Текст книги "Animorphs - 13 - The Change"

Автор книги: Katherine Alice Applegate

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"You take the one on the left. Ready?" I asked Rachel.

"Let's do it," she said.

We aimed to intercept the trucks. Like a pair of cruise missiles, we targeted the spot where the trucks would be in five seconds. Four seconds. Three seconds.

I could see my guy clearly. Middle-aged human. He looked like a guy you'd see working in a hardware store or something. But he wasn't really human. The Yeerk in his head was aiming the gun.

Two seconds!

The Controller saw me. He frowned. Then he realized . . .

One second!

The shotgun came up. The twin barrels looked huge.

I raked my talons forward.

BOOM!

The shot passed millimeters over my head. I actually felt the wind!

"Tseeeeeer!"

I struck! The Controller fell off the back of the truck, clutching his face and howling.

A split second later, Rachel hit her target.

At that same instant the two Hork-Bajir came barreling out of the woods, right into the racing trucks. One jumped. He sailed over the truck and landed hard on the far side.

The second Hork-Bajir was too slow.

WHAM!

The truck slammed the Hork-Bajir. The Hork-Bajir went flying and sprawled in a brush-covered ditch.

BOOM! BOOM! Rachel's guy was firing blindly.

The first Hork-Bajir was up, but not running. I was close enough to hear him bellow in a voice full of despair.

"Kalashi! Kalashi!"

"Move, you idiot!" I screamed at the Hork-Bajir.

The two trucks had braked in a cloud of dust and dirt, fishtailing wildly on the narrow dirt road. Guys were piling out of the cabs, armed to the teeth.

From the edge of the woods, just down the road, three dirt bikes roared into sight.

BOOM!BOOM!

BLAMBLAMBLAM!

The Hork-Bajir froze. He looked up at me as I shot past him. And he said, "No! My kalashi ! My wife!"

"Wife?" I said.

"Wife?" Rachel echoed.

That may have been the last word I'd ever expected to hear a Hork-Bajir say.

"You'll be dead in two seconds," I snapped at the Hork-Bajir after I'd recovered from the shock. "Run. Run, or you're no good to anyone!" He ran.

I guided him to the stream that lay half-concealed behind a stand of trees. He hit the water with surprisingly little splash and disappeared beneath the surface.

"Hesaid wife, right?" I asked Rachel.

"Wife," she agreed.

Wife? Excuse me, you said wife?" Marco asked incredulously. "You mean there's such a thing as a female Hork-Bajir?!"

"l guess so," I said. "We didn't really have time to ask."

It was late afternoon. We were all in Cassie's barn. Actually, I was in the rafters of Cassie's barn, looking down at the rest of the group – Jake, Cassie, Marco, Ax, and Rachel, back in human form again.

Ax was in his own, natural Andalite body. It's a danger to have him there because we can never allow anyone to see the Ax-man. I mean, one look at Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill, at the two movable stalk eyes on top of his head and the deadly scorpion tail and the centaur body, and you know he's not exactly a local boy.

But it was worth the risk, since he knew more about Hork-Bajir than any of us did. Besides, I was providing security. From my place up in the rafters, I could see out through the hayloft to Cassie's house. And since I have excellent hearing as well as sight, I'd know if anyone approached the barn.

Cassie's barn is actually the Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic. It is full of every kind of local wild animal. The wire cages are piled high all around the barn.

Both Cassie's parents are veterinarians. Her mom works at The Gardens, which is this big amusement park and zoo complex.

Her father runs the clinic with a lot of help from Cassie. They take in injured or sick wild animals. And right now, beneath me in the cages, there was a sampling of all the animals that lived in the area – opossums, voles, rabbits, skunks, foxes, raccoons, squirrels, and so on.

Many of them would have made a nice snack for me, but Cassie and I have an agreement about that – I don't eat her patients.

In addition to the land animals, there were bats and birds. Cassie actually rescues pigeons and crows and even jays. I have nothing against pigeons, but I don't like crows and ravens and

jays. They're like the gangsters of the bird world. Plus, they're smart. They can work together to mob peaceful raptors like me. Sometimes a bunch of them will actually try to steal a kill from me.

