Chapter 10
I don't know how, but I'd lost the others. When Jake had told me to morph something more dangerous, I landed in the alien forest and instantly morphed Hork-Bajir. The Hork-Bajir knew how to move through woodland. Blades situated perfectly all over the body would cut vines and strip shrubs even before they got in my way. Still, I had made a mistake landing too deep into the forest. Morphing took up time and rushing through the undergrowth took up even more time. Insects as big as my Hork-Bajir head reared up as I ran past. Birds took flight in terror. Mammals of strange shapes moved out of the path I was making through the forest. I was making so much noise crashing through the vegetation I was surprised the Kelbrid's didn't hear me coming. I mean, let's face it, Hork-Bajir might be made for fighting, but they aren't going to be the next James Bond.
I emerged into the clearing to find it deserted. The buildings were still there obviously, but there was no sign of life anywhere. Dead Kelbrid bodies lay strewn on the floor, some with body parts missing. Ok, that was good. That meant my friends had put up a good fight, but there were so many Kelbrid...I doubted that they could have held them all off. But, looking around again, I saw no other, living Kelbrids. That was a good sign too. Maybe, after defeating them all, Jake and the others retreated into the forest, thinking there were more on the way.
I stepped over a dead Kelbrid with puncture wounds in its neck and headed back towards the forest when something caught my eye. A trail of footprints in the soft dirt just before the forest began. I moved closer, my heart pounding, dreading what footprints they could have been. But, looking closer, I realised they were the big footprints of a gorilla and the footprints of a tiger. The tiger's footprints had blood trailing of them.
I looked to where the footprints led. There was some sort of trail in the forest as if some large, jungle animal had barged its way through without hesitation. My friends had obviously fled into the forest, with at least Jake injured, probably Marco and the others too. Something had caused them to run. What was it? Another wave of Kelbrid that they couldn't hold off? Something else?
Think Tobias, think, I scolded myself. You're the predator here!
No, it couldn't have been the Kelbrids, I told myself. There would have been Kelbrid footprints leading off into the forest after my friends, and I couldn't see any. So what was it that had spooked my fellow Animorphs?
I started walking into the forest. Movement would be easier now, since a trail had already been created for me. I wouldn't have to stop slightly to destroy a log in my path or a tangle of vines.
I had gone no more than two hundred metres, when I heard something.
'Tobias...' it choked.
A human. Male. Was it one of us? Jake, Marco? Santorelli, Menderash? I looked desperately around, being careful with my tail as I swung in a circle, looking for the source of the noise.
Who is it? I called out. Where are you?
'Tobias...over here!' the voice said, more loudly as if the person was gaining enough strength to shout.
I saw movement perhaps ten metres off the trail and rushed towards it. It was Menderash, his clothes torn and a nasty gash on the back of his right leg.
'Menderash, what are you doing here?' I asked, speaking normally. 'Where are the others?'
Menderash looked up at my fierce Hork-Bajir face and swallowed. 'We were fighting the Kelbrid,' he replied, starting slowly, but picking up speed. 'We were winning, but then a ship appeared from one of the buildings and tried to hunt us down. We ran into the forest. The ship shot at us, missed, but the ground exploded and shrapnel went flying into my leg. I can walk but only just. Jake said they couldn't wait for me and told me to wait in the forest until you came. He said you'd probably be in your Hork-Bajir morph. The others ran off deeper into the forest.'
I took a deep breath. Things weren't going too well. Here we were, separated. Me, in Hork-Bajir morph, Menderash, a nothlit was injured. The other group was being hunted by a ship that was thousands of times faster than they were. The trees would provide them with some shelter, but sooner or later, they'd become too tired to run any further and the ship would easily finish them off. They were probably already dead.
No, don't think about that, I told myself. They could be alive, trying to find a way of destroying the ship.
Fat chance, I argued.
They could be. We–Menderash and I—should find a way of helping them, I told myself. We can...erm...
'Menderash, are there any ships back at the Kelbrid base?' I asked. 'If so, will you be able to fly one?'
