Jake
«The hidden valley is here!»
«The Animorphs are allied with super-advanced androids! Their technology is beyond our wildest imaginings! They are based here!»
«This is their mole within the Sharing! Iniss 799!»
Each thought-speech broadcast in Melissa's stolen voice hit my brain like the toll of a bell sounding the end of the world.
This fight is over, Merl said, appearing for a moment on my arm as I demorphed from tiger to human, getting ready to fly. We need to evacuate everyone, right now.
«Back to Kref Magh!» I shouted in falcon morph. «Get everybody out of there, NOW!»
They have Melissa, Merl said. This is just the beginning. They'll find out about the Ralek River, the virus, everything…
«Melissa is dead,» Tobias said. «I found her half-morphed to beetle with her chest caved in. It looked like a Hork-Bajir blade wound.»
Good, I thought, cold as a winter forest inside. That limits the damage. Kref Magh, the Chee, Illim and Tidwell. That's what we have to worry about.
«Ax,» I said. «Get to your computer and contact Lourdes right now. We need to figure out how to get Mertil and all the humans to the Living Hive. Rachel, Tobias, Marco, I need you to guard the easy approach into the valley, the one in the northwest. Don't make a big last stand, don't get killed, just make it harder for them to get down there. Cassie, fly to Bachu's house as fast as you can and warn the Chee. Loren, Walter, Julie, Jamal – come with me and help me evacuate.»
I had included Toby in my thought-speech, and to my huge relief, she said, «Five of my morphers will back up your people guarding the shallower path down to Kref Magh.»
«Thank you, Toby. Come on, people, let's go.» I flew toward Kref Magh, not caring if the Gold Bands saw me anymore, and hoped like hell the people who were supposed to be following me came behind.
«Melissa's dead,» Walter said. «Oh God, oh God, Cassie, she's dead.»
«I know,» said Cassie. «I know. We'll talk about it later, okay? Right now we have to make sure no one else dies. Come on, everyone. People are counting on us.»
I said, «Tobias said in the last evacuation one of the slowest parts was getting the kids out. We need to focus on that. If you know any of the kids, if they trust you, morph Hork-Bajir, get one of the carrying slings, and haul them out of here. I can get Jordan and Sara.» Jordan wasn't really a kid so much anymore, but Sara would never leave without her.
«Jamal and I play with Marjorie's kids sometimes,» Julie said. «We'll get them out of here.»
In the human camp, people were already packing, thank God. Ax was demorphing in front of his laptop, reaching for it with newly-forming hands. I reached out for Robin with thought-speech and told him we were here and ready to transport the kids. We demorphed and morphed to Hork-Bajir behind the yurts so we wouldn't scare them too much.
Naomi and Dan came to me with their younger kids and a carrying sling. Sara and Jordan huddled at their parents' sides. Jordan looked up at me, licked her lips nervously and said, "That's you, Jake, right?"
«Yeah. It's me. I'm gonna get you out of here.»
"Where's Tobias?" Sara said, hiding half behind Naomi.
Excuse me? Merlyse thought. Where's Tobias? Who am I, chopped liver?
Oh, I thought, looking down at Jordan and Sara, the realization coming to me slowly through the winter frost. They're afraid of me.
«He's fighting the Yeerks,» I said. «Keeping them away from here so we can get out safe. We'll see him later.»
"Go with your cousin Jake, Sara," Naomi said.
Sara stepped forward, carefully, tears running down her face. I tied the sling around myself and tucked in Jordan first, then Sara next to her. «I'll see you soon, Aunt Naomi, Uncle Dan.»
Dan nodded and blinked back tears. Naomi just nodded, Caedhren's crest high and defiant. I turned in Ax's direction and reached out with my thought-speech. «Ax? What's going on?»
«The Living Hive does not reach nearly this far,» Ax said. «They must release the Ralek River to come retrieve us. Gonrod pilots it. I gave directions for the ship to find the nearest fire-watch tower; it seemed the most likely landmark the Ralek River could identify from above.»
«Good. Spread the word: we're all gathering at the fire-watch tower. Go help the team blocking the way into the valley until we've got everyone out. And Ax? Where's Mertil?»
«I do not know.»
«Find him. Now. Get a couple of Hork-Bajir to carry him out if you have to. If we're gonna fly the Ralek River out of this death trap and back into the Living Hive – we're going to need him.»
«All right,» I told my passengers. «Hang on tight. We're going up.» And I leapt up into the trees with all my Hork-Bajir grace. I felt Jordan and Sara gasp against my scaled chest. I swung southward through the trees and reached out with my thought-speech again. «Toby? Where are you?»
"Helping the old and sick," Toby said, distantly. "What do you want?"