And believe me, you get six or eight big, fat jays or crows attacking you all at once, and it can be very annoying. But that's another story.

"How exactly do you tell a man Hork-Bajir from a woman Hork-Bajir?"

Marco asked. "Do the women put makeup on their wrist blades? Do they use nail polish on those big nasty toes of theirs?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "We didn't have a chance to go into it, all right? We barely got the one Hork-Bajir to the cave."

"I mean, do female Hork-Bajir cry at 'chick' movies?" Marco went on, talking mostly to himself. "Do they get all goo-goo when they see a baby?"

"What about the female?" Jake asked Rachel and me.

Rachel shrugged and looked away.

"We don't know," I said. "We saw her get knocked into the ditch. That was it."

"Man, this whole thing stinks. It's a trap. It's a setup," Marco said.

"But I think the real question is, do female Hork-Bajir get all weird around bugs and snakes?"

"l don't think so. About the trap, I mean."

"Weird around bugs and snakes?" Cassie asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Is that how girls are, Marco?" With that, she reached into a low drawer beneath the bottom row of cages. A second later, a snake was lightly tossed through the air in Marco's direction.

"Ahhh! Ahhhh! Ahhhh! Get it off me!"

Cassie retrieved the harmless garden snake and put it back in its drawer while everyone laughed. Except Ax, who doesn't always get human humor.

Even Marco had to laugh. "Oh, that was so not fair. Funny, yes. Fair, no. Can we please act more mature here?"

"Sure, Marco," Rachel said. "Why don't you leave and we'll automatically be a more mature group?"

"Could we stick to business?" Jake asked. But he was still smiling from the snake thing, so no one took him too seriously.

"Why would a Yeerk . . . even a Yeerk inside a Hork-Bajir, want to run away?" Marco asked. "Sooner or later he has to get back to the Yeerk pool. It doesn't make any sense."

Rachel sighed. "Marco, how dumb are you? Don't you get it? These aren't Controllers. There is no Yeerk. Somehow these two Hork-Bajir are free."

Cassie looked thoughtful. "Isn't it kind of a

coincidence that you just happened to be in the area where the Hork-Bajir were escaping?"

"Yes," I said. "Definitely. Especially since I wasn't even heading there. I was actually trying to go somewhere else."

I saw the two stalk eyes on Ax's head swing up to focus on me with new interest. His main eyes stayed on Jake.

Cassie gave me a tilted-head puzzled look. "You mean -"

But Rachel interrupted. "Look, we need to decide what to do about this.

We've got this Hork-Bajir male in a cave. But the Yeerks will keep looking for him. And I have to tell you, this Hork-Bajir is not exactly Stephen Hawking."

"Who?" Cassie asked.

"He is a human physicist," Ax responded. "l've read some of his writings. He is very brilliant, but also very wrong about several things. For example, when he refers to the structure of atoms in -"

Jake threw up his hands in exasperation. "Is there any chance we could stick to business?"

"I remember when Jake used to be fun," Marco said in a loud whisper.

"Now he's such a grown-up."

"I was never fun," Jake said with a tolerant smile.

"No, you were never smart, but you were a/ways fun," Marco teased.

"The question is, what do we do about this Hork-Bajir?" Rachel asked.

"He's sitting out there in a cave in the woods moaning about his kalashi. What do we do with him?"

We all looked at Ax like he'd have the answer.

"l have never known of a free Hork-Bajir," Ax said. "They've been slaves of the Yeerks for a long time. But it is possible. Maybe somehow, while this Hork-Bajir's Yeerk was in the Yeerk pool, the Hork-Bajir managed to escape. It is possible. His wife as well. In which case these may be the only free Hork-Bajir in the entire galaxy. The only two free members of their species."

"Imagine . . ." Cassie whispered. "Imagine being the only two free humans in all the world ..."

Somehow no one felt like messing around anymore. Even Marco looked thoughtful. If the Yeerks won, humans would be no different than the Hork-Bajir – absolute slaves of the Yeerk empire.

"So what do we do with the only free Hork-Bajir in the galaxy?" Marco asked.

"What does the Hork-Bajir want to do?" Ax asked me and Rachel.