'Of course,' Menderash said weakly, forcing a smile. 'The ships may be strange and difficult to control, and I may have damaged my leg, but I am an Andalite pilot inside, and I have yet to meet a ship I cannot fly.'
It was a good speech for a wounded man. 'Ok, then, let's go,' I said, feeling like Jake did whenever he would give out an order. People might not think his orders were the best, but nobody questioned them. They followed them and if things went wrong, Jake would muse over it, thinking he was a bad leader. When, of course, he wasn't. Out of all the original Animorphs, I still would have picked Jake as the leader, even if I knew he would order Rachel to her death beforehand. Nobody could have got this far without Jake. He was the one who held us together. Sure, we'd lost Rachel, we'd lost Ax. Cassie was still on earth, but without Jake, we'd all be dead by now.
'You'll have to carry me,' Menderash said. 'I can walk, but only slowly and we need to get there as fast as possible.'
I nodded my Hork-Bajir head. I carefully lifted Menderash up and hoisted him over my shoulders, making sure I didn't hurt him with any of my blades. I think I nicked him with an elbow blade as I shoved him up. I saw blood dripping down onto my arm. Menderash didn't complain.
With Menderash safely secure on my shoulders, I ran back the way we came, barrelling through undergrowth and pushing through low-hanging vines. I skidded into the clearing and glanced around. 'Where are the ships?' I asked.
I saw Menderash point to a large building with the door swung open. Yet from the angle I was at, I couldn't see what was inside the building. I moved towards it, when, from the sky, came a flash of light.
'Is that the ship that chased you?' I asked, pointing up at the sky, where the flash moved rapidly above us. It didn't seem too low down. In fact, it seemed like it was way up in the atmosphere. It was coming closer, no mistaking that for anything else.
Menderash looked up and over my shoulder, saw him frown. 'No, that can't be,' he answered, looking slightly confused. 'That ship looks like it has just entered the planet's atmosphere and is looking for somewhere to land. Plus it is much smaller than the ship that pursued us. It looks no bigger than a car.'
'Whatever it is, it's getting closer,' I interrupted, leaping forward towards the large building, my Hork-Bajir hearts hammering away in my chest. 'Let's get outta here!'
I've seen so many ships. But, the one image that sticks in my mind is the ship that crashed landed in the construction site that fateful night many years ago. I saw it coming closer, until it was directly above it. That ship changed our lives forever. Now, I knew this ship obviously couldn't change my life, but still, deep down, it scared me. Who knew what was on that ship? Who knew what danger, or warning, it would give us?
I raced into the building, Menderash bouncing on my shoulder behind me. The room was large and dark. The part that we walked into was like some sort of platform that was raised six metres above the floor of the building, which was obviously in the 'basement'. The platform went all around the room with walkways stretching across the openings. I saw three areas where ships would be cradled. Two areas were empty. The other was occupied by a strange, bus-sized, pickaxe-shaped ship. The bridge was obviously the 'axe' part, the 'handle' stretched down below the platform and probably contained the engines and weapons. I started to run across a rickety walkway towards it, but Menderash's call stopped me dead.
'Check the ship out first,' he said suddenly. 'Leave me here for a few seconds, and look around the ship to make sure its empty. There could be Kelbrid doing maintenance inside. Your Hork-Bajir morph should be strong enough to deal with any problems.'
'I can't leave you here on your own,' I protested.
See, this is the difference between orders from your 'prince' and orders from fellow subordinates. If my prince had ordered me to leave him there, I would have done. No protesting. No arguments. But this person, this Andalite-nothlit was not my prince, he was a person I had known for a year and shared a small, cramped ship with. If Menderash told me to abandon him, there was no way I would listen to that order.
'Leave me and search the ship,' Menderash repeated. 'You'll be dragged down if you have to battle a Kelbrid. You might lose.'
'You might die if I leave you out here,' I protested.
'We might both die if we both go in there,' Menderash argued. 'Which would you prefer?'
Yeah, Ok, Menderash did have a point. I didn't want both of us to die. 'Stay here and don't move,' I instructed. 'I'll be right back.'
