«Dak, eventually, we must find a way to contact my people,» I said. «We may have to steal a Yeerk ship. We may have to fly, Dak. We may have to go up into space.»
It was what Dak wanted most, I knew. To experience space. To fly up to the stars. It was a promise he could never refuse. A bribe.
Dak stopped walking. I stopped and turned back to face him. «What's the matter?»
96 "You did not have to say that, Aldrea. You do not have to hold out a ripe Nawin cone to make me stay with you. All this time together, Aldrea, and yet you don't know that I would sacrifice anything for you?"
I could only stare. Stare and burn with humiliation. He had seen right through me. I felt small and shabby. I should have said I was sorry. But that, too, would have been a lie.
You see, at that moment, nothing mattered to me. Nothing but erasing the pain of watching my family burn. What Dak thought of me, even what I thought of myself: None of that really mattered.
Dak would stay with me. And I would find a way to pay the Yeerks back.
«Dak, do you have any idea what is farther down in the Deep?»
"No, Aldrea. Already we have gone farther than any Hork-Bajir ever."
«Let's go farther still,» I said. There was no other option.
We walked more slowly now, always downhill. It was a nervous walk. The mist was all around us. We had seen one of the monsters already, and I now knew they were not mere myth.
But I was pretty sure we had lost any Yeerk pursuit. At least for the moment.
97 And yet, although we Andalites are not superstitious, we do have our own ancient myths of dark, deep places within the ground. Places of fear and loathing. And those myths were surfacing in my mind now.
"The mist grows thinner," Dak said.
He was right. I could see him more clearly. And now I was beginning to be able to see down the slope a short distance. Nothing but scruffy, blazingly red and green and blue bushes. No monsters. Not that I could see, anyway.
Down and down we went. Hour after hour. Down, ever down, through a weird twilight. Without being attacked. Without seeing any more monsters. Had our small victory scared them off?
I swiveled my stalk eyes constantly. And then I happened to look up. The sky was brilliant blue.
«lt's some kind of vapor barrier,» I said. «Some-how the atmosphere down here in the Deep interacts with the atmosphere in the valley above us and forms a layer of vapor. The blue color must be a by-product of the interactions
I tried to run through my basic chemistry and get some idea what we were breathing. I came up with some possibilities. None of them exactly comforting. Still, the air, while horribly humid and thick, was breathable.
98 "Down here one cannot even see the valley above," Dak said. "A creature living here would think the blue mist was the sky."
He was right. Only the source of light was below us, not truly above. I knew that beyond the blue barrier it was night. And yet the blue glowed, reflecting light.
As we went ever downward, the light brightened. It was still a sickly, unnatural light. More radioactive than radiating, if you know what I mean. But at least we could see.
And what we saw was that the landscape around us was home to a bizarre array of the brightly colored bushes and a few stunted, twisted trees that Dak refused to acknowledge were trees at all. Here and there, absurdly fast streams cut through the sparse, tired grass and into the bare rock underfoot. You could hear the water racing, having gathered momentum all the way down from the valley above. Some streams were quite large, eight or ten or fifteen feet across.
We began to realize that the ground was leveling off just a little. It was almost as flat as the meadow where we'd built our scoop. Flat, by Hork-Bajir standards.
But the land seemed to stop or fall away, less than a quarter mile ahead.
We advanced cautiously, slowly. And then, quite
99 suddenly, we could see the end of the land. It simply stopped.
"What can this be?" Dak asked.
«l don't know,» I admitted. «lt's your planet»
"Not this part of it."
Step by step, closer, closer. Till we stood on the very edge of the cliff. I arched my upper body forward. I could not imagine how Dak could deal with the height, standing on only two legs with nothing but a tail to help support him.
I looked down, fearful.
Then I looked down again in utter astonishment.
It was a chasm. Sheer cliffs on both sides. Sheer as walls. I could see across the chasm to the far side far better than I could see straight down.
The walls of the chasm were covered in an amazing, intricate filigree: windows, doors, walkways, arches, open spaces cut back into the cliff. All connected vertically by stone stairways.
Thousands of feet below, below all this incredible construction, maybe tens of thousands of feet, was the valley floor. It was not as bright as a sun. But it was bright enough to cast shadows upward from every stair and arch and windowsill.
It glowed red and yellow and seemed to seethe with slow, sluggish movement.
We were looking at the molten heart of the planet.
100
In an instant I had learned one of the terrible drawbacks of having a host body. A host body can be hurt. And the pain cannot be filtered out. The very capability that gives us control ties us into the pain.
The Hork-Bajir had slashed me with his blade. He had aimed the blow well. The spine of my host body was cut in two. All of the body below my chest ceased to exist.
I lay helpless. No one came. For a very long time I lay there, staring up at the night sky through the ominous Hork-Bajir trees.
I saw spacecraft landing. I heard the grunts of Gedds, rushing around in futile pursuit of the An-dalite.
Only hours later did anyone come looking for me.
They dragged me aboard the nearest fighter and
101 ferried me back up to the transport ship. I drained back into the Yeerk pool. I was blind again.
Blind, and being interrogated mercilessly.