Rachel and I stared blankly at each other. "You know," I admitted, "we never asked."

"Then I guess that's step one," Jake said. "Let's find out what the Hork-Bajir wants."

Everyone agreed. But I saw that Cassie was still troubled. Under her breath she muttered, "And then let's find out why Tobias was somewhere he didn't mean to be."

I don't think anyone else heard her. But I did.

Why had I been there?

Lt took a while to figure out how we were going to deal with the Hork-Bajir. In the end, we decided I'd go ahead with Ax. The others would morph and stay close enough to hear what was happening.

The problem was, we were afraid to be honest with the Hork-Bajir. It could all still be some kind of a trap. We couldn't let anyone know who we really were. Or what we really were.

See, the Yeerks know that there is someone out here messing with them.

They know they're being attacked by someone using animal morphs. Since only the Andalites have the power to morph, the Yeerks assume we must all be Andalites. They figure we must be a group of An-dalite guerillas.

We want them to think that. We sure don't want them realizing that the Animorphs are mostly a bunch of human kids. If they ever found out where Jake and Cassie and Rachel and Marco live . . . well, that would be the end of us.

The cave where Rachel and I left the Hork-Bajir was small for a creature of his size. It was hidden by brush and fallen branches. It went in about twenty feet, but was only about five feet tall.

I landed on a fallen branch outside the cave entrance. I waited till everyone was in position. Then I said, "Hey, in there. Hork-Bajir. It's me, the talking bird. I'm coming in. With a friend. "

It's hard for a bird to push through bushes and thorns, so Ax stepped forward, almost dainty on his four hooves. He pushed the tangle aside with his weak arms. He stuck his head inside the dark cave.

The reaction was immediate.

A bladed arm slashed, missing Ax's head by inches. Ax jerked back and cocked his tail to strike.

"NO!" I yelled. "Listen in there, you weed-

whacker-looking jerk, calm down! And Ax-man, take it easy!"

The bladed arm withdrew slowly, and Ax relaxed his tail.

I took a few seconds to slow my heart down. When a bird is startled it wants to fly. Natural instinct. I had to fight to control it and stay put.

"What's going on?" Cassie asked.

I looked up at the sky. Rachel and Cassie were up there in bird morph, Rachel as her bald-eagle self and Cassie as an owl. The sun was just setting. And when darkness fell an owl would be a lot more useful than an eagle. The two of them were flying cover. Making sure we weren't disturbed.

"0h, nothing much," I said. "We're all just saying hello. By the way, is everything clear up there, Cassie? Rachel?"

"Yep. Everything is clear," Rachel called down.

I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to steady my nerves. Neither Ax nor I wanted to go into that cave anymore. You just can't be careless when you're dealing with Hork-Bajir. One fast move and they can leave you wondering why your head is rolling across the grass.

"Hork-Bajir, come on out," I said firmly.

Slowly the big creature crawled out. He stood erect, blinking in the dim evening light.

"Not Hork-Bajir," he said. "Jara Hamee. My name. Jara Hamee."

"He's kidding, right?" Jake said in my head. "His name is Jeremy?" I glanced up to see a big, round, white-and-orange face. A face with deep, intelligent eyes and yellowish teeth about four inches long. It was Jake, in his tiger morph. He was above the cave opening on an outcropping of rock, if the Hork-Bajir had made a wrong move, Jake would have been all over him.

"You better talk to our boy Jara Hamee here," I said to Ax. I figured Ax would know more about talking to other aliens than me.

Ax held his hands open in a gesture of peace. He lowered his tail still further. I could see he really didn't want to do that. The air between the Andalite and the Hork-Bajir seemed to crackle with tension.

"My name is Aximili," Ax said.

"You are Hruthin. Andalite."

"Yes."

"You kill me?"

"No. I won't kill you," Ax said.

"Hruthin kill Hork-Bajir," the Hork-Bajir named Jara Hamee said.

"Hork-Bajir kill Hruthin."

"This is going really well," Marco said dryly. Then he sang new words for that Barney song. "l kill you, you kill me, we're an alien family . . ." I saw Marco settling in behind a stand of trees off to the left. He looked like a very large, very hairy man. A gorilla, actually. We had decided to have plenty of muscle ready, just in case the Hork-Bajir turned out to be trouble.

