«l will transfer all archived Howler memories to the android.»
"The android has a name: Erek," Rachel snapped.
«He can call himself the Grand Guildmaster as far as I am concerned!» Guide said happily.
Guide tapped into the panel. Then he called
69 Erek over. He pointed to a slot like a keyhole. «Can you interface?»
Erek dropped his hologram, revealing his true android body. From one steel finger a prong telescoped out and pressed into the keyhole. The steel finger changed shape to conform to the keyhole shape.
Erek's almost canine face was blank. Then his eyes flew open and he pulled back. It was impossible to read emotion on the android face. But I could guess. He had just absorbed the memories of the creatures who had wiped out his creators, the Pemalites, and made interstellar fugitives of the Chee.
"How are you doing, Erek?" Cassie asked.
"I have absorbed the available Howler memories. They are not ... not pleasant viewing."
"Can you show us?"
"Yes." He hesitated. "Memories of the attack on my creators is included. I would not like to show you that. I would not like to have to . . ." He fell silent, embarrassed.
Cassie put a hand on his steel and ivory arm. "Then don't. Show us what you can. Show us what we need to know."
Erek nodded. "The planet I'll show you has no name. The people call themselves Graffen's Children. What I will show you happened approximately twenty Earth years ago."
70 The bare room disappeared as Erek's hologram filled the room with a forest in shades of purple, blue-green, and mustard-ye I low. We saw enormous leaves, as big as bedsheets. Vines wound'along the ground, dipped in and out of the dark soil, then shot up to form strange trees.
Birds in long, random shapes like pink feather boas swooped and wove through the leaves and branches. Below them, orange-and-yellow centipedes crept along. Bristly combs rose from their backs, making them look like a comic cross between worms and stegosauruses. Animals like two-headed prairie dogs popped up out of subterranean lairs, spit out mouthfuls of dirt and disappeared again.
It was a rain forest. But someone else's. With wonders no more magical than those of Earth, but wonders just the same.
Through the forest came a column of creatures that made me laugh. "Gumby," I said.
They looked like Gumby. Not green, but dark blue, and not smooth, but as rough-textured as an old tree. But still they moved with the jerky grace of Gumby, walking on two legs, eyes raised to the treetops above them.
I saw a hand move into view and I jerked in surprise. A Howler's hand! I was seeing this forest, these plants and animals and Graffen's Children, through Howler eyes.
71 The Howler was lying in wait, hidden from view.
Then the nearest of the Graffen's Children spotted him. His eyes went wide. A smile twisted his strange mouth. He extended a hand toward the Howler, welcoming, curious.
The column of Graffen's Children walked toward the Howler like so many toddlers. Like kids who wanted to pet a dog or something.
The Howler moved, a blur of speed. Other Howlers came into view. They howled. To us the sound was softened by Erek's filtering. But it hit the Graffen's Children full force. They began to blow apart. They stood there, helpless, confused, not knowing why anyone would hurt them, and they simply -
"Erek, stop it!" I snapped.
The hologram disappeared as quickly as a TV picture that had been turned off.
"I shouldn't have let you do this, Erek. Can you erase this stuff from your memory?"
"No, Jake."
"I'm sorry," I said. "How much more did you absorb?"
Erek powered up his human hologram. His face was human again. Now I could see the emotions Erek was feeling. "I have memories of seventeen Howler attacks. All successful. They have never been defeated. They have attacked
72 highly advanced civilizations and simple people like Graffen's Children. They have never taken a prisoner. They simply kill and kill and kill until there is no one left to kill. Then they go and find something else to kill."
"That's insane!" Cassie yelled. "No species does that. It doesn't make sense. There's no logic to it. You're not talking about predators who kill to eat, or prey animals who kill in self-defense. Even humans have reasons, no matter how sick. Even humans have limits. Why would evolution result in a species that kills for no reason?"
"It wouldn't. It didn't," Erek said. "The Howlers didn't evolve. They were created."
"Crayak?"