I moved as quietly as my Hork-Bajir body could towards the ship. It seemed too ungainly to be able to move fast, but it was so thin, beams had little chance of actually hitting it. It wouldn't be a bad ship to fly, I decided. The door from the walkway into the ship was open. Not a good sign. That meant someone was already inside, someone had been inside but had left for a tea-break or something or the third option, someone had been inside, but had been scared out.
I poked my head into the doorway. No one seemed to be about. There was no movement, I could hear anything and I couldn't smell anything. I stepped cautiously inside. I was in a tiny room with two doors. One door undoubtedly led into the bridge. The other door was open, revealing a dropshaft, a kind of floorless lift used for getting from one floor to another. I stepped fully into the room, when it happened...
The door that I had just walked into slammed shut, narrowly missing my tail. I spun around, my tail blade gouging the wall as I did so. 'What the...?'
Who had shut the door? There had been nobody outside to shut the door, apart from Menderash...Menderash! Was he Ok? My puzzlement quickly transformed into terror, but not terror for me, mostly for Menderash outside. My hearts started beating again and I noticed some sort of chemical was being pumped around my body, gearing me for action. A bit with human adrenaline, only for Hork-Bajir.
I had to get to the bridge. There was a large window there that I could look out of. I pushed open the door and emerged into a large, open room. There were little consoles and computers and no seats. I mean, do you expect overgrown chickens to sit down? I rushed over to the window and looked out. My scared Hork-Bajir expression instantly turned back to confusion as I saw Menderash standing calmly on the platform. I could see nobody else.
'Menderash, what's going on?' I asked loudly.
There was no reply. I practically slapped my forehead. 'Of course he can't reply, he can't hear you,' I told myself out loud.
Menderash, what's going on? I repeated, this time in thought-speak.
He looked towards me with a strange expression. It wasn't an expression I had seen on his face before. Andalites in human morph don't use a variety of expressions. But this was certainly an expression, and not a comforting one as well. It was an expression of cruelty and malevolence.
What's going on? he asked innocently. Why, you've just walked into a trap, Animorph. Don't you recognise a human-Controller when you see one?
I jerked backwards. What was he talking about...? Menderash wasn't a controller. How could he be?
You're a controller? I choked out, feeling my Hork-Bajir throat clogging up with a variety of emotions.
Very clever, you're catching on.
Ok, this was strange. Menderash couldn't have been a controller on the trip. Yeerks need to visit the Yeerk pool every three days to soak up Kandrona rays and he simply couldn't have done that on the journey. For one, there wasn't a Yeerk pool there for him to enter and for two, we'd have noticed and starved the Yeerk out of him. Something about this situation didn't make sense.
Since when have you been a controller? I asked casually, pretending I wasn't affected by any of this and that I could easily get myself out of this mess if I wanted to.
Since Jake left me in the forest, was the reply. If Jake hadn't told my host body to wait behind, we wouldn't have found him and we wouldn't have made him a controller. It's all Jake's fault, isn't it?
So. It all bubbled down to Jake. Again. Everything seemed to be his fault lately. The death of Rachel. The death of Tom. Our near-death experience with the Blade ship. The capture of Menderash....All Jake's fault.
I felt rage boiling up inside me. I could feel anger towards Jake, towards my 'prince'....It wasn't nice. No one wants to be angry at their leader. Even if he did make too many mistakes and leave people for dead in an alien forest.
I've got to go now, but I'll leave you in the presence of my leader, Menderash said, cutting short my rage. Unlike your leader, he doesn't make mistakes.
Menderash turned and left the building as something shimmered and began to materialise out of middair. It was like those really hot days where you see hot air rising from concrete and cars. It was like that. Except, something was forming out of those shimmers. I saw dainty, blue legs ending in hooves. I saw a wicked, scorpion tail. I saw weak, many-fingered hands. And I saw those stalk-eyes that swivelled in every direction.
My friend, Aximili. Except there was a mouth rimmed in ugly, red teeth were there should not have been. This was no longer my friend. This was something with much, much more malice and cruelty than my friend Ax could ever have possessed. This was something much more evil.