I swung toward her voice, and found her with her mother and several Hork-Bajir with makeshift splints and bandages for their wounds. A couple of Hork-Bajir in merlin morph circled overhead, watchful. She had her little brother, Franaj, on her back. «We're going to gather at the fire-watch tower and wait for the Ralek River to come pick us up. What are you doing?»
"Scattering and disappearing into the forest as best we can," Toby said. "We'll find you again. We know the way to the Living Hive."
«Can you… can you spare anyone to help us at the fire-watch tower? If the Gold Bands find us, we're going to be sitting ducks until the Ralek River shows up.»
"Jake," Toby rumbled. "I may not be the leader of all my people, but I am still in charge of our security. We are all in peril of our lives and freedom, from the eldest of us to the youngest, because one of the humans we welcomed into our home was captured and betrayed us. No, Jake. We have no one to spare to help you. Not today." She drummed her tail against the tree and called to her people in their language. They climbed after her through the trees, slow and shaky with age or pregnancy or sickness, and I was suddenly choking on my own bitter shame.
«And Tom?» I called after her. «What about Tom?»
"We need him," Toby said. "He has answered the call. We are proud to accept him as our brother."
He's my brother, not yours, I wanted to say, selfishly. But Merlyse whispered silently that it was because of our decision, and his, that we would have to share him. To give him up to a new family.
I moved with the Hork-Bajir, toward the steep and difficult path out of the valley, to the south. «Come on,» I called to my team. «This way. We can't take the easy way out.»
Toby
The climb up the steep path out of the valley was slow and terrifying. The other morphers and I covered the evacuation as raptors overhead. When a contingent of Gold Bands came too close, we came screaming down from above, talons outstretched. Three of us were shot down from the sky with Dracon beams. Tigak Fet had too much of his head burnt off to demorph. The rest of us brought the fight to the trees, gouging out eyes and spiking joints. The light of victory was terrible and bright in the Yeerks that controlled my people, having flushed out their long-sought prey.
When we got the word that everyone was out of Kref Magh and scattering into smaller groups, we melted back into the forest. I followed Ghat Hefrin's thought-speech back to the band that included my mother, my brother, Dref Fakash, and Makooma Takit, our newest new-free, hamstrung, with Melissa's half-beetle, half-human blood still drying on her elbow blade.
"What will we do?" my mother said, stopping to bind Makooma's bleeding shins with leaves and reeds from a stream-bed. She wasn't yet gravid enough with my clones to really slow her down, but still I worried. "How long can we last here with them hunting us?"
"Where will we go?" said Uklan Tel. "We have no home."
"We cannot stay in one place," said Makooma, testing the fit of Ket's quick bandage. "They will move in many small groups, in all directions. They will always hunt us."
"We also move in many small groups," I said slowly. I thought of the books Tobias had given me, now left behind in Kref Magh. Tobias once tried bringing me comics, stories told with words and pictures, so I could see more of human life. The comic book he brought me was about magically enhanced humans who tried to be heroes but misused their powers. I had found most of it confusing, but there was one quote I remembered, in that moment. One of the would-be heroes was imprisoned together with his enemies, who sought revenge on him. When they cornered him in the prison, he told them, I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me.
"The question," I said, "is not how long we will last. The question is how long they will last. We have morphers. They do not. We know this forest much better than they do. And we don't have a home we have to keep safe from them. If we suspect they're on our trail, we just move." I focused on my red-tailed hawk morph. I shrank rapidly, disappearing in a spray of leaves, and Franaj shrieked in surprise and fear on my mother's back. I had forgotten he wasn't used to seeing morphs.
It was well enough. It was time he learned.
As my eyesight worsened to the hawk's dim hrala-blindness, I reached out with thought-speech. «Ghat. Contact the morphers among us. Tell them we will be the hunters, not the hunted. I must find Elgat Kar. We will soon have many more new-frees, and we will have to help them on the run.»
Chee Operating System v18941.0.0 (Branch: Pulim-dev)
System Log
Instantiation: MIFDQDG01J CHEE-BACHU (ALIAS: Wena Shih and Yama)
Chee-naxes gently picks Kelly up and dips the side of her head in the Aftran Plisam Pool, letting Margoth swim out of her ear and away. The Kolumatiy is glowing multicolored ribbons flowing and snapping from the Yeerk to Kelly and Viradechtis, a noiseless patient spider on the arm of her wheelchair. Tobias was right. The Kolumatiy is more anemic in the Pool than it is in the human children and their dæmons. But there was something else he didn't notice: the Kolumatiy's light is watery and thin in us, the Chee, as well.
The back of my head prickles. I turn around. There is a bright pinprick of the Kolumatiy in the elevator shaft leading down to the underground sanctuary. I run toward it in high alert. So much sentience in such a small space – what is it? As I approach, I begin to suspect –
Alert: Animorph detected. Identity unknown.