He nodded. "Graffen's Children and dozens of species were annihilated by Crayak's Children."
73
We slept in shifts. Two of us on guard at all times. A futile gesture. If the Howlers found us, we would die.
Guide assured us we were safe. Apartments were built strong enough to resist the often rambunctious Warmaker Iskoort. And with our bargain to give him our memories, I felt like he had an interest in keeping us alive.
But so far, the Iskoort generally didn't impress me. I was sure that others, with less at stake, would sell us out.
It was a long night. It was a very long night. Maybe some of us slept. I didn't. I didn't want to dream.
I tried to make sense of it all. Tried to figure
74 out what the Ellimist thought he was doing. How he expected us to win a fight we had no hope of winning.
But nothing made sense. Whatever game the Ellimist was playing was over our heads. I felt like an ant wandering around a chessboard, trying to figure out the rules when all I could see was colossal figures moving around me in inexplicable patterns.
All we had learned was that the Howlers were violent beyond belief. Destructive. That they were, in fact, designed and built to be pure evil.
"What's it like to be one of them?" Cassie whispered in the darkness. She was close by. Obviously not sleeping, either.
"Who? An Iskoort?"
"No. A Howler. They know they were created by Crayak. They're bright enough to fly spacecraft, so they can't be entirely without minds. What do they think of themselves?"
I didn't really care. But Cassie's voice was a comforting distraction. "I don't know. I guess they're happy being what they are. Aren't most species happy being themselves?"
Long silence, as she considered that. "Maybe I would have believed that back in the old days. But you know, I've been a termite, an ant. Mindless creatures of instinct. They weren't happy. Not unhappy, either. They just do what they're
75 programmed to do, and they don't have minds, really, so what else can they do? But Howlers must have minds."
"Just because a person or whatever is intelligent, that doesn't mean they can't be brutal and rotten and evil. I mean, there must have been some smart Nazis and some smart slave owners."
"Yeah, but the Howlers aren't just individuals. We're talking about an entire species, an entire race, being evil. That isn't possible. We know that. Even the Yeerks aren't all one way."
"And maybe the Howlers are. All one way, I mean. Maybe you just have a race that is pure evil."
"Can't be," Cassie said confidently.
"Why not?"
"Because that's what Nazis and slave owners and people like that believed. That you can just take a whole race or whatever and say 'they're all this or all that.' That's never going to be true."
"Maybe," I said, not wanting to stomp on her idealism. "Maybe so. But what are the odds that these seven Howlers handpicked by Crayak are going to be all soft and cuddly?"
She fell silent. So I guess I'd stomped on her idealism, anyway. At some level I thought, Good. We don't need a bunch of happy talk when we're up against Howlers. But at another level I was just mad at the world and confused and scared.
76 I started to say "Cassie ..." when something hit the door with the impact of a small comet.
WHAM!
We were up and awake in a billionth of a second.
WHAM!
The door held, amazingly. Guide started to whine. «See! I told you
-»
TSEEEEEEW!
A red circle appeared in the door and began to smoke and burn.
"It's them!" I yelled. "Howlers!"
I felt like I was choking on my own heart, like it was beating so hard, so fast, that it filled me up, leaving no room for any but small, gasping breaths.
We were going to die!
I heard moans of terror. Some were coming from me, just these subhuman, animal moans of fear.
"Morph!" I yelled, choking out the word.
"They're going to kill us!" Marco cried.
In the glow of the Dracon beam, I saw Ax walking steadily toward the door. Rough, shaggy hair was sprouting from Rachel's face.
"NO!" I blurted, realizing the mistake. "Not combat morphs! Go small! Flies!"
I tried to focus my jangled, shattered-glass brain on the image of a fly. It was the only way out. Not to fight, but to run.
77 «l will attempt to slow them down,» Ax said calmly.
"No, Ax. Morph! We have to get out of here!" Rachel yelled at him.
«l ran once,» Ax said. «Not again.»
«Not the time, Ax-man!» Tobias said.
«l am an Andalite warrior!» he said harshly.
