Insanity Equals Happiness

by Salad Shooter

I wrote this entire story when I was 12-13. You have been warned. My writing skills have much improved since then.

1. The Controller

Author's note: This "chapter" is actually a whole book, because there are a LOT of chapters. I'm not going to post every single chapter separately!

Also, Rachel9466 is NOT the author of these fanfics (only the co-author ... ). Salad Shooter is. Unfortunately, Salad Shooter can't post stories here because they are not 13 yet! boo hoo!

Like it? Hate it? Please R/R!

The Controller

Chapter 1

My name is Leela.

I used to be your average kid. Kinda on the skinny side. Blond hair, blue eyes. Wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

I still am like that. I mean, I look the same. If you saw me walking down the street, you wouldn't notice anything weird about me.

I mean, I always was a weird person. But a few years ago, my whole life got weird.

It all started with a poster. A stupid little poster hanging in the hallway at school.

It was my best friend Cassie who noticed it first. Cassie also looks normal. Brown hair, brown eyes, a little bigger than me.

Her level of weirdness is not quite up to my standards, but it's okay.

"Hey, Leela," she yelled. "Over here. Look at this poster."

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Get over here and you'll see."

So I squeezed my way through about a million elephant boys to where she was. "Yeah, what's it say?"

"Look."

I looked. It was an advertisement for this club. The Sharing. It was basically this thing where you do stuff with a lot of other people, maybe make some new friends. That's what the poster said.

"Yeah, so?"

"I'm thinking of joining. I need more stuff to do after school. And it looks like fun."

"And you're telling me this why?"

"I want to check it out first. Why don't you come with me?"

"Fine," I said. "Just checking it out won't hurt."

That's how we ended up at the beach. Some guy was cooking hot dogs.

"Man. The smell of hot dogs is making me hungry," I said to Cassie.

"Me too."

I looked around. Most people were just having fun, but there were a few people conferring in whispers.

I looked at the hot dog man again. There was something ... what was that? It was so creepy. The hot dog guy looked normal, and yet ...

"Cass? You ever seen that guy before?"

"Which one?"

"The guy cooking the hot dogs."

"Oh, him." She looked at him, then at me. "No. He's scary, though."

"Yeah. Definitely."

"I don't like it, Leela."

"You don't? I want to find out about him. What is that ... that ... feeling, I guess? Who is that dude, anyway? Hey, you still wanna join this thing?"

"Maybe."

"I do. I gotta know about that guy."

"Then I will too. You know, so you won't get into trouble or anything."

"As if I would!" I tried to look shocked.

Cassie grinned.

"Hey. I'd like to know what those whispering people are saying."

"Me too, Leela."

"Just, like, one little sentence. That can't hurt. And I have to know."

"And you'll be tortured until you hear that one little sentence. Right?"

"Yep."

Something was nagging at me. Something that said, "You got to know! You got to know who the hot dog person is. And what the whispering people are saying. You got to know!"

I had no idea why.

Cassie and I crept close. We went for a man and a woman who were chatting near some bushes. That way we could not be seen.

"Shhh," Cassie told me.

" - you know, I hear Edriss is leaving very soon," the man whispered.

"Yes. Everyone is talking about it," replied the woman. "Who'll be the leader of the invasion now?"

"I've just heard rumors. People say it's going to be the Yeerk that discovered the humans."

"Esplin-Nine-Four-Double-Six? Primary twin, of course."

"Yeah. Visser Three. The Andalite-Controller."

"You know, I've heard things about Esplin lately. That he's starting to go insane. That he - "

"That's enough, Leela!" Cassie hissed. "Let's get out of here."

So we did.

"That was more than one little sentence!" Cassie said when we had put a safe distance between us and the two people. "And I have no idea what was said."

"Wow. I'd sure like to know, though."

"I've heard you use that phrase one too many times now. But still ... "

"Who's Esplin?"

"Who's Edriss?"

"And while we're at it, what's a Yeerk?"

"We could find out," Cassie suggested.

"We will find out. Or else I'll go nuts!"

"As nuts as whoever Esplin is?" Cassie laughed.

"Yeah. And we're gonna find out just how nuts that is."

Now we were both laughing.

"You know, we've been 'associate members' of The Sharing for a long while. We haven't found out any more about the weird stuff those people were talking about," Cassie said.

We were at her house. In her room. Not really doing anything.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. I got a plan."

"What?"

"You know, those meetings that the full members have? The secret, "Only Full Members Allowed" things?"

"Leela. No way. Those are guarded by cops."

"So what?"

"We could get in huge trouble."

"It's a stupid meeting. They can't arrest me for being there. I mean, hey, it isn't really a crime, it's just against the rules of the Sharing."

"They could kick us out."

"Yeah. But who cares? We could just go back as 'visitors.' Like the first time we came."

"Fine. I know that if I say no, you'll go anyway and probably do something stupid. So I'll come along to protect you."

She said that to make me mad. It worked.

"I don't need nobody to 'protect' me! Give me a break."

Cassie just grinned.

"Shh," I told Cassie.

"No duh."

"Shut up."

Cassie and I peered through the leaves. We had climbed this huge tree as high as we could. No one could see us unless they looked carefully, because there were about a thousand branches and billions of leaves.

I saw a couple of kids I knew. Plus the assistant principal of the junior high school, Mr. Chapman. And the creepy hot dog guy, wearing some dorky, tight-fitting clothes.

"Cassie. Look at the hot dog man. And do not scream. Do not scream."

Cassie opened her mouth, then shut it. Like I had three seconds ago.

The hot dog guy was turning blue.

"Whoa. That is scary. I knew there was something wrong with him."

"That is so cool!"

"Leela, I am like frozen with fear and you are saying this is cool?"

"Oh, it's scary. Definitely scary. But it's cool too. Hey! Look at his eyes! Weren't they dark brown a few minutes ago? They're dark blue now! And ... kinda weird-looking."

"How can you tell? I can barely see if his eyes are open or shut!"

"Speaking of which, shut up."

An eyeball on a stalk sprouted from his head. Then another one.

I considered screaming.

"Don't you dare, Leela. Mouth shut."

"Oh man, that is weird!" I whispered.

SPROOT! SPROOT! Something sprouted from the guy's chest. Two somethings. Horse legs.

Horse legs? Huh?

Blue horse legs! And the original legs were becoming two more horse legs. The guy was growing taller by the second.

Suddenly his body bent weirdly between the extra chest-legs and the arms. He reared up like a horse.

When his front hooves - yeah, hooves - hit the ground, he looked kind of like a centaur. A blue centaur with extra eyeballs.

Suddenly his mouth disappeared! His hair seemed to be sucked into his head, like someone slurping up a mouthful of spaghetti. His ears climbed up the side of his head and became smoother, bigger, and pointed. His nose shrank, and for a second he had no nose at all. But then three vertical slits appeared.

Blue and tan fur grew everywhere. The dork-clothes disappeared.

Last, the tail sprouted. Long, thick, and furry. At the end, a mean-looking blade grew.

That was the scariest thing.

"Leela. No. No! Don't!" Cassie hissed.

I couldn't help myself. I screamed.

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!"

The weird horse hot dog guy had stopped changing. He turned his extra eyeballs on our tree.

"Oops."

"Yeah, oops. Told you you'd do something stupid. Uh-oh. Now look. Horse-man is coming toward us."

"Horse-man. Sounds like a comic book character."

"Not the time, Leela."

I jerked. "Who said that?"

"Brilliant, Leela. Now Horse-man is definitely coming toward us."

There was a voice in my head! But I couldn't tell where it was coming from.

Horse-man whipped his tail. It sliced through part of the tree trunk. He tried to swing it back for another try.

Only he couldn't.

It was stuck.

I snorted. I couldn't help it.

Cassie looked furious. She glared at me. "When he gets unstuck, he'll probably succeed in chopping this tree down. We better scram."

I climbed down the tree. Cassie did the same. We ran, but two people sprinted after us. They grabbed us.

Now I was sure it was Horse-man doing the voice-in-the-head thing.

"Um ... just climbing that tree. We, uh, like climbing it. We weren't, you know, doing anything." Much, I added silently.

"Uh-huh," the person holding me sneered.

"Well, if we're going swimming we can't be too bad off," I whispered to Cassie. "But little one? Remind me to beat Horse-man up when I'm twenty- five."

The truth was, I was scared. And when I'm scared, I make jokes.

Horse-man changed back into the hot dog man.

"He did have brown eyes," I commented.

We were dragged to a car and shoved inside. Then the two guys got in the front seat, while Horse-man got into the back of a black limousine.

"No fair. Horse-man gets the limo while we get this little thing."

"Shut up," the guy in the driver's seat said.

We rode in silence. I almost fell asleep. Suddenly the car stopped.

"Hey, Leela."

"What?"

"We're at the school."

"Oh, man. I thought they said pool."

"So did I."

"Shut up and come out," one of the guys said gruffly.

The two people led us inside.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Yeah, where are we going?" Cassie echoed.

"Shut up, both of you."

We walked down the hallway. I expected the place to be mostly empty, but there were a lot of people there. Men and women, adults and kids. All seeming to be going the same place. Some were talking. Others were silent.

"This way."

"Should we run?" I wondered.

"Notice that these guys have guns?"

"Oh. No, I didn't. Now I see."

"Hopefully they won't do anything horrible to us," I said, trying to be optimistic.

We reached the janitor's closet. There was a crowd of people in and around it.

"Out of the way. Involuntary uninfested hosts. Move, people!" said one of our guys.

"We're going in there?" I asked.

"Looks like it. I have no idea why. What's an involuntary uninfested host?"

"Wow. Say that ten times fast."

"No way."

We walked into the closet. The guy who'd just said "Move, people!" did something with a hook on the wall and the faucet on the sink, and the wall suddenly opened!

"In there," the guy ordered.

There were steps going down. Lots of them. My legs were beginning to ache when the wall on each side of the stairs suddenly ended.

There was no railing. If I'd strayed off the steps I'd be falling for a very long way. I stayed to the middle of the steps.

"I smell something strange and stinky. I smell something else stinky ... I think it's people's sweat. I smell - hey, I smell hamburgers! And French fries. Hey, I'm hungry." I hoped we were going to eat down here.

"I'm not noticing the smells."

Then I looked down, although I'd been afraid to since the walls had stopped. "Wow! It's practically an underground city. Look, there are buildings, and people, and - "

"Look around. And listen, too."

I listened carefully.

Someone was screaming. "Aaaaahhh! Aaaaahhh! Help! Help us! Get your hands off me, you monsters!"

"Oh, man. I'm getting a bad feeling about this."

"Soon it's going to be us screaming. Let's get out of here!"

She tried to run, but the people behind us blocked her exit.

"Could have told you that was gonna happen. Maybe if we cooperate, they won't do anything to us," I said, not believing it. "Besides, the place has hamburgers."

"Just look, Leela."

I looked. And this time I saw.

There was a large pond. A pool. Every so often I'd see a flash of something swimming in the sludge.

Two steel piers extended over the pool. On one, people were standing patiently in line. At the end were two creatures. As tall as a basketball player and covered in blades!

They were holding a woman's head over the pool. I couldn't see what was happening. But suddenly the woman started screaming.

The blade-guys grabbed her.

And then I saw the cages. The cages full of humans and blade-monsters. The two non-caged blade-monsters dragged her to one cage and shoved her inside.

She didn't stop screaming.

On the other pier was a line of screaming humans and screeching blade- people. Well, some of them were standing patiently, but most were making a lot of noise.

Two more blade-guys were at the end of this pier. They were holding down a screaming, yelling guy in his forties.

Suddenly the man became quiet. He stood up and calmly walked away.

"Oh man. Cassie, what's going on?"

"That is weird."

"As weird as I am?"

"Leela, this is not the time for jokes."

"This is the perfect time for jokes. We're walking down stairs that have a sheer drop on either side to a place of screaming people in cages. We can't run away because there are guys with guns nearby. There are bladed monsters, giant worms - " there were ten-foot-long centipedes with huge mouths crawling about everywhere " - and a pool that stinks, and I can smell hamburgers while knowing I'm probably not going to eat one although I'm starving. There's that scary Horse-man down there, and he's a centaur again. He's got that tail blade that could probably decapitate a person before they could say one thing. And I'm actually relieved to see him, which means I'm probably going nuts. This is definitely a time for jokes."

"How can you be relieved to see Horse-man?"

"Well, I don't know. Probably because I know him a little better than those blade-guys and the worms. A little better, as in practically no better?"

We had reached the end of the stairs.

"Now, you see the people standing nicely in line?" one of the guys with us said. "You two get over there. Don't try to run away, because we got Dracon beams. As well as the human guns." He showed us something that looked like a weird-looking gun.

"Oh, man," I said again.

"Get over there now, or else."

I didn't exactly know what he meant by 'or else', but I sure wasn't gonna find out. "Come on, Cassie. I don't want to make these people mad."

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"Yeah, I do too. But hey, let's get in line before these guys use their guns."

We got in line.

"Man, this is insane. One minute we're normal kids - at least you were, Cassie - and then we see Horse-man go weird. We end up under the school with monsters we've never heard of, standing in line for I don't know what."

"I'd like to go home now," Cassie whispered.

"Yeah. I want my mommy."

Cassie snorted. I started laughing.

The woman in front of us he turned. "Voluntaries," she sneered. "Collaborators. What kind of no-good kids are you?"

"Hey. We have no idea what's going on. We're clueless."

"I don't think we're voluntaries," Cassie said. "That dude back there called us 'involuntary uninfested hosts.' Whatever that is."

"Do you know what's at the end of this pier?" the woman demanded.

"Yeah, blade-monsters." Cassie shot a look at them.

"No. You don't know. Sorry for bein' rude. Well, welcome to hell."

"Come on, it can't be that bad."

"It can't? You'll see how bad it can be, my friends. Wait till you reach the edge of the pier. My turn now. Don't touch me," she said to the blade- guys who wrestled her down. "Someday, I'll be free again. And you all will be dead."

She said some words that people really shouldn't say.

"What's she talking about?" Cassie wondered.

"She's either wacko, or she's perfectly sane and we are all in trouble."

Chapter 2

The woman hissed threats at the monsters as her head was held over the sludgy pool. We couldn't see what was happening, but suddenly the woman calmed down. She stood up and walked away.

"What happened?" I wondered.

"We'll find out - oof!"

The blade-guys pushed Cassie down. She struggled wildly.

"Hifrach shalkee! Keep still!" one guy said in a guttural voice.

"Stop it, Cass, or they'll turn you into salad. You can't fight those monsters."

"Leela ... my ear. My ear!"

"It's okay."

"Something wrong. Feeling ... strange ... "

She quit struggling.

She got up. She smiled at me. "Hi, Leela."

The monsters did nothing.

"It's your turn, Leela. Have fun."

"Cassie?"

I was shoved down. The blade-freaks held my head out over the thick sludge. They pushed it down - oh no, were they gonna dunk me in that smelly stuff?

My ear touched the wet goo. I felt something strange and slimy. It was going into my ear!

"Oh, gross."

It was painful at first. Then I felt my ear go numb.

A few seconds later ...

I tried to say "Huh?" but no words came out.

Huh?

Yeah. How'd you know?

I can't talk.

I tried to get up. Nothing! I tried to look around. Nothing!

What?! Nobody controls me! Who are you?

I

I sat up. Only it wasn't me. I mean, I didn't try to sit up. It was like someone else was making me do it.

I

I don't like this. Get out of my head.

Cassie? She has a Yeerk too?

I got up. I mean, Hekliss got up, and I came along for the ride.

"Cassie?" we asked.

That's the best way I can describe it. Hekliss would decide what to do, but we both would do it.

"Yeah?"

It sounded like Cassie.

"Who are you?"

"Derane-Three-Four-Four. You?"

"Hekliss-Eight-Two-Seven-Five."

"Ah. Okay. Let's go back to that Sharing meeting."

The two of us - I mean the four of us - climbed the stairs. We hopped in the car with the two men again.

"How is Leela taking it?" Cassie - Derane - asked.

"She's okay. What about Cassie?"

"She doesn't like it. In fact, she hates it. She's screaming," Derane said flatly.

"Oh."

"Well, I'll ignore it. She's just a host body."

"Derane, Cassie is a sentient creature. Like any Yeerk."

"But she is not a Yeerk. She is not my species. Why should I care?"

"I care."

"Well, good for you, Hekliss," Derane snapped. "I don't."

Derane didn't talk to us much after that. She and Cassie just stared out the window.

When we got back to the meeting, we all climbed out of the car. Horse-man, a normal human again, got out of his limo.

I asked Hekliss.

She laughed.

Horse-man - Esplin - walked over to us.

"Hekliss?" he asked. "Lissss-suh. How do you like your human host?"

"It is fine. And stop doing that!"

"What? What-tuh."

"That. Playing with the sounds."

"I am not used to making mouth-sounds. It has been many years since I had a human host. Host-tuh - sorry. Besides, it is the Andalite tendency to play with mouth-sounds when in human morph."

"Ah," Hekliss said.

"By the way, my old human host, Chapman, has been captured and given to Iniss-Two-Two-Six. Six is a strange word. Six-suh."

"Stop that!"

"Now, we have wasted a lot of time. The meeting - ing inging - is supposed to have ended already. And you are not supposed to be a full member yet. Go back to what your host was doing before."

Chapter 3

That was that. It wasn't so bad. I still did normal things. I hung out with Cassie. I went to school.

Hekliss told me all about Yeerks. And Andalites, like Esplin the Horse-man, who could morph into animals. And Hork-Bajir (the blade-monsters) and Gedds (monkeys) and Taxxons (the huge centipedes). All aliens from outer space.

No wonder they all looked so weird.

Like I said, it wasn't so bad. I went back to the Yeerk pool every three days, and Hekliss would feed.

I ended up being a voluntary Controller - a person who accepted having a Yeerk. Cassie was involuntary.

One day, as we were in line to get reinfested, I said, "Hey, Cassie."

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Why do you hate this so much? It's not that bad."

"It's not? How can you say that? I lose control of myself! And I have to watch as Derane tries to make my family into Controllers."

"Hekliss isn't doing that."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Maybe Derane is just different."

"Derane, different? Hah. Man, I guess your Hekliss hasn't talked to any other Yeerks since you got her. Almost all Yeerks are like Derane, if not worse."

"She talks to Esplin sometimes."

"Esplin?"

"You know, Visser Three. Horse-man."

"Oh man. Visser Three? Have you ever been around Visser Three when he gets mad?"

"No."

"And Hekliss hasn't told you about it, huh?"

"No."

"Well, you're lucky. Esplin, who we've heard is crazy, is Visser Three?"

"Yeah."

"I have seen why people say he's nuts. He is nuts. He like whips his tail around and suddenly you are wondering why you are staring up at your headless body."

"Ooh. Hekliss stays away from him when he's in a bad mood. She hasn't told me why, though."

"Well, now you know why."

Chapter 4

~A Few Years Later~

Yeah, Esplin was a wacko. He got worse every day. I witnessed several decapitations.

One day, Derane told us, "Andalite ships! Eslin told me there are Andalite ships frying our Bug fighters up there."

I knew what a Bug fighter was. It was a small spaceship that looked like a legless cockroach. I had seen one or two.