«Where did the Andalite girl go?»
«l don't know.»
«How many Hork-Bajir were with her?»
«Only one.»
«What happened to Carger?»
«He ran away. Beyond that, I don't know.»
Over and over again. And the more I was questioned, the more I learned. A total of seven of our people had passed through the blue vapor barrier. One had survived to tell wild tales of huge, shambling monsters appearing out of the mist.
Eventually it was decided that the Andalite girl must have died, too. If these monsters had killed our people, surely they had killed the Andalite as well.
Only I disagreed. «Just because some Gedds were killed, just because Carger was killed, that does not mean the Andalite died.»
«Do you mean to imply that an Andalite girl is stronger, braver, more resourceful than our own warriors?»
«Yes,» I said. «Yes. The Andalites did not become the dominant species in this part of the galaxy by being weak or stupid or cowardly.»
But no one listened. And I was left to wander,
102 blind, around the home that had once been my entire universe and was now a filthy trap.
At last, days later, when enough Hork-Bajir had been taken, I was given a new host body. A new Hork-Bajir.
"We have sent strong, armed parties into the blue mist," Akdortold me. He now had a Hork-Bajir host body, too. "The monsters are real. They have killed more of us. We found the bodies of the others. We searched for the body of the Andalite, but did not find it."
I listened, trying not to gloat too openly.
"It seems you were right, Esplin-Nine-Four-Double-Six. Now you will go back to the surface. You will find this Andalite. You will destroy her."
"Yes, Akdor. I will. And if I do, what will be my reward?"
"You will be made a sub-visser. How many troops will you need?"
"None, Akdor. I will go as a spy, not a
conqueror. I will pass as a Hork-Bajir. I will find the Andalite. And I will kill her."
But of course, I was lying. You see, I had already realized one very important thing: From now on, the host body one had would be an indication of power. Already there were lines of distinction between Yeerks who had Gedd hosts and Yeerks who were given the new, powerful Hork-Bajir bodies.
103 These Hork-Bajir would be our shock troops.
But there was still one host better than Hork-Bajir: Andalite.
Yes, the Yeerk who could take an Andalite host would be more than a mere su/?-visser. The Yeerk who could take and hold an Andalite host would be a visser, at the very least. And someday, who knows? A seat on the Council of Thirteen?
"I will take care of this matter, Akdor," I said. "I will deal with the Andalite."
104
ALDREA
Father Deep. That's what the Hork-Bajir called it. They thought it was the land of monsters, below the mist. But the zone of monsters was fairly narrow.
I now had some understanding of the layout. The upper valley, above the blue mist barrier, was Hork-Bajir land. A land of steep inclines and gigantic trees.
Beneath the mist was a somewhat more level belt that encircled the valley. In this zone of dense fog and eerie plants, the monsters lived.
Now we were in the third zone: no longer a steep valley, but sheer cliffs. Cliffs that were covered by a complex of walkways, stairways, arches, carved-out plazas, homes, businesses. . . . They had every imaginable feature of a moderately advanced civilization but one: They were empty. No one seemed to be living here.
«l would cut off my tail for a portable sensor,» I said.
105 "What is a portable sensor?"
«lt's a device you can carry that performs a number of functions. It would tell us how old this place is. I don't know if all this was created last week, last millennium, or at the dawn of history.»
We were descending the cliff face by an endlessly long stairway. Every few dozen feet, the stairway would broaden out into a landing. A walkway would cross the landing. Along the walkways we could see doorways.
I was primed. Ready. Expecting attack at any moment. But the silence seemed to speak of emptiness. Emptiness everywhere in the valley around and below us.
Not that I wanted to think about what was below us. If I strayed off the steps, I'd fall. I'd fall for a very long time, down, down till I hit the exposed core of the planet.
Of course, long before I hit actual bottom I'd be incinerated. But that wasn't a very comforting thought.
We reached yet another landing and we both froze. This walkway was different. It was broader by far, chiseled deeper into the cliff. And a hundred feet down the walkway we could see some sort of vast opening.
«Shall we investigate it?»
"Why not?"
106 So we headed down along the walkway. And there, on our right, we came upon the opening. An opening so vast it could have been a hangar for a fleet of ships.
We stepped into the opening. It was nice to move away from the cliff face and that precipitous drop. But the size of this space was intimidating. I felt I should bow my head. You could play three separate games of driftball at once in that space. The sound of my hooves echoed off stone walls I could not even see in the gloom.
«What do you suppose this place is?» I asked.
Dak just shook his head. He was looking up in wonder, searching for the roof we knew was above us but couldn't see in the deep shadows.
«lt's an open place, at least,» I said. «We could stay the night here. We need rest. And I don't think the Yeerks will come after us anymore tonight. Even if they did, how would they find us in this absurd maze of walkways and openings?»
"It would be good to rest," Dak said. "We cannot stay in any of the smaller dwellings we saw. Too small. Too confining."
I certainly agreed with that. No one wanted walls around them and roofs above them if they could avoid it. On board a spacecraft it was inevitable, but this space was so large it might almost have been an open field.