"Andalites tried to save the Hork-Bajir from the Yeerks," Ax said, sounding a little defensive.

The Hork-Bajir stared at Ax's face. "You darkap. You fail."

"Yes. We failed. But I'm here now. And I don't kill Hork-Bajir . . .

unless they are tools of the Yeerks."

The Hork-Bajir made a sort of forward jerk with its head and a raspy little sound in its throat. It sounded like a derisive laugh. But who knows? I had no idea what a Hork-Bajir laugh should sound like. Or even if they laughed at all.

WHAP!

The Hork-Bajir slapped his chest with his left hand. It startled me enough that I was halfway airborne before I got a grip.

The Hork-Bajir threw out his arm and said, "Jara Hamee escaped the Yeerks. Jara Hamee free! Jara Hamee has his own head." He pressed both hands gently against his snakelike head.

"How do we know you are free? How do we know you "have your own head"?"

Ax asked him coldly.

The Hork-Bajir looked puzzled. Then, to my complete and total shock, he made a quick movement of his arm.

It was faster than a human eye could have seen.

But I saw it.

I saw the wrist blade slice right into his own head. He sliced right into his own head!

"No!" I yelled in horror.

"Yah!" Jake yelped.

There was a gash six inches deep in the Hork-Bajir's head. He reached up with his clawed hands and pulled the gash open. He pulled his own head open! And it's not like it didn't hurt him. I could see the pain on his face.

Blood – or something – oozed in shades of deep red and deeper blue-green. He held the gash open and we stared, Ax and me, right into the Hork-Bajir's brain. I guess Jake and Marco could see it pretty clearly, too.

"0h, man," Marco moaned. "Can I just say "yuck"?"

Jara Hamee pressed the two sides of the gash together. He held the cut for a few seconds, and with amazing speed, the bleeding coagulated.

A long scab began to form over the gash.

That's when I started breathing again. I had stopped. Then I started my heart up. I swear it had stopped,too.

"Did you see a Yeerk in there in his head?" I asked Ax shakily.

"No," Ax said, just as shaken as I was. "No Yeerk. "

"Did that scare the pee out of you, Ax-man, or doesn't that kind of thing bother you Andalites?"

"l am as peeless as you, Tobias, my friend."

"That wasn't necessary," I told Jara Hamee.

His face – insofar as he had a face – was still scrunched up in pain. He was breathing hard and sweating the same blue-green fluid I'd seen inside his head.

"Necessary," he grunted through his pain. "Jara Hamee is strong. But Jara Hamee needs help."

"Help to do what?" Ax asked him gently.

The Hork-Bajir stared at Ax, then shifted his gaze to me. "Flying animal saw my kalashi. Jara Hamee must find her. Jara Hamee ..." He struggled to come up with a word. Then he made a gesture with his hands, as if someone were tearing something out of him. As if someone were removing his heart.

There was no question what it meant. Even across the huge divide between our species, I could recognize that emotion.

"You love her," I said.

"Jara Hamee loves," the Hork-Bajir said. "Kalashi, Jara Hamee free. Want free."

Ax swiveled his stalk eyes back toward me. "l think I believe him."

"Yeah. Me, too, Ax."

"Hey. You guys down there?" Cassie called down from above. "We have company coming."

"What kind of company, Cassie?" I heard Jake snap.

"Fifteen, maybe twenty people. They're strung out in a line. Coming this way."

"And I have an equal number coming from the southeast," Rachel said.

"And ... oh, man. They have Hork-Bajir with them! It's not even dark and they're bringing Hork-Bajir out! In the open!"

"They want our boy here real badly," I said. "lt's a big risk running aliens through the woods when it's still light enough to see."

"They're converging on you," Cassie reported. "l have a small troop of Hork-Bajir coming up, too. Oh, man. This isn't good. You guys

are practically surrounded. You have maybe five minutes till they're all over you."

"Talk about bad timing. It's getting late," Marco pointed out. "lt's almost dinnertime. My dad will give me much grief if I don't get home in time for dinner."

Jake laughed. So did I. It was just so ridiculous having to worry about being grounded when we were halfway surrounded by Yeerks.

