that no one had used them for a long time. There were no human scents on them.

There was dust everywhere and I could hear that there were spiders inside the TV set.

The only part of the basement that appeared to have been used was a path right across the floor. I smelled the scents that Chapman had tracked there with his shoes.

He walked in a straight line across the basement to a door. It was a simple white-painted door. Chapman pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. He unlocked the white door.

He opened it and stepped through. Five feet beyond the white door was a second door. This one was made of gleaming steel. It looked like the door to a bank vault.

52 Beside the steel door, there was a small, square white panel of light. Chapman pressed his hand against it.

The steel door opened. It slid into the wall like the doors on Star Trek.

I knew I had to go after him. But my human mind was afraid. And my cat mind didn't see any reason why I should walk into that dark place.

To both of us, it felt like a trap. Like a place we couldn't get out of.

But I had to. I had to go in there . That was the whole point of this spying trip.

And Chapman was my prey.

At the last second, just as the door swooshed shut, I bounded into the room.

It was dark at first, not that it bothered me. Then Chapman turned on a low light. It was strange, because I could actually see better in the dark than I could with the low light.

There was a sort of desk set into the wall. It was gray steel and very unusual-looking. There were more little light panels in various cheerful colors. And there was something that looked like a small but complicated spotlight hanging down from the ceiling. In front of the desk was a chair. A totally normal office-type chair. Chapman sat in it.

He ran his hands over a blue panel. Then he looked at his watch. He sat patiently, waiting.

For about a minute, nothing happened. I tried to look nonchalant, like I had just happened to wander in. But at the same time I was careful to stay behind Chapman so he wouldn't see me.

I remembered Jake's warning. About how any one else would just assume I was a plain old cat. But Chapman knew about morphing. The Yeerks knew about the Andalite morphing technology. So if Chapman or any Controller ever saw an animal acting the wrong way, they could suspect the truth.

Suddenly a brilliant light snapped on. My cat eyes adjusted instantly, but even so, the light was painfully bright. It came from the little spotlight thing. Chapman turned around in his chair to face the light.

The light began to change. It took shape. It turned different colors.

The four hooves appeared. The bluish fur. The many-fingered hands. The flat, intelligent face with no mouth and only slits for a nose. The penetrating, almond-shaped main eyes. Then the strange extra eyes, mounted on stalks that turned this way and that, looking around the room.

Last came the tail, the wicked, curved, scorpionlike tail.

An Andalite. Just like the Andalite prince who had given us our powers.

But I knew this was no true Andalite. Dread washed over me. Dread too strong for even my cat brain to ignore.

53 This was no true Andalite. This was the only Andalite body ever seized and taken over by the Yeerks. The only Andalite-Controller in all the galaxy.

This was Visser Three. Leader of the Yeerk invasion force. The evil creature who could morph into monsters acquired from all over the universe.

This was Visser Three, the creature who had murdered the Andalite prince while we cowered in terror.

This was Visser Three, who had nearly killed us all in the hell of the Yeerk pool.

"Welcome, Visser," Chapman said in a very humble voice. was Iniss two two six of the Sulp Niaar pool submits to you. May the Kandrona shine and strengthen you."

"And you, Iniss two two six," Visser Three said. I was shocked to hear the Visser's voice. In his Andalite body he had no mouth. Andalites communicate telepathically, just the way I do when I'm in a morph.

The second shock came from what they had said to each other. "Iniss two two six." That had to be the name of the Yeerk slug who controlled Chapman.

The cat part of my brain was busy with a different question. Was this apparition real? No.

There was no scent. No scent at all. Only light and shadows.

It was a hologram, I knew. But it was a very convincing hologram. Visser Three seemed almost solid. He looked around as though he could see from his holographic eyes.

I prayed he wouldn't look at me.

"Report, Iniss ."

"Yes, Visser."

Part of me just wanted to run. Even a hologram of Visser Three makes your skin crawl. But now that he had figured out it wasn't real, the cat part of me was just bored.

