The Bug fighter turned, bringing a modified rear door into contact with the invisible outer hull. A Hork-Bajir bounded inside. A Taxxon slithered behind him. And then, moving almost daintily as he stepped from the Bug fighter down into the Pemalite ship, came Visser Three.
I yelled in frustration.
The Yeerks broke the code. The outer door of the decompression chamber opened.
The fighters disgorged Hork-Bajir and Taxxons into the Pemalite ship. They formed up around Visser Three in the decompression chamber, some fanning out to take up flanking positions.
Tobias said.
“Oh, dilemma! Oh, drama! Oh, the tension and excitement of it all!”
The voice was new. Not thought-speak. High, shrill, grating.
Jake said.
“Right here, Jake. From me, Big Jake. Jake, the reluctant leader. Jake, the oh-so-tiresomely decent one. A sanctimonious killer: my least favorite kind.”
I said.
Jake demanded.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” the voice sang mockingly. “Of course. I’ll even come out with my hands up.”
It appeared from behind a tree. It moved on two legs, body held forward and balanced by a stubby tail. It walked like a bird or a small dinosaur. It did hold its hands up. But they were weak, flimsy things, multiply jointed but obviously designed for very light work or very low gravity.
The head was surprising for that almost reptilian body: vaguely human in shape, with a narrow lower jaw and wide-set, intelligent, laughing eyes.
It was wrinkled, like your thumb after a long bath. Its flesh was dark, almost black. The eyes and mouth were rimmed in green.
Tobias asked Ax.
Marco said.
“Oh, Marco the funny one!” the creature cried, slapping its limp hands together. “How’s Mommy, Marco? Is she alive or is she dead? Does she scream with the Yeerk in her head?”
Marco reached for the creature with two long tentacles. But neither touched the withered thing. They stopped and bent back.
“All here together?” the prune thing mocked. “Cassie, the hypocrite? ‘I don’t believe in violence … except when I do.’ Aximili, the pitiful, pale shadow of his dead brother? If only you’d insisted on going with Elfangor, maybe he’d have lived. Too bad. And Tobias, ah, yes, Tobias. The boy not really so trapped as a bird, eh, but too gutless to resume life as a human? And Rachel. My very favorite Animorph.”
The thing smiled a lipless smile. “Rachel, Rachel. Do you feel the adrenaline rush of murderous desire? Do you feel the urge to reach out and destroy me? Of course you do. You and I have that in common.”
I snapped, trying to ignore the rage it had so clearly seen inside me. Trying to ignore the fear, as well. This thing knew us. All about us. Who we were, what we were. All it had to do was to tell the Yeerks. Then, even if we escaped, we were finished.
“Haven’t figured it out yet? Ooh, so slow. Allow me to introduce myself,” it said. “I am the Drode. It’s a word from my species. It means ‘wild card.’”
Jake said.
“Oh, very clever, Big Jake, Prince Jake. Have you killed your brother yet? No? Well, you will.”
Jake answered calmly.
The Drode grinned. Then the grin disappeared. “Payback,” it said. “You ruined his Howlers. Ruined his plan for the Iskoort. Crayak doesn’t like you, Big Jake. Any of you.” Then it looked straight at me. “Although you have potential.”
I let that go by. I didn’t want to think about what it meant. I said.
“Whale killing? Me?” the Drode said in mock horror. “No, no, no. That big lump on the beach falls just over the line into sentience. And I never kill a sentient creature. Your whale will survive.”
Ax said.
“Yes, yes, oh yes,” the Drode sneered. “Mustn’t upset the balance. Not directly, anyway. But! Create problems? Yes. Create opportunities? Yes. Play the wild card? Of course. And now, no more time for chat. The Yeerks are here for you. Will they kill you outright? Or will they make you Controllers? I don’t care. Either way, my master will reward me.”
Cassie said desperately.
The Drode laughed. “They’re machines, you silly girl. Androids.”
Tobias said.
“Nonsense,” the Drode said. “There’s always a way left for you. That’s also part of the rules. Now, if you don’t find it, well …”
The creature walked back behind a tree. A tree much too narrow to conceal it. And yet it disappeared.
I looked left. Hork-Bajir and Taxxons were filling the decompression chamber. Twenty, maybe more Hork-Bajir. Half a dozen Taxxons. And Visser Three: an army all by himself.
Trapped!
Demorph, and give up our greatest secret, a secret that protected our families as well as ourselves.
Or simply wait to die.
I started to say.
Cassie yelled.
Jake yelled.
he said. Ax only had to demorph. He would have to buy us time.
Tobias said.
Immediately, a dark, roiling cloud of ink billowed out of me like a dense wall of fog, creeping out farther and farther, blocking and isolating everything in its path.
I couldn’t see through it. But I didn’t know how long it would last.
I began to demorph. Speed was everything. Ax and Tobias would try to slow the advancing Yeerks. But they wouldn’t last more than a few seconds against that army.
I began to shrink, becoming small within the vast bubble. My tentacles rolled up, suckers disappeared, my beak mouth became teeth. Too slow! Soon I’d be a human, sucking on water.
No. Wait! Water. Yeah, it was water. Black water. Opaque water.
I managed to yell just as my thought-speak cut out.
I was a creature half-cephalopod, half-human, a horror, a hideous slimy thing with blond hair and shriveling tentacles.