I asked Hekliss.

I would have snorted, if I could have.

We took off running. I knew we were going to where the emergency Bug fighters on Earth were kept.

Soon, we were in the Bug fighter: Hekliss and me, Derane and Cassie, and Eslin Whatever.

I

I

"Oh man," she said out loud. "I forgot these are designed for Hork-Bajir and Taxxons."

I asked.

"That's why there are three humans in here instead of one Hork-Bajir and one Taxxon," Derane said, like Hekliss was an idiot. I was surprised she didn't add "Duh" like Cassie would have. "Eslin and I will operate the Taxxon's controls, since Taxxons have more hands. You take the Hork-Bajir's place."

"Fine."

"Hey," Eslin said suddenly. "Did I forget to mention the fact that Elfangor's up there?"

"Oh man. Yeah, you forgot!" Hekliss practically yelled. "Elfangor? The Andalite that Esplin really hates?"

I asked.

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW! TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

I

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW! TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW! TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

"Yes! Someone got their Dome ship!"

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

"Hey, we are winning! I thought they'd cream us."

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

"Aaaahhhh! We got hit!" Derane yelled.

"Oh, shut up and give me the damage report," Hekliss grumbled.

"Uh, left side is burned. Still flying okay. Dracon beams intact."

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW! TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

"They just have one more fighter now!"

TSSSEEEEEEWWWWWW!

I could see a Dracon beam barely hit the Andalite fighter. There was a hole in it. It was still flying, though.

Suddenly it swooped down toward the planet.

"Where's he going?"

The Blade ship - Esplin's personal ship - went right after the little fighter.

A Hork-Bajir face appeared in our Bug fighter's communications. "Do not follow the Blade ship. Go back to the planet surface, or the mother ship, or wherever you were. Visser Three's orders." The Hork-Bajir disappeared.

"No way. I'm going," Hekliss announced.

"What if the visser finds out?" Eslin asked.

"He won't find out. Besides, it looks like the Andalite fighter is going where we're supposed to be going."

My little brother's name is Larry. He is a pain.

Hekliss laughed. Out loud.

"What's so funny?" Derane demanded.

"Nothing."

Chapter 5

We landed a short distance away from the Blade ship and the fighter. Then we walked to the place where they had landed.

It was in an abandoned construction site. We hid in a half-finished building, peeking out through a window.

Esplin stepped out of the Blade ship.

Hekliss told me privately.

I wondered.

There was an Andalite on the ground. A burn covered his side. He was surrounded by Hork-Bajir, Taxxons, and humans.

Esplin taunted the Andalite a little. I could see him. He looked kind of like Esplin's host, except he seemed younger. And he had green eyes instead of dark blue.

Elfangor didn't seem to fit Hekliss's descriptions of Andalites. She had said they were arrogant and ruthless. This guy seemed ... nice. Hekliss and I strained to get a better look.

I looked into his eyes. He looked sad, like he knew he was going to die. But there was something else there too when he looked up at the Andalite- Controller, like he knew a secret that Esplin didn't.

Meanwhile, Esplin was done talking. Now he was morphing. Morphing something huge.

Esplin said.

I suggested.

she said.

Esplin picked up the Andalite with his monster hand.

I

Hekliss had picked up my habit of finding humor in unpleasant situations.

I had picked up her usage of complicated words.

Ha ha.

The morphed Andalite-Controller opened his mouth wide.

I screamed.

She did.

So thankfully, we missed it when it happened.

But Hekliss opened her eyes too soon. What we didn't miss was when something fell from the beast's mouth. I could guess what it was. One of the Taxxon-Controllers ate it.

I Hekliss said.

and she did. We both puked all over the grass.

"Oh, ew. You got your barf on me," Derane complained.

"You want Visser Three to hear us?" Eslin hissed.

"No. Can you and Derane help me clean myself up?"

They reluctantly complied. Soon, Hekliss and I were reasonably clean.

Suddenly, we heard lots of noises. We craned our neck to see.

Five kids! Five human kids running away, with a bunch of Hork-Bajir after them. One of them looked back.

Cassie!

Not my best friend Cassie. Not Derane's host body. But 'Little Cassie', as she was sometimes called. The other Cassie at our school.

My friend Cassie was nicknamed 'Big Cassie'. She was white and kind of big, with longish brown hair and brown eyes.

Little Cassie was a short black girl, with short black hair (ha ha) and darker brown eyes. She was less outgoing than Big Cassie.

Yeah, stupid nicknames. I'm not the one who thought them up.

And here she was. Little Cassie, running away from the Hork-Bajir. She raced into this half-finished building, and we could not see her anymore.

I said to Hekliss.

I

Little Cassie had been there. What in the world did that mean?

I flashed back on the look in Elfangor's eyes. That "I know a secret" look. Did that have something to do with it?

"Did anyone see who those kids were?" Derane demanded.

"No," Eslin said.

"Nope," Hekliss lied. Actually, it was half true: We hadn't recognized all of them.

"Darn. I didn't either."

The Yeerks tried to find Little Cassie and the others. But they were unsuccessful. After awhile, they just gave up.

Good. Little Cassie would probably be infested if they'd found her. And she'd probably get a Yeerk who wasn't as nice as Hekliss. Like Derane.

And although Little Cassie and I had never been close friends, I still didn't want her to go through any unpleasant experiences.

Not long after that, we found that some Andalite bandits had managed to survive the space battle. They'd infiltrated the Yeerk pool, the place where I had first been infested and where Hekliss returned every three days to feed.

We - I mean the Yeerks - were unable to capture or destroy the Andalites. I was secretly glad, although Hekliss was not and told me so repeatedly.

Chapter 6

Nothing much happened for a while. We heard stuff about a piece of an Andalite ship having washed up on the beach, and Visser One arriving.

One day the Andalite bandits destroyed the Kandrona. The Kandrona produced Kandrona rays and beamed them down to the Yeerk pool, where the Yeerks would feed on them.

A replacement Kandrona wouldn't arrive for a few weeks. In the meantime, the important Yeerks would go up to the Yeerk mother ship, where there was a spare Kandrona. The rest would starve.

Hekliss was important because she was Esplin's closest sister. Eslin 359 had an important position at this laboratory place. Derane, however, was not so lucky.

I snapped.

The Yeerk pool.

There were no Controllers there, since they were sent up to the mother ship from somewhere else. No Controllers ... except the ones in cages.

The humans whose Yeerks were dying.

We scanned the place till we spotted Cassie. We opened the cage she was in. "Come on out," we whispered to her.

"Why are you doing this? I still won't get any Kandrona rays," she grumbled.

So Derane was still alive.

"I know," we said. "But this way Cassie will live."

"Man, why do you care about this human? Because she's your host's best friend?"

Hekliss didn't answer. Instead, she and I led Derane out of the Yeerk pool. As we left, Hekliss said to the other people in the cages. "Sorry we can't save you all."

We took Derane to my house. We told my mom it was a sleepover. The three - I mean the four of us went up to my room. Then we stayed with Derane and Cassie.

They jerked in pain a couple of times.

Hekliss said.

After a long time - it seemed like forever - Derane said something. She had been silent for a while. "Tell Eslin I - tell him - " she whispered weakly.

She didn't finish her sentence, but we knew what she was going to say anyway. A gray slug crawled out of Cassie's ear. Derane, the Yeerk.

It withered away into a bit of dust on my bed.

"Gross," Cassie said. It was the first thing she'd said on her own for a long time, not counting the times she'd been waiting in a cage while Derane was feeding on Kandrona rays. "Leela ... Hekliss, I mean ... would you clean that up?"

"Why me?"

"It's on your bed."

"No, it's on Leela's bed."

"Whatever."

As we were wiping the dust away (I tried not to remember that it had been Derane a minute ago) I asked Hekliss,

I know you were thinking that. I was rather hoping you wouldn't ask me. Because ... I don't know. I'm waiting till I can get another host body.

she apologized.

Hekliss, Cassie, and I told Eslin about Derane later.

He nearly fell over. Then he started yelling about how he should have saved Derane, and how it was all Visser Three's fault, and other stuff.

So we left him alone.

Later, we'd learned that he'd sabotaged one of the ships that shuttled Controllers to and from the mother ship. Fortunately, this did not affect Hekliss and me.

Chapter 7

Not long after that, something hilarious happened.

We were in one of the storage buildings in the underground Yeerk pool place. We were tidying it up, for lack of things to do.

Suddenly, Esplin walked in. His stalk eyes drooped. His tail was dragging.

We reeled.

Man, did he stink!

"Esplin-Nine-Four-Double-Six!" we said. "What in the world have you been up to?!"

he said. I

"What happened?"

"And?"

"Oh, man!" we yelled. We fell on the floor and rolled around, laughing harder than I'd ever laughed since I got infested.

"SKUNK!" we practically shrieked. "You got sprayed by a skunk!"

"Yeah!"

"Good, cause you sure need to! Do you have any idea how bad you stink?"

He looked furious.

It just made us laugh all the more.

A week later, we were seriously scrubbing the same storehouse with a juice- soaked sponge.

Yes, I know that's an excessive amount of alliteration.

Esplin walked in again.

He looked kind of purplish.

He still stank.

Hekliss said to me. I would have snorted, if I'd been able.

"Hey, get outta here, little brother," she said out loud. "I'm trying to remove the skunk smell and you're not helping at all."

she told me privately.

I don't understand. The smell is supposed to have gone away by now, since I used the juice, Esplin said.

"Oh, so you used juice too?"

"Grape juice? Uh, Esplin ... you used GRAPE JUICE?!"

"Yeah. Esplin ... it's tomato juice."

He reared up on his hind legs, hitting his stalk eyes on the top of the doorway. His tail blade went up and hacked off a small bit of wood. It whacked him right between his bruised stalk eyes.

His stalk eyes drooped again. His tail dropped and hit the ground. His four legs sagged. He leaned his upper body on the side of the doorway. He looked like he wanted to sit down and cry, except Andalites don't do either.

he complained.

I kind of felt sorry for the horrible-smelling Andalite-Controller, but at the same time, it was the funniest thing!

Hekliss and I were laughing our brains out.

I

"Sorry, but that is HILARIOUS! Come on, Esplin, admit it. It's funny."

Esplin glared at us with all four of his eyes. He looked so funny that we started laughing all over again.

Chapter 8

More stuff happened. The Yeerks found a crystal-like computer thing, but the Andalites stole it and messed up their plan to control all computers on Earth. The replacement Kandrona finally arrived. A Bug fighter crashed in a Safeway grocery store. Two Hork-Bajir tried to escape the Yeerks, but died in the attempt. Visser One came to Earth again and this time I got to see her. (Hekliss said Visser One's real name was Edriss 562. I had overheard the two Controllers discussing her.) The Andalites infiltrated the Yeerk pool again.

Then we heard about a Yeerk peace movement. One of Hekliss's friends, Aftran 942, had just joined it. She told Hekliss all about it. After thinking it over and discussing it with me, Hekliss decided to join too.

Very soon after that, Hekliss got promoted to sub-visser rank. Sub-Visser Forty-Nine. She was going to get a new host body, a girl from my school named Caitlyn who was the daughter of a guy the Yeerks wanted to infest.

And she told me the plan.

I

She and I were standing in line on one of the piers over the Yeerk pool. Hekliss was supposed to leave me, have a nice Kandrona ray lunch, then go meet Caitlyn.

She had read my thought.

That was one of the things I was not going to miss once I was free: her reading my thoughts. I mean, she knew my most embarrassing secrets. She knew that I kinda liked this certain boy at school, especially since he'd gotten his hair cut.

I bent down over the pool. Hekliss wriggled out of my ear.

Then I got up and walked away. I looked calm, as usual, but my stomach was going wacko.

I got a hamburger. (There's this lunchroom in the Yeerk pool.) I gobbled it up. Then I went to watch TV with the other voluntary hosts.

After what seemed like forever, it was my turn to be reinfested.

Except I wasn't going to be reinfested.

I went to stand in line anyway.

Finally, the Hork-Bajir held my head down. I knew what was happening in the pool: Hekliss had pushed my new Yeerk out of the way and she was starting to slither into my head.

New Yeerk. That sounded funny. I looked for a joke - something like "Happy New Yeerk" - but was too nervous to come up with anything.

she said when she could communicate with me.

I jerked. I kicked one Hork-Bajir in the stomach and yanked the other one's tail. Then I suddenly became still and calm.

The Hork-Bajir thought I had either suddenly decided to become involuntary or had just gone nuts. They thought I was now reinfested.

No one noticed when Hekliss left my ear and dropped back into the pool.

I got up and walked away. I climbed the stairs leading to an exit.

I was free!

"Cassie! Cassie! Guess what!"

"Yeah, Hekliss, what is it?"

"Not Hekliss. Leela. I'm free."

"How do I know that?"

"First of all, Hekliss, unlike some Yeerks, doesn't lie. Secondly, all you gotta do is watch me for three days. Third, you can go ask Caitlyn. You know her? From school?"

"Yeah."

"She is Hekliss's new host body."

"Really?"

"Yep. Hey, let's go to the mall."

"Yeah. You probably need some fun."

Cassie and I never buy much at the mall. We just walk around and look at stuff. The majority of what we buy is food.

When we ran out of stuff to do, we decided to just go home.

"Hey, I know a shortcut home," Cassie said.

"What?"

"Through that construction site. Where we saw that Andalite."

"Construction site, Andalite, are you a poet or something? Hey, I can tell by the size of your feet: they're 'long fellows.' " Cassie rolled her eyes. I'd made that joke a zillion times before.

Then it sank in. "Cass, you gotta be kidding." Normally, I'd be the one to suggest something like that. Cassie usually likes to stay out of trouble.

"First, it's shorter. Second, we might, I don't know, find something interesting."

Well. When she put it that way. "Let's go!"

Chapter 9

No Hork-Bajir. No Taxxons. No Andalites. No human-Controllers.

No humans at all.

Nobody, alien or otherwise, was around as we crept through the construction site. But it was night, and we could barely see. There could be somebody hiding a few feet away and we wouldn't know it.

"Yo, Cass! Over here! Look what I found." I showed her a blue box, with strange lettering on it. "You think it's Yeerk?"

"No. Maybe it's a piece of the Andalite's ship."

"Maybe ... Yah!"

"What?"

"Shh! Hide!"

We hid in a half-finished building. The same

"Don't look now, but Esplin's here," I whispered.

"Visser Three? Here?"

"Yeah! In human morph, of course."

"Who's there?" Esplin said. He'd long ago stopped playing with sounds. Mostly.

"Shh," I said.

"I know you are here. Come out!"

He looked around with his human eyes. He came closer to where we were, and ... walked on by.

I allowed myself to breathe again.

"Phew," Cassie said.

"Shut up!" I hissed.

Esplin's head snapped around. He almost fell over. Being an Andalite- Controller, he was not used to having two legs. He seemed to realize that he'd better demorph if he wanted to find us. So he did.

Then he looked around with his four eyes. One stalk eye was aimed right at us.

"Don't move," I mouthed.

Cassie nodded.

We stayed very still. But now Esplin was sure that someone was here. He walked around and looked some more.

Suddenly, I felt a tickling sensation on my hand. I looked down.

Spider!

Now, I kinda like spiders. I think they're cool. But I've had several bad experiences with them. Too many spiders have tried to build their webs on my legs. So I absolutely can not tolerate them being on me.

"Yahh!"

I tried to shake the offending arachnid off. It attached its line to my hand and dropped. Exactly what I didn't want.

"Aaarrghhh!"

"Leela, you idiot! Shut up!"

I wiped my hand on the wall.

"Spider," I explained.

"You got more problems than a spider."

Esplin had heard me.

I instantly jumped out where he could see me. See, he thought Cassie had died, so if he saw her ...

But if he saw me, he'd think I was still a Controller.

Shedran. The name of the Yeerk that was supposedly controlling me.

"Uh, nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was just ... this is a shortcut from the home of my host body to a Yeerk pool entrance." That was true. There was a pool entrance in the mall.

"This? Nothing. I just found it." Stupid. Should have left the blue box with Cassie.

"But - "

"Okay." I held the box up for him to see.

His four eyes widened. He was trying to hide the fact that he knew what it was.

"Why? You know what it is?"

Bull, I thought. "Tell me what it is first."

He grabbed it with his two blue seven-fingered hands and I felt a weird sensation. But Andalite hands are weak, because they rely more on their legs and tail. I easily yanked the box away.

I don't know why he didn't decapitate me first. Maybe he wanted the box so bad he forgot about his tail.

"Hey! Is somebody there?"

Esplin leaped into the nearest half-finished building. I knew he was probably morphing to human.

"Cassie, run!"

We ran. We ran all the way to my house. We ran inside and slammed the door.

"Where's the box?"

"It's right here - oh. Yow. I musta dropped it somewhere."

"Brilliant," Cassie said grumpily.

Just then, my dog Sport came into the room, barking and jumping all over me and Cassie.

"Hey there, Sport." I petted him and scratched his head. I thought hard about him, wanting to forget my narrow escape from Esplin.

Sport became quiet and calm. His dog eyes kind of glazed over. That's what he often does when I scratch his head.

But this time, when I stopped, he didn't come out of his trance for about ten seconds. He normally gets all happy and jumpy again as soon as I quit scratching.

After the ten seconds, though, he went back to running around and licking me and doing dog things.

"Well. That was close."

"If I remember correctly, it was not my idea to cut through the construction site, it was yours."

"Well, we did find something interesting and you lost it."

"Oh, shut up."

Neither of us was in a very good mood.

Chapter 10

That night, I was afraid to go to sleep. I thought I'd have nightmares.

When I finally dozed off, I didn't have any bad dreams. Instead, weirdly enough, I dreamed about Sport.

Then, suddenly, I woke up. I was feeling better. I was feeling happy! I climbed out of my bed.

I went downstairs. Wow! I smelled about a million things!

I smelled food. Yeah! Food! Man, I was hungry! I needed food!

Hey! You! Can I have some food? Huh? Please?

"Oh, Sport. You're hungry. Hey, your dish is over there, silly dog. Go eat."

Eat? Did someone say eat?

"Leela? Is that you? I was talking to Sport."

My dish. That meant food. Over there. It smelled like ... well, like food. I started eating. This was the best! I was eating!

If only someone would scratch me behind the ears.

Huh?

the sane part of my brain said.

Well, duh. Of course I'm eating dog food. I mean, I am a dog.

No. I am not a dog. I'm a kid named Leela.

I have four legs and a tail. I have black fur and floppy ears. What do you mean I'm not a dog? I'm a dog. I am Sport.

No, I'm not a dog. Wait. I got ... four legs?

"Rarff! Rarff rarff!"

"Sport, would you quit barking? Larry's still sleeping."

Okay. This was a dream. I'd had a nightmare after all.

The dog part of me was indifferent. It was HAPPY!

I ran up to my room on doggy legs. Human. I am human. I will wake up and be human.

I felt a weird sensation, accompanied by a slurping noise. My doggy tail stopped wagging.

Crunch! My knees reversed direction. My paws became hands.

Oh. I was becoming human again.

How was I doing it? How was I changing like this? I had become a dog. Now I was changing back. What was this? it was so weird!