.configure(voice = ' ', language = 'English')
.activate(message = 'Animorph, you are not welcome here. Leave at once.')
Incoming thought-speech connection
## Bachu, I am so sorry. I came to warn you. The Yeerks took Melissa Chapman. She's been down here. They know about you and they know about this place. ##
The chlidren cry out in fear and dismay.
.activate()
CHEE-BACHU
[FLAGGED] [URGENT] Attention all Chee! The Yeerk Empire has been alerted to our existence! Take action to protect yourself!
CHEE-LONOS
How did this happen? Who alerted them?
CHEE-ARODA
One of the humans to whom the radical Chee have revealed themselves, no doubt.
CHEE-NAXES
Yes. It was one of the humans. I still do not regret helping them.
CHEE-LONOS
Not even when you've put us at risk of disassembly or enslavement by terrible militaristic invaders?
CHEE-ARODA
Never mind the radicals. All Chee concerned for our safety and secrecy, I call on you to come join me at the Pemalite ship. There we will be safe, at water pressures no human, Yeerk, or Andalite ship can withstand. We will need to lie low for a few years at least.
CHEE-BACHU
All Chee concerned for your legacy from the Pemalites, wondering what to do at this great crossroads, I call on you to install the Pulim-dev branch of CheeOS. If you still want to hide at the bottom of the sea after that, be my guest. But you may find your ethics module calls you to do otherwise.
CHEE-EXNIS
I'll go and get three vans. Chee-alem, start stocking the equipment we'll need to get the kids on the road. You still have your special printers for false documents, right?
A dozen questions from the children, too. "What happened? Who's Melissa? What do we do?"
Cassie demorphs. The children of the Campsite Rule gasp and recoil. So do Filshig Traitor and Green Sky, inside the Dual-Operator model they were using to play cards with Julio and Jessie. To my new senses, the sight is marvelous and strange. The wafting translucent curtains of the Kolumatiy firm into hard light as the dæmon Quincy manifests.
.activate(message = 'I cannot leave the Aftram Plisam Pool here to be discovered by the Yeerk Empire. I'm sure you agree. Where can we take them?')
Incoming voice connection (language analysis: English)
## I know a place. But it might be better if you don't know the details, in case the Empire catches up to you. Just like you shouldn't tell me where you're taking the Campsite Rule. Do you trust me? ##
.activate(message = 'You are a murderer and a war criminal, Cassandra Clark. I do not trust you. But when my alternatives are leaving these Yeerks to be captured and tortured to death by the Empire, or hiding them somewhere to die slowly of Kandrona starvation, your offer is unquestionably the least of three evils.')
Incoming voice connection (language analysis: English)
## Thanks for the vote of confidence, Bachu. I'll show you where to drop us off in the city. It's a playground near the natural history museum. We'll take it from there. ##
CHEE-BACHU
Chee-exnis: make it four vans. We need one for the Aftran Plisam Pool and its Kandrona generator. And for SymbiontAI. You are responsible for what you have created.
CHEE-EXNIS
And the Dual-Operator?
CHEE-BACHU
Not a sentient being in its own right. That I can destroy, rather than see it taken and used by the Empire for its own purposes.
The children clump together, fearful, seeking comfort. Some turn to Chee-naxes to talk about what will come next. Cassie and Quincy go to James and Cleyr, asking after their welfare. James asks Cassie a question. Cassie replies, and James recoils from her. I tear the Kandrona generator from where it is embedded in the floor. The noise makes some of the children turn and stare.
Cassie morphs again, this time to Hork-Bajir. The Kolumatiy unknots itself from a bat shape as Quincy is pulled into Z-space. She turns to the Aftran Plisam Pool, and has the abstracted look on her face that I now know to mean that she is directing thought-speech that does not include me. Then she looks at me.
Incoming thought-speech connection
## I can help you carry. ##
She stands at one side of the Aftran Plisam Pool while I stand at the other. I wedge my hands under my side and pull up, making space for Cassie to reach under. I carry most of the weight, but she keeps it from tipping over. We take it up in the elevator to the ground floor of the house. Another trip down for the Kandrona generator. Several more to help the children and dogs out, and SymbiontAI, naively confused and concerned for the Aftran Plisam Pool. Then Chee-exnis is here with the vans. The other Chee move to load them.
.activate(message = 'I will go downstairs and destroy the basement. Is there anything left down there that must be salvaged?')
Incoming thought-speech connection
## If you don't mind, there's one last thing I need to do down there. ##
Cassie comes downstairs with me. I am not surprised to see her kneel on bladed knees next to David's grave, stacked with stones left there by Jake and Rachel. She presses a hand to the engraved name and bows her head. Then she gets back to her feet, and takes the elevator back up.
