We flew along the treetops till we found a thermal. A thermal is a pillar of warm air that rises from heated ground. It fills your wings and lifts you almost effortlessly.
We rose to a hundred feet, high enough to escape the notice of most humans on the ground. And we flew toward a meeting with the others at the feed lot.
It was a much more pleasurable flight than the earlier one. Now I could see to put the feed-lot in context. Human habitations tend to cluster in ever-tighter proximity. The tightest clusters are called cities. As one moves out from this tight center, wider spaces appear. These are suburbs. Beyond the suburbs the spaces grow, until soon open fields are more prevalent than dwellings.
According to Marco, this is known as "Gooberville" or "The Middle of Nowhere." The
93 feedlot was at the vague border of the suburbs and Gooberville.
I saw a number of other birds of prey in the sky ahead. They were spread far apart and at different altitudes. I spotted Rachel first, with her huge eagle wingspread. Prince Jake, in his peregrine falcon morph, was the smallest, but also the fastest.
We spiraled down to the field. Our plan was simple. We had used the stapler to remove ear tags from the two relevant steer the night before. We now had the tags. Tobias and I were to morph the steer and Cassie would affix the ear tags. We had left the stapler at the site.
A simple plan.
Or so we thought.
94 lobias and I had the easy part, really. We picked out a cluster of steer and landed in the mud between them. The steer showed no interest in us. Prince Jake stayed in the air overhead, keeping watch. Cassie and Rachel and Marco landed in various areas outside the lot, fairly distant from one another so that we didn't look like a suspicious collection of birds of prey.
«Me first,» Tobias said. «That way I can cover you.»
I concentrated on not being trampled by the slow-moving steer as Tobias began his morph.
Morphing is never predictable. It does not always follow a logical course. Different parts
95 morph at different speeds, in different sequences.
In this case, it was the cow head that began to appear first. It was, to say the very least, bizarre. Tobias's short, hooked beak softened and began to extrude. It grew out as it grew flabby. Soon it was nothing more than loose flaps of unsupported skin. The skin was still covered with brown feathers.
Tobias's own furious hawk eyes widened and rounded and seemed to fill with moisture. They no longer looked fierce. They looked . . .well, stupid.
He began to grow all over, but still the feathers persisted for a long time, only melting into short brown fur at the last moment.
His hooves appeared, almost complete, at the end of his tiny hawk legs. His wing tips began to curl and harden and form hooves as well. Only then did his wings stretch into steer legs.
But at last he was fully formed. Fully formed and quite large. And seemingly agitated.
«Tobias? You are in danger of stepping on me.»
«Sorry ... I ... I don't know, I just feel kind of antsy, you know? Restless. Like I'm annoyed. Like I'm looking for troubles
96 «Are you finding the steer instincts difficult to control?» I asked.
«Not difficult. Just caught me by surprise. I assumed steer morph would be pretty laid-back. Anyway . . . your turn.»
Of course, I had two changes to make, not one. First I had to demorph to Andalite. Once again, the steer began to move away, depriving me of cover. But Tobias snorted at them and took a little trot around the edge of the knot of steer. After that they stayed still.
It was odd. It was as if the steer were afraid of Tobias. Or at least deferential. It should have been a clue that we had a problem. But I was insufficiently familiar with cows and steer to realize what had happened.
«Truck's coming,» Jake reported. «Still on the main road, but let's pick it up.»
Cassie began crossing the field toward us. This was dangerous, of course. Humans are expected to wear certain artificial skin for certain occasions. And Cassie's morph ing suit was not appropriate for this occasion. She was barefoot and wearing only a simple but brightly colored skintight "outfit."
"Barefoot black chick in Day-Glo spandex stomping through the cow pies," Cassie had said. "That'll be real smooth."
97 I became fully Andalite, keeping my upper body ducked down behind Tobias's bulk.
The change was far less severe than many I have endured. I began with four hooved legs, and I ended with four hooved legs. I doubled, if not tripled, in weight, but my basic body configuration was not radically altered.