107
"No trees," Dak said. "And the flat, horizontal angle of the floor is disturbing to me."
«But, on the positive side, no Yeerks.»
"Yes. We can sleep here."
«l will take the first watch,» I said.
Dak slept as Hork-Bajir do: He relaxed his legs and slumped down into a sort of sitting position, with legs splayed out in front and thick tail providing a third support. His head fell forward, chin to chest.
He was asleep instantly, as far as I could tell. I was jealous. Sleep isn't always that easy for me. For most Andalites. We are a watchful species. My mother explained it to me once when I found myself unable to sleep for several days.
«We no longer have predators to attack us,» she'd said, «but evolution does not just throw away adaptations that were necessary once. The animals we evolved from were prey for millions of years. They lived in vast herds, always watched by hungry predators. This was before we developed our tail blades and we had no protection but speed. We still feel the need to watch for predators. It may be a million years before we lose that instinct»
My mother was good at explaining things like that. It's what she did. She was a scientist. Like I was supposed to be.
But now she was dead. In part because we An-
108 dalites had begun to forget that instinct for caution. We had forgotten that even though the predators on our own world had died out, there were still predators loose in the galaxy.
Or at least parasites.
I stood there in the gloom, in the faint reflected glow from the valley floor, and I remembered the searing light of the shredders as they ripped my family apart, atom by atom by atom.
I had to find a way to contact the fleet or the home world. Nothing would save this planet now but the appearance of a full-fledged Andalite war fleet.
That meant Z-space communication. A radio signal would take decades to reach anyone. I needed advanced Zero-space transponders.
And the only ones on this planet were aboard the ships the Yeerks controlled.
No need for concern, Aldrea, I said to myself. Just walk up to the nearest Yeerk landing area, tell them you want to borrow the fighter, initiate contact with the home world, and suggest they rush directly to our assistance. Nothing whatever to worry about.
I looked at Dak, asleep, his forehead horns raked forward, arms bent to keep the blades outward. He would be hard to attack while sleeping, I thought. From behind, the tail spikes. From the sides, the arm blades. From the front, the horns.
109 He'd said he would do anything for me. He'd said it in a way that... no, that was ridiculous. We were different species. Totally, completely different.
And yet I enjoyed spending time with him. I enjoyed talking with him. I missed him when we were separated.
Perfect, Aldrea, I laughed to myself. He's covered with blades; he'll soon be seven feet tall; he eats with his mouth; and he swings through the trees.
I was just lonely, that was it. There were no An-dalite males around, and I was at the appropriate age for an interest in males. If there had been an interesting Andalite around, I'd have cared nothing about Dak.
There are no Andalite males, I reminded myself, and even if there were, you have no choice but to care about Dak. At the very best, the fleet would take two months to arrive. And this strange, bladed creature is your only friend.
Two months. If I could reach my people. If.
And if I could not reach my people, could Dak reach his? Could the simple, placid Hork-Bajir be made to rise up and save themselves?
Was Dak Hamee the seer ready to become Dak Hamee the general?
110
DAK HAMOT
In the middle of the night I woke. I told Aldrea to sleep. And I waited.
I did more thinking that night than I had ever done in my life. I had seen amazing things. I had seen terrible things. And now I understood that I had to do more than just follow A
ldrea.
I did not believe Aldrea was bad, not in the way the Yeerks were bad. But Aldrea had lied to me. Aldrea was an Andalite first, my friend second. And she was hungry for revenge against the Yeerks.
It was up to me to figure out what to do to save my people. But I had no ideas. No Hork-Bajir had ever faced this problem before. I was helpless.
I stood, thinking, for hours. Then, slowly, the diffuse light from below was replaced by a brighter, cleaner light from above.
It took me a while before I realized that somehow, the light really was from above, even though I
111 knew there were thousands of feet of rock above me.
I craned my neck back and looked up.
"Aldrea! Wake up!"
Aldrea's eyes snapped open. All four of them. The stalk eyes slowly turned to look upward.
There, in the center of the vast, domed roof, was a hole. The hole was the bottom of a shaft. The shaft was as big as the trunk of the Tribe Tree.
Without speaking, we moved beneath the shaft and looked straight up. Up into clear, open sky, thousands of feet above us. So far away that the circle of sky looked smaller than Aldrea's eye.
But the shaft itself was filled with light. It glittered. It seemed almost to be alive, as though the walls of the shaft were moving and each movement sparkled.
«Like diamonds,» Aldrea said.
Light glowed from the shaft, and slowly the walls of the vast cavern became visible. I had expected smooth, gray or tan rock. But this was not mere rock. The walls of the cavern were covered entirely in swatches and patterns of strange colors. Blues, greens, oranges. Not smooth at all, but quilted.
Peering closer, I could see that all the patches of color were of a similar shape: short wings . . . arms . . . feet. . . heads!
112 «They're alive!» Aldrea cried.
The walls of the cavern were covered in living creatures of every imaginable shade.
Then, in a moment I shall remember for all of my life, the creatures woke up. At the same instant, ten thousand eyes opened. Each glittered like a star. Ten thousand glittering eyes stared down at us from left and right and above.