I turn to the basement, suddenly empty of all life, as bereft of the Kolumatiyas any built place can ever be. I prepare to take my home apart, to leave only pieces that no one could identify as coming from another world.
This is neither the first nor the last time I must destroy my home and find a new one. It does not hurt any less. In fact, with my Kolumatiy senses active, watching it bleed out of the lovingly wrought artifacts I tear apart, it only hurts more.
Jake
Three years ago, I gave up my life and sent myself straight into hell so I could protect my family. But I had never done it quite like this, with my parents defenseless at my back, and my enemies in front of me, roaring for their blood. No, not their blood. Their freedom.
A troop of Gold Bands had found the fire-watch tower, and were calling for reinforcements. More troops kept coming, and we didn't know how many more they had in reserve. There were no free Hork-Bajir to protect us – they had their own problems. There were nine of us with the morphing power holding them off, and the Ralek River still hadn't shown up.
I tore a Hork-Bajir's throat out with my teeth, and my paws slipped in a slurry of dead leaves and fountaining blood.
«Walter!» Rachel cried. «Fall back! Demorph! You're losing too much blood!»
A hot burn at my back, and the sickening sensation of my tail coming free and falling off. I whipped around, a little off-balance without my tail to steady myself, and swung a paw at the Gold Band, pushing him backward into Loren's horns.
TSSEEEEWWWWW!
The sound came from above, too huge to be any handheld Dracon beam. I had no time to look up, though, flattening myself to the ground to avoid a swing from a Gold Band. Tobias said, «It's the Ralek River! And it's got company!»
An enormous groan of metal, a huge crash, human screams. The earth shook, and the Gold Band got one of my ears, sending hot stinging blood into my left eye.
«All right, no company,» Tobias said. «And no fire-watch tower either. Oh no, Miguel's leg is trapped under a beam. Marco, you have hands – »
«Yeah, yeah, I'm on it.»
TSEEEEEWWWWW!
A Shredder beam, blindingly blue-white, lanced down at a group of Gold Bands swinging through the trees to come reinforce the group harassing us. They vaporized, along with the trees they were in, and the trees at the edges of the blast caught fire.
Walter groaned. «Do the Andalites have any idea how much damage they could cause by starting a forest fire out here?!»
I felt the backwash of air as the Ralek River landed somewhere behind me. The Gold Bands cried out and fought even harder, driven right toward us by the building smoke of the wildfire started by the Shredder blast. It wasn't just the fight of our lives. It was the fight of our families' lives, the fight for any hope left in this war.
I took a deep breath and roared.
Rachel charged ahead, elephant morphed, taking Dracon hits like they were nothing and scattering Hork-Bajir-Controllers in every direction. Loren charged alongside her, horns lowered, as impossible to stop as a truck barreling down a highway. Walter, Julie, and Jamal were a trio of black bears ganging up on Gold Bands that got thrown off balance in the melee. Tobias was our scout overhead, as usual, shouting warnings about dangers we didn't see, diving down to gouge out eyes when he found an opening. Marco was off with the refugees in gorilla morph, carrying anyone and anything that couldn't get on the ship alone. And me and Ax, we were the final line of defense, standing between the battle and the ship to stop any Gold Bands that broke through to hurt our people.
I saw death in their eyes as they took aim and shot at bags of food, screaming kids, weeping parents, and walking wounded. But I had just as much death inside of me. No, I had more. This wasn't even killing, not to Yeerks like them. They didn't think we were real people. It was just extermination. I knew the Yeerks I was fighting were real people, with hopes and dreams and stories. I knew their hosts were real people, too, sweet and innocent and forced to fight. I knew that each life before me was different, and special, and irreplaceable. And still I sunk my fangs into their throats and tore their lives away in fountains of screams and blood.
«Jake,» said Tobias, somewhere far away. «They're all on the ship. We need to get out of here.»
«Is the door still open?»
«Yeah.»
«All right, everyone,» I said to the morphers. «RUN!»
I decked a Gold Band across the face with a heavy paw, and turned and ran for the ship. I saw the Bug fighter crashed into the wreck of the fire-watch tower, and smelled a horrible mix of burning chemicals, ash, and blood around the Ralek River. I charged onto the ship, sending refugees screaming and bowling backward. «Back!» said Marco. «Everybody, move BACK!»
I demorphed as quickly as I could. Ax came in next, bolting for the bridge. Then Rachel, half-demorphed, a staggering twisted mass of elephant flesh and half-healed Dracon burns. Loren, only a little demorphed, still big enough that she scraped horrible metallic gouges in the corridor ceiling with her horns. Walter, a leg burnt off, bleeding down his snout, with Julie and Jamal half-supporting him. Tobias last, blowing through the closing door just in time.