TSEEEEEEEEW!
The beam suddenly burned through into the room and hit the far wall.
Erek ran to the hole in the door as a Howler stuck his head though, eyes greedy. Erek's hologram was gone. He was now a Chee.
"Chee!" the Howler said in surprise.
Erek took one steel hand and calmly rammed his fingers into the metal of the door. They went through like he was sticking his hand in a loaf of bread. He did the same with the other hand, curling his fingers and gripping the handholds he had created.
He blocked the entrance with his body. The Howler sneered and shoved at him. Erek did not move by so much as an atom's width.
The Howler backed up and leveled his flechette gun at Erek's metallic face. He fired. Flechettes ricocheted around the room, but Erek was unharmed.
"Jake, this will not last," Erek warned me.
We were all morphing at top speed. All but
78 Ax. I already had huge, bulging fly eyes and six legs.
«Ax! Do it! Morph, right now!»
«No, I can't run again!»
«Aximili-Esgarrouth-lsthill, you call me "prince" and you act like you mean it and I am giving you a direct order. Morph. Do. It. NOW!»
79
Now the Howlers tried their ultimate weapon. The howl was earsplitting. The walls around Erek began to shiver and crack. Guide fell to the ground, rolling in agony.
Ax's eyes were bleeding, even in midmorph. But the rest of us were more fly than human, and the waves of vibration from the Howlers did not cause us pain. Not pain, just an overwhelming instinct to fly. Vibration could be sound or it could be movement. The fly brains felt the howl as sudden, massive, threatening movements from every direction at once.
Still seven or eight pounds, with a twisting, morphing human mouth, I was beating my
80 growing wings frantically, kicking in panic, trying to fly.
"Fight me, Chee," the Howler taunted, when he realized his howl would not shake Erek's grip.
I was shocked to recognize the language. He was speaking English! Crayak must have programmed it into this bunch of Howlers. Programmed them to understand our language and to be able to taunt and question us, if necessary.
Erek ignored him. The Howlers began to fire Dracon beams. Not at Erek. They must have known from their collective memory that Chee cannot be easily destroyed by beam weapons.
Instead, they were using the Dracon beams to slice around Erek's handholds.
We had all morphed. All panicked, but all morphed. Except Ax, who was still partly Andalite. And Guide, who was sitting in a corner now, gazing raptly at the madness, creating valuable memories for later sale.
Suddenly, Erek's handhold was gone, burned away. The Howlers pushed past him, contemptuous. They knew he could not fight. But they found nothing. Nothing that looked like the creatures one of them had fought on the stairs.
Nothing except a weak, defenseless Ax, still morphing. A hideously misshapen, melting, twisting monstrosity.
81 The Howlers piled into the room. With my compound eyes they seemed to be made of glowing purple and blue with pulsating black veins. The facets in my fun-house-mirror eyes broke them into pieces. They were everywhere around me as I flew unnoticed.
"Target?" one Howler asked another. This second Howler was slightly larger and carrying even more weapons.
"Yes. Kill it!" the leader bellowed in rage.
Seven flechette guns rose and took aim at Ax. He had no chance. None.
Erek leaped to put himself between the guns and Ax, but the Howlers calmly blocked his path. And Erek's programming would not allow him to shove them aside.
In a split second, Ax would be annihilated.
«Crayak is a huge, walking, talking pimple,» a thought-speak voice said.
Marco!
The Howlers' heads snapped around, left, right, their bodies swiveling as they searched for the one who taunted them. They aimed at Guide, who was crawling out through the hole they'd burned.
«Not me! Not me! I'm just an Iskoort trader! And by the way, I'd love to buy your memories of all this!»
82 «And Howlers are the cowards of the galaxy. Brainless, ugly, bad-smelling, sniveling, gutless worms,» Marco added.
"Forget it," the leader ordered. "Voices are meaningless."
I zipped through the air, flying in the wild, wobbly fly way. I aimed for the face of the Howler leader. I landed just beneath his left eye.