There were still changes, though. A cow tail is not at all like an Andalite tail. A cow tail is no danger to anyone.
And of course, my arms disappeared, shriveling and withering until they seemed to suck into my body.
I acquired a mouth. A very large mouth. And very large nostrils. And big, vacuous, moist, dark eyes.
There was nothing exceptional about the steer senses. Its sense of smell was good, but, from what I understand, nothing like the intensity of a canine's sense of smell. Its hearing and sight were fair, but less acute than a human's.
The single oddest fact was that my eyes were separated by an enormous face that dominated my field of vision. I could see to the left and to the right. But most of "straight ahead" was filled with my own long muzzle.
But Tobias was wrong. There was nothing agi-
99 tated or restless about this morph. On the contrary it was very -
«Um . . . Ax-man? I think you messed up. You're a cow.»
«No, I am a steer.»
«No, you're a cow. You have an udder. You acquired the wrong kind of cow!»
«0h.»
I demorphed. I acquired a steer. This time I checked. I morphed again.
And now I learned Tobias had been correct. The steer's mind was not docile. Not passive. In fact... I was angry. And with very good reason: There was a bull nearby.
There was also a human, but she did not matter.
I glared at the bull.
He glared at me.
I snorted and pawed the ground.
It was like watching myself in a mirror. The bull did the same.
It was unavoidable. This pasture only had room for one of us. I would have to attack him and force him to run away.
«Cassie!» I heard Prince Jake call down from high above. «They look like they're squaring off to fight.»
"Uh-oh," Cassie said.
98
Ax! Tobias!" Cassie hissed. "Chill!"
The short human girl kept moving toward us, positioning herself between me and the bull.
And now it occurred to me that maybe I should charge her, too.
"Nice cows. Good cows. Gooooood cows," Cassie said in a strangely soothing voice. "Listen to me, guys. We overlooked a little something. You're not steer. You're bulls."
Prince Jake plummeted, then swooped a few feet off the ground, circled, and came back toward us.
«They look different than the other steer,» he said.
"They are," Cassie said in her sweet, soft,
100 talking-to-dangerous-animals voice. "We kind of forgot something. We kind of forgot that you get to be a nice, docile steer by being neutered. But your DNA is still bull DNA."
«0h. That's what's different,» Prince Jake said.
What were they talking about? Confusing. Distracting. But the other bull was still there. Still in my pasture. I snorted. He snorted.
I could feel energy quivering through me. I was alive! Ready to charge. Ready to lower my head, dig in my hooves, and launch myself headlong.
"Boys. Ax. Tobias. Listen to me. You are not steer. You are bulls. Bulls are very territorial. You want to fight right now. But that would be a bad idea. A very bad idea."
Prince Jake had swept past and soared back up into the sky. «Cassie! The truck's on the move!»
Cassie nodded. "Okay, it's time for peace here. Arabs and Israelis. Americans and Russians. We do this by
stages."
I heard her. I understood her. But I was not interested. I was interested in the fact, the OVERWHELMING fact that there was a bull right in front of me, defying me!
"Ax. Tobias. Each of you take one step back."
«Cassie, you may need to bail!»
101 Cassie shook her head impatiently. "Come on, good boys, good bulls, one step back. Come on ... one step back. One step back."
«They're going to spot you, Cassie! Too late to get away. You need to drop and morph!»
"Ax? Tobias?" Cassie said sweetly, calmly, pleasantly. "I ... said . . . BACK UP!"
The other bull and I both jerked straight back.
«0kay, Rachel, Marco, get ready! This is going to be close.»
Cassie grabbed my horns in her hands and stared right into one of my eyes. "I don't have time for this crap. We have enough trouble. Get control. Do it now." She whipped up her handheld stapler. She poked the ear tag into the end of the gun and I heard a loud click in my ear. There was a slight, distant sensation of being stuck with something sharp.
Then she swung around and grabbed Tobias the same way. Within seconds we were both tagged. And both able to accept the other's existence.
Almost.
