«What little green men?» Arbron asked. «They aren't green. The Na are gray.»
The female narrowed her already narrow eyes. The Dracon beam in her hand wavered. "I'd already captured this ship before you two came along. Me and the other guy. And we're both just kids, which
29 shows you that these Martian jerks aren't all that tough. He's in the back, knocked out. The other guy, I mean. But I grabbed this gun away from Twinkie there." She jerked her head in the direction of the Na captain.
The translator chip had no translation for the word "twinkie." Evidently "twinkie" was some kind of word for "alien."
«Well, we don't mean you any harm,» I said as calmly as I could. «How about this idea? You can keep the Dracon beam, just don't point it at anyone.»
The female looked at the weapon. "It's called a Dracon beam, huh? What's it do?"
Arbron answered before I could suggest he shut up. «lt fires an energy beam which causes an exceedingly painful death. Which is why we'd really prefer it if you didn't fire it»
"Oh. A phaser. Like on that old Star Trek show. I can't believe they took that off the air. Now it's just on reruns."
I had nothing to say to that because I had no idea what she was talking about. I looked to Arbron. He shook his head. No, he didn't understand, either. Translator chips have limits.
«lf you come with us, we'll treat you well. And we will return you to your home planet»
"Earth?"
30 «ls that the name of the third planet in this sys-tem?»
"Yeah."
«And are you an Earther?»
"Human. That's what we are: humans. Me and the other guy."
«And we are Andalites. My name is Elfangor. This is Arbron.»
Arbron had gone over to the nearest Skrit Na control panel. He was downloading a copy of all their computer files as Prince Breeyar had ordered. It's standard procedure whenever you board an alien craft.
"You look like centaurs, only with scorpion tails. And the extra eyeballs up on top of your heads ..." She seemed to hesitate. Suddenly she turned the Dracon beam around and handed it to me, handle first.
«Thank you,» I said. I reached to take the Dracon beam from her and my fingers brushed hers. For some reason I looked at her long golden hair.
"My name is Loren," she said. "This is all kind of amazing. Most humans don't even believe in aliens. But, well, here you are. Real and all. Unless I'm dreaming."
«Do humans dream?» I asked her, surprised.
"I do. Every night."
31 «So do I. But I guess we have very different dreams.»
Then Loren smiled. It's a thing humans do by turning the corners of their mouths upward. "Maybe," she said. "Maybe not."
32 We led Loren over to our fighter, and then we carried the second human across. He was unconscious. Bright red blood ran from a cut above his left eye.
«Red blood?» Arbron said. «Red? Yuck.»
I was trying to act more mature than Arbron, but to tell you the truth, blood that color creeped me out, too. Still, I didn't think humans looked ugly or anything. Not like the Skrit or Taxxons, which are seriously ugly species. Nor did they look dangerous, like the Hork-Bajir.
Mostly they looked funny. I'd never seen a species that walked on just two legs without even a tail to help with balance. Arbron said what I was thinking. «AII it would take is one little push and they'd fall right over. Earth must be hysterical! Humans falling forward and back, falling all over the place. No wonder they are so primitive. They probably spend all their time just trying to stand up.»
We were almost back to the Dome ship when
33 the second human woke up. We'd left the Skrit Na to try to figure out how to fix their ship. That was their problem.
Hey, no one told them to shoot at us. Right?
"Unh," the human moaned.
He was larger than Loren. Maybe two or three inches larger. His hair was brown, not golden, and it was cut short. His eyes were also brown, not blue like Loren's.
Loren went to him and bent her legs in such a way that she could kneel down beside him. Arbron and I exchanged a look of amazement. It had to be hard to kneel like that and not fall.
"Hey, kid, you okay?" Loren asked.
The wounded human opened his eyes and blinked. He stared hard at me. "What happened?"
Loren shrugged. "Now we have a different bunch of aliens. Who'da guessed there were so many people zipping around outer space? Are you okay? That big cockroach popped you pretty good back there."