I swam straight up. Up through water as inky black as the water outside the ship. My head, my increasingly human head, poked out through the top. Around me was a gently rolling bubble of ink-filled water. I could see the ceiling above, and Tobias flapping hard for altitude. I could see the rounded, down-sloping edges of the flying bubble itself. But I could not see the Yeerks.
And if I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me.
I began to morph again.
Sharp, curved claws as long as paring knives sprouted from my fingertips. Thick, shaggy fur raced across my growing body. Gleaming fangs erupted where my hu
man teeth had been.
I dove down, as any good grizzly could, down through the black bubble. I swam straight down. Down till my huge, shaggy head erupted from the bottom of the bubble. The bottom of the bubble was about ten feet off the grassy floor.
Suddenly, I dropped.
WHAM!
I landed on my shoulder. I rolled and bounded up to my feet.
The others were dropping around me. A tiger slipped from the bubble nearest mine and landed with all the easy grace my bear lacked. A wolf. A gorilla.
The huge black bubbles continued to float over our heads like very low storm clouds. Ahead of us, a hundred feet away, no more, stood Ax.
Facing Ax, a small Yeerk army.
Lying on the ground were two Taxxons, huge, needle-legged centipedes. They’d been sliced open by an Andalite tail blade. The other Taxxons devoured them noisily, round red mouths descending to rip and tear their brothers.
Visser Three himself had a gash that had almost removed one of his stalk eyes.
Tobias’s handiwork.
But the lull was temporary. The Visser was getting ready to renew the attack.
Marco said.
I said.
Visser Three said. He jerked his hand toward a Hork-Bajir. In the Hork-Bajir’s clawed hands, a hawk.
I didn’t hesitate, I didn’t think. I dropped to all fours and charged.
Sheer, massive aggression.
But then, a movement! A Taxxon motoring across my path!
I slammed into it like a tractor rolling over a snail.
“SKKKRREEEEE!” it shrieked. I flailed back in shock and pain. I sank my teeth into its head. Its foul taste flooded my mouth. I whipped my head in fury, tearing the Taxxon in two.
I raked its still-squirming upper body with my claws, shoving it aside. But my charge had been ruined. My chance lost.
With a loud roar — animal, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxon — the battle erupted. We charged; they charged. We exploded into each other.
Ax yelled.
I caught a blurred movement.
Turned as the Hork-Bajir’s sharp, razor-bladed arm fell like an ax and buried itself in my hip.
Agony exploded in my brain, driving me into frenzy.
“RRROOOAAARRR!” I screamed, twisting away, staggering as the pain shot a thousand burning spikes through my body.
Cassie leaped and buried her teeth in the back of a Hork-Bajir’s neck.
I closed my jaws around the Hork-Bajir. I shook him until he flopped like a rag doll.
I tossed him away.
The battle raged, the lush, peaceful, Pemalite ship a nightmare scene of screams and roars, blood and rage.
“Guhroooar!” Marco, in gorilla morph, leaped down from an outcropping of rocks and tore into a Taxxon.
“SSSRRREEEE-wah!” It fell, writhing, squirming, its lobster-clawed hands clicking and snapping in its death throes.
A sleek, powerful tiger hurtled by, pouncing on a Hork-Bajir’s back and burying its fangs in his neck.
The Hork-Bajir staggered. Screamed. Collapsed.
Three huge, fearsome Hork-Bajir had converged on Ax and backed him to the edge of the small lake.
One darted forward, swiping at Ax with his bladed arm.
And stumbled, pitching sideways as my wounded leg gave out, sending me crashing into a Hork-Bajir and knocking him to the ground beneath me.
For one, brief moment our eyes met.
And suddenly, eerily, we were more than warriors on separate sides.
We were each other.
And for a frozen moment, the world went still. Then …
Slash!
His arm came up, wrist blade out. I jerked my head back and rolled into him. He slashed again and caught me in the side. I twisted and brought my right paw around. I didn’t have the leverage to slash. Instead, I did what a grizzly wouldn’t: I drew back my fist and punched him in the face.
I clambered up off his unconscious body.
The battle was everywhere. And we were losing. The grass was littered with fallen Taxxons and Hork-Bajir. The air was thick with dying screams and clogged with the hot, coppery stench of blood.
“Ghafrash!” A Hork-Bajir, charging Jake.
Jake slashing, roaring.
Cassie, hobbling, dragging a broken back leg, snarling and dodging a Taxxon’s claws.
Marco, bleeding, cheek laid open, his huge, powerful hands wrapped tightly around a Hork-Bajir’s neck. Squeezing.
Ax, whirling, slicing, the master of deadly perfection.
But we were losing. Because all alone, surrounded by his Hork-Bajir guard, Visser Three was morphing. Growing. Some hideous creation from some far-distant planet.
Huge! Deadly.
We couldn’t defeat all his Hork-Bajir and Taxxons. Let alone this monster.
“Ah-hah-hah! Wonderful! Lovely! Perfect!” the Drode cackled happily. “I love the smell of battle. Oh, J-a-a-ake? Are you dead yet?”
It had reappeared, stepping out from behind the same tree, seemingly oblivious to any danger.
I said.
The Drode grinned its green-rimmed grin. “You know, Crayak could use you, Rachel. Why stay with these weaklings? You’re already more like us than like them.”