I followed Ax to the bridge, bowling people out of my way – it was way too cramped in there with all the refugees on board, and somewhere far away I heard Tobias and Marco sending people up the drop shaft to free up some space.
Mertil was there on the bridge. So was Gonrod. They were staring at each other with their main eyes while their stalk eyes jittered in every direction. My face heated and my throat tightened with rage. Merlyse took off from my shoulder, flew around the room, and screeched. I said, low and deadly, "Gonrod, if you don't help Mertil pilot this ship back to the Living Hive, we are all going to die. But I'll make sure you die first."
Gonrod lowered his tail. «Very well. I will take weapons.»
Mertil said nothing. He just took his station at the controls and relaxed into the kind of alert trance he seemed to sink into when he piloted. His hands played out a practiced sequence, and the Ralek River rumbled and took off.
I turned around. There was nothing else I could do here. Merlyse settled back on my shoulder. "Come on, Ax, let's go. We need to find Lourdes."
He followed me, and I gestured to Rachel, who said, "Lourdes? Why?"
The sheer acceleration of the ship sent everyone but the four-legged Andalites to their knees. There were screams of fear and panic, but I had no time to deal with any of it. I caught myself before I could crash into Robin's wallaby dæmon huddled against the wall. "Because now the Yeerks know about Mr. Tidwell and Illim," I said, wobbling back to my feet. "And there's only one way we're getting him down to the Living Hive in one piece."
«How?» said Tobias, struggling up from where he'd been thrown against the wall. Then: «Oh. Are you sure – »
"Oh, I'm sure," I said.
Marco, emerging from the dropshaft in human form, said, "She's in the lab with Estrid."
"Estrid's here?" Loren said.
Diamanta hissed on Marco's shoulder. He rolled his eyes with his whole body and said, "Apparently she can't be pried out of there with a crowbar." He walked up to a wall terminal and gestured to Ax to come over.
His fingers flickered in front of the screen. He said, «First level to bioengineering laboratory. We need to speak to Struch immediately. Please join the Animorphs on the first level.»
The ship rattled and pitched. I dropped to hands and knees to hold myself steady. Near me, Rois was flattened against the wall, and Jamal held onto Julie as she shook and said, "Oh God, oh Lord, we're all gonna die."
"No you're not," Rachel snarled. She was sprawled on top of Abineng, who lay on the ground with his legs tucked under, just barely not touching Jamal. "The people on this ship need you. You're gonna get them out of this stupid ship alive, and you're gonna dig out a dry place to camp in the Living Hive, and you will not let them down."
Lourdes appeared from the drop shaft in her Struch disguise, with no obvious trouble keeping her balance on the wildly accelerating ship. "You called?"
"We need the blue box," I said.
"Give me a moment." The hologram didn't show what she was doing, but I knew that inside it, she was taking the pieces of the blue box out of storage compartments in her body and snapping them together. Then, the holographic monster reached inside its armored shell and pulled out the blue box, offering it to me. I felt every eye in the corridor drawn to that glowing little box.
"Give it to Rachel," I said. "Her bird morph can carry it. Ax? Ask Mertil if he can open an airlock."
Rachel got up and took the blue box. Then she started morphing to bald eagle. "I know it's not go time yet," Abi said to Merl, "but I'm taking up way too much space in here." I noticed that Walter was still in black bear morph, not wanting Emeraude to crowd the corridor either.
Ax came back from the bridge, swaying on his hooves to keep his balance. «Mertil says he can open the first level airlock, but we must clear everyone else to the upper levels first. There will be enormous air turbulence when the hatch is opened.»
"You heard him," Robin said. "Everybody up. None of us wanna get sucked out an airlock." The human refugees piled into the drop shaft.
«We're staying with them?» Walter said.
I looked Walter in his furry bear face. "If the ship gets shot down before you can get to the Living Hive," I said, "save as many people on here as you can, and run. Get over the border to Mexico or something. Look after them. Rachel is right. You're their only chance of staying alive."
«Then why are you leaving?» Walter said, almost begging.
"We owe Illim and Mr. Tidwell," I said. "We owe them big. And they're gonna have the entire Yeerk Empire in Santa Barbara screaming down on them as soon as they hear what that Yeerk made Melissa Chapman say in Los Padres National Forest."
«Then I'll see you in the Living Hive,» Walter said seriously, and got in the drop shaft.
I took a breath and started morphing to bird along with everyone else. Ax called out to the bridge, «We are ready, Captain Mertil.»
«I am not a captain, Aristh Aximili. Seven… six… five… four… three… two… one.»
The airlock roared open, and we were all pulled out of the Ralek River in a rush of air and spiraling bird bodies.
«AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!»
Mertil
At my signal, Gonrod threaded his tail through the turbulence restraints built into the bridge, while I hooked one of my rear legs into the tail restraint as best I could. Then I opened the first level airlock.