"We could easily escape," Ax said. "We can all morph some small animal or bird and not be seen."

"That wouldn't help old Jara Hamee here," Marco said.

"Distraction," Jake said. "We need to draw the bad guys away."

"But the Yeerks are looking for a Hork-Bajir," Ax pointed out. "Will they be foolish enough to follow any of us?"

"We can only hope they will," Jake said tersely. "We can get away, but I don't think we can leave Jara Hamee behind."

But I had a different idea. Unfortunately, it was a dangerous idea. A very dangerous idea. And the danger would all be on someone else. Not me.

I hesitated. It makes me sick when other people take risks that I can't take. "Look, uh . . . there might be a way . . ." I said at last.

"What?" Jake asked.

"They want a Hork-Bajir to chase, right? Well, we could give them one."

"Morph a Hork-Bajir?" Marco asked. "Ewwww."

"Jara Hamee isn't just any animal," Cassie objected. "He's sentient.

He's self-aware."

"Ax morphed me once," Jake pointed out. "And Cassie, you morphed Rachel."

"l'm just saying we have to get Jara Hamee's permission, at least," Cassie said. "But whatever you decide, do it quick!"

"l'll do it. I'll morph the Hork-Bajir," Rachel said. Suddenly I saw her glide down through the trees on her huge eagle wings. "l need to change morphs, anyway. It's getting too dark for eagle eyes."

"No. I should do it," Ax said quickly.

"No way," Rachel said. She was already starting to demorph. "l have dibs."

"Dibs?"

"l spoke first," Rachel explained.

Ax let it go and focused his main eyes back on the Hork-Bajir. "Yeerks are coming. One of my friends wishes to morph you. To trick the Yeerks.

Do you agree?"

"Jara Hamee hates Yeerks," the big Hork-Bajir said. Like that was all the answer he needed to give.

"0kay then, turn around, Jara Hamee," I ordered the Hork-Bajir.

"Close your eyes and don't look till I tell you. If you open your eyes this Hruthin here . . . this Andalite . . . will slice and dice you. You got it? Eyes closed."

The Hork-Bajir turned around obediently. I would have laughed if I wasn't feeling half-sick with worry for Rachel. I mean, this seven-foot-tall monster was taking orders from a twenty-inch-long bird.

But my sense of humor was slightly damaged right then. Rachel was going to morph a Hork-Bajir. And then she was going to draw off the Yeerks.

She was going to make them chase her.

It made me sick to think about it. It had been my idea. My brilliant idea. And she would take the risk.

Rachel began to emerge from her eagle body. She rose up swiftly from the pine needle and rotting leaf floor of the forest. Up and up, a weird, misshapen, nightmare creature made of fair human flesh and dark brown feathers, bright yellow beak, and lengthening legs.

I would have given anything to be able to go in her place. But I can't morph. I would be safe in the sky or in the trees while she was trying to outrun the enemy.

It was the story of my life lately. My friends

went into danger, and I stayed safe. All because I couldn't morph.

In a minute Rachel was no longer a bird, but a human girl. A human girl who even now, even with all of us scared, managed to look like some smiling magazine cover girl.

"You don't have to do this, Rachel," I said.

"lt's Rachel's greatest thrill," Marco said. "Morph a Hork-Bajir? Hey, she'll finally get to become on the outside what she's always been inside."

"Shut up, Marco," I snapped.

Rachel gave me a look that said, "Don't worry, Tobias." But she said nothing because she was now fully human. We still didn't want the Hork-Bajir to know we were human. We didn't want him to hear a human voice.

The Hork-Bajir stood peacefully as Rachel reached out her slender fingers to touch the creature's back. The Hork-Bajir went slightly limp as she began to "acquire" him. To absorb his DNA and make it part of her.

"Guys?" Cassie called down from the sky. "l'm serious now. The bad guys are definitely getting close. I can see them."

With my hawk's hearing, I heard the sounds of heavy creatures stomping and crashing clumsily through the woods. I heard the metallic clank

of weapons against belts and the muttered commands between human-Controllers and Hork-Bajir.