I tried to stand up. I fell. Then my hind paws became normal feet. I managed to stand on the second attempt.

I grew taller. My fur suddenly disappeared. My dog face became a human face.

I was human ... except for these goofy, hairless dog ears.

"Oh, man. This is like that time Esplin morphed human and his big Andalite ears were the last to go."

I laughed at the memory.

Hang on! Morphed?

I was morphing! Like an Andalite. Like Esplin.

"Okay, this is cool."

I yanked on a shirt and jeans. I couldn't wait to tell Cassie.

No. Couldn't tell Cassie. The only morpher she knew was Esplin, and she didn't really like him all that well. (Okay, that is an understatement.) She wouldn't really like the idea of me being able to morph too.

But I could tell somebody else.

"Yo! Caitlyn! Gotta talk to you for a minute."

"Leela? That you?"

"Yeah. Come on." I yanked her into the girls' bathroom.

"What is it?"

I checked under the stall doors. No feet.

"I woke up this morning. Something doggone weird had happened."

"What?"

"You know, I meant literally. I was a dog."

"Huh? By the way, that was not one of your best ones. 'Doggone weird'."

"Whatever. I was dreaming about Sport. I musta morphed in my sleep."

"Morphed?"

"I morphed my dog. I don't know how, but I did."

"What?"

"I'm telling you, I can morph!"

"How?"

"You sure are big on one-word sentences today. Hekliss, I morphed. Like your brother."

"I know, you've said that a million times. I just can't figure out how."

"Hey, Leela!"

"Huh? Oh, He - Caitlyn!"

When she caught up to me, she pulled me aside. "Some kid has the blue box!" she hissed into my ear.

"What blue box?"

"Esplin says it can give anybody the power to morph. It's a little blue box, with some Andalite words on it. Some kid named David has it and he's selling it! Esplin's gonna buy it, of course. Soon as he gets the kid's address."

"Blue box? Uh, Hekliss, I found this blue box. Your brother tried to take it away from me, but failed. I lost it, though, and then this David kid probably found it."

"So that's why you can morph. But ... I'm not sure. If Esplin gets the box, this whole thing will get out of hand. The whole Earth invasion. Can you imagine millions of morph-capable Controllers?"

"Uh, no, actually."

"Hopefully that won't happen."

"Who's gonna stop it? The Andalites?"

"Not exactly. You're partly right."

I was about to ask "Then who?" when the bell rang.

BBBRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGG GGGGGG!

I nearly fell over.

The Yeerks didn't get the blue box after all. The Andalites did.

I asked Hekliss who else would have stopped Esplin from getting the blue box. She said she couldn't tell me, because if I ever got infested again ...

Stuff happened. Lots of stuff. I won't write it all down.

I will say that I morphed now and then. Just for fun. I acquired a wounded seagull I found, so I could fly. And I went to The Gardens (this amusement park/zoo) and acquired a snow leopard in case I ever needed to get fierce.

I even acquired a fly. It would be useful if I needed to disappear. Plus, I thought it would be fun to fly like that. Still, the first time I morphed it, it was ... disgusting.

Chapter 11

"Leela! Leela! Down here!"

"What?"

The voice was very soft. If I hadn't been just lying on my bed, doing nothing, then I probably wouldn't have heard it at all.

"It's me! Hekliss-Eight-Two-Seven-Five!"

"Hekliss?"

"Down here!" The voice sounded hoarse. Like Hekliss was screaming at the top of her lungs.

I looked. Nothing.

"Me! The colored speck on the carpet!"

"What?" I looked at the speck. It moved slightly. "Hekliss. What have you been doing." The reason that sentence did not end with a question mark? I did not want to know the answer.

"Helmacrons!"

"What on or off the earth are Helmacrons?"

"Morph partway to fly! Try to shrink, but otherwise stay human! Then stop morphing!"

I tried to comply. I ended up with a half-formed exoskeleton, fly wings, and a relatively but unattractively fat body. No proboscis, though.

"Oh man, Leela. Ma - " Hekliss started to say.

"Shut up! I told you not to tell Caitlyn." She'd been about to remark how I'd lose all hope of a certain somebody liking me if he ever saw me like this.

"Caitlyn says she's hurt."

"Sorry, Cate. But no one knows that, not even Cassie, except Hekliss. Now. What are Helmacrons?"

"Tiny aliens with huge egos that could almost compete with Esplin's. We found out they can now shrink people. 'People' being used loosely, because they shrunk Esplin."

I snorted. "Honey, I shrunk the Yeerks."

"Yup."

"Man."

"I hitched rides on various insects. Not fun. I was trying to get back to the other Yeerks. But when I ended up here, and I'm not divulging my method of transportation, I figured you could give me a ride."

"Moi?!"

"Cut the French, Leela. Demorph. And hey, remember you said Esplin would never use the word cute? He did."

"You serious?"

"Yup. It was about the remains of a blown-up Helmacron ship, but oh well."

She insisted on sitting on me as I demorphed. "This way, we won't have to waste time trying to get me on you."

"This is so undignified," I complained. I demorphed. "At least I'm not fat anymore."

"You're not?!" Hekliss yelled.

"Shut up. You're gonna lose your voice if you keep it up."

I transported her back to the other Yeerks. They were being unshrunk. "Here's Hekliss-Eight-Two-Seven-Five."

"Thanks, Shedran-Six-Four-Double-Seven," Yaheen 747 said. He was a fairly nice Yeerk. Not as host-compassionate as Hekliss, but nicer than Derane.

a familiar thought- speak voice said.

"Espl - Visser Three? Where are you?"

"He's right there," Yaheen said, trying to hide a grin.

A bluish dot.

"Visser Three. Don't tell me you got shrunk." Of course, Hekliss had informed me he had indeed gotten ... small.

I He sounded frustrated, annoyed, and possibly very angry.

Whoa. Dapsen was a Yeerkish word, and not very polite either.

"They're unshrinking you though," I said. "Then what are they doing?"

I decided to leave. Esplin was in a very bad mood, and I didn't want to be around when he was normal-sized again and decided to decapitate someone.

Chapter 12

Hekliss kept me up-to-date on everything. She said that there was something going on up at the North Pole that Esplin wouldn't tell her.

She also told me that Esplin had tried to have his human-Controller scientists make something that would destroy or at least minimize a human's free will. I'd commented, "Oh man, he is nuts!"

The Andalites infiltrated the Yeerk pool again. I told Hekliss, "This is getting old."

Visser One returned to Earth again. "This is also getting old."

Hekliss then said that Visser One had a gashad on her head. She explained that a gashad is a warrant to kill on sight. Esplin, who did not like Visser One at all (understatement), had told the Council of Thirteen that she was a traitor. She was going to have a trial.

"Wow."

Then, she told me about the Anti-Morphing Ray, which hadn't worked.

"Fortunately," she said.

"Why fortunately?"

"Oh, never mind. Hey, and Esplin told me this totally weird story. He claims it's true, but I think he made it up. I don't know why he would have, but ..."

She then told me of her first encounter with a Garatron-Controller. And about more Andalites coming to Earth. And how Esplin was trying to get the blue box again. And how he captured an Andalite that the bandits later rescued. And of a plan to destroy the peace-movement Yeerks.

"But you're a peace-movement Yeerk."

"Esplin doesn't know that. Duh. Anyway, it didn't work, thanks to the - Andalite bandits."

Some humans had found a piece of a Bug fighter. Visser One had been sentenced to death by Kandrona ray starvation.

Then Hekliss said, "Hey, Visser One got executed, and guess who got promoted?"

"You?"

"I wish."

"Esplin?"

"Yup. He's Visser One now. And about those Andalite bandits ... "

"What, Hekliss? WHAT?"

"I can tell you this because all Yeerks now know the truth. There is only one Andalite in the group of 'bandits'. His name is Aximili-Esgarrouth- Isthill."

"Huh? There is not. There's only one Andalite who ever stays in Andalite form - "

"Because they don't want the Yeerks to find out that the rest are not Andalites."

"Not Andalites? I thought only Andalites could morph."

"You remember the construction site? And Elfangor? And Little Cassie?"

"Yeah."

"She was there with Jake Berenson. And Rachel Berenson. And Marco - "

"Marco? You mean the Marco?"

"Yeah, that Marco." She grinned. I grinned too, only mine was slightly weird.

"And Tobias. Remember him? From seventh grade?"

"Nope. Don't remember anybody named Tobias."

"Dirty-blond hair. Brown eyes."

"Oh. That Tobias. The Mega Dweeb."

"Lee-la ... " Hekliss said warningly. "Anyway, Elfangor gave all of them the morphing ability that night."

"What? You mean I was never the universe's only morph-capable human?"

"No. Sorry to burst your balloon."

"What?!" I'd thought she'd said "burp your balloon."

She repeated her apology.

"Oh. I thought you said burp."

She snorted. "All peace-movement Yeerks knew about the Animorphs - that's what they call themselves - since right before I joined the movement. But Esplin and the other Yeerks just found out a few days ago."

"Hey. Can I meet these people?"

"Duh. No. Esplin tried to capture them, but they escaped somewhere." She sighed. Suddenly her eyebrows shot up in a way that looked more like me than it did Caitlyn. "The Hork-Bajir!"

"What Hork-Bajir?"

"There's a free colony of Hork-Bajir. They could have escaped there! But the place is so hard to get to."

"Free Hork-Bajir?"

"Yeah."

"Why haven't you told me any of this?" I put on a hurt-feelings face. "I thought you were my friend." I stuck out my lip like a little kid.

"Leela. Of course I'm your friend. But what if you'd been reinfested? I couldn't let the other Yeerks find out."

"Bull."

"Leela. Shut. Up."

"So, can I go see these people?"

"Well, if you showed up at the colony, I don't know what they'd do. The Hork-Bajir would probably make sure they never even got to see you. You know how those blades are."

"Yeah. I could spy on them, though."

"Why?"

"To find out a place they'd be where there are no Hork-Bajir."

"How would you spy on them?"

"Morph. Duh. I'd morph a fly."

"Oh."

Chapter 13

It was chaos!

Dracon fire. Little Cassie dropped to the ground. She rolled into a sort of trench.

Hork-Bajir chased Marco across the yard. Marco. Too bad fly eyes can't see all that good.

Marco dove into another trench. Both he and Little Cassie were morphing some kind of insect.

I was in fly morph. A sort of compound had been built at the Hork-Bajir colony. It was where the humans lived.

It was where a little fly with a higher-than-average I.Q. (for a fly) was watching Hork-Bajir-Controllers attack the place.

I lost sight of Marco and Cassie.

What should I do? Demorph and try to help?

I watched the Hork-Bajir-Controllers for a while. Then I buzzed around, looking for the other Animorphs.

It didn't take long before I saw Little Cassie, a grizzly bear, a tiger, and a gorilla. Which Animorphs?

Two Hork-Bajir slashed their way through the trees. Soon they had caught up to Cassie and the others. The smaller Hork-Bajir (she was like six feet tall), a female, said, "You are all dead. And so is everyone in the compound."

What to do? Run away? Demorph?

"I'm not criticizing," she said. "Your plan is a good one. But only if everybody cooperates. It's a good thing this was just a war game."

... Oh.

This was just practice. The Hork-Bajir were free Hork-Bajir. But ... the shorter one seemed more intelligent than Hork-Bajir normally are.

The tiger became Jake, the gorilla Marco (sigh), and the bear Rachel.

Jake looked at Cassie and said, "The plan depends on rapid response and following orders. Where were you, Cassie? And why did you demorph before I gave you the safe signal?"

"Sorry," Cassie said.

Jake turned to the short Hork-Bajir. "What about the others? Did any of them get it?"

Shorty seemed to hesitate. "Well, let's just hope the Yeerks don't launch an attack anytime soon. The adult humans need much drilling. Or else they will need a lot of protection."

The Animorphs, Shorty, and the other Hork-Bajir started to walk.

"The trenches need to be at least eight feet deeper," Shorty said. "And the escape pipes need to be imbedded in concrete to keep them from shifting.

"What if they fill up with water?" Jake asked.

"That's an easy problem to fix."

Jake didn't say anything.

Rachel began to get upset. "That was a disaster! People, we've got to get it together." She turned to Jake. "Well? Aren't you going to do something?"

"If I knew what to do, I would be doing it."

Marco stuck his fingers in his mouth. He whistled. "Time out. Look, we're all on the same page here. We just need a little more practice. Tomorrow. Let's call it a day."

Jake nodded. Then Marco walked off toward a cabin.

"You're just going to let him walk off like that?" Rachel demanded of Jake.

Jake lifted his hand, then let it drop. He walked away too.

Rachel turned to Cassie. "If we don't get serious and focus ... "

She went on for a while. Cassie's mom argued with a Hork-Bajir, then with Cassie. Later, Cassie went and talked to Marco, who seemed to be strangely happy.

Suddenly -

"Galafth!"

Yeerks?

Now do I demorph? I wondered.

Cassie and Marco froze. Cassie started to go to her parents, but Marco grabbed her shirt. "Let Toby handle it. You and I head for the trenches and ... "

Whoowhoo!

I guess that whistle meant, "Nothing to worry about."

Who was Toby? Tobias or somebody else?

"Was that a drill?" Marco asked. "Maybe Jake and Toby set up a surprise ... "

Two Hork-Bajir and a woman came into view.

"Mom," Rachel said. "You tried to get away, didn't you?"

She and her mom got into another argument. Everything was tense here, for some reason.

Then there was some stuff that looked like personal conversation. I felt kinda guilty for listening in. After a while, I just left and flew around crazily. Later, I demorphed, went home, did homework, stuff like that.

I returned the next morning, a Saturday. I found Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Marco, a bird (Tobias in morph?), and an Andalite (Aximili-whatever-his- name-was?) together.

"We can't go on like this," Jake said.

"Now there's a profound statement," Marco said, choking on a laugh.

"Let's review. Everything has changed. Our usual sources of information have pretty much dried up. The Chee are coming up with nothing, which means the Yeerks have tightened internal security."

I'd have to ask Hekliss about that. What was a Chee?

"And the Yeerk resistance movement," Cassie spoke up. "We've lost touch with Mr. Tidwell at school. He's got to assume our disappearance means we've gone underground."

I knew Tidwell. He was a teacher, controlled by the Yeerk Illim-Four-One- Eight. Hekliss's friend from the peace movement.

Tobias suggested.

"Too slow," Rachel said. "We need more action and results than we need intelligence. Besides, for all we know Visser One has totally crushed the resistance."

I wanted to say, But that would not be smart.

Silence. Everyone looked at Aximili.

"So, exactly what are we saying here?" Rachel asked.

"I think it's time," Jake said.

Silence again. Aximili got ten eyeballs on him again.

"Yes," Jake said. "The morphing cube."

Oh. Aximili was saying things in private thought-speak. I would have groaned, but flies can't groan.

"We can't go it alone anymore," Jake continued. "The Yeerks know us. They know our names. They know our faces. If they take us down, there's nobody to replace us. It's time to build our forces. Reinforce our troops. And it's not like we can count on the Ellimist riding in to the rescue."

Did Jake mean what I thought he meant?

And what was an Ellimist?

"More Animorphs?" Marco asked. "I just can't get comfortable with that."

"No way! We tried once. It was a disaster. Am I the only one who remembers David?" Rachel demanded.

Who was David?

Were they talking about the same kid who'd gotten hold of the morphing cube?

"I'm with Rachel on this. No more Animorphs," Marco agreed. "Too big a risk."

Too late, Marco. There's a little fly here.

"So maybe humans aren't the best choice for new Animorphs. What about the Hork-Bajir?" Jake wondered.

Everyone voted no. Including me, although I voted silently. Hork-Bajir have IQs of, like, fifty-three. They couldn't handle animal brains in with their own.

"Okay, so it has to be people. What about the 'rents?"

"I'm overruled?" Marco said. "Okay, then. But not my parents. My mother's put in her time up front. And my dad's been through his own version of hell. He's officially dead, remember? Lost his job, his second wife ... "

"What about Cassie's parents? Or Rachel's mother?"

Marco shook his head. "No offense, Cassie, but I think that your parents may be bigger peace, love, hug-that-tree types than you are. If that's possible. And Rachel's mom is an even bigger loose cannon than Rachel."

"Hey!" Rachel yelled.

"Okay! Okay!" Jake said suddenly. "We don't have time for this. Ticktock. We need ideas."

Everyone looked at the bird.

More private thought-speak.

"Not a problem," Jake said. "So the parents are out of the running."

"It's got to be kids," Marco said musingly. "Adults are too reality-bound. It's hard for them to suspend disbelief. Even when the new reality hits them in the face."

"Yeah. We look for other kids. But we still have a problem. Cause we're gonna have to figure out who's a Controller and who's not. Every day, every hour, counts. And we don't have time to watch our recruits for three days before we make a move."

Everyone looked at the bird again. No one said anything.

I was beginning to get exasperated when -

an excited thought-speak voice asked.

Tobias. Definitely Tobias. He'd gotten careless and used open thought- speak.

"The Yeerks don't infest people like your mom was before she could morph," Cassie said. "The Yeerks don't want a blind Controller. They don't want a disabled Controller. Deaf people, people in wheelchairs, people with serious illnesses."

"She's right," Rachel said slowly. "I've never seen a Controller in a wheelchair. And I bet any human-Controller who gets cancer or loses a limb is killed. No joke."

Silence.

"So do a lot of aliens," Marco said, looking meaningfully at Aximili.

CUT THE PRIVATE THOUGHT-SPEAK! I thought. I was careful not to actually thought-speak.

After a lot of debate, the other Animorphs decided to go for it.

CHAPTER 14

I found out they were going to a rehab center for kids.

I morphed a seagull. Jake, Little Cassie, and Marco went into bird-of-prey morphs. Then I saw them demorph behind a bike shop. They hopped on a few bikes and took off.

What in the world are they doing that for, I wondered.

Some human-Controllers started toward them in a car. Jake raced into an alley too narrow for a car, and his friends followed. The Controllers jumped out of the car and started chasing after them.

Could have told you that was gonna happen, I thought.

"Morph," I heard Jake say.

"Battle morphs?" Marco asked.

"No. Roach."

They morphed and slipped under a door to a building.

And I was stuck outside.

I hid. Demorphed. Morphed again, this time to fly. Zipped under the door. Demorphed again.

I looked around. I was in a kind of costume shop. Suddenly I saw -

"What? What?" Marco said. "Hello? Rachel, is that you? You look ... different."

Oops.

"My name is Leela," I said. "Look, don't kill me. Please."

"Why not?"

"Marco. Not funny. I mean, yeah, that was funny! Totally hysterical!" I had almost forgotten that this was Marco I was talking to.

"How can you morph?"

"Well, I used to be a Controller. My Yeerk later joined the peace movement and freed me. I found the blue box in the construction site where you guys were. I guess when Es - Visser Three showed up and tried to take it from me, he accidentally gave me the morphing ability." I was talking fast, half out of fear, half out of having-an-immense-crush-goofy.

Yes. You see, I thought Marco was kinda cute. Okay, very cute ...

"Hey, maybe we got a new recruit. Just what we were looking for. But we'll have to keep you for three days, to make sure you're not a Controller," Jake said.

"Oh, sure, anything," I said, grinning weirdly.