«Not just a voice, you walking dirtball. I'm right here. Think you're tough? Try killing me.»
The hand snapped up with shocking speed. I felt it coming, felt the disturbances in the air, and I responded with the RIGHT NOW speed of the fly.
Alien fingers slapped toward me. I fired my wings. The Howler was so fast his fingers missed me by millimeters.
«How are you going to kill us?» Marco taunted. «Better go back to Crayak and explain that you've failed.»
"Forget them! Kill that-"
«Too late,» Ax said.
Ax had made the transition to fly.
«0kay, stay airborne. No one land, no one set down,» I said. I was beginning to feel just the smallest bit of optimism. Even relief. The Howlers were mystified.
"The android!" the Howler leader roared.
83 I looked. I could see Erek, or at least a shimmering, distorted version of him. But the Howlers no longer could. Erek had created a hologram of one of the walls. He was standing calmly behind it. Out of sight, though not out of reach.
«Let's bail before these guys start thinking of ways to swat flies,» Cassie suggested.
«You got that right,» Marco agreed.
«0ut the door,» I said. «But stay close.»
We zipped, unnoticed, through the burned-out doorway.
Not a victory. All we had managed to do was run away. But we were all still alive. And that was more than I would have thought possible.
Too bad just staying alive was not an option. We had to win. We had to destroy seven creatures, any one of whom could fight all of us to a draw.
84
«Guide. Can you hear me?»
«Yes, of course, lam not far away.»
«We know,» Rachel said. «We're just above
your head. No, don't look!»
«They'll watch Guide,» Tobias said. «lf we
hook up with him and demorph, they'll have us.» The seven Howlers had emerged from the
wrecked apartment. We'd lost track of them after
that. Fly eyes are useless at any distance beyond
a foot or two. Were they tracking us? Or Guide?
No way to know. But you couldn't get careless
with Howlers.
«Erek. I know you can't answer, but if you can
hear me, try to find Guide. Hide him from the
&n
bsp; Howlers.»
85 As we watched Guide, another "Iskoort" sidled up next to him. The second Iskoort suddenly became a small group of Warmaker Iskoort who simply absorbed Guide.
This group of Warmaker Iskoort would have been revealed as a hologram if anyone had touched them. But no one did.
We flew into the hologram and landed on Erek's head.
«Are we clear?» I asked Erek.
"We were being watched, but I believe we have lost the Howlers, at least for now."
«Great,» Rachel said unenthusiastically. «We can stay alive as long as we're flies hiding inside a hologram.»
«l will take you to a new place where you can hide,» Guide said. «Incidentally, this ability you have to change shapes is very interesting. Is it perhaps a technology you can sell? I would pay top price.»
I didn't bother answering. We demorphed back to human and hawk and Andalite, still hidden, bunched up within the hologram.
We were crossing a sort of large square or plaza. The floor was green in this area and almost made you think you were on a vast lawn. In the center of the square was yet another stairway, and we took it, heading down. It was busy, with lots of Iskoort coming and
86 going and what I assumed to be a few aliens, as well.
Erek made the hologram growl and threaten repeatedly, to keep anyone from bumping into us and penetrating our illusion.
We came at last to the next level down. And this was definitely different. Instead of the bare openness of previous levels, this one was almost a jungle. But a unique one. The plants, trees, and flowers were all in planter boxes packed together, leaving only narrow, circuitous walkways. If you looked out and up, you'd think you were in a genuine jungle. If you looked down, you felt more like you were walking through a greenhouse.
Iskoort were packed in tight on the walkways. Too tight for our extended hologram.
"Tobias," I said. "Think you could get up and see if we're being followed?"
Tobias flew out of the top of the hologram, took a couple of turns, and came back. «Looks clear.»
"I can't imagine the Howlers creeping along like spies, anyway," Rachel said. "They're a little more direct. If they see us, they'll come after us, and too bad for anyone who gets in the way."
Erek turned off the extended hologram and resumed his human appearance. We were exposed again. Aliens walking in what passed for a park. My skin tingled.