I realized why I could hear Visser Three – the hologram projector must not be able to transmit thought-speech. It translated it into regular speech.

"Is there progress on locating the Andalite bandits?"

"No, Visser. Nothing yet."

I knew who he meant by "Andalite bandits."

That was us, the Animorphs.

"I want them found. I want them found NOW!"

Chapman jumped back in surprise at the Visser's command. I could smell fear on him.

54 In a calmer tone, Visser Three went on. "This cannot go on, Iniss two two six, it cannot go on. The Council of Thirteen will hear of it. They will wonder why I reported to them that all Andalite ships near this planet had been destroyed and all the Andalites killed. They will be suspicious. They will be angry. And when the Council of Thir teen is angry with me, I am angry with you."

Chapman was literally quivering. I smelled human sweat. And I smelled something else.

Something not totally human. It was very faint . . . was that the Yeerk itself I was smelling?

Was I smelling the Yeerk slug in Chapman's head?

It seemed impossible. But there was some strange smell. Something . . . something ... I concentrated all my cat mind on analyzing the smell.

"What is that?"

Chapman swiveled in his chair.

I looked up and froze. Chapman was staring right at me. And worse, much worse, Visser Three's stalk eyes were focused on me, too.

"It's called a cat," Chapman said nervously. "An Earth species used as a pet. The humans keep them close and find comfort in them."

"Why is it in here?" "It belongs to the girl. My ... the host's daughter."

"I see," Visser Three said. "Well, kill it. Kill it immediately."

55 Chapter Thirteen

Kill it. Kill it immediately.

I wanted to run. I wanted to panic.

But some strange combination of the cat's cunning and my own intelligence came together and saved me.

I didn't so much as flick a whisker. If I had, I would have been dead. I knew that for a fact. If I'd reacted like I'd understood, they would have known for sure that I was no normal cat.

Visser Three's hologram watched me closely. All four of his Andalite eyes were focused on me now. And behind that gentle Andalite expression, I could feel the razor-sharp focus of the powerful, evil Yeerk. Chapman, too, was staring at me. He had the same look in his eyes that he had when he caught someone trying to skip out of school.

I was terrified. Or at least the Rachel part of me was terrified. Fluffer couldn't have cared less. He sensed my concern, but he had none of his own. There were no birds of prey here.

There were no dogs. There were no smells of dominant cats. There was only a sort of three-dimensional picture that had no scent. And Chapman. Chapman might be prey, or he might not, but he was certainly no threat.

"It could be an Andalite," Visser Three said. "Destroy it."

In response I said, "Meow."

Visser Three glared at me. "What is that?"

"It's . . . it's ... the s-s-sound a cat makes, Visser. I b-b-believe it wishes to eat."

SAWWWAPP!

Suddenly, without warning, Visser Three whipped his tail at me. A dangerous, foot-long, scythe-shaped blade arced toward me at a speed no human could hope to evade.

But I wasn't just a human. In a tenth of the time it took to blink, I had seen the sudden motion and I was crouched down, ears back, teeth bared. My paw, claws out stretched, swiped at the tail blade.

My paw went straight through the hologram. And the blade, nothing but a projection, swept through me.

"Ha, ha, ha."

It took me a second to make sense of the sound.

It was Visser Three laughing.

Chapman seemed amazed, too. Like he had never heard the Visser laugh. Like it wasn't even possible to imagine the Visser laughing.

56 "What a ferocious little beast," Visser Three said approvingly. "See how he did not back away or run? I am many times his size and yet he struck at me. A pity that the species is too small to serve as a host."

"Yes, a pity," Chapman said warily.

"Kill it," Visser Three said. "What better form for an Andalite to use? Better kill it, just to be safe."

"Yes, Visser," Chapman said. "O-o-only . . ."

"Only what?" the Visser snapped.

"It belongs to the girl. If I kill the animal she will be angry. She may draw attention. Killing a cat is seen as a bad deed. It would violate my cover."

Visser Three did not look happy to be disobeyed. But he was not a creature who made impetuous decisions. He considered for a moment while my future just hung there, balancing be tween life and death.

