“Aldrea, you’re sharing my brain and body. My name is Cassie. I’m a human girl. I live on planet Earth. An Arn just performed the Atafal —”
Red dots exploded in front of my eyes. The question in my head was so loud and forceful it made me dizzy.
There was definitely a hole in the wall now. I could feel Aldrea’s emotions coming through. Anger was the strongest.
she demanded.
Her voice was a noise like a chainsaw in my brain. “Ah! Ah! Ah! Aldrea, stop! Please, stop! You’re hurting me!” I yelled.
Jake grabbed me around the shoulders and held me up. My knees had given way.
I felt a welling up of pain from Aldrea, an echo, and knew that my silent scream had hurt her back.
I pulled in a shaky breath.
“Did you guys hear that? Did she speak through my mouth?” I asked, confused.
“No, we just heard you,” Rachel said. “At least, I guess it was you.”
Bringing up the Arn was definitely not the way to win Aldrea’s trust. I needed another way to reach her. Something that would get through her anger.
“Aldrea, don’t say anything for a moment. Just listen. Let me explain,” I said softly. When I felt her acceptance, I rushed on. “You were brought to this planet because there is a colony of free Hork-Bajir here. Your grandson, Jara Hamee, is part of the colony. So is your great-granddaughter, Toby Hamee.”
I paused to receive Aldrea’s reaction. I felt a swirl of too many emotions to take in. I caught traces of curiosity and disbelief, of hope, and fear, and panic. “Toby Hamee is in the cave with us,” I continued. “Can you see her? You should be able to see through my eyes.”
she answered.
I glanced around the cave. I wanted something basic to look at. I focused on Rachel’s red shirt.
“Maybe you just aren’t used to the way my brain gets information from my eyes,” I told Aldrea. “Right now, I’m looking at something red.”
I felt her concentrating. Then I felt the relief of recognition.
Aldrea exclaimed.
I turned toward Toby. she interrupted.
“Yes,” I answered.
I felt a strange desire to go and press my forehead against Toby’s. It took me a moment to realize the desire was Aldrea’s.
If Aldrea wanted to touch Toby, why shouldn’t she? I started to take a step forward, but a group of rapid-fire questions from Aldrea stopped me.
Her panic grew so intense that I felt sweat break out on my forehead.
“I think maybe it’s time to call the Exorcist,” Marco said. Not a joke, really. He was worried. Everyone was worried.
“Do you remember an old Arn storing your Ixcila?” I asked.
she replied.
I knew the moment the knowledge hit her. Really hit her. My heart started to pound, and I felt like my nerve endings were getting jolts of electricity.
Aldrea continued.
I hesitated. But she had to know the truth. “Yes, Aldrea, you are dead.”
ALDREA
My name is Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan.
And I have been told that I am dead.
Impossible.
Ridiculous.
The thought patterns the Arn had stored would only allow for a crude reproduction of me. A jumble of facts and sensations. Nothing more. There was no possibility that the thoughts and emotions I was experiencing now could be coming out of electrical impulses and chemicals collected years ago. I must have been knocked unconscious in a battle. A hallucination. A ploy the Yeerks were using to break me. They must be hoping that I —
But what about the body? What about the hands with too few fingers to be Andalite, the arms too weak and frail to be Hork-Bajir?
I didn’t want to believe I was dead. But I could not deny the fact that I was in a body that was not my own. A small, weak, defenseless body covered in furless brown skin.
“Aldrea?” the creature called Cassie said. “Are you all right?”
I realized that I wasn’t just hearing her words. I was feeling bits of emotion, too. Empathy and concern and sadness. A little fear, too. Fear for herself.
I asked, speaking in what felt like my own native tongue of thought-speak. I had to know. Unless … no, either way I had to know. The emotions from Cassie gave me my answer before her words.
“No, Aldrea. He died a long time ago. A long way from here. I’m sorry,” she answered.
I demanded. I knew he had one, too. It could be put into another body the way mine had. Dak and I could still be together.
“I don’t know,” she answered.
Cassie turned her gaze toward the Arn. It took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t communicating with him in the way we had been communicating. It took me a few moments more to comprehend how her brain received input from her ears and how I could use her brain to translate the data into words I could understand.
“The Yeerks did extensive blasting to create level places for training grounds. My lab was heavily damaged. The Ixcila of Dak Hamee was destroyed,” the Arn explained.
Was it true? If so, then Dak was truly dead. Dead like my parents. Like my brother, Barafin.
I said.
Had I had the chance to say good-bye to Dak? Had we fought side by side until the end? I would never know. My Ixcila had been collected before my death, so the memories of my last moments with Dak did not exist.