"In the meantime," Little Cassie said, "I guess you'll have to come along with us."

"Hey, cool."

"Laa-Laa, or whatever your name is ... you're weird." Marco looked at me strangely.

"Thank you."

"Marco, have you been watching Teletubbies again?" Cassie asked calmly.

Jake looked exasperated. "Okay, come on."

"I feel stupid," Marco said.

"You look stupid," Cassie confirmed.

Marco was wearing a dorky magician's suit.

"You look fine," I told him. "The outfit ain't the best, but you look okay."

"Leela? Are you nuts? Marco looks like a total geek!" Jake said with a rueful smile.

"If Rachel were here, she'd say that Marco always looks like a total geek, suit or no suit." Cassie smiled also.

Cassie was dressed like a fortune-teller. Her bangles jingled.

"Sssh!" Jake and I hissed.

She ditched the bangles. "Sorry," she whispered.

"How come he's the only one who doesn't look like a total fool?" Marco complained. He pointed to Jake, a 1950's Beat poet.

"What is that, a fake goatee?" I wanted to know.

"Soul patch, I think," Marco corrected.

We went with a group of costumed kids who were gonna do a show for the kids at the rehab center.

Marco remarked about guys wearing tights. I had to agree with him.

"What if there's Yeerks in this group?" Jake whispered.

"Hopefully they won't recognize us," I said.

We followed the costumed people. They led us to a room full of little kids, who squealed, laughed, clapped, and made various noises.

The troop started singing. Marco shot a look at Cassie, who mouthed "Stay in the back."

"Sneak out," Jake whispered.

The group began to step-step-step to the right. Cassie went the other way, stepping out the door and back into the hallway.

Jake did the same. So did Marco. Finally, I step-step-stepped out the door too.

"No good," Jake said. "These kids are too little."

"Yeah," I agreed.

Marco suggested that the older kids might be on another floor. I almost said "Duh" - but caught myself. Do NOT diss Marco, girl. Do NOT!

"Okay," Jake said. "We go from floor to floor until we find them. Keep up the entertainment act."

Cassie laughed. "Yeah, that'll be easy."

Marco spread his magician's cape. "Easier than you think. Voila!" He reached inside and pulled out a live pigeon.

"What in the world - "

Jake interrupted me and hissed, "Where did you get that?"

"It was on the sidewalk. Something's wrong with its wing. But it doesn't seem to be in pain. I figured if we recruit anybody today, they'll need a morph that will get them out of here without attracting attention. Speaking of which, Laa-Laa, you need a pigeon?"

"Nah. I got a seagull. And the name's Leela."

"Cool. Okay." He put the pigeon in his cape again. He looked at Jake. "What? You've got something better? Maybe a fluffy bunny?"

"Maybe we should just get out of here. I'm getting a bad feeling about this. I don't ... We'll try again tomorrow."

"Jake," Marco said, frowning, "I've been hanging in there until now. But I'm going to fight you on this one. After what happened earlier, this may be our last chance to get in here without basically advertising our plan to the Yeerks. Or making this staff suspicious. I say we take the chance, finish the job. Now."

Cassie handed out a bunch of magazines to us. "Here. Follow me."

We did. She led us to a few elevators. She pushed the button and the doors opened. We stepped in to join a doctor with a clipboard.

The elevator stopped at the third floor of the place. Before the doctor stepped out, he told us, "Look on the fifth floor if you have time. Some of those kids are about your age. They could use some company."

"Okay," Cassie said as the door began to close.

Marco punched the fifth-floor button.

"Maybe he's setting us up," Jake said.

"Yeah. He could be a Yeerk." I looked at the door that Jake had stopped from closing.

"Yeah, and so could you," Cassie said, but not meanly. Then she took Jake's hand. The door closed. "You're right, Jake. It could be a trap. We've walked into them before. Let's try to deal with this and try not to choke. Okay?"

"Are you patronizing me?"

"Yeah, Jake. I am."

"Take it from me, Jake-meister," Marco said. "You get used to it after a while."

Suddenly the door opened. We were at the fifth floor. Several wheelchaired kids, about our age, were watching TV and playing cards.

Cassie led us down the hall. "Hi!" she said to the kids, trying to sound cheerful. "Anybody want a magazine?"

One dude pushed a button on his wheelchair and scooted away.

"Did I say something wrong?"

A pale girl with short blond hair said, "No. He's just afraid you guys are going to sing."

The girl she was playing cards with laughed.

"Sorry," Marco said. "I left my harmonica at home. But I can do magic tricks. Sort of."

The blond kid said, "I've seen David Copperfield in New York. Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas. And Penn and Teller in Los Angeles. You really think I want to see your act?"

"Come on," her friend said. "He may not be a pro, but everyone deserves a shot."

"Yeah and some people deserve to be shot."

"Okay," Marco muttered. "Remind me again why we're here?" He turned to an Asian boy next to the pale kid. "What about you? Can I interest you in a few one-hundred-percent-guaranteed-to-fail amateur magic tricks?"

"D ... d ... d ... " he said, straining with every sound. "Dii ... diii ... diiiii ... "

I didn't know what to do. I shot a glance at Marco, then Cassie. They all looked the way I felt.

The Asian guy took a shuddering breath and triumphantly said, "DITTO!"

He giggled. So did the blond girl.

Suddenly, I heard someone say, "He was supposed to have it an hour ago. He's in pain."

Another dude in a wheelchair was talking to a male nurse.

The nurse said, "James, I know you're Pedro's roommate, but ... "

"I'm not just his roommate," James snapped. "I'm his friend. And since he can't talk to you, I'm doing it for him. If you guys can't get the medication here on time, just leave it on his night table. I'll give it to him."

"Look. We're short-staffed. I'm sorry Pedro had to wait, but we can't let you give him his medication. You're not authorized."

"I've been here longer than you have. I've been here longer than anybody. I would think that gives me some rights."

The nurse dude nodded reluctantly. "Okay. Okay. I'll get it right now."

The blond girl wheeled her chair next to James's and whispered something.

James looked around and saw us. "Well?" he asked, sounding angry. "Who's the show? Us or you?"

"We are," Marco said, sweeping his cape. He was rewarded with stares. "My infamous charm doesn't seem to work in this place," he whispered.

"See you later," James said. He turned and wheeled away. We followed, not sure what to do.

He went over to a boy's bed. "The nurse is coming with your medicine, Pedro. Don't worry. It'll be here soon. You want to hear some music?"

Pedro blinked his eyes.

"Rock?"

No blink. No eyelid movement at all.

"Country western?"

This time Pedro did blink.

"Country western it is. Though I don't understand how you can listen to that stuff, man," he said teasingly. "Sure I can't talk you into some Blink 182?"

We backed away.

"What now?" Jake whispered to us. "How are we going to get through to these kids?"

"We're not," Marco said flatly. "They hate us."

"You got that right," I agreed.

The blond kid's friend, the girl she'd been playing cards with, wheeled over to us. "Sorry about the rude reception. I'm Collette."

"Hi. I'm Cassie. This is Marco. And this is Jake. And that's Leela. We came to entertain but, um, we seem to be going about it the wrong way."

"Yeah," Marco agreed. "The little kids seemed glad to see us. What's with the big attitude up here?"

"Let me tell you something," the girl - Collette - said, not unkindly. "A disabled kid is like the kitten who becomes a cat. You're a kitten, everybody wants to pet you and play with you. You get a little older, you're just a nuisance. Some of the people here haven't been home in years."

She pointed back toward James's room. "About all he has to look forward to is a nursing home when he gets too old for this place. And he's been here since he was a little kid. He got hit by a drunk driver when he was four. His mother brought him in to be operated on and never came back to get him."

"Okay," Marco said. "He can have all the attitude he wants."

"Yeah, definitely," I agreed.

James came out of his room. He scooted past us and rolled down the hall.

"Where's he going?" Cassie wanted to know.

"There's another lounge further down the hall. Through those double doors. It's a great place to go if you want some privacy. The door shuts. James spends a lot of time in there."

"Think we could talk to him?

"You could try. James isn't too friendly. But he's cool. He's the one who makes sure we get what we need. He's the man. Even the nurses and doctors listen to what he has to say."

"A leader," Jake said.

"Yeah. He's gone to bat for me a couple of times. Not that I really need much help. I've got family and stuff."

"So, how come you're not giving us the cold shoulder?" Marco asked.

"This is just a temporary thing for me. I'm not usually in a chair. I had a skiing accident and this place has the best pediatric orthopedic staff around. I came in for some surgery on my knees. Any of you guys ski?"

"Once," Marco answered. "Didn't like it. Too cold. And chicks don't dig it when you fall, like, every three seconds."

I didn't care whether he fell every half-second. He was sooooo cute.

Yeah, yeah, I don't usually get into mushy stuff. That's just not my thing. Except when it has to do with Marco ...

Collette made a face. "Oh man. You're missing the greatest sport there is. Maybe you're more into skating? I like skating but it's a little tame for me. I'm into the extreme, high-risk stuff."

"Collette!" the pale girl called. "You want to play cards or not?"

"I need to get back," Collette said. "That's Kelly. She's got cystic fibrosis."

"Sister-what?" I asked.

"Cystic fibrosis. It makes her so weak sometimes, she can barely shuffle the cards. We play a lot when she feels strong. The other guy is Timmy. Stop by before you go," she said, winking at Marco. "I like company."

"If she's only recently injured, it's possible she's a Controller," Jake said as Collette rejoined Kelly.

Marco grinned. "True. But I don't know. She's just too cute. Did you see that? She winked at me!"

I felt infinitely jealous of Collette.

"Don't get attached," Jake said tiredly. "Life is probably going to be a lot shorter than you thought it would be."

"You know what, Jake? You don't have to remind me about that."

"Sorry," Jake mumbled, looking embarrassed.

"It's okay, dude. It gets to us all."

"Come on. Let's find James.

Chapter 15

Cassie and Jake told James everything.

He just stared. Then he said, "I'm sure when you talked about this at school, it seemed like a really good joke. But when you go back, you can give your friends a message from the 'gang-of-pathetically-grateful-for- attention-kids-at-the-rehab-center.'"

"But ... " Cassie started to say.

"You can tell your idiotic little friends that yeah, we have our problems. But we don't get our kicks by dressing up like refugees from a fifth-rate school play and playing tricks on people in wheelchairs."

"You know what?" Jake said. "I don't need this. I'm telling you the truth. You can believe me or not. It's your funeral."

James, red-faced, started to wheel out of the room when Jake grabbed his arm. "Wait!"

James yanked his arm away. "Don't touch me, man. I may be in a chair but I can kick your butt if I have to."

When Jake reached for James again, James grabbed Jake's arm. James moved his chair so that it caught Jake's ankle and caused him to fall.

Thump.

"Umpff!"

"You don't even want to know what Kelly can do to you, you make her mad enough," James said.

Jake started to get up. "Look ... " He shook his head. "Demonstration time."

"Go for it, dude," Marco said. "We've got nothing left to lose."

Jake began to morph.

"I'll get a doctor," James said.

"No!" Marco yelled as he grabbed the wheelchair.

It wasn't till the familiar orange-and-black stripes appeared that I realized Jake was morphing the tiger. Like I'd seen him during the Animorphs' "war game".

"I think I took the wrong medication," James said. "Actually, why don't you guys get a doctor? For me."

Suddenly -

"Amazing!"

"Yo. People. People and tigers. We have company." I nodded toward the now- open doors, where Collette stood.

"Allow me to apologize on Kelly's behalf. I don't think even Siegfried and Roy could sneak a tiger by the front desk at this place."

James blinked. "You see it, too?"

Collette wheeled closer to Jake. "Is he totally tame? Can I pet him? Wow! I'm so impressed. I'm going to get the others."

"Hold it!" James blocked her exit.

"What?" she asked.

Jake said.

"Who said that?" Collette asked, startled.

"He did," said James, pointing to Jake.

"You're a ventriloquist?" Collette asked Marco.

Marco took a deep breath. "We'd better go through this one more time."

Cassie explained about morphing, while Jake demorphed.

"We could do this?" Collette gasped, after Cassie was done. "I could do this?"

Jake, fully human again, nodded.

"Are you kidding? How do I learn? When can I start?"

"Hold it," James barked. "You haven't heard the whole story. This isn't some kind of virtual reality ride. It's about ... I can't explain it." He turned to Jake. "You tell her."

So Jake told Collette about the Yeerks.

I kept my mouth shut. After all, they still suspected me of being a Controller.

"So," Collette said, "like, it's dangerous? Morphing?"

Duh, I thought.

"Very," Marco said. "It's not something we do for fun. Well, most times. It's a weapon. Personally, I hate the danger part. But you're into the whole reckless behavior thing, right? Extreme sports, bungy jumping, alligator wrestling."

"Why us?" James interrupted. "There are thousands of kids who would sign on for a mission like this. Maybe millions. Kids with macho fantasies. Kids with healthy legs. Healthy lungs. Kids with something to prove. Kids who can run and jump. Kids who don't need help going to the bathroom."

"Because the Yeerks are jerks," Cassie said. "They don't want your bodies as hosts."

"Are you saying we're useless?" James demanded.

"Not to us," Jake said. "That's why we're here."

"So what do you want from me? Specifically?"

"I want you to help us. You seem to be the leader around here. The other kids here will listen to you before they listen to me. Talk to some of them. At least three or four to start."

"No," James said, shaking his head. "It's one thing to do something risky myself. To make that choice. It's another thing to ask others to put their lives on a line for a cause that may not even be real."

"It's real," Marco said.

James shook his head. "Doesn't matter. I don't want the responsibility of somebody getting hurt - or dying - because of me. You may think our lives don't mean much to us, because they don't mean much to other people. But we do value our lives. And each other."

"Look, James, we never said you didn't, but - "

"Come on, Collette," James said, cutting me off. "Don't worry about us talking. I won't. And if Collette does, well ... just don't worry about that."

"Won't you even talk to the others?" Marco said, almost begging.

"No."

"Look," Cassie said. "You started out angry. You thought we were playing with your head, dissing you because you're in a wheelchair. But don't you see? That's exactly what you're doing to the others."

"What?" James snapped angrily.

"Acting like they're babies. Or dumb. Like they're not capable of giving informed consent. Look, James. I know this whole story about the Yeerks is hard to believe. Your friends' lives are already at stake. You need to have some means of protecting yourselves if the Yeerks get any stronger. Look, they might not want to infest you. But they will want to kill you."

I sighed. Yes, they would. I knew just how wacko Esplin was now. He got worse every day. You know how the Nike slogan is "Just do it"? For Esplin, it's "Just kill it."

Cassie continued. "You know what? You don't really have a choice here. This is duty time. You've been tapped. So step up to the plate. Whatever. Fact is, we need you."

James didn't say anything. He got into a subconscious staring contest with Jake. Finally he said, "I've got two conditions."

"Yeah?" Cassie asked.

"One. I pick my own team. You may not approve of the choices. But if it's my team I'm responsible for them."

"Fine," Jake said, nodding.

"Two. No matter what happens, I want Pedro to acquire a morph. A good one. He's been in that bed his entire life. Fourteen years, flat on his back. Even if I don't make it out alive, I want Pedro to have at least two hours of freedom."

Jake nodded again and said, "We can do that."

He and James shook hands.

Marco and I grinned at James.

CHAPTER 16

It took quite a bit of morphing to convince Timmy and Kelly that it was all real. I had to go through all my morphs: seagull, snow leopard, dog, and fly.

But when they finally accepted it, they went nuts. Okay, slight exaggeration there, but only slight. "This is our way out of here for good!" Kelly gasped.

Jake sighed. "No. No matter what happens on a mission, you have to come back here. To the rehab center."

"Look, if a nurse or doctor or orderly is a Controller and notices any kids missing, they're gonna know something's up. And they'll come after you. And us."

"We'll stay," James promised.

Collette was still excited. "It'll be like an undercover operation!"

"That's not all. Staying here might be harder than you think." Jake paused, then continued. "We don't know how, or why, or even if it works every time. But sometimes, most times, the morphing process repairs DNA."

"What are you saying?" James asked.

"It's possible that if some of you weren't born injured or disabled, you'll be healed," Cassie explained. "If you are healed, would you still be willing to pretend you're disabled? At least for the duration of the war?"

James, Kelly, and Collette didn't answer.

But Timmy said, "FFF ... gnnn ... Fff ... gnnn ... "

"If I can ... " James translated for us.

"Do ... gd ... YES."

"He said 'If I can do some good, then yes.'"

Timmy rocked in his wheelchair. James didn't need to translate that. It clearly meant "Yes."

"What about you?" Jake asked Collette. "Your injuries are the result of an accident. There's a good chance your body will be repaired by morphing."

"Ummmm ... I ... Look. I wasn't exactly injured in a skiing accident. I've been lying."

Timmy made a loud noise that sounded like laughter.

"You knew?" Collette asked him.

James nodded. "Everybody knows you've been a paraplegic since birth. It's on your chart."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

"It's okay, Collette," Kelly said.

"We kind of enjoyed the tall tales," James said, smiling. "I'm guessing we all have pretty rich fantasies. But yours had real style."

"Why did you lie?" Cassie wanted to know.

Collette looked like she was about to cry. "To ignore the reality. My mom died two years ago. After that, I lived with my brother and his wife. But they were transferred overseas. They're in the army. I was just supposed to be here until they got settled and sent for me. But then they wrote and said nothing was barrier free where they were stationed. It would be too hard to have me live with them. So I'm supposed to live here till they get back. It could be years."

I looked away. I can't stand seeing people cry. And judging by the look an Marco's face, he didn't like it either.

He squeezed Collette's shoulder, and my jealousy returned. "It's okay," he said. "I've been known to stretch the truth on occasion."

Collette looked at all of us. "Do you still want me on the team? Even though I'm a liar?"

Jake started to answer, then thought better of it. He looked at James, who nodded.

"Yup," Jake said.

"Collette, you'll never have to make up stories again," Cassie told her. "The truth is going to be stranger than any fiction. Believe me."

"Way stranger," I agreed.

"Great," Marco said. "Now that we have that settled ... voila!" He reached into his cape and pulled out a pigeon.

The pigeon immediately decided to make it necessary for Marco to wash his hands.

I had to try very hard to keep myself from snorting.

I let the other Animorphs explain the morphing process. After all, they had more experience.

We waited till after the sun went down. Then Jake and Cassie went into their raptor morphs. I did my seagull. And the newest Animorphs morphed pigeons.

The pigeons went nuts.

Timmy kept saying. Understandable, considering the fact that in his human form he couldn't talk that well.

Marco said.

Collette exclaimed.

I would have groaned, but gulls can't groan.

Jake finally said.

James ordered.

Everybody chilled.

Then we flew out to The Gardens, the same place where I had acquired my snow leopard.

Jake said.

After a minute, he gave the signal.

Jake said.

I felt my seagull parts become human features. Cassie, Marco, and Jake, lost their bird-of-prey shapes.

As Timmy demorphed, he fell. He lay sprawled on the grass. Collette held herself up with her hands. Kelly started coughing excessively.

But when James demorphed, losing all traces of pigeonness, his body was no longer damaged by that car accident.

He was bigger than Jake. He walked around, trying out his legs. Legs he hadn't used in a long time.