"Do not violate your cover or draw attention," the Visser said at last.

I figured it was time for me to do something in my own defense. I walked over and rubbed my flank against Chapman's leg.

"What is it doing?" Visser Three demanded.

"It is signaling that it wishes to be fed."

"Interesting. Claws and teeth and ferocity mixed with the subtlety to manipulate creatures larger than itself. A worthy creature. Yes, let it live, for now. Let it live until we have resolved the matter of the girl."

Chapman's face actually seemed to twitch. It was the only emotion he had shown, other than fear.

"The girl? But . . . Visser . . . the agreement with the human Chapman . . ."

Visser Three sneered. "Agreements. Don't be a fool. We make agreements to gain voluntary hosts. Agreements are a tool. Just as you are my tool. If you had brought me the Andalite bandits, I would not have to concern myself with a cat or a girl."

Chapman bowed his head. "I will bring them to you."

"Do that," Visser Three said coldly. And then the solid-seeming image began to change. The gentle Andalite body melted away and in its place grew a monster like nothing ever seen on Earth.

Where the Andalite head had been, there was now a long, thick tube. There was an opening like some horrible mouth at the end of the tube. The thing was purple, but translucent. You 57 could al most see through it, although I wasn't sure if that was because it was a hologram, or if the animal itself was that way.

The hologram Visser lowered the tube-mouth toward Chapman's head. The mouth opened, revealing hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny suck ers, each dripping slime.

It seemed as if the tube mouth closed over Chapman's head.

Chapman shook and quivered in terror.

Visser Three's artificial voice said, "Don't forget, Iniss two two six, I gave you this Chapman body. I placed you in his head because I trusted you. I fed you his brain and made you my lieutenant. But I can suck you back out again if you fail me. Would you like to see what happened to the last fool who failed me?"

Suddenly an image appeared in the air, like a little movie. It was a second hologram. It showed a human woman, pain-wracked, screaming, with the purple creature sucking on her head.

The real Chapman began to moan. "Oh, oh, no, Visser. I beg you."

In the little movie the translucent purple thing suddenly went into a spasm. From the woman's ear there came the slug . It was sucked, dripping, gray, slimy, right out of her head.

The purple creature swallowed the Yeerk slug.

Then the little movie ended.

"Not a very pretty picture, is it, Iniss two two six?"

Chapman just shook his head. His eyes were still staring at the empty air where the image had appeared.

Visser Three began to resume the Andalite form.

"Don't fail me," Visser Three said.

Suddenly Visser Three vanished. The room was dark again. Chapman sat hunched over the desk, with his head in his hands. It was a while before he opened the door and we both went back up the stairs.

Ms. Chapman was there, waiting. "What are the Visser's orders?" she asked in a whisper.

Chapman looked at her like he'd just seen a ghost. "He wants the Andalite bandits. He ... he morphed into a Vanarx. A Yeerkbane."

He kept his voice low, too. He glanced toward the stairs. I guess he was checking to see if Melissa was around.

Ms. Chapman shuddered. "I'd heard that he acquired a Vanarx. I always thought it was just another story to frighten his underlings."

58 "He showed me ... he showed how he de stroyed Iniss one seven four."

Ms. Chapman looked shocked. "He used a Vanarx on an Iniss of the second century?"

"That Andalite-Controlling scum," Chapman said viciously. "I wish the Council of Thirteen would find out what kind of a mess he's making on this planet. Let them take that Andalite body from him and throw him back in some distant pool on the home world."

"Don't wish for that," Ms. Chapman said grimly. "Long before Visser Three loses power, he will surely have destroyed you for failing him."

My cat ears noticed the sound before either of the Chapmans. Movement. Human feet pounding. I cocked my ears toward the stairs.

"Hey, Mom? Dad? Can one of you help me with this math problem?"

It was Melissa. She was halfway down the stairs. She stopped and glanced hopefully at her parents. Or at least at the people who had once been her parents.

"We're busy right now, Melissa," Chapman snapped.