Prince Jake dropped from the sky again. He landed, as Tobias and I had done earlier, between steer. «Cassie! Morph! Those guys are here.»
"We have a problem here," Cassie said. "They aren't exactly steer."
103 «Do you think the truck drivers will notice?»
"Excuse me? Of course they'll notice! They may be Controllers, but their human hosts are most likely farm folk."
«What do we do? Don't they ever send bulls to the slaughterhouse?»
"Yeah. They do, so maybe if we get there we're okay. But how do we get past these guys in the truck? They'll call in to be sure they're supposed to carry bulls. They'll be mad because bulls are dangerous. They'll realize something is wrong. Ear tag or no ear tag."
«We've gone to too much trouble,» Prince Jake said bitterly. «l don't just want to give up.»
For a long moment no one moved, and no one said anything. Then Prince Jake said something that even I found frightening.
«Marco? Think you can drive their truck?»
102
he truck came. It rolled right out into the mud. Two humans climbed down.
"Hey! That's no steer," the driver said.
His partner nodded. "That sure ain't no steer."
«And I'm definitely not a steer,» Marco said. He stood up from behind the camouflage provided by Tobias and me.
"That's a gorilla!"
"Fool! It's an Andalite in morph!"
The two men turned to run. They did not get far. At last I had a target for my bull aggression.
I loped easily after them. I lowered my head, aligned my curved horns, and struck one, and then the other in the area humans refer to as "the butt."
104 They flew several feet and landed on their faces. Marco yanked them up out of the mud.
«Go to sleep,» Marco said as he butted their heads together.
The humans were rendered unconscious.
«How do we make sure they stay out long enough?»
«Take their clothes. That'll slow them down,» Prince Jake said. «l'll demorph. I'm biggest. I should look okay in that guy's jeans and jacket. Marco drives . . .»
«How come Marco drives?» Rachel demanded.
«He has experiences
"Oh, man, don't even mention that," Cassie said. "My dad cried over the twisted remains of that truck."
«l'll ride shotgun and carry the guy's clipboard^ Prince Jake continued. «Tobias and Ax? See what you can do to persuade some of these steer to get aboard the truck.»
That part proved easy. The steer were nervous about Tobias and me. They were quite content to move away from us, even if that meant climbing a ramp into the back of a truck.
Tobias and I entered last. Cassie and Rachel morphed to flies and made their bobbling, erratic way to perches in our noses. Rachel was with Tobias, Cassie with me.
105 Marco squeezed his huge gorilla bulk into a denim jacket and pants. Shoes were, of course, an impossibility, given the size of his feet.
Jake's own artificial skin was overly large. But he, at least, was human. He donned a hat - a head covering - and pulled it low to obscure his features.
«0h yeah, this'll work,» Rachel said in that tone I recognized as sarcasm. «A gorilla wearing some hideous Levi's leisure suit and a kid who looks like he's wearing his dad's clothes, delivering a pair of bulls to a Yeerk meatpacking plant. Nothing weird there.»
«He has to go in gorilla morph,» Cassie said. «The seat's jammed back and he can't reach the pedals.»
«Everyone ready?» Marco asked brightly. «Everyone have a seat belt on? Anyone have to pee before we leave? Go now. I'm not going to stop at every Stuckeys we pass.»
I felt a sudden lurch. The truck moved. Backward. Then stopped. A second lurch. The engine roared but the truck did not move. The sound I heard suggested metal grinding on metal.
«0h yeah,» Marco said. «Clutch. Forgot about that. I mean, who has a standard transmission nowadays?»
Prince Jake must have said something. Because then Marco said, «Hey, no one is going to
106 die on the way there. I'll get us all there. Everyone will still be available to die when we get there.»
«That's comforting,» Tobias grumbled.
More loud grinding. Suddenly we were propelled forward. All the steer staggered. We lurched and rolled across the field and Marco said, «Hah! See? No problemo.»
«Let's see how you do out on the road,» Tobias said.
I heard a loud crunching sound. «What was that?» I asked.