"Lucky you," Kelly said.

"Yeah," James said, smiling.

"Are you going to learn how to skateboard?" Collette wanted to know.

Timmy looked at James. "W ... w ... w ... wiiiuuuu ... "

"Will I stay?" James said.

Timmy nodded.

James squatted down. He was now face-to-face with Timmy and the others. "I'm staying. We're a team, right?" He turned to Jake. "What now?"

"Now, I guess we - Leela!" Jake said suddenly.

"What?"

"Oh, man. I forgot all about you."

"Thanks a lot."

"Cassie," he said, ignoring my sarcastic comment, "take Leela back to the Hork-Bajir valley. Toby can guard her for three days. It's best if we get this over with as soon as possible. Come right back."

I asked, once we were both morphed and flying away.

Cassie answered patiently.

I said.

I demanded, trying to sound offended (but not succeeding).

CHAPTER 16

"Hello," said Shorty.

Yeah, Shorty. The six-foot-instead-of-seven-foot female Hork-Bajir.

Cassie had led me to the Hork-Bajir valley. We'd demorphed. And now, Shorty was welcoming us.

"Hi," I said.

"Leela, this is Toby Hamee," Cassie said. "Toby, that's Leela. Can you watch her for three days to make sure she's not a Controller?"

"Sure," said Shorty - I mean Toby. Whatever.

"Another thing. She's morph-capable. She was accidentally given the power, or so she claims."

Toby's eyes widened. "Well ... I don't think that will be too much of a problem. My people are capable of fighting most Earth animals. Cassie ... I have a request to ask of you."

"Yes?"

"When you Animorphs are here ... could you watch Leela? At least a little? I have ... things I need to do."

I squinted at her. What in the world did she mean?

"Okay. What kind of things?"

"Well ... there is this Hork-Bajir."

"Ohhh. I get it." Cassie winked at me.

"So. Toby whatever-your-name-is."

"Hamee," she said.

"Whatever. You have a boyfriend?"

She glared at me. It's very disturbing when a Hork-Bajir glares at you. Then she looked away. "I suppose you could say that."

"How old are you?"

"Two and a half Earth-years."

I was surprised. "Isn't that a little young?"

"Not for a Hork-Bajir."

"What's his name?"

"Phal ... Phal Mashar."

"Don't worry. I won't tell. I suppose, to make things even, I should tell you ... "

"Yes?" she pressed, grinning her Hork-Bajir grin.

"You know Marco?"

"Of course I know Marco."

"Well ... I kind of ... sort of ... you get the picture."

She kind of made a huffing sound. That's what Hork-Bajir laughter sounds like.

"Can I meet him? Phat Mashed Potatoes, I mean."

"Mashar, you halkuch. Phal Mashar."

"What's a hall-cushion?"

"Halkuch. The closest word in your language is probably 'idiot' or 'dumbo'."

"Thanks a lot. So, can I meet Phal?"

"Yes. If he wants to. He already said he didn't want to meet the other Animorphs, though. But I'll ask him."

It was the next day. Marco was watching me.

"Hey, Marco."

"Yeah?"

"What do you get when you cross a pig and a Hork-Bajir?"

"What?"

"A Pork-Bajir."

He snorted. Yes! He actually thought I was funny. "You know what I used to call Hork-Bajir?"

"What?"

"Walking Salad Shooters from Hell."

It was my turn to snort. "Good description." A compliment never hurt anybody.

"Marco, Leela," a guttural but familiar voice said.

"Yeah?" we said at the same time.

"Marco," Toby said again. "I will take over. Leela? Come with me."

"Bye, Marco," I said, smiling. "Gotta go with the Walkin' Salad Shooter from Heaven."

"Bye," he said, smiling back. I looked at him for a long time as he turned and walked away.

"Leela," Toby said. "Stop that. As the humans say, snap out of it. Don't you want to meet Phal Mashar?"

"Oh. Yeah! I forgot all about that. Where is he?"

"This way."

Toby led me into the trees. Soon we lost sight of the other Hork-Bajir and humans. We walked for a ways.

"Stop," she told me. "Phal? I'm here. Leela's here too."

Suddenly, a Hork-Bajir swung down from a large tree. He'd been hidden by leaves and branches.

"Hello," he said awkwardly. "I am Phal Mashar."

"My name's Leela."

"Leela?" Phal said. "But you're a Controller. Shedran-Six-Four-Double- Seven."

"No. I'm not a Controller. Phal, are you a seer?" I gave him a weird look.

"No. I am not a seer. Not like Toby."

He had seemed fairly intelligent when he'd said I was a Controller. But "Not like Toby" sounded more like a normal Hork-Bajir. I squinted, trying to figure it out.

There was something about him. Something ... familiar. Something I had encountered many times before.

"Were you once a Controller?" I wanted to know.

"Um ... yes. Yeerk in head. Yeerk go in my ear. I not like it."

Oh, well. Maybe he'd been a Hork-Bajir-Controller that Hekliss had known. "What was your Yeerk's name?"

"Uh ... I don't know."

There was something different about this Hork-Bajir. He wasn't like Jara Hamee or any of the other non-seer Hork-Bajir, but he wasn't like Toby either.

I squinted at Phal Mashar.

"Uh ... eat bark?" He stripped a few slabs from a nearby tree.

"Nah, that's okay."

I felt bored. I was with two Hork-Bajir: one with an I.Q. of 200 and another with an I.Q. of 53. If it had been just Toby and me, we could have talked about stuff. But we had to include Phal, who lacked sufficient brains for a decent conversation.

"I know," said Toby. "Leela can acquire us. If that's okay with you, Phal."

Phal looked panicked. "No, she can't acquire me!"

"Why not?"

"Um ... I don't, uh, want her to. Please, Toby. She could acquire you, though."

"Phal? You don't sound like a normal Hork-Bajir." He was talking normally (abnormally by Hork-Bajir standards) again.

"Yes," said Toby. "When he was a Controller, his Yeerk let Phal see his memories. Right, Phal? That's why you sometimes sound, ah ... different?" I knew Toby was thinking of a word like "intelligent", but didn't want to hurt Phal's feelings.

"Uh, yes!" Phal practically screamed. "Yes." Man, this Hork-Bajir was weird. And ... if he'd seen the memories, he should know the Yeerk's name. Huh. I guess he just didn't want to tell me the name.

"How'd you know that, Toby?" I asked.

"I tell her, d -

Phal said, then stopped. I could have sworn he was going to say "duh."

"Oh. Duh." I smacked myself on the head. Then I looked at Toby. "You said I could acquire you? Then what'd we do?"

"Swing in trees," Phal said. "Climb trees. Eat bark."

Toby nodded. "Yes. Leela, I can see you're bored. I don't have to be a seer to know that."

"Well, yeah. But what if I was a Controller? You still don't know yet. It hasn't even been one day. I could morph and get out of here."

"One Hork-Bajir is not a match for two. And there are many more than that in this valley. Come on." She held out her arm.

I placed my hand behind her wrist blade, careful not to cut myself. I concentrated.

"Now morph," Toby instructed.

I grew to six and a half feet tall. My skin became leathery and dark. My knees reversed direction. My face bulged out to form the Hork-Bajir beak. One finger on each hand withered away. My feet became Tyrannosaurus talons. And then the blades grew.

SHWOOP! SHWOOP! SHWOOP! SHWOOP!

Wrist blades, elbow blades, knee blades, and horns all shwooped out of Hork- Bajir skin.

Suddenly, the Hork-Bajir brain surfaced. I got a load of instincts, but I sensed a bigger load of intelligence. I wasn't getting actual thoughts, but I could sense brains. I even had a kind of sixth sense that I can't really explain.

Hello? Weren't Hork-Bajir supposed to be stupid?

Oh. I had morphed Toby. Of course. I had a seer's brain.

"Hey, I should morph this when I do my homework. This ish cool. Come on, aren't we gonna climb treesh and all? This Hork-Bajir seriously wants to climb treesh." My Hork-Bajir beak-mouth kind of did something with L's. They sounded funny. And the "z" sound came out "sh".

But I had the funniest feeling, looking at Phal. I mean, of course the Hork brain found him attractive. But I sensed ... something weird.

I wondered if Toby experienced this. Well, of course she did. I hadn't felt this as a human.

"Come on," Toby said. "Time for the trees."

How did she manage not to say "treesh?"

"Aaaaahhh!" Phal Mashar yelled suddenly.

"Phal?" Toby turned her scary-looking head toward him.

"You okay?" I said.

"Yes. But I forgot! I go now. Need to go home." Phal sounded urgent.

"Why? Leela still has a half hour before she needs to demorph," Toby pointed out.

"I have to go home."

"You never stay with me longer than a couple of hours."

"Yes. I ... have things I need to do."

"Toby," I said when Phal had left. "Are you sure Phal ish not a Controller?"

"Well ... no."

"Maybe he ish one."

"I don't think so." She suddenly looked at me. "Do you know if he is?"

"Nope. But still ... he'sh weird."

"Like you?" she teased.

One of the first things I had told her (after discussing Phal) was that I was weird.

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe."

CHAPTER 17

My three days were up. It had been no less than four days since I had first been at the rehab center.

The night before, I had visited the place for the first time since the three days had ended. We'd demorphed from bird morph after flying back to the Hork-Bajir valley.

Then I'd gone home. Yeah, home. The other Animorphs told me to maintain a normal life, like the kids from the rehab center would.

I was in my back yard. I looked up and saw the silhouette of a large bird.

I'd learned Tobias had been trapped in hawk morph. He had somehow regained his morphing ability, but Marco'd said, "That's a very, very long story that you probably don't want to hear."

I shook my head. My dad was at work, my mom was shopping.

I nodded.

He flew down to perch on a tree branch. I'm lucky there's a fence. People might think it slightly weird if they saw you talking to a bird.

"Understatement. So, what's up, Bird-boy?"

"Count me in. I'll leave a note for my parents saying I've gone for a walk. I mean, even though we'll probably fly to the place, I'll no doubt be doing some walking."

"I know. That's dumb. Well, let's go." I hid behind a bush and morphed seagull.

That night, we flew to the school for the blind. We found out where the dormitory was. We morphed flies and traveled through the ventilation system. We demorphed in the basement and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor.

"Am I the only one who's thinking it might be hard to convince kids who can't even see us?" Marco asked.

Rachel looked at him like he was dense. "I thought about that. I have a plan."

I Aximili said.

"What's a vecol?" I asked.

"Listen, Ax ... " Rachel began to say.

"Shhh!" Jake ordered.

We all looked at him, including me.

"Well? What's the plan?" Marco wanted to know.

"I'll think of something," Jake said, opening the first door.

Several kids, maybe twenty of them, were asleep in beds. Except one.

"Who's there?"

A red-haired girl sat up.

Rachel went over to her. "My name is Rachel. Uh, sorry to wake you up. But I need your help."

"What?"

"Don't be scared. There are seven of us. Me and my friends."

"What do you want?"

Jake and Rachel started to talk to her. Aximili stood guard at the door. Tobias perched on a shelf by the window. Marco morphed a gorilla while the girl's hand was touching him.

My mind wandered. I looked out the window.

Suddenly, I noticed Cassie was morphing. Morphing an owl. Marco was demorphing.

Then, Jake went tiger. Cassie demorphed. Jake demorphed. Rachel was holding the red-headed kid's hand. Cassie morphed to fly.

she screamed in our heads.

Hork-Bajir! They stormed in the doorway. I hid and morphed fly. They didn't see me long enough to recognize me.

"What's happening? Who's there? What's going on?"

"Nothing to worry about," a human-Controller said. "Just some pranksters."

In walked a guy who looked like a darker-haired, older version of Jake. He was maybe nineteen. He walked toward Jake. "Some mean kids have broken in to play a practical joke. But it's not funny and we're going to throw them out right now."

He grabbed Jake's arm. Jake whispered something to Rachel. No one made a move.

The human-Controller opened his hand. "Give it to me."

Jake did nothing. The Controller yanked him closer.

"Give it to me. Now."

Jake fished the blue morphing cube out of his pocket and gave it to the Controller.

I yelled privately to him. He ignored me.

"Okay," said the Controller. "Let's all leave quietly."

The Hork-Bajir marched the unmorphed Animorphs into the hallway. The flies, Cassie and me, followed.

The Controller shut the door behind us. Then he whacked Jake across the face. "My host's own brother!"

Jake fell, but a Hork-Bajir-Controller caught him. Jake's brother - I mean, Jake's brother's Yeerk - hit him again.

"Do you have any idea what you've done to me? All that time we were searching for you. Looking for Andalites. And it was you! Right there in my own house. Right down the hall. I could have killed you a million times! Visser One almost starved me to death for my stupidity."

He turned to the Hork-Bajir. "Take them down to the garage off the loading dock. If the girl tries to morph or escape, kill her. Make the gorilla and the bird demorph. Keep the Andalite under extra guard. He'll make a special host body. And inform Visser One that we have the rebels. And the cube."

He looked at Jake again. "My host's parents were given as hosts to relatively low-ranking Controllers. This is so we can kill them without regret if we have to. So if any of you even thinks about making trouble ... " He let it hang.

I

When they'd gone, Cassie and I zipped out a window. We flew crazily down to the ground.

We demorphed. She remorphed to owl; I went seagull.

We flew to the rehab center, flapped through James's open window, and landed at the foot of his bed.

Cassie said.

James leaped out of bed and whispered to Pedro, "I'll explain later. I promise I'll be back."

Then he leaped into his wheelchair. Cassie and I got on James's lap, and hid under a blanket.

Being small has its advantages.

Soon, all of the new Animorphs were in Timmy's bedroom. Cassie and I demorphed.

Timmy sat up. "Sss ... s ... "

"Yes. It is soon. But we knew things were really serious."

James motioned to a boy named Craig and a girl named Erica. They had also been healed by the morphing process, like James.

"Get everyone in transit morphs," James told them. "We'll follow Cassie to the school."

Cassie told everyone to go to a wooded area behind the building. Then the seventeen new Animorphs froze. Suddenly, they went nuts.

They ended up a variety of animals. Not all were birds. There were a baboon, a walrus, and a hedgehog.

James yelled. He had also gone to bird morph.

I Kelly's thought-speak voice.

"You've got to focus," Cassie told her. "Remember what you're trying to do. Keep your mind on your morph."

I laughed. Mind on your morph. It sounded funny.

said James.

They morphed. No baboons this time. Cassie and I morphed back to our bird morphs, and she led the rest of us to the school for the blind.

I saw a familiar black limo below us.

We landed in the wooded place behind the blind school. Esplin wasn't far away.

James asked.

Cassie sighed.

a girl named Jessie protested.

I've never fought against Yeerks, only Andalites, and then it was Hekliss doing most of it. Well, I would come up with helpful or unhelpful suggestions ... Me, of course.

a boy called Liam asked.

said Timmy, I've never had a fight in my life. Who's going to throw down with a kid in a wheelchair?

Erica.

"Everyone, just listen!" James said. He'd demorphed. "Yes, you do know how to fight. You do know how to win. People like us fight and win every minute of every day."

Kelly protested.

"Okay! But even if our daily lives aren't about knocking out the bad guys, our Animorphs lives are. Look, we made a promise. The place is here and the time is now. Ready or not, we're doing this. Everybody, demorph!"

They did.

I immediately thought, What, are we nuts? Letting these kids go into battle? Look at them!

Timmy's forehead was bleeding. James looked at it. "You'll be okay," he assured Timmy, who nodded.

Cassie grabbed James's arm. "It's okay. We can handle it without you. Morph to bird and get everyone out of here. Fly away as fast as you can!"

"No, Cassie."

"They won't make it, James. They can't."

"Watch us." He turned to the others. "Battle morphs. Now."

Soon, we were practically a zoo. A zoo that included a lion, a bull, a crocodile, a bobcat, a gorilla, an elephant, a grizzly, a rattlesnake, a rhino, a wolf, a panther, and a golden eagle. And Cassie, a wolf, and my snow leopard.

I said, trying to sound brave.

Chapter 18

We assembled by a concrete ramp that led to a huge metal garage door.

James said.

Kelly, the bull, head-butted the door.

WHAM!

Then an elephant named Judy crashed the door.

WHAM! CRUNCH!

The door was a mess. Through the new opening we could see Jake's brother and a bunch of Hork-Bajir-Controllers. And Jake himself, who had a nasty wound on his forehead but was otherwise unharmed.

James yelled.

BLAM! Kelly knocked three Hork-Bajir over.

Tseeeew! Tseeeew!

Three other Hork-Bajir fired their Dracon beams.

Collette the crocodile rushed forward. Her tail knocked one Hork-Bajir on his butt and annoyed another, who slashed at Collette. There was a minor cut across her back.

Cassie yelled.

Collette's response was

Jake's brother aimed a gun at Timmy, who was the bobcat.

James shouted.

I Timmy responded. He leaped at Jake's brother and knocked him down. He clamped his teeth on Jake's brother's wrist until he let go of the gun. Timmy swiped his paw and the Dracon beam slid into the shadows. The blue box fell out of Jake's brother's shirt pocket.

James, a lion, grabbed the cube in his mouth.

"Stop him!" Jake's brother cried. He attempted to sit up, but Timmy leaped onto his chest again.

Jake and the others had hid and morphed. Just in time.

Through the place where the door used to be, I saw a black limo.

Esplin, in human morph, stepped out. He demorphed. A lot of Hork-Bajir poured from one moving van; several Taxxons slithered out of another.

Esplin's hooves made a lot of noise on the ramp. Everyone now knew he was there.

he yelled at Jake's brother.

"It's here. Somewhere. The lion got it and ... "

"I had it! I had the morphing cube. It was in my hand!"

Cassie cried.

James had rejoined us.

Jake said.

We formed a line. Me and the original Animorphs first, James's team next, Craig's team third, then lastly Erica's team.

Esplin stared. He looked scared. I could imagine his surprise and fear. I thought I could see it in his four Andalite eyes.

I had a split second to feel sorry for him.

Then the battle began.

"Rrrrooooooow!" Timmy yelled. He leaped at a Hork-Bajir's head. Collette clamped her teeth on the Hork's leg.

"Gaaallaaafff!" the Hork-Bajir yelled. He fell down. Timmy and Collette left the Hork-Bajir to a hungry Taxxon, who was unable to restrain himself.

"Hhhhrrrooowwwrrr!" roared James. He swiped at another Taxxon, then bit out a Hork-Bajir's throat.

Kelly and Marco took care of several Taxxons. Taxxon guts were scattered everywhere.

Rachel encouraged.

Meanwhile, Esplin said to Aximili, He whipped his tail, but Aximili easily dodged it.

Aximili said with a sneer. Jake turned to stand beside him.

Esplin glared at them with his main eyes, while his stalk eyes watched the battle.

Esplin swung his tail blade. Missed again. Jake leaped on him and dug in his claws, then jumped away.

Esplin muttered as he whirled around, almost fell over, and regained his balance.

Jake lied.

Yeah, right. You let him live? Hah.

Jake responded.

I yelled.

James asked.

Tseeeeew! Tseeeeew!

Cassie yelled.

That meant me. I had a Dracon burn. I got away. Demorphed. Remorphed. Rejoined the fight.