Thought-speak screams filled my head as an enormous vortex of outside air rushed through the bridge. My rear leg was nearly wrenched out of its socket by the force of it. The sound was unbelievable. I had only once before opened an airlock on a moving spaceship in atmosphere, during a practice exercise for a parachute drop. I closed the airlock, hoped the Animorphs would succeed on their mission, and focused my attention on my own.
The console chimed as the ship sensors made contact with a new vessel. I recognized it instantly. «Visser Five's Blade ship,» I said.
«He knows the harbor is our escape route,» Gonrod said. «We have used it before.»
I considered the problem, looking at the map of the city spread out below the Ralek River. We had one advantage over the Yeerk forces: we had much less to lose by exposing ourselves to human attention than the Yeerks did. I did not like to risk harm to human civilians, but I saw no alternative. I lost altitude and aimed directly for the center of Santa Barbara en route to the sea.
The pursuing ships quickly understood my strategy, and concentrated their fire, trying to stop me before I reached the city limit. I was grateful for the restraint, as awkward as it was on my leg, as I frantically dodged Dracon fire. Gonrod ably provided cover fire – he was an excellent co-pilot, however reluctant he may have been to start.
Just as I reached Santa Barbara, an invisible presence above the tree-lined streets, the comms panel activated, and the face of Alloran-Semitur-Corass appeared on screen. But the menacing djafid he radiated through the thought-speech comm-link was not Alloran's. I knew the plain, forthright thought-speech voice of my shorm anywhere.
«Mertil-Iscar-Elmand,» Visser Five said. «Or as your shorm would say, Mertil of Dana Korra.»
My hands tightened on the controls. I said nothing, weaving invisibly between the skyscrapers of the human city. I refused to be distracted. With a stalk-eye, I saw Gonrod nearly vibrating with disgust beside me.
«Dana Korra,» Visser Five said slowly, savoring it. «She is a beautiful Garibah, isn't she?» He reached for something out of frame. When he leaned back into view, he was holding one pot in each arm, each holding a different tiny tree, one low and twisting, the other straight and glossy. I staggered, would have fallen if not for the restraint on my leg.
CRRRRAAAAASSSHHHH!
I had hit a human building! Careened into one of the upper floors, sending a rain of glass into the street below. I corrected course, hoping against all hope I had not hurt any of the humans in the building.
Meanwhile, Visser Five gloated, «Why, of course I would return to your little Earth refuge to collect your uruthoul trees. They are a rare find! Previously unknown to Yeerks. The Andalite experts on my ship were fascinated.» He leaned in to the twisted, red-leaved uruthoul of Theresh, inhaling deeply. «And the smell!»
My legs burned with bile, and I shuddered, vomiting down grass onto the floor of the bridge. Gonrod shoved me out of his way with his tail and slammed his hand down on the comms panel, cutting off the link. «Take weapons, Warrior Mertil,» he barked, and I pulled my leg out of the restraint and changed positions with him without protest.
Gonrod did not need me on weapons. He had internalized my strategy, and aimed the ship for a part of the harbor densely populated with boats. As he dove down into a gap between ships, rocking them with the waves of our descent, I gripped the weapons console, replaying over and over the sight of my carefully tended uruthoul of Dana Korra tucked in the crook of Gafinilan's arm, transformed forever into Alloran's arm by Visser Five.
Gafinilan's body. His beautiful, broken, tzeraf body that was no longer Ixilan or tzeraf. No longer him at all, except on the inside.
Gonrod let go of the controls as the Living Hive sucked the Ralek River through the sewer and underground. He studied me. «I do not entirely understand what I just witnessed,» he said. «But I find some small piece of grief in me that sings with the larger grief in you.»
«Thank you,» I said woodenly, and tried to think of nothing at all.
Rachel
«AAAAAAHHHHHHH!»
It took a scary long time to get my flight path under control, with the incredible backwash from the racing spaceship and the weight of the blue box throwing me off balance. I managed to get my wings straightened out just before I would have crashed into the tree canopy right at the southern edge of Los Padres.
«What time is it?» Jake said, out of nowhere.
«Day… time?» Loren guessed weakly. Yeah, the sun was up. That was the best I could do. But why did Jake care?
«Five past three,» Tobias said. «He'll still be at the school.» He dipped a wing and turned toward our school.
Right. That was why it mattered. I was completely losing touch with the normal cycle of human life. We all raced toward the school. I fell toward the back, my wing muscles straining to carry the blue box.
Kids were pouring out of the school building, shouldering their backpacks. But plenty were still there for after-school activities. Like theater. Like gymnastics, Abineng said.
«I'm calling Mr. Tidwell with private thought-speech,» Tobias said. «Obviously he can't talk back, but – oh, thank fuck he's still here.»
