Jake answered.
Jake and Rachel, a pair of streamlined, dark-gray aquatic creatures with sharply raked fins and a head that seemed squashed and flattened.
Cassie said.
Pah-loosh! Pah-loosh!
“Sreeeeee-yah!”
A Taxxon’s scream resonated through the water.
I muttered.
Cassie had already begun demorphing, building up the smaller, subtler changes so that she could finish in a rush. This part was critical. The humans were determined that the Yeerks never know they’d been on the Hork-Bajir planet.
And yet, Cassie had to be human, at least for a moment between morphs.
It happened quickly, but not instantaneously. We shrank, shriveled, wasted away at a shocking speed. Human arms and legs emerged from the vast tons of blubber.
Whale lungs became human, and Cassie kicked for the surface.
I warned.
Cassie said.
Her head, our head, broke the surface. Deep breath. Again. Battle just over our heads atop the dike wall. Two Andalites, tails whipping, slashing, cutting. Hork-Bajir-Controllers backing away and running as one of their own kept yelling “Run! Run! Andalites everywhere! Thousands of them, run!”
Marco, of course.
The Hork-Bajir guards broke and ran. None was interested in a human face poking up from the filthy muck of the pool.
Cassie steadied herself. I felt her exhaustion.
She began to morph. Hork-Bajir features appeared, but more slowly now. Too many morphs too quickly. And each a work of art.
As soon as the first blade appeared I said,
I heard the sounds of Hork-Bajir-Controllers being rallied above, the shouts and threats of their sub-vissers.
The water echoed with the horrifying screeching of Taxxons.
Ax said calmly.
Marco cried.
I was fully Hork-Bajir now. I was done for. Tired inside and out.
I said.
Couldn’t fight her. Needed her. My mind was going fuzzy, confused. Not sure what body I was in. Bits of unmorphed data, stray instincts, body images, echoes of fins and wings, all jumbled together.
Tseeeew! Tseeeew!
The battle above us on the battlements was joined again.
Aldrea propelled us down, crawling, Hork-Bajir style, down the dike wall, down into the water that no longer rang with the cries of dying Taxxons.
Two hammerhead sharks swam up beside us. There were bits of Taxxon flesh trailing from their rows of razor teeth.
Aldrea was running short of air. We were. She was searching in the murk for some sign on the vast tree trunk before us. Searching … the wood was swollen and discolored … gasping for breath.
Tobias yelled.
Pah-loosh! Pah-loosh! Pah-loosh!
Aldrea said,
There! The faint, almost invisible line. It was on the underside of the log, almost where it joined the tree beneath it.
Aldrea slashed with expert ease. Then she pulled.
Nothing!
she cried.
Marco crawled down beside us and added his strength.
Slowly the crack widened.
Tseeeeew! Tseeeew! Tseeeeew!
The troops on the battlement were firing into the water. They wouldn’t be able to hit us, they couldn’t even see us, but they’d soon parboil us.
WOOOOOSH!
The tree opened! Water rushed in, dragging us with it. A tangled mass of sharks, Andalites, and Hork-Bajir was swept inside and bobbed up, to my utter amazement, into air. There was no light, but there was definitely air.
It was silent inside the tree. All the sounds of battle were muffled.
Aldrea gasped, choked, breathed. Then, “Computer, identification: Aldrea-Iskillion-Falan. Code: …” She hesitated, then said, “Code: Mother loves Seerow. Ship, acknowledge by turning on exterior lights.”
The sudden illumination seemed blinding after the total darkness.
We were floating in a placid pool at the bottom of what looked like an upturned, smooth, wooden bowl. We were inside the tree. Lying half-submerged in water was a stubby Yeerk ship, maybe forty feet long and almost as wide.
We paddled toward the ship and then I felt wood beneath my feet. We stood up.
Jake and Rachel were demorphing as fast as they could, and when they had feet and legs, they, too, stood up in waist-deep water.
“There it is,” Aldrea said.
Ax pointed out.
“The number represents a logarithm of Seerow’s birth date. I always used it.”
Jake clapped his hands briskly. “Okay, we have minutes before the Yeerks figure out we’re in this tree. Let’s get this over with.”
We slogged over to the ship and hauled our wet, exhausted selves up inside. I lay on my back on the deck, unable to get up for a while.
“You okay, Cassie?” Rachel asked.
“Aldrea, actually. Cassie is exhausted,” Aldrea said.