«You have nothing to fear,» I said gently. «You are safe now.»
The human felt his wound and looked at the red blood. He seemed almost as grossed out as I was. But he climbed to his feet. Which involved using his hands, I noticed. Humans seem to have stronger hands than we have.
34 «l am Elfangor. This is Arbron. We are Andalites. We will return you to your home planet»
The human nodded slowly. "Telepathy. You use telepathy to talk." His gaze traveled to my stalk eyes, back to my face, then to my tail. "That tail is a weapon, isn't it? Is it poisonous or does it just cut?"
I decided right then that I didn't like this human as much as Loren. I didn't like him much at all. «l politely told you my name, human,» I said coldly. «Now, I require your name.»
The human gave me a look that seemed insolent. Although who can really tell what an alien facial expression means?
"My name is Hedrick, actually. But I prefer my last name. Most people call me by my last name: Chapman."
"I think these Andalites are okay," Loren said to Chapman. "At least they're better-looking than the last bunch. And they've promised to -"
"Shut up," Chapman snapped. "I'm not interested in the opinion of a kid."
"Kid? Hey, you big jerk, who was it that got the weapon after the ship stopped moving? Me. And who was it that was cringing in the back, begging for mercy? You. And anyway, I'd be surprised if you're even a year older than me."
Chapman's face grew pink. A fascinating thing
35 to watch. He clenched his jaw tightly. "And now it seems your heroics were pointless. We're prisoners again. And I have a feeling we won't be grabbing guns away from these Andalites."
Suddenly, he lunged forward toward the Dracon beam in my hand! Without even thinking, I whipped my tail forward and pressed the blade against Chapman's throat.
Chapman laughed. "See that? See how fast he was? Couldn't even see that tail move." Again he gave me an insolent look. "What did you say your species is called? Andalites? Well, I have a feeling you guys are a little more dangerous than you pretend to be, despite all your polite talk and promises."
I felt like a fool. Not for the first time that day. The human Chapman had been testing me.
«We need to prepare to dock with the Dome ship,» Arbron reminded me.
I went through the docking procedure, moving the fighter back inside the fighter bay. I concentrated on my work, but I was upset. I didn't like the human named Chapman. I didn't like his suspicion toward me. After all, we had rescued him from a future as a zoo animal on the Skrit Na home world. He should be grateful.
But maybe that's the way humans are. I've heard
36 there are species that can't handle anyone helping them. They'd rather die than ever be in debt to someone.
But judging by Loren, not all humans were that way.
Not your problem, Elfangor, I told myself. Just turn the humans over to the captain. Not your problem at all.
But I was wrong. The humans were my problem.
In fact, I was about to have lots of problems.
37 «Okay, this part is a little trickyr» I told Loren and Chapman. We were moving from the central shaft out onto the dome floor. There's a ninety-degree gravity change at that point. I mean, "down" in the main shaft is a different direction from "down" on the dome floor. It's confusing at first.
We were safely aboard the StarSword and Ar-bron and I were giving the humans a brief tour. The debriefing officers wer
e too busy to see us yet, I guess, and we couldn't figure out what else to do with the humans.
«You just walk naturally along the curving floor,» I explained. «l know it looks like you're walking off the edge of a cliff, but the artificial gravity will move with you.»
Arbron and I held our breath, watching the ungainly two-legged creatures trying to stay upright. Amazingly, they did it.
«They have very excellent balance,» Arbron whispered.
«They'd have to.»
38 We emerged from the shaft out onto the grass of the dome and Loren cried out.
"It's huge! It's like a whole park in here! Trees. Grass. Flowers. Wow."
«You have these kinds of things on your planet?» I asked her.
"Well, similar. Our trees are almost always green. And the grass is all green, too. More green than this, I mean, not so much blue. And no red."
«lf you are hungry, please feel free to eat as much as you like,» I suggested.
"Eat what?" Chapman asked.
I waved my arm widely to indicate the entire dome. «We have seventeen species of grass in thirty different flavors.»