"Besides, dear, you should do your own work. That's how you learn," Ms. Chapman said. "If you still can't figure it out later, your father will help you." Melissa's face fell. She forced a smile, but there was no happiness there at all. "I guess you're right, Mom. It's just this square root stuff." She hesitated, like she was hoping her parents might change their minds and go back upstairs with her.

Ms. Chapman smiled. It was a smile as empty as Melissa's. "Square roots are hard to understand, aren't they? But I know you can do it."

"I'll come up and check on you before you turn in, sweetheart," Mr. Chapman said.

The words were normal enough. I guess my own mom or dad could have said exactly the same things to me. "Dear." "Sweetheart." But the way they were said . . . There was something missing. Humanity. Love. Call it whatever you want. The words were right, but they were cornpletely wrong.

It was horrible. Horrible in a totally different way than the monsters we had fought in the Yeerk pool. This was the kind of horrible that made you want to cry instead of scream. And suddenly I found myself running after Melissa as she headed back up the stairs. When I reached her room, Melissa sat down on the bed and began sobbing.

"Rachel? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Tobias. I'm up out of the basement. I'm upstairs in Melissa's room."

"Thank goodness. I've been trying you every minute or so. I was worried that you were trapped downstairs. "

59 "No, I'm out. "

"Good. You have more than an hour left, but Fluffer is trying to head home. Cassie and Jake and Marco are trying to capture him again, but you know better than anyone how wily he can be. "

Melissa flopped on her face on the bed. She pulled a pillow over the back of her head and just cried.

"I can't leave just yet," I said.

"Rachel, if the real Fluffer walks in while you're still there . . ."

"Yeah, I know. But I still can't leave right now. I have something I have to do. " I went over to the bed. As small as I was, the side of the bed looked like a wall. It could have been the side of a two-story building. I settled back on my haunches, gathering energy in my leg muscles. Then I sprang up, effortlessly, to land with perfect grace on the bed.

I walked over to Melissa and sniffed her hair sticking out from under the pillow. I heard a sound coming from somewhere. It was a sound that reminded me of my mother. It reminded me of both my mothers, the human woman, and the cat who had licked my fur and carried me around in her mouth.

I recognized the sound. It was purring. I was purring.

Melissa put her arm around me and drew me close. The physical contact made me a little anxious. It made the cat in me want to leave. But then she started scratching my neck and behind my ears. I purred a little louder and decided to stay for a while.

"I don't know what I've done," Melissa said.

It startled me to realize she was talking to me. Did she guess the truth? Did she know I was human?

No. She was just a girl talking to her cat. "I don't know what I did," Melissa repeated. "Tell me, Fluffer McKitty. What did I do?"

"Rachel, what are you doing in there?"

"Tobias, I have plenty of time."

"You have less than an hour. Don't push your luck. Jake is practically having a fit out here.

He's telling me to tell you to get out."

"Not yet . Melissa needs me."

I had stopped purring. Probably because I was preoccupied, arguing with Tobias. I started purring again. I felt Melissa needed me to purr.

60 She was still crying. Still scratching slowly behind my ears.

"What did I do, Flutter?" she asked again. "Why don't they love me anymore?"

I felt like my own heart would break right then.

Because I knew now why Melissa had stopped hanging out with me. I knew why she had become more withdrawn. And I knew how little hope there was for her.

My stomach turned and twisted.

Next time Marco asked why we were fighting the Yeerks, I knew I would have a whole new answer. Because they destroy the love of parents for their daughter. Because they made Melissa Chapman cry in her bed with no one to comfort her but a cat.

It was a small answer, I guess. I mean, it wasn't some high-sounding answer about the en tire human race. It was just about this one girl. My friend. Whose heart was broken because her parents were no longer really her parents.

"Look, Rachel, I told Jake what you said. He said to remind you that you have a job to do in there. You're not in there to com-"

"Tell Jake to shut up, Tobias," I said angrily. "l'll come out. I'll come out. Just not yet." I purred as loud as I could.