«Fence,» Marco said.
A few seconds later, a very similar sound.
«More fence, okay?» Marco said. «Everyone just shut up, I have it under controls
Off we went, down the road. I had a very limited exterior view out of the right-hand side. I saw trees flash by. I saw more fields with more cows. I saw a pickup truck, with its horn blaring and its driver forming a sort of salute with one raised finger.
It occurred to me that oncoming vehicles should not be passing by on the right.
«Hey, that guy gave me the finger!»
«Some people take it personally when you nearly run them down,» Tobias said. «Some people have no sense of humor.»
107 I could see the long, low building that was the meatpacking plant. We were getting close. I felt a rush of excitement.
«Almost there,» Marco reported. «There's the road. Just need to turn ... Just need to . . .»
Suddenly the truck swerved wildly. I - and every other animal in the back - fell left.
Thousands of pounds of steer weight had just shifted to the left side of the truck. Just as the truck was teetering left, anyway.
«Ahhhh!» Marco cried.
108 cTTa
aaahhhhh!»
The truck was no longer moving on multiple wheels arrayed along both sides. It was crazily tipped to the left, moving solely on the wheels of one side.
«Aaaaahhhhh!»
Bull and steer, we were all shoved to one side, piled against one another. The floor of the truck bed tilted up and away at an absurd angle.
We were going to tip over!
And yet... the truck kept moving. On the wheels of one side, tilted almost on its side, it kept moving!
And slowly . . . slowly ... so ... slowly . . .
109 the angle diminished. We tilted back to the right. Then . . .
WHAM!
The truck settled back onto all its wheels.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP
The steer, Tobias, and I all fell over to the right. The truck now tilted to the right, but not nearly as far.
WHAM!
The truck settled again, and we blew down the road toward the meatpacking plant.
«Bond,» Marco said. «James Bond.»
Scrrrrreeeeeee
!
Marco hit the brakes and the truck came slithering and fishtailing to a stop at the gate of the meatpacking plant.
Now that the cargo had been reshuffled, I had a better, clearer view out the left side of the truck. I could see two armed guards approaching the cab. They seemed somewhat disturbed. Possibly awed. Possibly admiring. Possibly frightened.
It is sometimes hard to decipher human facial expressions.
"What are you, crazy?" one guard shouted.
"Bad shocks, man," Marco said in a low, gut-teral, muddy voice.
I was startled to hear him make mouth
110 sounds. He must have partially demorphed to human. Just human enough to pass.
"Bad shocks! What are you, nuts? You should be locked up! You should be in a rubber room!"
"Here, just sign off on the manifest," Prince Jake said, trying to lower his own voice.
"You're cleared," the second guard said. "Just let us know when you're gonna leave, so we can stay out of your way."
«0h goody, they're letting us in,» Tobias said darkly.
Marco segued back into gorilla morph as soon as the guards stepped back. «l think I see a ramp up there. That must be where we go,» he said. Then, in obvious reply to Prince Jake, «Sure, I can back up to the ramp. Why wouldn't I be able to back up?»
«0h, man, this is going to be ugly,» Rachel said, speaking from Tobias's nostril.
The truck jerked forward, stopped. Jerked forward again. Stopped. Grind! Lurched into reverse. Stopped. Grind! Lurched. Stopped. Forward. Lurch. Backward. Stop. Grind! Lurch. Forward. Stop.
«l've heard of a three-point turn,» Cassie said. «l guess this would be the thirty-point turn.»
Lurch. Backward.
WHAM!
112 Every steer lurched backward with the impact.
«AII right, we're there,» Marco announced.
«These cows are going to be looking forward to a nice, easy death after this ride,» Rachel said.
«Tobias? Sneeze and blow Rachel a few hundred feet.»
I saw a large man jump down off the platform and come running around to the front of the truck. He was yelling. "Where did you learn how to drive, you moron? I'm gonna kick . . . hey! Where's the driver?"
«We've morphed to flies,» Prince Jake informed us. «Coming back around.»