"Cassie's right?" I said. "We're down to two minutes maximum." Rachel gave a nod. She sent me a cocky wink. She closed her eyes and focused on the new morph.

And then . . . Rachel began to change. I wanted to turn away, but somehow I felt like I owed it to her to watch. It was because of me this was happening to her.

I can't tell you how utterly bizarre that scene was. The woods were growing dark. Shadows were deep all around, and even with my hawk's eyes I couldn't see through the shadows. Overhead the sky was dark blue streaked with red and orange, not yet black. True night was still an hour away. But under the shade of the trees it was night already.

We stood there, an insane nightmare of creatures– the Hork-Bajir, eyes closed tight; the Andalite, deadly tail twitching nervously at the prospect of battle; the orange-and-black-striped tiger climbing down from the rocks, moving like liquid power; a gorilla walking erect, using its massive fists as extra feet; and me ... the Bird-boy.

And in the middle of our group was Rachel.

She was growing taller now. She was already tall for a girl, but now she was quickly heading toward Shaq-size.

Her skin was changing. It turned dark, almost green-black. Her feet mutated swiftly from dainty human to the three-toed, one-spur feet of the Hork-Bajir. Feet that looked like my own talons except much, much larger.

Her face grew elongated. The jaw bulged outward and became smooth as a bullet. Her eyes were narrow, red-tinged slits. And then the blades began to appear.

SHWOOP! Horn-blades exploded from her forehead!

SHWOOP! Blades appeared at the wrists and elbows!

SHWOOP! Blades grew at her knees!

Rachel had become a walking razor. Seven feet of muscled deadly speed.

"So," Rachel said. "So this is a Hork-Bajir."

"You can open your eyes now," I told Jara Hamee.

He did. And he turned to face . . . himself. Rachel was an identical copy of the Hork-Bajir, grown from his own DNA. I don't know what I expected. But it sure wasn't what happened next.

"HeeeeRRRROOOOOWW!" Rachel bellowed in a voice that made the leaves quake.

"HeeeeRRRROOOOWWW-Unh!" Jara Hamee responded.

"Shut up, you idiots!" Marco cried frantically. "We're halfway surrounded by Yeerks!"

SSSSEEEWW! Rachel slashed viciously at

the air! She missed Jara Hamee by an inch! Half an inch!

Jara Hamee responded instantly with a forward stab of one of his big feet. If it had connected, it would have ripped Rachel's stomach open.

But the blow missed by a hair.

Rachel slashed and Jara Hamee slashed, but all the blows missed. Not by much, but they did miss.

"Back off!" Jake yelled. "Stop it!" I could see he was getting ready to jump in between them. That was all we needed – a three-way fight between two Hork-Bajir and a tiger.

"Jake, wait! I think ... I think it's just a ritual^ I said. "You see this kind of thing all the time in nature. It's a dominance ritual."

The two Hork-Bajir had stopped slashing. Now they preened, circling around each other, stretching up on tiptoes to see who was taller.

"Hey, we so totally do not have time for games," Marco said.

He was right. I saw flashlights through the trees.

Jara Hamee and Rachel bent their heads forward and touched their scythe like horns together with surprising gentleness.

"Rachel, are you okay in there?" I asked her.

"What? Dm ... what?" she asked. She was

confused. Morphing a new creature is confusing. Sometimes the experience can be overwhelming. The instincts of the creature surface and can even take over control for a while.

Or that's what everyone tells me, anyway. It's been a while since I morphed.

"Rachel? We are out of time," Jake said gently. "Are you up for this?"

"L)m . . . yeah. Uh . . . okay. Sure. Sorry. I got kind of caught up there for a minute. I'm not getting Jara Hamee's thoughts or memories, but I definitely got a big bundle of Hork-Bajir instincts."

"Jara Hamee? Back in the cave," Jake said. "Do not come out. Everyone get ready. We just want to lead the Yeerks away. We are not looking for a fight. Rachel? You hear that about not looking for a fight?"

"Mmm-hmm. Sure," Rachel said, even as she slashed at the air, trying out the Hork-Bajir blades. "Whatever."

"Rachel, you can still back out of this," I suggested.

"l'll bet you ten bucks she says, "Let's do it,"" Marco said quickly.

