*Chapter 2*

I was a flea on Tom's head. A flea can't see much really, just an impression of light or dark. Not my favorite morph. But if you want to hide out, unnoticed. on a human body, you can't beat the flea. And with practice you can learn to understand speech from the distant, distorted vibrations that reach your quivering antennae.

My time was coming, and I had to find a place to demorph and remorph. I fired the spring-loaded legs and catapulted into the air.

It took forever for me to fall. The first time you do it it scares the pee out of you. Falling and falling like that. Like you jumped off the moon and were falling to Earth.

I hit the deck, a fall of thousands of times my own height. Flea didn't care. Not even a bruise.

A strained voice said, "That's...that's not a waste dump. They're not dumping waste! That's the pool. The main pool. It's been flushed."

There was an audible gasp from several voices. The human-controllers and Hork-Bajir-controllers who were Tom's bridge crew.

"Sensors showing...it's our people. Sixteen thousand...maybe seventeen thousand."

Tom cut in harshly. "It saves us the trouble of killing them ourselves." Then, in an undertone, "But why? Why would the visser flush...what does this mean?"

It means Jake's alive, Tommy boy. You'll figure it out in a minute, but I'm guessing it will be too late.

Away from blood. That's where I had to go. The flea's senses were all attuned to the warm scent of blood. But that scent represented danger to me now, and I hopped away, each bounding leap the equivalent of a human jumping over the Grand Canyon. Try getting a flea morph to move away from blood. Amazing how much resistance you can get from a brain that's about ten cells big.

I felt shade. Absence of light. Distance from vibration. No scent of blood.

Was I in a safe place? Surely not, but maybe safe enough.

I began a slow, cautious demorph.

I heard a yell.

"The Pool ship is preparing to fire!"

"Hard left!" Tom yelled.

A moment later, Tom laughed. "The visser's lost maneuvering ability. The Pool ship handles like a drunken Gedd at the best of times, and now look at it."

Someone else reported, "His Dracon cannon is powering down. I show his reserves at less than ten percent."

"Are they? Well, well," Tom said. "Hail the visser. On screen."

I was halfway demorphed. I was a hideous creature made up of armored plating and prickly legs and human flesh spreading across me like a wave. The sickest imagination could not conjure up the true creepiness of a half-flea human. Human eyes, my own eyes, bulged from an insect face.

I could see. Not well, confused, distorted, my visual cortex still more flea than human. I was still on the bridge of the Blade ship. I was actually crouched beneath an unoccupied control station. It was like hiding under a desk. Fortunately it was designed for a Hork-Bajir, so there was some room.

I saw the viewscreen light up. I saw Visser One's Andalite face. It was different. There was a dull look in his usually aggressive eyes, a slackness in the normally tensed body.

"You seem to be experiencing some engine trouble, Visser," Tom gloated.

I was completely demorphed now. There would be no room for me to morph all the way to grizzly and stay concealed. Every eye on the bridge was watching the screen, but a seven-foot bear looming up would definitely attract attention.

I started the morph. If it turned out I wasn't needed, then it would be fatally stupid of me. But I had no real doubt.

Visser One said, The Empire will track you down and kill you, you do understand, I hope?

"Oh, I doubt it. I think the Empire will have its hands full," Tom said cheerfully. "The Andalite fleet is rather close by. It's possible that I misled you on that point."

He was all but giggling.

Then, the viewscreen widened out and he saw, and I saw, the lithe Bengal tiger standing near the visser.

Tobias was there too.

Tom saw the tiger and knew it was Jake and knew in that split second that he had been outmaneuvered, outfought. He took a step back, like he'd been punched. "You're not dead!" he cried.

I noticed the same thing, Visser One said dryly.

Tom yelled, "Bring us around to target the Pool ship's bridge. Do it! Now! Now! Bring us around!"

At that moment I could have morphed to elephant without being noticed. Tom's panic was infectious. They all knew they'd been had.

But they didn't know how. Tom's reaction was pure instinct: shoot. He'd forgotten that the Pool ship was helpless. The sight of Jake -- who should be dead -- standing there, with the other Animorphs, standing there alive and apparently in control of the Pool ship...all Tom could think of was shooting.

The danger was closer than that.

Jake looked at me. Like he knew I was watching.

Rachel, he said. Go.

Rachel... Tobias said.

I know, Tobias. I know. I said.

I was still not completely morphed when someone shrieked. "Animorph!"

After all these years of the Yeerks thinking we were Andalites, always yelling "Andalite!" whenever they saw a morph. It was strangely gratifying that at last they knew who we were.

I said, That's right, genius: Animorph.

I did what I do better than anyone. What Jake counted on me to do.

I attacked.