“Why are you in charge? Get Cassie back!”
Aldrea laughed. “You don’t need to worry about Cassie. She takes care of herself quite well.”
We stood up and went to the ship’s controls. “I need someone on weapons,” Aldrea said.
Ax appeared beside her.
“We burn our way out.”
“Yes,” Aldrea said. “Do you object, brother Andalite?”
“Then power up the Dracon beams.”
The engines began to whine. The Dracon beams began to hum.
Marco said.
Ax and Aldrea said at the same instant.
“They stole it. That doesn’t make it theirs,” Aldrea added.
Ax suggested.
“Ready?”
“Fire!”
The Dracon beams fired, a blinding blast. And kept firing. A hole burned through the outer side of the tree, out into the air. The water began to rise. The hole grew larger. Now the water was rushing in, gurgling up around the ship. The escaping air howled.
Then, all at once, the wooden wall was gone.
WHAM!
Aldrea hit the engines just as a wall of water caught us, slammed into us, and spit us out into the night.
The ship rolled, spun, bucked then …
Whooooom!
Marco yelled.
The ship blew out of the log, down the valley, and turned to take a look back. A Bug fighter had come up, saw we were a Yeerk ship, and hesitated.
TSEEEEW! TSEEEEEW!
The Bug fighter blew apart an
d veered down into the draining Yeerk pool.
Water rushed out of the rapidly widening hole. I could not see the Yeerks, of course, but I knew they were being dragged along in the irresistible current. Hundreds. Thousands. We might never know.
I didn’t want to know.
Aldrea said.
The water continued to drain. The Yeerks in host bodies might be able to save some of their brothers and sisters. Not many. Not all. Thousands of Yeerks would lie there, dying a slow death of dehydration as the water left them stranded, or asphyxiation as they sank, helpless, into the mud.
Because of me.
ALDREA
We delivered the weapons to Quafijinivon. We were reunited with my great-granddaughter, Toby.
The humans, and the one Andalite, had done the impossible, the absurd! But there was no celebration. Instead there were awkward silences and stilted conversations and eyes averted.
I still had charge of Cassie’s now-human body. She was doing something very much like sleeping. She had withdrawn, exhausted, depressed.
I drew Aximili aside. “You have lived with these humans. They seem troubled by their victory.”
I smiled. “I was going to say that they remind me of our Hork-Bajir warriors, who never forgave themselves for learning to kill.”
Aximili said.
“It may be the definition of true civilization,” I said. “And yet, we are here to promote another war. The Arn will spawn his new generation of Hork-Bajir, and, thanks to us, they will be armed.”
the Andalite said, turning his stalk eyes toward my great-granddaughter.
Toby had her back to us. She had been working with the Arn, learning from him. A strange couple: the last remnant of the race that had made the Hork-Bajir to serve in simplicity and ignorance, and the living example of the Arns’ failure.
She was so like Dak when I first met him. Before the battles. Before I had led Dak to serve the Andalite will.
“No,” I said suddenly. “No, Toby will not lead them. Her place is with her people, on Earth. Someone, some part of Dak and Seerow and me, will survive to do something besides fighting a war.”
Ax said.
“No, I suppose that’s true. But with your help, Aximili. And with Cassie’s, I think I can convince her.” I explained to Aximili. Cassie, of course, heard. And now, at last, she came up out of her haze of regret and guilt.
Cassie said.
Cassie said.
she said. She turned our gaze to Toby. A young Hork-Bajir seer who would, at least in my last dreams, guide her people to freedom.
I almost weakened. It was so hard to say good-bye.
I said.
Cassie didn’t say anything more. There wasn’t anything to say, not to each other.
“Jake!” Cassie cried. “Aldrea is struggling to seize control of me!”
Jake and all the others jerked around, bristling, ready to fight.
Aximili moved quickly to get behind Toby. He whipped his tail forward and held the blade against the young Hork-Bajir’s throat.
“Ax!” Jake cried.
“I’ll kill you, Andalite!” I cried through Cassie’s mouth. “The Arn will give me a new body and I will come after you!”
I did. I left Cassie behind, lifted up out of her body, her mind, and was drawn back to the bottle.
I could no longer touch. No longer hear. No longer see.
For a while I could remember.
It wouldn’t take Toby long to realize she’d been tricked. But by then Toby and the others would be on their way back to Earth.