Esplin was now a huge squid with spiked tentacles.

I muttered to myself.

WHAP! A tentacle!

"Tsseeeer!" Tobias yelled.

"Aaaaah!" Tom cried. His face was a mess.

Swaaaap!

Esplin's tentacle knocked Rachel over.

Swaaaap!

Another coiled around Jake's neck.

Cassie yelled frantically.

Jake tried to wriggle out. Wasn't succeeding. Esplin dragged him closer.

Some Controllers continued fighting us. Others formed a circle around Esplin and Jake. I watched in horror as Esplin played with Jake a little, whipping the tentacle around. Jake's neck and head were bleeding.

I don't think he paid any attention to me. Which was good, in a way. I didn't want him to recognize my voice.

"Tsseeer!" Tobias again.

Cassie yelled.

The squid's tongue flicked out and sent Tobias flying across the room. And Tobias wasn't using his wings either.

BONK!

He hit the wall! Cassie picked him up gently in her mouth. They got out of there.

Jake was on his back, with a tentacle about to choke him.

Esplin demanded. When Jake failed to answer, he tightened his tentacle. A bear and a lion tried to help Jake, but were smacked by Esplin's tentacles.

Esplin yelled, louder this time.

A Hork-Bajir! I saw his wrist blade flash.

"ARGHHGHGHGH!" Esplin howled with his squid mouth. He waved his newly- shortened tentacle.

One of Hekliss's friends! Yes! He'd saved Jake.

Taxxons, with their raging hunger, rushed toward Esplin. I disemboweled several, and Hork-Bajir took care of the rest.

Jake yelled.

I ran.

The new Animorphs made it to the rehab center. No one knew they'd been gone. I went home. My parents hadn't missed me either.

But the Yeerks had the morphing cube.

I don't know how it happened. But it did.

I went to bed and dropped off to sleep.

Chapter 19

Not long after that, Marco, Tobias, and Ax went after the state governor. Tried to see if she was a Controller, or if she could be our ally. Fortunately, it was the latter.

Also, the Yeerks were trying to infest the National Guard. They didn't succeed, thanks to us.

Me, I tried to catch up on sleep. Tried to be normal. But it's hard to be normal when you're hearing about the Yeerks on TV.

I talked to Hekliss. She seemed worried. Tense. I asked her what was the matter.

"Oh, everything."

"Oookay."

It was early morning. I was lying in bed. Suddenly I heard a flutter of wings. I opened my window.

"Oh man, Tobias. It's too early," I moaned.

Suddenly, I was wide awake. "Oh, please. You can't be serious. What about the human hosts? What about Hekliss? What if she's there?"

"My old Yeerk. She's with the peace movement. She's my friend."

I

I glared at him, then began to morph.

Me. The original Animorphs. James. Toby Hamee. Marco's parents. We were finalizing our plans.

"I've been on the computer all night," Marco said. "All of us. Me, Mom, and Dad. We hacked into nearly every file on the National Guard base. Bottom line? They've got a big warehouse full of thousand-pound bombs."

"Yes! Major firepower." Rachel.

"We could kill a lot of slugs with one thousand-pound bomb," Marco's mom said.

"That's the problem," I muttered.

"We could kill them all with ten or twelve thousand-pound bombs," Marco's dad said. "In an enclosed space an explosion of even one thousand-pound bomb would have incredible magnitude. The devastation would be close to that of an atomic explosion."

Rachel nodded. "We'd be going seriously medieval on Yeerk butt."

I felt nauseous.

"The big question is: How?" Jake asked. "We talked about this before. We'd have to commit everybody. Animorphs, all of us. Hork-Bajir. Parents."

"I'm out," Cassie immediately said. "I thought that maybe ... But I can't. And I can tell you my parents are out, too."

"I'm out too," I announced. "I can't do this."

Rachel gave Cassie, then me, a look. Turned back to Cassie. "Okay, Cassie. So what do you think we should do instead? Just sit here and wait for the Yeerks to find us? Or maybe we should make it real easy on them and go hop on the train for a little swim in the pool."

"Why do you have to be so horrible?" Cassie cried. "You are, you know. And you get worse every day. Your own mother can't even stand you."

Cassie turned. Jake grabbed her shirt. "Cassie! Come on."

"Come on what! You don't knowingly take an innocent life. Not if you're a decent person. Not if you're not a murderer. The goal is irrelevant. I thought you knew that, Jake, but apparently ... "

"Apparently you decided to start making decisions for me! Somewhere along the line you decided that you knew what was best. For me. For everybody. Well, guess what?"

"Don't. Stop! Just don't. Please. I'm sorry," she said, beginning to cry. "I shouldn't have done it. I don't even really know why I did it. I ... At that moment it seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing. Now, I'm just sorry. I'm sorry."

"What is she talking about?" Marco wanted to know.

"I don't know," I whispered back.

"It was me!" Cassie announced loudly. "I gave the Yeerks the morphing cube. I let Tom run away with it. I stopped Jake from chasing him. From killing him. Me!"

"Oh, Cassie," said Marco's mom.

"You did what?!" Marco exploded. I expected him to say "Are you insane?" like he usually did. But it never came.

"Tom had it," Cassie explained. "He had the cube. The only way Jake was going to get it from him was to kill him. I couldn't let Jake do that. I couldn't. I was trying to protect him."

"You were trying to protect Jake so you basically sold out the rest of the human race?" Rachel yelled.

"I'm sure she didn't think of it in those terms," Tobias said.

"I didn't think at all," said Cassie. "It was more of an impulse. An instinct. Something inside just told me to let Tom take the cube. I knew ... I knew I was making a sacrifice. That I was sacrificing so much ... maybe now it seems stupid. But at that moment I thought I was doing the right thing. I really did."

Rachel raised her hand and started to make a fist, but Tobias grabbed her. And suddenly, Jake hugged Cassie.

"It's okay, Cassie," he said. "I'm sorry. It's okay."

I looked away. So did Ax.

After a while, Cassie turned to the rest of us. "I am so sorry. I made a mistake. A terrible mistake. I won't do it again. I won't try to decide what's right for everyone. It was arrogant and dangerous. I didn't mean it to be but it was."

Jake looked like he wanted to change the subject. I personally agreed with him. So he went back to outlining the plan.

"My people are tired of hiding," said Toby. "We are a peaceful species. But we will fight. It is better than living in fear."

Marco agreed. "I'm with Toby. Dad? Mom?"

His mom nodded. "I've had the worst of the Yeerk high command living in my head. I know there's no appeasement. My advice is to fight. Go in. Clean house. Do as much damage as we can. Visser One does not cope well with setbacks. If we do enough damage, we could possibly chase the Yeerks off Earth."

"What do you mean?" Jake wanted to know.

"The former Visser One didn't advocate all-out war because she knew Earth was too volatile. The inhabitants too resistant. The Yeerks are used to tractable host bodies. Humans are a fighting race. They fight invaders. They fight each other. They don't give up easily. The current Visser One has never really understood that."

"So?"

"So, knowing something about the Yeerk High Council, I'm thinking it's likely Visser One's been warned that one more major attack on a site of concentration, or one more major disaster like what happened on the aircraft carrier, or one more public announcement by the governor calling for resistance, just might mean the end of his domination here. It might mean the Yeerks would decide to move their base of operations to some other planet. Let's face it. With the ability to morph, the Yeerks don't really need humans. They could make do with another species on another planet, a species less agressive than humans."

We were quiet for a moment. Finally Jake said, "I'm not sure that's good news for the rest of the world."

"But it's good news for us. Earth is Visser One's personal fiefdom," Marco's father pointed out. "If the Yeerks are forced to leave Earth, Visser One's back to being a sub-visser somewhere."

"We may not be able to defeat the Yeerks, but we can at least move them off Earth," said Marco.

"And inflict them on another species?" Cassie protested.

"Perhaps not. With help from the Andalite fleet, perhaps we could keep the Yeerks from settling anywhere." Toby.

"What do you mean?" Rachel wanted to know.

"We chase them into Zero-space and the Andalite fleet ambushes them there. Effectively wipes them out."

Jake thought about that for a minute. Then he said, "We don't know what we can count on from the Andalite fleet, as long as the Yeerks are Earth's problem. But maybe Toby's right. If we can chase the Yeerks off Earth and make them the Andalites' problem, the Andalites would be forced to act. Ax?"

"Fair enough. In any event, step one is to blow the Yeerk pool."

"Let's go back to the attack," Marco said. "Cassie may have been a major idiot for about half a second, but she's right now. If there are innocent people trapped down in the tunnel, how can we justify blowing it up?"

"Yeah," I said. "I totally don't like this. I mean, I don't like this."

Tobias looked thoughtful. "What if we gave them time to escape? I mean, what if somehow, just before the explosion, we told everyone on site that the pool was about to blow. The humans and the human-Controllers would probably run for their lives. The Yeerks in their heads will starve without the pool, but the humans would live. See? We save the humans, kill the Yeerks, and wipe out a major infestation center."

I was about to protest. But then I remembered that the Yeerks had a Pool ship in orbit. "Yeah. That's better. Good idea."

"That works for me," Marco agreed. "I mean, at least it gives people a chance. Some of them, anyway."

Everyone nodded except Cassie. She looked down at the ground.

There was silence for about a minute.

"Cassie?" Jake asked.

"I'll do whatever you guys say."

"That's not enough, Cassie. You've always had definite ideas about what we should or shouldn't do. Don't weasel now."

"Okay. Then it's wrong. But let's do it anyway. I'll learn to live with my conscience. We all will. I don't have a better plan. I guess this is as close as we'll get to defeating the Yeerks without being the Yeerks."

"Look," Jake said, turning back to all of us. "Cassie did what she did. She had her reasons. I don't understand them so I can't say if they were right or wrong. But her decision to let Tom get away with the cube changed the equation. Still, I trust Cassie's instincts. Even more than my own. Especially my own these days. So let's just adopt this phrase as our guideline. Defeat the Yeerks. Don't become them."

We all agreed.

Chapter 20

I was in seagull morph. The other Animorphs were birds of prey. The newest Animorphs, James and the others, were pigeons. Aximili and the Animorphs' parents were humans, and were carrying some old camping stuff. Toby and a few other Horks were swinging through the forest.

Ax and the adults reached a road, where several National Guardsmen were working. I flew down closer, so I could hear.

"Hello! Hello!" Marco's dad said. "Thank God. We thought we'd never find anybody."

The National Guard commander stepped toward him. "Sir? Is there a problem?"

"We've been lost in the woods for two days. Night before last, a bear came into our campsite in the middle of the night. We grabbed what we could and ran. And, er, we got lost."

Ax had stayed hidden in the trees. he informed us. I do not think these particular Guardsmen are Yeerks. They are surprised at the sudden appearance of a group of lost campers. But they do not seem afraid or suspicious.

The commander signaled another guy to come forward. Then he asked, "Is anybody sick? Any signs of dehydration? When was the last time any of you ate?"

"I'm having some pains here," Marco's dad said, putting his hand on his chest. Three Guardsmen escorted him to a truck. They made him sit on the ground. One took his pulse, while another gave him a drink of water.

The third Guardsmen found places for the other adults. The commander reported to the base.

I saw Hork-Bajir, led by one named Jolphimee Celpik, drop silently from the trees. They would incapacitate the remaining National Guardsmen (in case one was a Yeerk), but would not hurt them.

Rachel, Cassie, Jake, and Marco hid. Demorphed. Remorphed to fleas.

Ax reported.

"As soon as we get back to base," the commander said to Marco's dad, "we'll get you to a doctor. Let's move out!"

The three trucks were soon driving away. The Hork-Bajir followed. Ax morphed to bird.

Tobias said.

Aximili said. I am in harrier morph about half a mile below you, Tobias. Rachel, Jake, and Cassie are traveling as fleas on Marco.

He was hitching a ride on the back of the last truck. He was a gorilla.

The guards waved the trucks through the base entrance. The commander had called to explain our situation, so the trucks didn't have to stop.

The first truck, the one with Marco's dad, turned right toward a medical place. The other two trucks pulled into what seemed to be a parking lot.

Jolphimee Celpik and the other Horks knocked out the truck drivers. Then Rachel's mom and Cassie's dad took the steering wheels of the trucks.

Marco said.

Tobias added.

James said.

Jake pointed out.

James said.

Marco nodded his gorilla head.

Rachel informed us. I have to tell you, Marco. You stink. Even to the flea you're stinky.

Jake interrupted.

Tobias reported.

Jake called.

Me.

I James said.

I

I landed behind a nearby stand of trees. I demorphed, then remorphed to snow leopard.

Then I knocked out a few guards. Warehouse C. Then Warehouse E. Warehouse H.

Suddenly - James called. We assembled there.

There were huge crates everywhere. We knew what they contained.

Cassie wondered.

I Jake.

Tobias brought the two trucks around to Warehouse J. Then Toby signaled to two Hork-Bajir. They heaved the first crate off the floor.

ScreeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEET! ScreeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEET!

An alarm!

Jake cried. I'm demorphing in case I have to talk us out of trouble. Ax, go human. Marco, Rachel, and Cassie, stay in your morphs for now. But hang back. Don't get nasty unless you absolutely have to. James, you guys stay in morph and stay out of sight. Leela, you too.

I hid. There was noise everywhere.

I tried to shut it out. I was beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

I rejoined the Animorphs later. Back at Warehouse J. I'd demorphed.

I watched a few National Guard guys, who Jake had talked to and had made sure weren't Controllers. They were loading the bombs. I was bored and nervous.

Finally they finished. National Guardsmen and Hork-Bajir - long story there; Jake hadn't had time to tell me everything - climbed into trucks.

The adults were returning to camp. We morphed birds and followed the trucks.

When we reached the city, Tobias said,

Jake said.

He directed the five trucks to the place.

I looked down. Yeerks were herding people toward subway entrances. Some of the people looked like they'd been in bed a minute ago. They were sleepy and still wearing sleeping clothes.

Marco agreed.

We stopped at the Shawmut Street place. The Guardsmen, led by a dude named Captain Olston, jumped out of the trucks. They walked quickly toward the ten Guardsmen guarding the subway entrance.

"Step aside, soldiers," Captain Olston ordered. "We're loading some equipment."

"Sir. We have no orders to receive equipment."

"Where is your commanding officer?"

The soldiers parted. A major came out of the station and said, "Captain Olston! I am surprised to see you. I believe you had orders to stay on your base."

"I did," said the captain in a cold voice. "But those orders have been rescinded."

"On whose authority?"

"On his." The captain nodded at something behind the major. The major turned and yelled. Right before Marco, who'd demorphed and remorphed to gorilla, knocked him unconscious.

I had hidden and was already demorphing and remorphing. Snow leopard. We needed firepower.

An Andalite, a tiger, a wolf, a grizzly, and finally a snow leopard suddenly leaped forward and knocked the rest of the Controllers out. Then Toby and a few of her friends carried the eleven unconscious guys down the subway stairs. They locked them in the toll booth.

Then the other Animorphs, including James's people, and I joined the Hork- Bajir on the subway platform. A train pulled into the station.

Jake said.

We waited for the Yeerks to notice us. They screeched to a stop. The doors opened and the non-Controllers rushed out. Then ten Controllers in military uniforms stepped out.

One laughed. "So, it looks like the circus is in town. How about we join them in the center ring?"

They began to morph. One to rhino, one to polar bear, one to cheetah, and the others to wolf.

Rachel cried.

The rhino charged.

Jake ordered.

Rachel and the rhino crashed head-on. Then we all joined the fight.

Tuan the bobcat rushed the cheetah. It leaped toward Collette.

SNAAAAAP! Collette's crocodile teeth chomped the cheetah's leg. She dragged him to the ground and swung him from side to side. The big cat's head whammed the side of the train. He was out of the fight.

Aximili cried.

Marco dodged the rhino. Punched it on the head.

FWAP! Aximili decapitated a wolf.

"Grrrrrrrr, grrrrr, grrOWWWWRR!" Two more wolves leaped at him.

FWAP! One of them was currently missing an ear. Then both wolves jumped on him.

FWAP! FWAP! The wolves were history.

"GrrrrrOOOWWWWWrrrrr!" More wolves! Coming at me! I bit one on the neck. Then Jake, Cassie, James and Kelly helped me with the rest. We escaped and demorphed.

Jake and Cassie went back to get the others. The fight was over. We had won.

I wondered about those Yeerks. About the wolf I had chomped.

I also thought about Hekliss. I prayed she would be all right.

Chapter 21

The bomb-packed train was going to explode five minutes after we keyed the detonator. That five minutes would hopefully give everyone time to escape. Three of the Animorphs were going to key the detonator. The rest of us were out of there.

Cassie, Marco, and Aximili were the three. The rest of us morphed birds and flew.

I went home.

That night, I was lying in my bed. Trying to sleep. Not succeeding. A little fly was buzzing around. "Lousy fly," I said, swatting at it.

"Huh?"

The fly grew. It slowly became human.

"Rachel?" I asked as long blond hair began to sprout from the fly's head. But no. The hair was too dirty-blond.

"Leela?" Caitlyn asked.

"Hekliss! You're all right!"

"I'm all right. So is Esplin. But ... a few of my friends ... "

"Oh, Hekliss. I didn't want to do this."

"It's a war. These things happen."

"When will it be over?"

"I can't say."

I sighed.

"Hey. I asked Caitlyn's parents if I could stay with you tonight. As a sleepover kind of thing. They said yes."

"Okay. I'm tired."

"Me too."

"But hey, we're alive, right?"

"Yeah. We're alive."

Chapter 22

"Marco?" I called to the osprey outside my window. "Cassie? Which one are you?"

the bird said flatly.

I opened my window. "Don't worry. My door's locked. What's wrong?"

She demorphed. "It's Caitlyn's parents."

"What about them?"

"The other Yeerks are blowing up everything. I don't know why. It seems like everyone's gone insane. Anyway, they blew up Caitlyn's house. With her parents inside."

I looked out my window. I saw Dracon flashes. "Oh, no."

"I don't know what to do anymore. I just don't. Leela ... I'm scared. And I can't stand Caitlyn's cries. I can't stand her sadness."

"I don't blame you."

"Leela, I have no place to stay now. Neither of us do."

"Here?"

"Here may be blown up soon, too."

I hadn't thought of that. "Oh, man."

"You have to tell your parents everything. Then go to the Hork-Bajir valley. That's the safest place I can think of."

"Okay. Mom? Dad?"

"Yes?" my mom called. "Your father's not home. What do you need?"

"We need to talk."

"These are my friends, Caitlyn and Hekliss."

We were in my room. All three of us. I mean, all four of us.

"Which one is she?" my mom asked. "And where's the other one?"

"They're both right there. You see, they are a Controller."

My mom's eyes flashed. "Yeerk!" She looked behind her, annoyed.

"Oooookay. Take a pill, Mom. How do you know about Yeerks? Did you see them on TV?"

"Leela? Are you a Controller too?"

"Nope. Used to be, but not anymore. Hekliss here used to be my Yeerk. She's with the Yeerk peace movement."

"Yeerks do not want peace. See, look!"

Hekliss was glaring at my mom. "Andalite!"

"Hello? People? Hekliss, chill. You too, Mom. What's going on?"