I felt a wave of sadness from Cassie. I shoved it away. I had no use for her emotions. She was nothing to me.
There was one final question I had to ask, although I was terrified to hear the answer.
I waited for Cassie to repeat my question.
It was the young Hork-Bajir who answered. “They took him, Great-grandmother. Seerow became a Controller. He was brought to Earth as part of their army, here. He died in captivity.”
There was not a worse fate I could have imagined for my child. The Yeerks had made his life a living death. And I had not been there to protect him.
“But Seerow’s son, Jara Hamee, my father, escaped with the help of the humans here,” Toby continued. “And I, your great-granddaughter, was born in freedom.”
I studied her through my new eyes. There was something about her. Something familiar. The words were too well organized, the speech flowed too smoothly, the ideas …
Through my despair I felt a tiny bubble of something that could have been joy.
I told Cassie.
A smile spread across Toby’s face when she heard the question.
“Yes, Great-grandmother, I am different,” she answered. “I am different as Dak Hamee was different.”
A seer. A seer born in freedom.
“We have brought you back from death because we need your help,” Toby said.
I said to Cassie.
My rebirth had brought me a pain that felt almost unbearable. My Dak gone. My Seerow gone.
But it had brought me a gift as well. The chance to know my great-granddaughter.
I wouldn’t give that up for anything. Perhaps I would even see Toby’s child one day.
The Arn quickly outlined his plan for Aldrea. I could feel her mistrust and anger growing as he spoke.
“Can you help us?” the Ar
n asked. “Do you remember where the weapons are hidden?”
Aldrea said.
I repeated her message.
The Arn nodded his head sadly. “And yet, it was the mind that found the hiding place. Found once, it could find again. Could Aldrea find them?”
Aldrea said.
“Then the two of us — no, I suppose that should be the three of us, counting the receptacle — will leave tomorrow,” Quafijinivon replied. “While the new Hork-Bajir are being grown in my laboratory, you will have time to retrieve the weapons.”
“If Cassie goes, we go,” Jake said.
“But she is just a vessel,” Quafijinivon said with a sort of greasy smile. “Why would you humans need to come?”
Tobias said.
“I hadn’t thought to bring —” Quafijinivon began.
Aldrea ordered.
I told her. I found I could communicate mind to mind with her now. As easy as any internal dialogue.
A perfectly logical request. I had no real reason for refusing, did I?
Almost immediately I felt a tickling sensation in my throat. My tongue gave a twitch and I let out something that sounded way too much like a pig grunting.
“Cassie, you okay?” Rachel asked.
I couldn’t answer her. Aldrea had my teeth locked together. I held up both hands and nodded, trying to show everyone that I was okay. My hands were still mine, at least.
“Thh — Thh —”
I could feel little specks of spit flicking down onto my chin. I expected to get at least a “say it, don’t spray it” out of Marco, but he stayed quiet.
“Thh. Ihh. This. This. This is Althrea. Drr. Drr. Aldrea. Cass-ie is al-low-ing me to u-se h-er voi-ce,” Aldrea explained.
She reminded me of a little kid sounding out words in a book that was too hard for her. She also reminded me of a Yeerk. She was using my mouth! Speaking with my voice!
“I sa-id I wou-ld do an-y-thing to he-l-p my great-gr-and-dau-gh-ter and the Ho-r-k-Ba-ji-r,” she continued. “But I wi-ll not do this.”
“What do you mean?” the Arn demanded. “You must! You are refusing the chance to give the Hork-Bajirs’ planet back to them?” His voice was quivering. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was furious or simply exhausted.
Aldrea laughed. It was a harsh, ugly sound that hurt my throat. “No, Arn. I am refu-sing the chance to give you your planet back. That is what you are tru-ly asking. You care no-thing for the Hork-Bajir. Your kind never did.”
Her words were coming much more smoothly now. Aldrea was getting comfortable with operating my mouth. I wasn’t getting comfortable with letting her. I felt like the world’s largest ventriloquist’s dummy.
“Ridiculous,” the Arn protested. “I am old. Soon I will be dead.”
“You’re asking me to help you use the Hork-Bajir again. Every time one of your new Hork-Bajir kills a Yeerk he will also be killing one of his own kind.” Aldrea asked, “You brought me back to help Hork-Bajir kill Hork-Bajir?”
“What you say is true, Great-grandmother,” Toby said. “But there is no other way. Few of our people survived the Andalite virus. Only those who had already been taken off-world by the Yeerks, and those few with natural immunity like you and my great-grandfather. We could grow again, take back our world. But not until we weaken the Yeerks.”
Toby stepped up in front of me and leaned down so she could look into my eyes. No. Into Aldrea’s eyes, because I might just as well not have been there. “Let me accompany you to our planet. We can start again, continue the work you and Dak Hamee began,” Toby pleaded.