"Grass? You eat grass?" Loren asked.
Chapman nodded thoughtfully. "That's why you have the dome, isn't it? You graze. Like horses or cows. Only you don't have mouths. So how do you eat?"
«Wait a minute, you eat with your mouths?» Arbron asked.
"How else are you going to eat?" Chapman said.
«With your hooves, like any sensible creature,» Arbron said. Then he laughed. «Do you mean that on Earth humans walk around pressing their mouths to the ground to eat?» He looked at me. «Okay,
39 even you have to admit that would be funny to see.»
Chapman started to explain how humans ate but it was hard to picture, really. It involved spearing chunks of hot, dead animals and stuffing them in the mouth. But I refused to believe that was really how they ate. I assumed Chapman was making things up. Later I found out the truth.
In any case, I was relieved when Loren interrupted Chapman's gruesome story to ask, "Do you mind if I take my shoes off? We've been cooped up in that Skritchy Nose flying saucer. It'd be nice to walk on the grass."
Of course, I had no objection because I had no idea what a "shoe" was. And I could certainly identify with the idea of running on the grass. I was hungry, too.
But then Loren sat down on the grass and began ripping her hooves off! Ripping the very hooves from her legs!
«What are you doing!» I cried. «Stop that! Stop! Why are you hurting yourself?»
"What? What are you yelling about?"
«You're going to hurt yourself, and I don't think our doctors know how to help humans,» I said.
Loren stared at me. She was still holding her leg awkwardly in her two hands. Then she laughed out loud.
40 It was an alarming, yet strangely pleasing, sound.
"These aren't hooves, Elfangor," she said. "They're shoes. See?" She untied the tiny ropes and before I could stop her, she ripped the white hoof clear off!
«Noooo!» I moaned.
«Ahhhh!» Arbron yelled.
But Loren was not in pain. And there was no blood. Then she removed a layer of white skin from the exposed leg end. Suddenly, I was staring at five tiny pink fingers. They were growing from her leg.
"See? This is my foot. We don't have hooves. And we wear shoes over our feet. See? They keep the rocks or whatever from hurting our feet."
I felt a wave of intense pity. What had gone wrong in the evolution of this species? The entire species had to cover its "feet" to keep from being injured? An entire race crippled?
Suddenly the funny mental image of a planet of humans falling over all the time was replaced by the sad picture of a species of cripples, hobbling along on their weak, injured "feet" and covering them with artificial hooves.
Loren stood up on her delicate pink feet with their ridiculous, short pink fingers and started to run across the grass. She wasn't very fast, but she obviously wasn't crippled.
And then she did something amazing. She
41 turned her head around. She turned the entire thing so it was pointing backward. "Come on!"
But I couldn't move. I noticed Arbron was as amazed as I was.
«What the . . . what's she doing?» he asked. Then it dawned on him. «lt's because they only have two eyes! They turn their heads around to see behind them!»
I stifled an urge to laugh. I broke into a gentle trot and quickly caught up to Loren.
"Feels . . . good ... to stretch ... my muscles," she said, speaking in a halting way as she ran.
She stopped running and twirled around. Twirled right around, and her golden hair flew out behind her. That was something to see. A two-legged creature can twirl better than a normal person.
"I was sure I was going to die on that flying saucer," she said. "But here I am! Amazing."
«l guess this all seems very strange.»
"Oh, yeah. Strange isn't half of it. This is a beautiful tree. Pink leaves. Incredible."
«lt's called a therant tree. It's in its creast phase. Do you see the way the grasses become more gela-sic and less escalic as they grow near? That is because -»
I stopped talking then, because Loren casually reached up and touched a low branch. There was nothing wrong with that, of course. But then she
42 wrapped both her hands around the branch and lifted herself clear up off the ground!
That alone was a miracle. But as she stretched, I saw the white, pastel-marked skin of her upper body come loose! It lifted away and revealed a layer of pinkish, tan underneath that matched her face and arm skin.
Arbron came running, with Chapman struggling to catch up.