The One!
I don't know how, but I'd lost the others. When Jake had told me to morph something more dangerous, I landed in the alien forest and instantly morphed Hork-Bajir. The Hork-Bajir knew how to move through woodland. Blades situated perfectly all over the body would cut vines and strip shrubs even before they got in my way. Still, I had made a mistake landing too deep into the forest. Morphing took up time and rushing through the undergrowth took up even more time. Insects as big as my Hork-Bajir head reared up as I ran past. Birds took flight in terror. Mammals of strange shapes moved out of the path I was making through the forest. I was making so much noise crashing through the vegetation I was surprised the Kelbrid's didn't hear me coming. I mean, let's face it, Hork-Bajir might be made for fighting, but they aren't going to be the next James Bond.
I emerged into the clearing to find it deserted. The buildings were still there obviously, but there was no sign of life anywhere. Dead Kelbrid bodies lay strewn on the floor, some with body parts missing. Ok, that was good. That meant my friends had put up a good fight, but there were so many Kelbrid...I doubted that they could have held them all off. But, looking around again, I saw no other, living Kelbrids. That was a good sign too. Maybe, after defeating them all, Jake and the others retreated into the forest, thinking there were more on the way.
I stepped over a dead Kelbrid with puncture wounds in its neck and headed back towards the forest when something caught my eye. A trail of footprints in the soft dirt just before the forest began. I moved closer, my heart pounding, dreading what footprints they could have been. But, looking closer, I realised they were the big footprints of a gorilla and the footprints of a tiger. The tiger's footprints had blood trailing of them.
I looked to where the footprints led. There was some sort of trail in the forest as if some large, jungle animal had barged its way through without hesitation. My friends had obviously fled into the forest, with at least Jake injured, probably Marco and the others too. Something had caused them to run. What was it? Another wave of Kelbrid that they couldn't hold off? Something else?
Think Tobias, think, I scolded myself. You're the predator here!
No, it couldn't have been the Kelbrids, I told myself. There would have been Kelbrid footprints leading off into the forest after my friends, and I couldn't see any. So what was it that had spooked my fellow Animorphs?
I started walking into the forest. Movement would be easier now, since a trail had already been created for me. I wouldn't have to stop slightly to destroy a log in my path or a tangle of vines.
I had gone no more than two hundred metres, when I heard something.
'Tobias...' it choked.
A human. Male. Was it one of us? Jake, Marco? Santorelli, Menderash? I looked desperately around, being careful with my tail as I swung in a circle, looking for the source of the noise.
Who is it? I called out. Where are you?
'Tobias...over here!' the voice said, more loudly as if the person was gaining enough strength to shout.
I saw movement perhaps ten metres off the trail and rushed towards it. It was Menderash, his clothes torn and a nasty gash on the back of his right leg.
'Menderash, what are you doing here?' I asked, speaking normally. 'Where are the others?'
Menderash looked up at my fierce Hork-Bajir face and swallowed. 'We were fighting the Kelbrid,' he replied, starting slowly, but picking up speed. 'We were winning, but then a ship appeared from one of the buildings and tried to hunt us down. We ran into the forest. The ship shot at us, missed, but the ground exploded and shrapnel went flying into my leg. I can walk but only just. Jake said they couldn't wait for me and told me to wait in the forest until you came. He said you'd probably be in your Hork-Bajir morph. The others ran off deeper into the forest.'
I took a deep breath. Things weren't going too well. Here we were, separated. Me, in Hork-Bajir morph, Menderash, a nothlit was injured. The other group was being hunted by a ship that was thousands of times faster than they were. The trees would provide them with some shelter, but sooner or later, they'd become too tired to run any further and the ship would easily finish them off. They were probably already dead.
No, don't think about that, I told myself. They could be alive, trying to find a way of destroying the ship.
Fat chance, I argued.
They could be. We–Menderash and I—should find a way of helping them, I told myself. We can...erm...
'Menderash, are there any ships back at the Kelbrid base?' I asked. 'If so, will you be able to fly one?'