I felt another stab of grief from Aldrea when Toby said Dak’s name. Then I felt her push that grief aside.
“You are a seer, Toby, but you are also young. You don’t know what this Arn, this Andalite, and even, I suspect, these humans, intend. Even well armed, do you think the few Hork-Bajir that this creature, this Arn, this manipulator, this liar from a race of liars, this coward from a race of cowards …” She stabbed my finger toward the Arn. I felt my face twist into an expression of fury.
She regained control over her emotions, but now adrenaline was flooding my system. She had triggered the classic human physiological response to stress. And with that hormone rush my own fear and anger grew.
“Hork-Bajir kill Hork-Bajir and who will profit?” Aldrea demanded.
“All the enemies of the Yeerks will profit,” Jake said. Toby nodded and said, “True, Great-grandmother, it would be a sideshow. It would only be a distraction for the Yeerks. Many Hork-Bajir would die. And yet we must fight.”
Aldrea spread my hands wide. “Why?”
“Because we must be a free people, Great-grandmother. So far our freedom here, in this valley, on this planet, has been bought and paid for by these humans, our friends. But freedom can’t be given. It must be taken and held and defended. Our freedom has to be our own creation.”
I felt again some measure of Aldrea’s sadness. Every word from Toby’s mouth reminded her of Dak.
“Brave talk, Toby. You may reconsider when you see the bodies piled high. Your great-grandfather did.”
No one said anything. The decision was Aldrea’s. Had to be hers. “We go. But I warn you, Arn: You will not betray the Hork-Bajir and live. Now, let us go home.”
Ax muttered.
Aldrea jerked my head toward him. she said silently to me.
I said.
she said. Then she looked directly at Ax and, out loud, using my voice, said, “This human, Cassie, tells me you are a friend, Andalite. I warned her about Andalite friends.”
Ax shot back.
“You could have been describing a human,” Rachel said brightly. “Now, add in ‘arrogant’ and ‘humorless,’ and then you have an Andalite.”
To my surprise Aldrea laughed out loud. My laugh. “Obviously you humans have spent some time with Andalites.”
Ax didn’t join in the sense of eased tension. He kept his large main eyes focused on me. On her.
The wall between me and Aldrea went back up. It felt even stronger than before. I had no idea what her true reaction to Ax’s question was.
“I understand why the Ceremony of Rebirth was performed,” she replied neutrally. “I understand that the Arn brought me here only to use me for this one purpose. I will do what I must.”
Not the answer I wanted to hear.
I said.
A
better answer. And if she’d given it without hesitation, it would have been better still.
“Okay, we’re supposed to brief you, so here goes: One of Cassie’s best fighting morphs is a wolf,” Rachel told Aldrea as we headed home through the sun-dappled woods.
The others had morphed and flown off ahead. At least they had been seen to fly off, and at least one no doubt did. There were plans to be made. We’d be away for a while. The Chee had to be contacted.
But if I knew Jake he’d left at least one or two others behind to watch us secretly. Jake was no happier with Aldrea’s careful reply than I was.
This leisurely walk through the woods was a test. If Aldrea did anything troubling, Rachel was on hand, and probably Tobias and Ax, as well. I didn’t spot either of them. But I’d have bet anything they were close by.
Jake had suggested that Aldrea learn how to control my morphs. On the Hork-Bajir world, she’d be in charge. In a fight we needed quick responses. She needed to know which weapon to use. And we needed to see how she handled it.
“The wolf has good speed,” Rachel chattered on. “Great ripping abilities with the teeth. Terrific endurance. They can run all night. Now if you’d chosen me, Aldrea, you’d have gotten some serious firepower. My African elephant morph. It’s, like, fourteen thousand pounds. Not to mention my grizzly bear.”
I felt a tickle of admiration mixed with amusement from Aldrea. A little of that wall between us had come back down, but what I saw and felt was only what Aldrea allowed me to see and feel.
I have to admit it’s not as if I was pouring out my deepest, darkest secrets to her. I was controlling my body, my mouth, and my eyes again. But I was carefully not searching the trees and bushes for signs of Tobias or Ax, lest she figure out what I was up to.
“So, not that it bothers me, but why didn’t you choose me, by the way?” Rachel burst out. “I mean, come on! There I was, all ready to go.”
“Not that it bothers you,” I said.
“Of course not. I’m just saying …”
Aldrea asked.
“She wants to know why she should have chosen you,” I reported. “Should I explain to her that you are the mighty, the powerful, the ultimate Yeerk-killer, Xena: Warrior Princess, whereas I am merely an ambivalent, animal-loving, tree-hugging wuss?”