My thoughts, my consciousness, my memory, were all fading. I still saw my son. Still saw Dak. Still saw …
The author wishes to thank Melinda Metz for her assistance in preparing this manuscript.
My name is Marco.
But you can call me “Marco the Mighty.” Or “Most Exalted Destroyer of My Pride.” You can cower before my mighty thumbs and beg for mercy, but you’ll be crushed just the same.
For I am the lord of the PlayStation.
Pick a game. Any game. Tekken. Duke Nukem. NFL Blitz. Whatever. Practice all you want. I’ll still beat you. I’ll crush you like Doc Martens crush ants. I’ll —
“The phone’s ringing,” my dad said, setting down his controller.
“You can’t stop now,” I cried. “I was gonna score on this next play!”
“It’s fifty-six to nothing,” he muttered. “I’ll forfeit this one.”
“But —”
But he’d already picked up the phone.
“Hello? Oh, hi! How are you?” His voice was so sweet and sticky you could have poured it over pancakes.
“Oh, brother,” I mumbled.
“I’m doing great,” he continued, a big dopey smile on his face. “Marco and I were just playing video games. Uh-huh. Sure.” He looked at me. “Nora says hi.”
I nodded. I grabbed the remote control. Switched the TV back to cable mode and turned the volume up loud enough to drown out his voice.
My dad has a girlfriend. And I think it’s serious. I’m used to this quiet, low-key, unexpressive guy. But ever since he started dating this woman, he’s been Mr. Personality. Smiling for no reason. Singing in the shower. Laughing at all my lame jokes like I was Chris Rock. He’s even developed this annoying habit of hugging me for no good reason.
I mean, I’m happy for him. Really. When my mom disappeared over two years ago, my dad lost it. For a long time, he was little more than a zombie. Sometimes I thought he’d never recover.
A few months back he pulled himself out of it. Things went back to normal. Or as normal as my life could be — until he met this woman.
Your dad being in love with someone who isn’t your mother is a pretty normal problem, I guess. I mean, he’s old, but he’s not exactly using a walker and getting seniors’ discounts at the Steak and Ale. Maybe you’ve dealt with the same thing yourself. Maybe you’re dealing with it right now. Maybe this problem makes you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.
Yeah, well, boo hoo. Sorry, kids. But you have no idea about the weight of the world. ’Cause it’s on my shoulders.
See, not only do I live with a lovesick father. I’m also trying to save the world from being enslaved by evil, parasitic aliens.
To which you respond, “Ooooookay, dude forgot his medication.”
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I’m not crazy. And not lying. I’m telling the truth.
They’re called Yeerks. They’re from another galaxy. Gray, sluglike creatures that slide into your ear, flatten out inside your brain, and take control of your mind and body. Forcing you to do anything they want. Anything.
Right now, their invasion is a secret. Very few people know about it. Most of the people who do are their slaves. We call them Controllers. I don’t know how many people the Yeerks have turned into Controllers. I don’t think I want to know.
There are a handful of us fighting the Yeerks. A handful. As in four kids, an alien, and a red-tailed hawk.
Come to think of it, maybe I did forget my meds.
We call ourselves Animorphs. We have the ability to turn into any animal we touch. It may not sound like much of a weapon, but you’d be surprised. We’ve done plenty to hurt the Yeerks, and we’re not through yet.
The Yeerks would love to get us. They’d love to make me and my friends their slaves so they could use our morphing powers to conquer the rest of the world.
That’s why I don’t tell you my last name. And that’s why I won’t tell you where I live. City or state. I want to stay anonymous. Anonymous equals alive. Maybe.
“Well, I really had a great time, too,” my dad gushed into the phone.
As if the Yeerks aren’t enough for me to deal with — this woman my dad has gone all Sweet’n Low for? She just happens to be a teacher at my school. My math teacher. Ms. Robbinette.
It’s enough to make you want to ban parent/teacher conferences.
I turned the TV up a little more, hoping my dad would get the hint and leave the room. He didn’t.
There was nothing on TV worth watching. Lousy game shows. Corny old movies. Boring murder mysteries. Prime-time soap operas. But I continued to flip channels like a robot stuck on the same mindless function.
I stopped on a talk show I’d seen a few times before. Contact Point. It was hosted by some guy with a three-word name. William Roger Tennant.
Not your typical talk show. No audience. No guests. No comedy monologue. Just this Tennant guy, sitting cross-legged in a big comfy chair, surrounded by six-foot-tall Lava lamps, a bottle of designer water at his side.