'Of course,' Menderash said weakly, forcing a smile. 'The ships may be strange and difficult to control, and I may have damaged my leg, but I am an Andalite pilot inside, and I have yet to meet a ship I cannot fly.'
It was a good speech for a wounded man. 'Ok, then, let's go,' I said, feeling like Jake did whenever he would give out an order. People might not think his orders were the best, but nobody questioned them. They followed them and if things went wrong, Jake would muse over it, thinking he was a bad leader. When, of course, he wasn't. Out of all the original Animorphs, I still would have picked Jake as the leader, even if I knew he would order Rachel to her death beforehand. Nobody could have got this far without Jake. He was the one who held us together. Sure, we'd lost Rachel, we'd lost Ax. Cassie was still on earth, but without Jake, we'd all be dead by now.
'You'll have to carry me,' Menderash said. 'I can walk, but only slowly and we need to get there as fast as possible.'
I nodded my Hork-Bajir head. I carefully lifted Menderash up and hoisted him over my shoulders, making sure I didn't hurt him with any of my blades. I think I nicked him with an elbow blade as I shoved him up. I saw blood dripping down onto my arm. Menderash didn't complain.
With Menderash safely secure on my shoulders, I ran back the way we came, barrelling through undergrowth and pushing through low-hanging vines. I skidded into the clearing and glanced around. 'Where are the ships?' I asked.
I saw Menderash point to a large building with the door swung open. Yet from the angle I was at, I couldn't see what was inside the building. I moved towards it, when, from the sky, came a flash of light.
'Is that the ship that chased you?' I asked, pointing up at the sky, where the flash moved rapidly above us. It didn't seem too low down. In fact, it seemed like it was way up in the atmosphere. It was coming closer, no mistaking that for anything else.
Menderash looked up and over my shoulder, saw him frown. 'No, that can't be,' he answered, looking slightly confused. 'That ship looks like it has just entered the planet's atmosphere and is looking for somewhere to land. Plus it is much smaller than the ship that pursued us. It looks no bigger than a car.'
'Whatever it is, it's getting closer,' I interrupted, leaping forward towards the large building, my Hork-Bajir hearts hammering away in my chest. 'Let's get outta here!'
I've seen so many ships. But, the one image that sticks in my mind is the ship that crashed landed in the construction site that fateful night many years ago. I saw it coming closer, until it was directly above it. That ship changed our lives forever. Now, I knew this ship obviously couldn't change my life, but still, deep down, it scared me. Who knew what was on that ship? Who knew what danger, or warning, it would give us?
I raced into the building, Menderash bouncing on my shoulder behind me. The room was large and dark. The part that we walked into was like some sort of platform that was raised six metres above the floor of the building, which was obviously in the 'basement'. The platform went all around the room with walkways stretching across the openings. I saw three areas where ships would be cradled. Two areas were empty. The other was occupied by a strange, bus-sized, pickaxe-shaped ship. The bridge was obviously the 'axe' part, the 'handle' stretched down below the platform and probably contained the engines and weapons. I started to run across a rickety walkway towards it, but Menderash's call stopped me dead.
'Check the ship out first,' he said suddenly. 'Leave me here for a few seconds, and look around the ship to make sure its empty. There could be Kelbrid doing maintenance inside. Your Hork-Bajir morph should be strong enough to deal with any problems.'
'I can't leave you here on your own,' I protested.
See, this is the difference between orders from your 'prince' and orders from fellow subordinates. If my prince had ordered me to leave him there, I would have done. No protesting. No arguments. But this person, this Andalite-nothlit was not my prince, he was a person I had known for a year and shared a small, cramped ship with. If Menderash told me to abandon him, there was no way I would listen to that order.
'Leave me and search the ship,' Menderash repeated. 'You'll be dragged down if you have to battle a Kelbrid. You might lose.'
'You might die if I leave you out here,' I protested.
'We might both die if we both go in there,' Menderash argued. 'Which would you prefer?'
Yeah, Ok, Menderash did have a point. I didn't want both of us to die. 'Stay here and don't move,' I instructed. 'I'll be right back.'