"This Andalite has morphed your mother," Hekliss said.

I stared at Mom. "What?"

"She's acquired your mom and morphed her!" Hekliss yelled.

"Where's my real mom?" I demanded.

"I'm right here. Sit down, Yeerk."

"Hekliss, chill out, for crying out loud! Now. What?"

"Yes. I am an Andalite."

"So WHERE'S MY REAL MOM?!"

She sat down on the bed again. "I am a nothlit. I stayed in human morph for longer than two hours."

"Okay," I said, trying to stay calm.

"My name is Aredel-Corain-Iskillion."

"Okay."

"Your father's is Herilan-Arrepoth-Gahar."

"No. Not my real dad. Where is he?"

"Leela. You don't understand. You see, Herilan fought in the war with the Yeerks. He tired of it. So he and I came to this planet so we could live in peace. We morphed humans and became nothlits."

"Okay. Whatever. But where are my real parents, for the five hundredth time?"

"You don't understand," she repeated. "Leela-Sirinial-Corain, we are your real parents."

"Ooookay. Uh, Hekliss? Don't."

She looked at me, disbelieving.

I looked back at Mom. "Now. Either I am having a crazy nightmare, or things have just gotten weirder. You're an Andalite? And you morphed human, like, a way long time ago? And you're saying I'm an Andalite?"

"Yes. We would have told you sooner, but - "

"Okay. Well, that accounts for my weird name. What's Larry's real name?"

"Lariak-Enilon-Arrepoth."

I snorted. You see, I was actually not surprised. My life had been weird since that day Big Cassie and I had joined the Sharing. It was only going to get weirder.

Hekliss looked at me weirdly. "Good grief. You, one of my closest friends ... you're an Andalite? I am nuts."

"I am not an Andalite. I was born human. Therefore, I am human."

"With a part-Andalite mind," my mom said.

"What?"

"Do you really want me to give you the complete technical explanation?"

"Uh, no. But hey, I don't hate Yeerks. Unlike some people. That ain't no Andalite mind." I shot a glance at Hekliss. "So much for your idea."

Hekliss's eyes went wide. "Oh! I forgot. Uh, Aredel-whatever-your-name-is, the other Yeerks are blowing up the town. The safest place is the Hork- Bajir valley."

"What Hork-Bajir valley?"

"It's a long story," I said.

"This is a trap."

"No, it's not."

"You could be a Controller, too. How can I trust you?"

"How are you going to stay alive if you don't?" I looked at Hekliss. "Isn't that from some movie?"

"Uh-huh. The Return of Jafar. Who cares? Let's get outta here!"

"How?"

"Duh. Don't you people have a car? We can walk if we need to, though."

"Let's do it!" I said, trying to sound like Rachel.

"Hi. This is my mom, Arabella. This is my little brother, Larry. And this is Caitlyn," I said to the other Animorphs.

"Leela? What did you do?" Jake demanded.

"You really think we're going to stick around while the Yeerks blow everything up, including us? Anyway, Caitlyn here was a Controller, so she knows everything about the Yeerks. And I told my mom what she needed to know." White lies. "But we do need to hold her for three days."

"Okay."

"But Caitlyn's fine. I know she's not one of them," I said, meaning not one of the non-peace-movement Yeerks.

"Okay. But see, what's going on is that the Yeerks' Pool ship is now on Earth. It's the Yeerk pool now. We want to destroy it."

"No!" Hekliss and I yelled.

"Okay! Fine! I'll tell them," I said to her. "Look ... "

I told them what Hekliss and Caitlyn really were. "So, you can't destroy the Pool ship! Hekliss won't have her Kandrona rays."

"That problem is easily solved, if Hekliss can morph," Cassie pointed out.

"Yeah, I can morph," Hekliss said.

"I mean, can you morph as a Yeerk?"

"Oh. Yeah."

"You could become a nothlit."

"Oh. Okay. I guess. A human nothlit?"

"Well ... "

"It's only fair, Cassie."

"Fine. You can acquire me and Caitlyn, if that's okay with her."

Hekliss looked to Caitlyn, who nodded wordlessly.

"Okay," Hekliss said.

She did.

"Now, you have to stay in that morph for more than two hours."

"Okay. But there are other peaceful Yeerks."

"Look, we have to win this war," Jake said. "Okay? The peace movement is only a minority of Yeerks."

"But ... "

"What?" I asked her.

"It's Esplin," she whispered to me. "I know he's insane and all, but he's still my brother. I don't think he can morph from Yeerk form. He never bothered, as far as I know."

No one else heard her. "We'll do what we can," Jake continued, "but we're destroying the Pool ship."

"Look, Hekliss, we'll find a way," I told her. But I could see she didn't really believe it.

Chapter 23

"It's too dangerous," said Marco's mom. "Visser One will know that you know. He'll know you're coming. He can't let you destroy a Pool ship - that's the only large-scale food supply the Yeerks have. The Blade ship can only service so many. Lose a Pool ship? The Council of Thirteen would have Visser One executed."

I felt Hekliss shudder. She was right next to me.

"He'll think we're cocky after taking out the Yeerk pool. Maybe he'll underestimate us," Marco suggested.

"No. He'll never underestimate you again. That's over."

"It's too dangerous," said Cassie's dad.

"This is a job for the military now," Rachel's mom agreed. "You kids have done enough. The secret is out: Leave it to the people who should be protecting this country. I mean, we paid enough in taxes to support the military; well, now let's see what we got for all that money."

"Look folks," Cassie said, "we're going to try. I don't think the question is really 'whether' but 'how.' "

"No one has decided any such thing. My daughter is not going to be dragged into some suicidal undertaking like this."

Rachel laughed. "Mom, if we go, I go. If we don't go, I still go. Visser One parks his Pool ship right out in the open and we're not going to ram it down his nonexistent throat? Hah! I'm with Marco. Blow it up. Blow it up real good."

"It seems a waste to simply blow it up," Toby said.

"What do you mean?" Jake wanted to know.

"There are hundreds of captive Hork-Bajir aboard the Pool ship. If we could free at least a portion of them ... and of course there are the ship's massive weapons systems. Imagine controlling all that power."

"Take it?" Marco cried. "Steal the Pool ship!"

"This is my girl," Rachel said proudly, pointing at Toby.

Ax.

Everyone started talking at once, except Caitlyn, who had not said a thing since Hekliss had left her. Finally Jake said, "Okay. That's enough, folks, thanks for coming."

"You don't just dismiss us!" Rachel's mom protested.

"Sure he does, Mom," Rachel said.

Jake looked exasperated. "I need Rachel, Marco, Tobias, Ax, Toby, Leela, James, and Eva. As much as I hate to admit it, Rachel's mom is partly right: This isn't our fight anymore. Three pilots died today. Probably Air Force National Guard. It shows that there are military agents out there who could help."

"All due respect, those pilots didn't do much good," Marco pointed out.

Jake ignored him. "If we're going after the Pool ship we need a diversion. I want tanks and jets and soldiers. And I want us - some of us at least - to be right out there in front with them. I want Visser One to be sure we're trying to either blow up his precious ship or get inside it."

"And we will be, right?" James asked. "I mean, one or the other, right?"

Jake shook his head. "Visser One will consider the possibility that we're using the attack as a cover. He's slow but he's not a complete idiot."

"No, he's an incomplete idiot," I muttered. Hekliss overheard it. She smacked me.

"Ow!" Everyone stared at me.

Jake continued. "He'll figure one of three things: First, the attack is the real thing. Second, the attack is a cover for the next attack. Third, the attack is a cover for us to infiltrate the ship and destroy it from inside. Any of those three options he does the same thing: lifts the ship off and amuses himself blasting everything in sight with the Pool ship's Dracon cannon."

"Okay," said Toby. "I give up. How is he going to be wrong?"

"When the diversion comes, we'll already be on board the Pool ship, working on breaking the access codes. The diversion won't be to cover us getting on. It'll be to cover the fact that we're already there."

"Oh. Cool," I commented.

It took a lot to get General Doubleday to listen to us. (He was the leader of two army divisions, so he was the guy we needed to talk to.)

But we ended up getting into a fight with several Controllers before he listened. He finally did, though, and evacuated his headquarters.

Jake explained about the Yeerks and the three-day Kandrona thing. He told Doubleday to lock up as many of his men as he could. Unfortunately, that meant a three-day delay before he could go after the Pool ship. In that time the Yeerks would have constructed a new Yeerk pool. If they could use it at all, Esplin would fly the Pool ship back into orbit. So we had to stop the construction of the new pool.

We were going to wipe out the Taxxons doing the digging.

We were hiding in a vertical crack in the huge hole in the ground. What was going to be the new Yeerk pool. The original Animorphs were going out first. Then me and James' people. Then Toby's Hork-Bajir.

The Animorphs, in battle morphs, leaped out. They ripped through the Taxxons easily. Then Jake called,

We jumped out. I slashed with my snow leopard claws. I bit into Taxxon skin, tasting their horrible taste, popping them like water balloons.

Jake yelled.

The Bug fighters started firing!

Jake cried.

Marco muttered.

I asked.

he ordered.

I did.

And then the world fell apart. Jake disappeared from sight.

Chapter 24

It was the next morning.

Suddenly a peregrine falcon flew by.

"Yaaaaaahhh!"

"Jake? But you're ... "

He landed and began to demorph.

"Oh, there you are," Marco said. "So I guess I can't have your CD collection after all."

Cassie ran toward Jake, started to hug him, then stopped and turned away.

"Cassie. Stay. Please," Jake said. "Marco: Did we lose anyone last night?"

"Yeah," Marco replied. "Three of Toby's people. One of James's people, the guy named Ray. And you, or so we thought."

"How are they taking it, James's people?"

"About like we were taking your death, Jake: not well. At least it was quick: Dracon beam. He never knew what hit him."

"We took out a lot of Taxxons," Rachel said.

"Was it worth it?" Cassie asked.

"This time," Jake told her, "yes. I think it was. Rachel? Round everyone up: Toby, the parents, the whole war council."

"Yeah?" she asked.

"They've got fifteen minutes to dress, pee, and drink a cup of roots n' twigs coffee," Jake laughed.

It took twenty minutes. Everybody had to be there. The parents, the Animorphs, Aximili, James, Hekliss, Caitlyn, and me. Of course, Jake and Rachel and Cassie and Marco and me were already assembled.

Finally, we had everyone.

"You're alive," Rachel's mom said to Jake.

"He's hard to kill," Marco said solemnly. "I've been tempted repeatedly during the last twenty minutes or so."

I Ax, of course.

"Well," Jake said. "The Taxxons want to defect. They want to change sides."

I stared at him.

"Come again?" Cassie's dad said.

"The Taxxons. They want to join us. They're ready to turn against the Yeerks."

Cassie sighed.

"You knew, didn't you?" Jake demanded.

"I hoped, that was all." she said. "I hoped."

"Pretty good hope, Cassie."

"Oh my God," Marco said. "It's the morphing. That's it, isn't it? The Yeerks got a taste of morphing. The Taxxons have figured out they could do it, too."

"Yeah," Jake said. "The Taxxons grabbed me to talk to me. They're led by an Andalite nothlit, trapped in Taxxon morph. He said his name was Arbron. He said he was a former companion of Elfangor's."

Ax asked.

Jake told us how the Taxxons wanted to become nothlits, but Esplin had the morphing cube. The Taxxons wanted to fight with us to get the cube.

"This is insane," Marco said.

I agreed. "It's crazy. Nuts. Wacko. Any other synonym you can think of."

Tobias asked.

Jake shrugged. "It doesn't make any sense as a trap. They had me dead. If they wanted to trap us, if it was all a setup, the'd have demanded I return with all of you. They didn't. They told me to come back alone. Arbron wants me to speak to his people. He wants me to tell them what I told him. He wants my personal promise."

"Your promise of what?" Toby wanted to know.

"They want to be made morph-capable. They have contact with Yeerks who've morphed, and they are bitterly ticked that Visser One has refused to enable any of his Taxxon so-called allies. They realize we don't have the morphing cube anymore. And Arbron is smart enough to know that even if we win we may not get the cube from Visser One. He could escape with it or even destroy it. But they've realized that the Yeerks will never, ever allow them to gain morphing capabilities because it would be the end of Taxxon dependence on the Yeerks."

"So they want us to promise Andalite cooperation?" Marco asked. "They want us to guarantee that the Andalites will pay off on their debt?"

"Exactly. They want us to commit the Andalite high command to make each and every Taxxon morph-capable. In exchange, each Taxxon will choose a form and turn nothlit."

Ax said.

"Even if it means stopping a war, saving a planet, and disarming their greatest enemy?" Cassie asked. "Are they that stubborn? That stupid?"

My mom, who'd been silent the whole time, seemed insulted.

So did Aximili.

"They've said they'll go nothlit under our supervision," Jake reminded him. "Permanent morph."

"The Andalite high command is not going to trust us that far," Marco said.

"The Andalite high command can drop dead." Rachel. "What good have they ever been to us? Where are they, huh? We've always been their last priority. They've done squat for us. They're sitting off at a safe distance waiting to see whether we win or lose. If we win they'll pat us on the head and say, 'Good inferior species, good girl, here's a doggie treat.' And if we lose what are they going to do?"

Cassie sighed. "Ax, you need to tell them."

Aximili's stalk eyes abruptly swung toward Cassie.

"It's time to choose, Ax. Once and for all. We all know what Alloran did to the Hork-Bajir world, trying to keep them from falling into Yeerk hands."

"I don't," I said. "And Yeerks don't have hands."

"Leela," Hekliss said. "Shut up."

"The Andalites won't allow Earth to fall to the Yeerks, will they?" Cassie asked.

Silence. Finally, Aximili said, I have at times contacted the Andalite fleet without telling anyone.

Rachel exploded. "I'll kill you myself!"

"Rachel," Jake reprimanded her.

Aximili continued.

"Now can I kill him?" Rachel asked.

"Ax has already defied them," Cassie informed us. "They ordered him to stop our attack on the Yeerk pool. He disobeyed."

Aximili demanded.

"I'm an Animorph, Ax. A flea on your back when you would sneak out of camp."

"Why on God's green Earth would these Andalites order him to stop us from killing their enemies?" Rachel's mom asked.

Marco's mom said, "I can guess: They didn't want anything to stop the Yeerks from concentrating their forces here. They wanted the Yeerks to pour into Earth." She laughed for no reason. "The Yeerks are evil, destructive, dangerous creatures. I know that better than anyone."

"Are not!" Hekliss protested angrily. She looked hurt.

Marco's mom hadn't heard. "But the Andalites are no saints themselves. They want the Yeerks to concentrate here because the Andalites have written us off, decided we can't win, and they wanted to blast the entire planet out of existence and take out the bulk of the Yeerk race along with the human race."

"Is that true, Ax?" Jake asked.

Aximili hesitated.

Tobias asked.

"You're asking him?" Rachel yelled, pointing at Aximili.

Aximili said.

"So, how do we tell them?" Marco wanted to know. "Any time we dial up that communicator my dad invented it just reaches the Andalite fleet."

Tobias asked.

"Arbron wants me to speak to the Taxxons tonight," I said. "He's suggested I appear in morph - to demonstrate the possibilities. He doesn't know much about Earth animals. But he thinks the Taxxons would prefer something not to different from their current forms. Something strong but not afflicted by the Taxxon hunger. Cassie?"

"Something similar to their present forms? Centipedes? Caterpillars? No, they'd want a longer lifespan at least. And you said strong ... ah. I have an idea. I don't know. Maybe ... I don't know. I'd be guessing."

"Cassie, you guessed that letting Tom take the morphing cube might weaken rather than strengthen the Yeerks. You guessed that Ax was ... conflicted. I'll back your guess any day of the week."

"I think he means he's sorry he doubted you and treated you like crap," Rachel translated.

"Yeah. That's exactly what I mean. Come on, Cassie, show me where to go next."

"Leela," Jake said to me later. After he had gone to speak to the Taxxons.

"What?"

"We are going to have a very dangerous mission. We are likely to end up dead."

"Oh, that's comforting."

"It seems that Tom's Yeerk is going to help us with our plan to steal the Pool ship. So here's what I need you to do: You, along with James and his people, are going to help General Doubleday provide the diversion."

"What? I'm not coming with you?"

"No, we need you here. Battle morphs. Help Doubleday. Got it?"

"Got it."

Chapter 25

TSEEEEEEEWW! TSEEEEEEEWW!

Dracon fire everywhere. The Pool ship was up in the air, firing at us!

We were with Doubleday's troops. And we were all going to die. A few wild animals and a bunch of soldiers against a big Pool ship? I'd bet on the ship.

Unfortunately, I would probably not live long enough to collect on bets.

said James.

TSEEEEEEEWW!

I screamed as I demorphed. Half-true, anyway.

Chapter 26 - Toby Hamee

My name is Toby.

And I was on the Yeerk Pool ship with the Animorphs and some of my people.

Fighting. Blood everywhere. Screams.

I saw Visser Three! Visser One, actually. The Yeerk named Esplin 9466. The leader of these parasites. He'd played a major role in wiping out my parents' planet. The home I had never seen.

And now he was trying to destroy this home. Trying to kill the last of the free Hork-Bajir. Trying to enslave the humans, who had helped us.

I felt a sudden anger. Anger like a fire in the night that had gotten out of control.

I looked at my blades. I looked at Visser One.

I rushed forward, wrist blades ready.

"What?"

I Visser One glared at me with one stalk eye.

I glared back. "You know my name, Esplin-Nine-Four-Double-Six."

Suddenly I saw. I knew. I understood.

He whipped his tail. It was going right for my neck! Then it snapped upward and hit my front horn.

My hearts started beating again. I hadn't even noticed them stopping.

Then suddenly, they stopped. "Look out, Father!" I yelled.

"Aaaahhh!" he yelled. A Hork-Bajir-Controller was going straight for him. He dodged, but too slowly. The Controller's wrist blade sank into his neck.

"You're dead, Yeerk!" I yelled.

Visser One asked.

"No, you idiot! The Hork-Bajir over there."

I think I had gone slightly insane.

Chapter 27 - Esplin 9466

I know you are thinking "What's he doing narrating this? I thought this was Leela's story."

A popular human concept is sharing. All right?

That was a bad attempt at human humor. Sorry.

I watched as Drepek 2347 fired at the Animorphs on the ground.

I should have been happy. These humans who had caused me so much trouble were dying one by one.

I had tried to locate Hekliss 8275. She was the only Yeerk - the only anything - I had now. Except for the Hork-Bajir. But no, not anymore.

I told Garnil 4684, a Hork-Bajir- Controller.

"Visser, there are surely some of our own people still alive in - "

I felt the sudden blaze of anger I often experienced. I removed Garnil's head.

The Controllers nodded.

I said.

TSEEEEEEW! TSEEEEEEW!

I ordered.

Chapter 28 - Leela-Sirinial-Corain

I ran home. To the Hork-Bajir valley. To Caitlyn. To Hekliss. To my mom, the Andalite-turned-human.

"Hekliss!" I called.

"What?" She came running, happy to see that I was all right.

"Jake and the others are aboard the Pool ship. Your brother is destroying the other Animorphs. James's people. I think ... I think they're all dead."