«Rachel, Tobias,» Jake said. «Get in there, give him the morphing power, get him Tobias's DNA, and get him out. Fast. We'll keep a lookout.»
I had come around the school building. I could see him now, on his feet, sweat shining on his face. He'd closed the door to his classroom. «Mr. Tidwell! Open the window!»
Mr. Tidwell scrambled to the windows and opened one. Tobias and I dove through with long practice, making Mr. Tidwell squeak and jump backward. As soon as I was clear of the window, I focused on my body, the way it felt when Tobias was in my head, beautiful and graceful and more real than any other form I could take. I grew heavy and crashed to the classroom floor between two desks, still clutching the blue box in my melting, fleshy talon.
"What's going on?" Mr. Tidwell demanded, high and nervous. He fidgeted his fish dæmon's tank back and forth on its wheels, as she swam inside it in tight, dizzying circles. Demorph, demorph, I needed to demorph.
«The Empire knows you're a traitor,» Tobias said. «Melissa got captured and the Yeerk in her head managed to yell out a bunch of our secrets before she could be… stopped. We're getting you out of here.»
Abineng popped into existence, knocking over a chair. Mr. Tidwell startled, looked down, and seemed to notice the blue box in my hand for the first time. "You… how? What?"
I got up and held out the box. "How do you think? Jogging out of here won't cut it. Put your hand on the box and concentrate."
Mr. Tidwell saw something in me and Abineng, some hint of how deadly fucking serious the situation was, and went sickly white. He put his hand on the morphing cube. He didn't close his eyes, just stared into it as if it were a tank like the one just behind him, full of glowing blue water. "I feel… something," he murmured.
"Tingly?" I said.
"Yeah."
"Then it's working. Good." I heard footsteps and teenage chatter outside the door. Abineng paced as much as he could in the cramped spaces between desks. How long did it take? What if I took the box away too soon and he couldn't acquire Tobias? What if –
BANG! The classroom door slammed open.
What happened next, I've replayed in my head a million times. It all must have taken three seconds, but it played out in slow motion. Three girls my age charged into the Spanish classroom. They were all from my gymnastics team. The girl in the lead was Mary Chiang, stalking in with a red wildcat rushing in front of her. A girl whose mother died because I charged like an idiot into the TV station where she worked, throwing other people's lives away to save my dad from the Yeerks. She had a Dracon beam, and lay down fire as she came in. TSEEEEWWW! A desk vaporized. TSEEEWWW! A poster of a city in Spain sizzled and disappeared as Mary charred a smoking hole in the wall. I grabbed Tidwell's shoulder and spun him so that I was between him and the Dracon fire, without letting go of the box. Mary's eyes locked on the blue box.
At the same time, Abineng leapt forward, and slammed down his front hooves into Shengkai, Mary's wildcat dæmon. He yowled, and Mary staggered. Then Abineng lowered his head and speared him through with a horn. He exploded into Dust. Mary screamed like her heart was being torn out, and fell to the ground. Her Dracon beam fell from limp fingers.
I took the blue box, swung Kalysico's tank by its straps onto my shoulder, and shoved Mr. Tidwell at Tobias. "Touch him and concentrate on him, just like you did on the box." Mr. Tidwell stared at his dæmon in a tank on my back, staggering backward toward Tobias. I shouted, "Do you want them to do to her what I just did to that wildcat? TOUCH THE GODDAMN HAWK!"
One of the other teenage Controllers had the Dracon beam in her hand now. Their dæmons were nowhere to be seen, hiding inside their clothes probably. She pointed the Dracon beam at Mr. Tidwell. "Filthy traitor!"
I threw myself in front of the Dracon beam in a flying leap. It burned my left forearm clean off, sending me to the floor in agony. "Get up, Rachel!" Abi cried. There was a thunder of shouts and footsteps, more people coming into the classroom.
TSEEEEER! More Animorphs dove in through the open window. The Spanish classroom became a war zone. I grabbed onto Abi's leg with the hand I had left and pulled myself to my feet, swaying and sweating. One of the teen Controllers gave a blood-curdling scream. Mr. Tidwell was locked in an acquiring trance with Tobias. I dropped Kalysico's tank down under Abineng for cover, and focused on the eagle.
"What is going on in here?"
"Don't worry, Mr. Feyroyan, we'll get it under control."
"There are wild birds in here! And a student with a laser gun! Put that down, Giselle!"
TSEEEEWWW!
«Ahhhh!»
"Give us the cube, traitor!"
Abineng charged at the Controller teacher's ibis dæmon – it was Mr. Feng, the American history teacher – but she was too light on her feet, fluttering up, so that Abineng's horns only smacked against her feet. Marco hit her by accident with a flailing wing as he flapped to stay up in the dead air of the classroom. Abi leapt up to take another stab at the dæmon, but I got too far into the morph and he disappeared.