Loren held herself suspended and laughed at us. I guess we'd been staring.
«Very strong arms!» Arbron remarked. «Can you imagine lifting your whole body up with your arms?»
«That skin is very strange,» I said. «lt's almost as if it's not attached.»
Loren let herself drop back to the grass. And she didn't even fall over.
"It's not skin," Chapman said. "It's called clothing. Like the artificial hooves? This is artificial skin. It keeps us warm."
«You're cold?»
"No. But that's why we have clothing. To keep us warm in cold places."
«Why would you be in cold places?» I asked, curiosity overcoming my dislike for the human.
He shrugged his powerful human shoulders. Shoulders capable of lifting his entire body. "Parts of
43 Earth are very cold. Parts of it are so cold you'd die without many layers of clothing."
«But why do you live in those places?» I asked.
Chapman smiled. It was interesting, because already I was getting the feeling that not all human smiles were pleasant. "We're not going to be kept out of a place just because the weather's bad. We adapt. We grab whatever's available and make the best of it. At least that's my motto: Grab what you can."
I would have asked him more, but just then the call came for Arbron to go to debriefing. And I was ordered to take the humans to a holding room.
44 «What? WHAT? Leave the ship?!» I screeched.
«What do you mean, leave the ship?!»
Arbron did not look any happier than I was. «They just told me, okay? They didn't ask my opinion. The captain called me from debriefing, had me run to the bridge, said, "You and Aristh Elfangor be at Docking Bay Seven in ten minutes," and I said, "Yes, sir."»
I had taken the humans to a holding room. And then, while waiting for my own debriefing I'd gone back to the dome to eat. I was very hungry. I was on my way to check back on Loren when Arbron intercepted me.
«This can't be rightr» I moaned. «The StarSword is my home. We're going to find that Yeerk task force and destroy them.»
«Yeah, yeah, I know. And you'll be a big hero and they'll make you a prince without even slowing down to make you a warrior.»
«That's not what I was thinking,» I lied.
> 45 «Well, forget it. Come on. We move out immediately. We're supposed to meet up with our commander for this mission.»
Something about the tone of Arbron's thought-speak made me wary. «Our commander? Who's ourcommander?»
«None other than War-prince Alloran-Semitur-Corrassf» Arbron said.
Both my hearts sank into my hooves. Alloran. Alloran, the disgraced. So this mission was definitely not a reward from the captain. Alloran had once been a great warrior and prince. But he had been disgraced. I didn't know why. No one talked about it. Everyone just knew that Alloran had broken some law or custom.
Being sent off on some stupid side mission with a disgraced war-prince was not a good thing.
I couldn't believe it. This ship was my home. I didn't want to leave her, not even for a while. It could take a long time before we could rejoin the StarSword, and by then, who knew? Maybe by some miracle the entire war would be over.
Which would be good, I supposed.
«What's in Docking Bay Seven, anyway?» I grumbled as we reached the right door.
Arbron swung his stalks back and forth in a "who knows?" gesture.
46 We opened the door to Docking Bay Seven. And there, standing awkwardly on their two legs, were Loren and Chapman. Behind them stood Alloran.
I had seen War-prince Alloran around the Dome ship at times. He'd always seemed to be deep in thought. Like he was off somewhere in his imagination or memory. He was not especially large. But he seemed to be carved from solid steel. Even his fur was a metallic blue. And the bare flesh of his upper body showed faint traces of burn scars.
Beyond Alloran was a ship I had never seen before. It hovered just inches above the polished floor. It was three times the size of any fighter I'd ever encountered. The main section was a fantastically elongated oval that stretched way out in front of three oversized, swept-back engines. Three engines, not the usual two! And coming up overhead was the long, gracefully arced spike of the main shredder.
Oh, she was a thing of beauty. I had never fallen in love with a machine before, but, oh, that ship was sweet.
«l see you like my little toy, aristh,» Alloran said.
«lt's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,» I said. «Like . . . like a work of art»