Melissa cried. And it came to me, like a vision: All the children all over, whose parents had been made into Controllers. And the parents whose children had been taken from them to be turned into Controllers. It was a terrible image. I wondered how it must feel to see your parents stop loving you.

After a while, Melissa fell asleep. I got up and padded down the stairs to the pet door.

It was chilly outside. My friends were all wait ing. They were also a little mad at me for making them wait and worry.

"You only have ten minutes to spare, Rachel," Jake said. "I hope it was worth scaring us all half to death. Did you at least discover something useful?"

"Yes. I discovered plenty. I discovered that Chapman has a way to communicate directly with Visser Three. I discovered that Visser Three is pretty hot to catch us, although he still thinks we're Andalites. And I decided something, too. "

"What?" Cassie asked me.

"I decided that I don't care what it takes, or how many risks I have to run. I don't care what happens to me. I hate these Yeerks. I hate them. I hate them. And I will find a way to stop them."

61 Chapter Fourteen

That night and the next morning, I barely got any homework done. In math class that day I got the first C I'd gotten in a long time. My grades were starting to fall because I was busy trying to save the world. Or at least to save my old friend.

I knew now what had happened. Why Melissa and I weren't friends anymore, at least not close friends. Something had gone terribly wrong in her life. Her parents no longer loved her. They pretended to, they sounded like they did, but Melissa knew it was all wrong.

Every time I thought of it, I felt like my insides were burning up from the anger. I guess I knew a little bit about what she was feeling.

When my parents got divorced, I worried that maybe that meant they didn't love me anymore.

I was wrong. They still did. I don't see my dad as much as I would like to, but he does love me. My mom loves me. Even my sisters love me. Love is pretty important. It's like wearing a suit of armor. It makes you strong.

On my way out of math class, Jake came sidling up next to me. "Meeting later, okay?"

"Yeah. Whatever. Where at?"

"The church tower, where we were the other day."

"Okay. But it's a long walk."

He turned around to face me, walking backward and grinning. "So, don't walk," he said. He waved and headed off down the hall.

Two hours later I was in the air. Let me tell you something: Getting that big eagle body off the ground isn't easy. It is definitely work. I wondered if my human body got any of the aerobic benefits of the exercise.

Once I got clear of the ground, I was able to catch little gusts of wind to climb higher. But it wasn't till I made it above the trees and the school buildings that I started getting a good, solid breeze that helped lift me up.

When I finally got high enough, I spotted Tobias. His reddish tail feathers were like a beacon.

"Man, that was a workoutea" I said when I got close enough.

"Tell me about it. Follow me. The mall is an excellent place for thermals."

"The mall? Why the mall?"

"lt's all that parking space. See, the concrete gets hot in the sun. The concrete, the cars, the buildings themselves, they're all hot. So there's almost always a nice warm updraft." 62 "Flying is like the nicest thing in the world," I said dreamily.

"Yes, it is," Tobias agreed. "One of the nicest things. But there are things you miss, too.

Sitting back on the couch with a can of pop and a bag of chips and no school the next day and something good on TV. That's a good feeling, too. "

He didn't sound like he was feeling sorry for himself. Just like he was mentioning something that happened to be true.

"There's the church tower. I see another bird heading toward it. And I think I see Cassie coming out of her morph. "

"Down we go," Tobias said.

Ten minutes later I had morphed back into my human body.

"You know what we need?" Marco said. "We need to coordinate these morphing outfits. I mean, Cassie's wearing green patterned leggings and a purple stretch top, and Jake's got on those awful bike shorts, and Rachel is stylish, as always, in her black tights. Put it all together and we look pretty scruffy."

"What do you want?" Jake asked him. "You want us all to wear blue with a big number four on our chests? Become the Fantastic Four?"

"The Fantastic Four plus the amazing Bird Boy," Tobias added.

"No way," Marco said. "Not Fantastic Four. I'm thinking more an X-Men kind of thing. It's not about being identical, it's just about having some style. Right now, if anyone saw us, they wouldn't think 'Oh, cool, superheroes," they'd think "Man, those people do not know how to dress.""