I moved as quietly as my Hork-Bajir body could towards the ship. It seemed too ungainly to be able to move fast, but it was so thin, beams had little chance of actually hitting it. It wouldn't be a bad ship to fly, I decided. The door from the walkway into the ship was open. Not a good sign. That meant someone was already inside, someone had been inside but had left for a tea-break or something or the third option, someone had been inside, but had been scared out.
I poked my head into the doorway. No one seemed to be about. There was no movement, I could hear anything and I couldn't smell anything. I stepped cautiously inside. I was in a tiny room with two doors. One door undoubtedly led into the bridge. The other door was open, revealing a dropshaft, a kind of floorless lift used for getting from one floor to another. I stepped fully into the room, when it happened...
The door that I had just walked into slammed shut, narrowly missing my tail. I spun around, my tail blade gouging the wall as I did so. 'What the...?'
Who had shut the door? There had been nobody outside to shut the door, apart from Menderash...Menderash! Was he Ok? My puzzlement quickly transformed into terror, but not terror for me, mostly for Menderash outside. My hearts started beating again and I noticed some sort of chemical was being pumped around my body, gearing me for action. A bit with human adrenaline, only for Hork-Bajir.
I had to get to the bridge. There was a large window there that I could look out of. I pushed open the door and emerged into a large, open room. There were little consoles and computers and no seats. I mean, do you expect overgrown chickens to sit down? I rushed over to the window and looked out. My scared Hork-Bajir expression instantly turned back to confusion as I saw Menderash standing calmly on the platform. I could see nobody else.
'Menderash, what's going on?' I asked loudly.
There was no reply. I practically slapped my forehead. 'Of course he can't reply, he can't hear you,' I told myself out loud.
Menderash, what's going on? I repeated, this time in thought-speak.
He looked towards me with a strange expression. It wasn't an expression I had seen on his face before. Andalites in human morph don't use a variety of expressions. But this was certainly an expression, and not a comforting one as well. It was an expression of cruelty and malevolence.
What's going on? he asked innocently. Why, you've just walked into a trap, Animorph. Don't you recognise a human-Controller when you see one?
I jerked backwards. What was he talking about...? Menderash wasn't a controller. How could he be?
You're a controller? I choked out, feeling my Hork-Bajir throat clogging up with a variety of emotions.
Very clever, you're catching on.
Ok, this was strange. Menderash couldn't have been a controller on the trip. Yeerks need to visit the Yeerk pool every three days to soak up Kandrona rays and he simply couldn't have done that on the journey. For one, there wasn't a Yeerk pool there for him to enter and for two, we'd have noticed and starved the Yeerk out of him. Something about this situation didn't make sense.
Since when have you been a controller? I asked casually, pretending I wasn't affected by any of this and that I could easily get myself out of this mess if I wanted to.
Since Jake left me in the forest, was the reply. If Jake hadn't told my host body to wait behind, we wouldn't have found him and we wouldn't have made him a controller. It's all Jake's fault, isn't it?
So. It all bubbled down to Jake. Again. Everything seemed to be his fault lately. The death of Rachel. The death of Tom. Our near-death experience with the Blade ship. The capture of Menderash....All Jake's fault.
I felt rage boiling up inside me. I could feel anger towards Jake, towards my 'prince'....It wasn't nice. No one wants to be angry at their leader. Even if he did make too many mistakes and leave people for dead in an alien forest.
I've got to go now, but I'll leave you in the presence of my leader, Menderash said, cutting short my rage. Unlike your leader, he doesn't make mistakes.
Menderash turned and left the building as something shimmered and began to materialise out of middair. It was like those really hot days where you see hot air rising from concrete and cars. It was like that. Except, something was forming out of those shimmers. I saw dainty, blue legs ending in hooves. I saw a wicked, scorpion tail. I saw weak, many-fingered hands. And I saw those stalk-eyes that swivelled in every direction.
My friend, Aximili. Except there was a mouth rimmed in ugly, red teeth were there should not have been. This was no longer my friend. This was something with much, much more malice and cruelty than my friend Ax could ever have possessed. This was something much more evil.
The One!