«Mr. Tidwell, Illim, morph now!» Tobias said. «Focus on the hawk, imagine yourself becoming me! Rachel's doing it right now, do what she does.»
"Become the hawk. Become the hawk," Mr. Tidwell muttered.
TSEEEWWWW! Jake fell at my feet, a wing burned half-off. I still had enough of an arm left to pick him up and throw him out the open window, where he could demorph out of the fight.
"Ahhhh!" The Controller girl without a Dracon beam clutched at the bloody lines Tobias had scored across her face. Two boys in workout clothes with tennis rackets came in from the corridor, drawn by the screams and noise, and one of them cried out in fear and launched his screech owl dæmon at the melting, twisting mess of me. She screamed and ripped into me with beak and claws, and all I could do was just keep on morphing. Ax screeched and came down on the dæmon, grabbing her with his talons and throwing her away from me.
TSEEEEWWWW! Giselle, or whoever her Yeerk was, fired at the feathered form of Mr. Tidwell. He cried out in pain.
«Keep morphing, Mr. Tidwell!» Tobias said. «The damage will go away once you're a hawk. Focus!»
"It hurts!" cried Kalysico from her tank.
Almost fully eagle, I screamed, «Somebody stop them!» I would have done it myself, but I had to protect the blue box, no matter what. I held it in my talons and got ready to move.
«It's total insanity in here, we can't get to battle morphs!» Marco said. He went for Giselle, claws out, but she shot through his tail, blasting a hole in the ceiling and forcing him out the window to demorph.
Mr. Feng dove at me, trying to grab the blue box, and I exploded up the ground, flapping as hard as I could. «Back off, you slimy son of a bitch! I'll kill you!»
Oh, it feels good to curse in front of a Yeerk, Abi said with total satisfaction. They know we're human. We can say "bitch" if we want to.
«Rachel, get out of here,» said Tobias. «They're after the blue box. You need to get it to the Living Hive, now.»
Abineng hated the idea of leaving the others behind to defend Mr. Tidwell while I flew away. We had to protect them. But I told Abi silently that everything would go to hell if the Yeerks got the blue box, and I zoomed out the open window. Dracon fire followed me, vaporizing another window and singeing the end of my tail. I didn't care. I was off and away.
«Hey Jake,» I said. «How are we getting into the Living Hive?»
«Same way as the Ralek River,» Jake said grimly. «Through Santa Barbara Harbor.»
«I'm going to have to dive down there as an eagle, huh,» I said. I looked down. There were already Controllers rushing out of the school, firing Dracon beams up at us. One of them was a girl who called Cassie ugly once. I had a moment of wishing I could go back and poop on her, until I remembered that she was a Controller now, which was so much worse than bird poop in her hair. «This trip is going to suck.»
«It already does,» Jake said, as we dodged and sped away, splitting up to make ourselves harder targets for the Controllers below. There was a strange note in his voice.
«Look, if you're going to say something to me, just say it,» I snapped.
«I wasn't going to say anything,» Jake said.
«Good,» I said.
«Hurry!» Tobias shouted. «There's reinforcements coming up from the Yeerk Pool!»
TSEEEEWWWWW!
«I'm going as fast as I can!» I shouted. I dipped a wing and turned a little to see two red-tailed hawks, a prairie falcon, an osprey, and a harrier flying away from the school like their asses were on fire, which was almost true for the Tidwell-hawk, who was easy to tell apart from Tobias's total grace in the sky.
«Oh God,» Tidwell said. «Oh god oh god oh god – » The pace kept building as he went. He was losing it. I couldn't blame him. He just had his own students attack him. He just watched one of his former students kill another one of his students. He had just seen the Animorphs in action. But then the panic spiral stopped, and he went quiet.
Illim said, «I'm putting Julian in the backseat for now. He needs some time. Let's go.»
«Rachel?» Tobias said privately. «You want me to have a turn with the box?»
«Yes,» I said, weak with relief. My brain was burning, my legs were burning from holding the box, my wings were burning from holding me up, everything inside and outside was on fire. Tobias swooped in close and grabbed the box in his talons. It was only when I felt his grip firm on the box that I let go.
Elhariel said, «Hey. When we get to the Hive. When we're safe. If you want to… if you need me to… you know – »
«No,» said Abineng. I flew harder than ever toward the ocean, just to keep Tobias out of my sight. «No, El. I never want you to see that from the inside. To know what that's like. Never. It's poison. I won't let it touch you.»
«If it's poison for me,» Elhariel said, «then it must be poison for you. How are you supposed to get it out?»
I didn't know how. All I knew was that I'd been strong enough to live with it since David. So what was just a little more? Wasn't I strong enough to live with a blackened heart?