Rachel turned her snakelike head toward Marco and grinned what I think was a Hork-Bajir grin. "Let's ... go for it."

"0h, man!" Marco complained. "She cheated."

And then the enemy arrived. Suddenly four human-Controllers armed with guns crashed clumsily into view. And with them, two Hork-Bajir.

They saw Jake and Rachel and me.

They did not see Marco. He lumbered up behind one of the Hork-Bajir, tapped him on the shoulder, and the instant the Hork-Bajir turned, Marco landed a punch that would have split a telephone pole.

Ka-BOOM!

The Hork-Bajir went down hard.

"Whoa!" one of the humans cried.

And suddenly the Controllers weren't chasing us. We were chasing them.

I flapped hard and landed on Rachel's forward-swept horn blade. I gripped the bone blade with my talons.

"What are you doing?" Rachel asked.

"Just hitching a ride," I said. "l'm not going to be left out. Not this time."

"Cool. Let's go."

"Yee-hah!" I yelled with totally, totally fake enthusiasm.

We took off through the woods. Rachel's Hork-Bajir body had an easy, loping run that was faster than it seemed at first.

I sat there holding on tight. I was tense and scared and ready for trouble. But at least I was in

for the fight, you know? At least I wasn't off somewhere safe while the others ran all the risks.

"You guys!" Cassie called down from above. "Stop chasing those Controllers! They're setting up a trap. They're leading you right between two bunches of bad guys!"

"0ops. Time to turn around," I told Rachel.

"Yep."

She turned and started running in a new direction. She was like some big tank, and I was the hood ornament.

Then . . .

"Yaaahhh!" Rachel cried. She pitched forward. I pitched forward. We hit the ground hard, and rolled through a juniper bush.

"Sorry. I tripped. You okay, Tobias?"

"Yeah. I think so."

I was caught in the branches of the bush. I couldn't fight too hard to get out or I'd damage my feathers.

Slice!

Slice!

Suddenly the juniper branches were gone.

"AII right! I like these blades," Rachel said. "Excellent!"

I fluttered my wings and hopped up to get back on Rachel's horns. But I must have overshot my goal because suddenly I was flying through the air.

No, wait! Hold on! I was up above the trees! Impossible!

How did I get here? I hadn't even flown. I'd barely hopped and now I was up in the sky? What the . . . ?

I did a quick turnaround, trying to figure out where I was. The sun was setting fast and there wasn't enough light for me to use my full powers of sight. But I wasn't blind, either. I saw a horned owl floating just at treetop level. Cassie. But she was so far away. Maybe a quarter mile!

"No way," I said in total confusion.

Then I heard gunfire. Quite close. In fact, just beneath me.

BLAM! BLAM!

A human voice yelled, "Freeze! Freeze or I put the next shot in your second heart."

There was a small clearing below me. I knew the meadow. It was the territory of a Swainson's hawk. Not as nice as my own meadow, but a nice territory, anyway.

But I wasn't looking for mice in this clearing. I saw three humans, each well-armed, surrounding a single Hork-Bajir.

Rachel?

No. Couldn't be. She was back . . . back where I should be. Was it Jara Hamee himself? What was going on?

I noticed that one of the human-Controllers

seemed to be sick. He was doubling over, like he was having a spasm.

No, wait! He was morphing!

It took a few seconds for me to be sure. But when I saw the extra stalk eyes appear and the sharp-tipped tail, I knew. It was an Andalite.

There are only two Andalites on planet Earth. One is Ax. The other is not a true Andalite at all. It's a Yeerk who uses an Andalite body.

The only Andalite-Controller in all the galaxy.

The only Yeerk to have the power to morph.

Our greatest enemy, leader of the Yeerk invasion of Earth, murderer of Ax's brother, Elfangor.

Visser Three.

Andalites always look like they're right on the borderline between cute and dangerous. But with Visser Three, that line doesn't even exist.

It's not that he looks any different outside. I mean, he looks like an older Andalite is all. But there is some dark, evil glow that shines from within him. And when you meet him you have no doubt ... no doubt at all that he is dangerous.

Deadly dangerous.

"Guys?" I called in thought-speak. "Um, Jake? Rachel?"