"Is he insane?" Hekliss yelled.

"Yeah."

"How'd you escape?"

"I ran away," I said bitterly.

"You did the right thing. If you'd stayed you would've been blown up."

"I still ran away."

"Leela. You are part-Andalite. Come on, it's all right."

"No. It's not," I said.

Chapter 29 - Esplin 9466

The Yeerks were being flushed!

More than seventeen thousand of my people were being sucked into space. I watched it happen on our view screen.

The Animorphs were there. But I didn't care.

Yet finally, I turned to look at them. I whispered,

replied one of them.

I turned my stalk eyes toward the view screen. I could see my ship - not the Pool ship, my Blade ship, the one I'd had since being promoted to Visser Thirty-two - slowly come nearer.

I Jake said.

Another Animorph - Marco? - started laughing. Then stopped.

Jake said,

I sighed and looked at the Blade ship with one stalk eye.

Some consolation. I wouldn't even be alive to enjoy it.

"Targeting the Blade ship's starboard engines. We are ready to fire," Diptran 7875 reported.

I said in a bored thought-speak voice.

TSSEEEEEEEW! TSSEEEEEEEW!

Missed! Both times.

TSSEEEEEEEW! TSSEEEEEEEW! The Blade ship was firing at us!

"Engine number one is destroyed, Visser," Diptran said.

TSSEEEEEEEW! TSSEEEEEEEW!

"We are without propulsion, Visser."

"We are being hailed."

A human face appeared on the screen.

Tragol 1923. Security chief. He controlled Tom Berenson, the older brother of the Animorph Jake.

Tragol, the Yeerk traitor.

"You seem to be experiencing some engine trouble, Visser," Tragol said.

"Oh, I doubt it. I think the Empire will have its hands full. The Andalite fleet is rather close by. It's possible that I misled you on that point."

I was getting angry. Again. I wanted to -

Then, Tragol saw Jake. His eyes widened. "You're not dead!"

I I commented.

"Bring us around to target the Pool ship's bridge. Do it! Now! Now! Bring us around!"

A grizzly bear suddenly attacked Tragol. The Animorph named Rachel.

I looked away from the communications screen.

Chapter 30 - Rachel

The Ellimist had stopped time and told me his story.

"Answer this, Ellimist: Did I ... did I make a difference?" I wanted to know. "My life, and my ... my death ... was I worth it? Did my life really matter?"

"Yes," he replied. "You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered."

"Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then."

I wondered if -

Chapter 31 - Leela-Sirinial-Corain

"Hekliss," I said. "I'm bored."

"You're bored? People are getting killed and you're bored?!"

"Yeah. That's why I'm bored, you know? I'm worried, and it's driving me nuts, so I can't find anything to do."

"Ah. I see."

"I'm never going to get annoyed at my mom for being worried about me again. Cause now I know what it's like."

"Do you know what your mom was like while you were gone?"

"I can guess, from her reaction when I returned."

"She was going nuts. Like you said."

"I don't feel good. You know, kinda queasy. Nauseous."

"I know what you mean."

"Am I talking too much?"

"Nah. Keep talking. It distracts me. I'm worried too, you know."

"About who?"

"Well, the Animorphs. Jake and them all. But also about Esplin."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that."

"Shut up."

"What?"

"I said shut up."

"You said you wanted me to keep talking."

"Funny, Leela. Real funny."

"They're back! It's the Animorphs! And Toby!" I shouted, to anyone who could hear.

Jake. Marco. Cassie. Tobias. Ax. Toby and her friends.

"Where's Rachel?"

"She's ... " Jake broke off and was silent.

I looked at him strangely. Then it hit me. It hit me and almost knocked me over. "Oh no. Not Rachel. You serious?"

"Yeah, Leela. I'm serious."

"Did she die well?" I asked, going into the Andalite ritual for when someone dies.

Tobias and Ax answered at the same time.

"Okay. Anybody else?"

Cassie spoke up. "A lot of Hork-Bajir, including Toby's dad, Jara Hamee."

"What about Phal Mashar?" I mouthed to Toby.

"He's - he's okay," she mouthed back.

It's hard to lip-read a person with no lips. But I understood.

"The war with the Yeerks is over," Jake announced.

For lack of a better response, I said, "Cool."

Marco laughed.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing at a briefcase Jake was carrying.

"Visser One's in there," Jake said.

I barked out a laugh. Then I started giggling. Out of sheer relief. Even Esplin was all right!

But Rachel wasn't. James and his people weren't.

Wait. No. They were all right. No more killing, no more war for them. They were as all-right as they could be.

Chapter 31

Rachel's funeral was held outside. I was sad and happy at the same time. I don't want to go into details about the thing. You'll have to ask Cassie or Jake.

By the way, just in case you care, my full name is Leela Harper. Or Leela- Sirinial-Corain. Either one.

I don't mind being an Andalite anymore. The Andalites have agreed to give Yeerks and Taxxons the morphing ability. My mom is very slowly, very gradually getting nicer toward Yeerks.

Esplin still lives in a briefcase. He can morph from his Yeerk form, but he isn't doing it. I often wonder why.

My mom and my dad (yeah, he survived) and I live in a normal house again. Hekliss and Caitlyn are kind of my "adopted sisters." That's as close as I'll ever be to being a triplet. It's actually pretty cool.

I guess I've lost interest in Marco. He just doesn't seem so cute anymore. But I don't have any interest in anyone else.

Jake and Cassie? I don't know. All I know is that they're not married yet. Toby and her boyfriend? I haven't seen Phal for ages, but Toby seems okay so he can't be dead.

I asked her about Phal once. She said, "Oh, he'll come back when he's ready."

"Where'd he go?" I wanted to know.

"Well ... that's a long story."

The Yeerks and Taxxons have been given the morphing ability. They're happy with it.

The other Animorphs have been on TV. Not me. The majority of Yeerks never knew about me being an Animorph. So the name "Leela Harper" means nothing to most people. I'd like to keep it that way.

Tobias disappeared after Rachel's funeral. Aximili had been promoted to prince rank. He still says "Prince Jake" now and then, though.

Esplin had a trial. He was sentenced to, like, a thousand years in a "Yeerk box" (whatever that was) in a prison facility in Kansas.

Good grief.

"He can morph," Hekliss said. "He finally used the blue box after the Yeerk pool thing. He'll escape."

"Yeah, like when?"

"Maybe he was waiting till after the trial," she suggested. "Hoping that maybe the trial would turn out better than it did?"

I shrugged. "Maybe."

Hekliss laughed. "The Yeerk empire is history. Okay? But Catrek-Six-Four- Three says Esplin's demoted anyway."

Catrek was one of the Council of Thirteen. "Good grief," I said. "To what?"

"Visser Ten."

"Are you nuts? I'd expect, like, Visser Fifty-three or something."

"Go figure. It doesn't matter anyway. Just another thing to make Esplin mad."

"Catrek told him?"

"Yeah."

"How frustrated is he? I'm not sure I want to know."

"Not as much as you'd expect. Catrek said he was ... he wasn't happy, really, but ... Less wacko, at least.""

"Ooookay. That's weird."

Chapter 32 - Aximili

A red-tailed hawk landed on my back. I asked.

I was visiting Earth. Again.

he said, almost hesitantly.

I want an Andalite morph. I want to know what it's like to actually be an Andalite.

I considered. A few humans were letting Yeerks have their DNA. Why not Andalites?

On the other hand ...

The red-tail demorphed. He became a Yeerk six or seven inches long. He was big for a Yeerk.

I wondered why I had complied with his request. I was not entirely sure. Yet I calmly watched him acquire me as I became slow and lethargic.

he said awkwardly. He morphed back into the red-tailed hawk.

Chapter 33 - Leela Harper

Hi, it's me again.

Cassie and Jake are still not married. Neither are me and Marco. And I still don't have another boyfriend. Cassie does, though. A dude named Ronnie Chambers.

Me, I'm bored. Totally bored. I spend my days with Toby, or Hekliss, or by myself. Sometimes I go to Rachel's grave, even though I'd never been all that close to her.

"Leela," Jake said to me.

Good grief. Bad news. Whenever anyone says my name in that "statement" way, they have bad news.

"What?"

"A couple of Andalites have just been talking to me. They believe Ax is a prisoner of the Blade ship."

"What?"

"The Blade ship was accompanying an alien vessel. The Andalites think it's a Kelbrid ship, because both ships entered Kelbrid space. The Andalites have a treaty with the Kelbrid: neither can enter the other's territory."

"Yow. So, Ax is a prisoner?" Yeah, I'd finally dropped the habit of calling him Aximili. Most of the time.

"We think so. We also believe there is a Yeerk prototype ship in orbit. And we are gonna steal it, fly it into Kelbrid space, and rescue Ax."

"Count me in. Let's do it!" I said in my best Rachel imitation.

"Are you going to take over saying that now?" Marco asked. He was there too.

"Yeah, I guess. If you people don't mind. I mean, somebody has to. And I'm not a reckless wacko war-queen like Rachel, but I can handle saying 'Let's do it.'"

Jake looked sad. Marco laughed and said, "Well, you're not a reckless war- queen, but definitely wacko."

"Who's going?"

"Me. Marco. Tobias."

"Not Cassie?"

"No. I know she's had enough of war. Let her stay. And hey, how come you're not - you didn't know where Tobias was all along, did you?"

"Sure I knew. Toby knew. And Toby tells me about everything. I'm not sure why."

No, she didn't tell me everything. She was hiding something about Phal. I knew it. But Jake didn't need to know that.

"Okay."

"Why do you want me to come?"

"Well ... you know the Yeerks like no one else."

I knew that wasn't it, but I didn't say anything.

The four of us were stuffed in the front seat of a truck. And I mean stuffed.

"Tobias?" I asked. Tobias was in human morph. "Can you move over about two inches?"

"No. Marco's in the way."

"Oh, that's helpful. Marco? Can you move over - "

"No, he can't," said Jake, "because I'm in the way, and I can't move over because the door is in the way, and if I open the door I'll fall out. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Prince Jake," I teased.

A Humvee was behind us, with an Andalite-human nothlit named Menderash- something-whatever and two normal but morph-capable humans. The normal humans were Sergeant Santorelli and Jeanne Gerard.

BUMP!

"See?" Marco said. "You really should have put Jeanne up here with us. A bump like that might bruise her. I might have protected her."

Marco evidently liked Jeanne. I felt a wave of jealousy. Get over it, Leela, I told myself.

"This is going to be a problem, isn't it?" Jake asked.

"What? Me and Jeanne? No problem at all. Obviously she wants me, and what woman doesn't? So I don't see any problem at all."

"Marco."

"Yes, Jake."

"If you wanted to chase women, you should have stayed home."

"Believe me, I wish I had. I had a good life. I had it all. They're going to have to cancel my show, do you realize that? But, hey, without me who would take care of you and the winged wonder here?"

"Me," I said with a goofy grin.

"Marco, you were bored out of your mind," Jake pointed out.

"Yes, I was."

"If I hadn't asked you to come you'd have killed me."

"Yes, Jake, I would."

"But that's not going to change the fact that you'll be whining endlessly about the wonderful life you gave up, is it?"

"I really doubt it."

"Uh-huh. What's GPS say?"

"Better turn off your lights. We don't want to just drive up and look like complete amateurs."

"You mean we want to look like incomplete amateurs?" I asked.

Jake switched off the lights and killed our speed.

After a while, Marco said, "We're here."

We climbed out of the cramped truck. Jeanne, Santorelli, and Menderash stepped out of their Humvee.

"Okay, Santorelli? Jeanne?" Jake asked. "Call this your first nontraining mission. Our job is very simple but it can be easily screwed up, so pay attention. Ahead is an Andalite shuttle. There are two Andalite crew on board. They've been told to park their craft there and wait for a terrorist turncoat who will bring them vital information. Nothing else. Everything is on strict need-to-know basis."

Marco introduced himself to Jeanne. "Hi, I'm Marco. I have my own TV show."

Jake rolled his eyes. "Here's the deal: We need to take down those two Andalites but not hurt them in any serious way. Is that crystal clear? A good pop alongside the head and they'll go down. But no cutting, slashing, or stabbing. These are our allies. We want this to look real, but we don't want anyone to go to the hospital."

Everyone seemed to get it.

"Six against two," Jeanne said. "This is perhaps overkill?"

"Keel. Ovair-keel," Marco repeated. "I love your accent."

"They are Andalites." Menderash. "Six is hardly enough."

"It's all in which morph you choose," Jake told them. "Okay, tell you what, we'll do it with just two of us. Tobias? Please demorph and then to Andalite."

Marco went gorilla. Tobias distracted the Andalites so Monkey Boy could knock them out. Then we went aboard the ship.

When we reached orbit, Menderash informed Jake, "Objective locked in, Captain."

I snorted. "First it's Prince Jake, now it's Captain Jake. What's next? King Jake? Emperor Jake?"

Jake ignored me. "All right. Take us in. Let's see what she looks like."

I could see the ship. It was cool, actually, Scary like a Blade ship, but cool too. Beautiful, even.

"It looks tough enough," Marco remarked.

"It is very fast and packs a very powerful weapons array, for its size," said Menderash. "It carries no Bug fighters but does carry two small shuttlecraft. The Yeerks intended these cruiser-class ships to keep track of what they imagined would be a far-flung empire. As well as for escort duty."

"Well, it's ours now," Jake said. "Okay, Menderash. Let's go aboard."

Menderash didn't. He looked at the ship.

"What?" Jake asked.

"It's nothing, Captain. Just a custom. An Andalite custom. We always name a ship before the first crewman boards - it's an old notion, a superstition, really. The thinking is that the ship must know who it is before the crew can know it."

"Fair enough, Menderash. Our own superstition is that a ship is never an 'it,' it's always a 'she.' Even if the ship is named after a male, it's a 'she.'"

"So what do we call her?" Marco wanted to know.

Tobias.

Marco laughed out loud. "She would love it. A scary, deadly, cool-looking Yeerk ship on a doomed, suicidal, crazy mission that no one can ever know about? She would love it."

"Oh!" I said, finally getting it. "Cool. The Rachel. Perfect, huh?" I grinned at Marco.

Chapter 34

It seemed to last forever. In and out of Zero-space, me and my infinite boredom, Marco's DVDs, Menderash's annoyingness ...

Marco looked up from the computer. "Hey, Menderash - "

"Whoever thought up that name?" I muttered. "Mend her rash. Sounds stupid."

"Leela," Jake said calmly, "shut up."

" - I have a ship here and they're hailing us. That's the red numbers, right?"

Menderash walked over. "Captain, to the bridge!"

"What is it?" Marco wanted to know.

Jake appeared, looking sleepy-eyed. "What is it?"

"That was my question," Marco said.

"Ship approaching in normal space, Captain," Menderash reported. "They've hailed us. Standard inquiry: our point of origin and destination."

"Okay. Answer them."

We told them that we were the Enterprise from The United Federation of Planets.

Don't laugh. Marco and I did plenty of that later.

"Receiving response. And a request for visual, two-way communication."

I groaned.

Tobias commented.

"What do we show them?" Santorelli asked.

"Not me," Jake said. "If it's the Blade ship they may recognize me. Or Marco, or Tobias, for that matter. And we can't risk Leela, she's supposed to be 'normal'. We can't let the Yeerks see her here. Santorelli, you're the best B.S. artist aside from Marco. So you're the captain. Jeanne, you stand with him. Everyone else out of view. Narrow the audio channel to pick up Santorelli only. Okay, open communications."

A human appeared on the screen. "So, you come from the Federation, do you? And where is Captain Picard?"

"You've always thought of yourself as more of a Captain Kirk," Marco whispered.

"I've always thought of myself as more of a Captain Kirk," Santorelli confidently repeated.

"Sensor confirmation: It's the Blade ship," Menderash whispered.

The Yeerk captain nodded at Santorelli. "That's quite a ship you have there ... excuse me, I don't know your name."

"You're Rakich-Four-Six-Nine-One of the Flet Niaar Pool," Marco said. Santorelli gave the name to the Yeerks.

"I am Efflit-One-Three-One-Eight of the Sulp Niar pool. Well met. And what exactly are you doing here, brother? And how do you come to be flying a new cruiser-class ship?"

"I might ask the same of you," Santorelli replied. "I find it hard to imagine what business a ship of the Yeerk Empire has in this far-flung quadrant."

"He's powering up his weapons and bringing them to bear," Menderash reported.

"He thinks we're from the Yeerk Empire," Jake said. "Maybe here to hunt him down as a traitor."

Efflit said, "My mission here is classified."

"As is mine," Santorelli responded.

Both ships were silent for several minutes.

"We have to blink first." Jake told Santorelli what to do.

"It occurs to me, Efflit-One-Three-One-Eight, that it would be a tragedy if any misuderstanding occured here between us."

"Indeed? And what misunderstanding could occur, Rakich-Four-Six-Nine-One?"

"There is no empire. The empire is finished. I ... my crew and I seized this ship and escaped as the Andalites closed in. We had heard that the Blade ship had escaped and survived. We have been looking for you ever since. For more than three years."

"You will place yourself under control of The One?"

"The who?"

"I command this ship, but I serve at the pleasure of The One Who Is Many. The One Who Is All. We are not alone, Rakich-Four-Six-Nine-One. We are not this ship alone. We are the seeds of a new empire that will far outshine the old, under the leadership of The One."

"Um, who is this ... this One?"

"I will invoke his presence."

"Okay," Marco whispered, "this is unexpected."

"Yeah.

Me. "Way unexpected."

The communications screen went blank.

Tobias demanded.

Suddenly the screen started glowing. It lit up the whole bridge. An alien face appeared on the screen.

It was a sort of robot face at first. Buut then it changed. It almost seemed to be morphing, although less wacko than real morphing. It slowly melted into a little girl's face, and then it turned into Ax's triple-weird Andalite face.

Tobias asked.

A mouth appeared on the Andalite face.

"Ax doesn't do that," I whispered. "I'm guessing this is that One guy Efflit was talking about."

"Save your tricks for this Yeerk fool," The One said. "I see the truth. I see all. Step into view, Jake the Yeerk-Killer. I know you are there, I feel your mind."

"This guy is a cross between a Leeran and the Ellimist," Marco hissed in my ear.

"What's a Leeran? And what's an Ellimist?"

"Oh, yeah. You've never met the Ellimist. Good grief." Then to himself, "Maybe a cross between Leerans and Crayak. I don't like this guy."

Jake stepped in front of Santorelli. "I'm here."

The One stared at Jake. "You have done well to come this far. You have come to find your friend. But the Andalite is part of me now. As you will soon be."

"Bull," Marco said. "Is he insane?"

"Either that, or he's telling the truth and we are all in trouble," I replied.

"Can we shoot?" Jake asked Menderash.

"His Dracon cannon have longer range and greater power," Menderash informed him. "And his defensive fields have been enhanced. I doubt we can penetrate them."

"Thought so. But we're faster."

"Yes."

"Okay." Jake sighed. He looked around at us. Then at Marco. "What was it, Marco? 'Crazy, reckless, ruthless decisions'?"

Marco nodded. He grinned.

"Full emergency power to the engines. Ram the Blade ship."

"Let's do it!" I yelled, Rachel style.