"Marco," I said, "I think it's time to get over this fantasy of yours. We are not superheroes.

This is not a comic book."

"Yes, but I really, really want it to be a comic book. See, in a comic book the heroes don't get killed. I mean, okay, they killed Superman that time, but it was only temporary."

"Can we deal with reality here?" Jake asked. "We have business to discuss."

"What's the matter with combining green and purple?" Cassie asked Marco.

"It's a major fashion no-no," Marco said.

"Been reading Vogue again, Marco?" I teased.

Jake put his hand over Marco's mouth. "People? And I use the term loosely. We need to decide what we're doing next."

Marco pried Jake's hand away. "I want to decide what we're not doing next. I should be spending more time with my dad. You know, he's still messed up over my mom. . .."

63 Marco's voice always cracked whenever he mentioned his mom. He'd start out sounding tough and all, but his voice would end up with that little break, that little wobble. It had been two years since his mother disappeared. They said she drowned, although they never found her body. His father had fallen apart. It was the main reason Marco was so reluctant to be an Animorph. He was worried that if anything ever happened to him, his dad would just give up totally.

I could see that Jake was about to say some thing impatient. And I was feeling the same way, like Marco just needed to deal with reality.

But Cassie put her hand on Marco's arm. "Don't ever let any of this get in the way of spending time with your dad," she said earnestly. "He needs you. We need you, too, Marco, but your dad comes first." She looked at Jake, then at me.

"There isn't much point in doing any of this if we forget why we're doing it."

I thought about Melissa. And I thought about my mom and dad and how great it was to have them, even when they got on my nerves.

"Cassie's right. When you get home, tell your dad you love him, Marco." I blurted it out with out thinking about it. It wasn't the kind of thing I normally say.

"Thank you, Doctor Rachel,"Marco said.

He said it snidely, but I could see he knew what I was talking about. Then he was suddenly all business. He rubbed his hands together. "Okay, let's get serious here. How are we going to go about getting ourselves killed next? Turn into flies at a frog convention? Morph into turkeys at Thanksgiving?"

"I want to go back in," I said. "Back into Chapman's."

"Why?" Jake asked. "We learned a lot already. We -"

"We didn't learn the location of the Kandrona," I pointed out. "That's what we need to do, sooner or later. The Andalite made it pretty clear to Tobias that the Kandrona is the weak point for the Yeerks. The Kandrona sends out the rays that are concentrated in the Yeerk pools. If we destroy the Kandrona, we hurt them bad."

Marco raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Excuse me, Rachel, but what is a Kandrona? I mean, we know what it does, but what does it look like? How big is it? For all we know, the Kandrona could be the size of a lighter and be in Visser Three's pocket."

"That's not the impression I got from the Andalite," Tobias said.

"Whatever," Marco said impatiently. "The point is: How do we destroy something when we don't even know what it is?"

64 "That's why we have to follow the one lead we have," I said. "Chapman. Chapman communicates with Visser Three. The two of them know where the Kandrona is. If I can spy on them, maybe I can figure it out."

They were all staring at me. Marco looked at me like I was crazy. Jake looked thoughtful.

Cassie looked worried, like she wasn't sure about what I was saying.

Tobias turned his fierce, intimidating hawk's stare on me. "Are you sure you're just going back to spy on Chapman?" he asked me privately.

"I don't think you should go back in there alone," Jake said.

"How is anyone else going to go in with me?" I asked. "We can't have two cats running around. I mean, as Fluffer I can go anywhere without any of them being suspicious."

See ... I hadn't told anyone about Visser Three telling Chapman to kill me. I knew it was wrong to keep secrets like that from the group.

But if I'd told them, they would have never let me go back in.

Unfortunately, although Jake may not be all that perceptive, Cassie is.

"Are you sure nothing went wrong while you were in there, Rachel?" Cassie asked me. She was looking at me with this kind of sideways look Cassie gets when she's trying to figure someone out.