139 teen decks. Directly ahead you will see escape pods."
He looked at Rachel. "You are too large in that morph to fit in the escape pod. You will need to demorph when you get there. The pod is programmed to return you to the planet in the same area where you were seized. The pod will then self-destruct. Do you understand?"
We all just stared.
«lt's a trap,» Tobias said.
«No. We're already trapped. They could kill us any time,» I said.
«Marco's right,» Jake said. «Why let us es cape if they want to kill us?»
«This is one of Visser One's soldiers,» Ax pointed out. «lt would be very embarrassing for Visser Three if his prisoners should escape, no?»
«Politics,» Cassie said, with a laugh. «lt's about politics! Visser One is making Visser Three look bad. If we escape, it will be blamed on Visser Three.»
"You will have to deal with any of Visser Three's troops you encounter between here and the escape pod," the gold-clad Hork-Bajir said. "Leave. Now."
«Ax?» Jake asked.
«0nly fifteen percent of your morph time is left»
140 «That's about eighteen minutes. Let's do it!»
Visser One's troops turned and marched away.
«l'll go in front,» Rachel said.
«0kay. And let's move,» Jake said.
Rachel squeezed her massive tonnage into the hallway. «AII right. Now let's see who wants to try and stop me!»
141 Whomp ! Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!
Rachel made the steel floor vibrate with each massive step. Her leathery sides scraped the cor ridor walls so that I could only catch occasional glimpses past her.
The hallway was empty until we reached the guard station. Just as the Hork-Bajir had said.
Rachel didn't even slow down.
Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! Whomp!
I saw a flash of a Taxxon, foolishly running as if to cut her off. A few seconds later I had to jump over the crushed remnants of the big centipede.
«Look out! Hork-Bajir!» Cassie yelled.
He exploded out of a side corridor, a red- uniformed Hork-Bajir.
142 S wooos h!
A razor-bladed arm sliced the air inches in front of my face.
«More coming!» Tobias warned. «Both directions! All of them in red!»
«l can't turn around!» Rachel moaned. She was too big, too tight a fit in the corridors to turn and help, as half a dozen Hork-Bajir in Visser Three's livery came screaming onto the scene.
«l knew it couldn't be that easy,» I said.
«Battle!» Ax said, sounding like he was an nouncing a party.
I felt the same way. I was ready. I was mad and tired of feeling helpless.
The closest Hork-Bajir swung at me again and sliced a six-inch long cut in the matted fur of my huge shoulders.
That was all it took. Like I said, gorillas are peaceful, almost gentle creatures.
But don't go making one angry. Especially not when a boy who wants very badly to hurt some Yeerks is sharing space in the gorilla's head.
"Hoohoo hoo hhawwwrr!" I cried and swung a fist the size of a cinderblock into the stomach of the Hork-Bajir. I gave it all I had. I put every ounce of the gorilla's muscle into the blow.
The Hork-Bajir was lifted clear up off the deck. His head slammed the ceiling. He was down and out of the game.
143 Out of the corner of my eye I saw another Hork-Bajir leap at Ax. The Andalite's tail flashed forward so fast you didn't even see it move. The Hork-Bajir staggered back, minus an arm.
«Good one, Ax!»
«You as well! Hah hah!»
I decided right then - I kind of liked Ax.
«Rachel!» Jake yelled. «Keep moving. Left tunnel. Look for a dropshaft, whatever that is. The longer we stay here, the more of these guys are going to show up.»
Just then, right on cue, two more Hork-Bajir came up from behind us. «You guys move! I'll deal with them,» Jake said.
The Hork-Bajir rushed us.
"RRRRRRROOOOOWWWRRR!"
Jake let loose with a roar that must have been heard from one end of the mother ship to the other. It even scared me. And it sure made the Hork-Bajir hesitate.
He was on them, while they were still thinking about what to do next.
Hork-Bajir are very fast. But so are tigers.
One Hork-Bajir was down, with Jake sinking fangs into his snakelike neck. The other Hork- Bajir looked around to make sure no one could see him, then decided he'd like to live. He kept his distance.
Jake backed away but kept his face turned to
144 the Hork-Bajir behind us. We trotted as fast as we could down the hallway, now a scene of dev astation.
It was like the ant tunnels. We could only try to escape. The longer we tried to fight, the more the odds would turn against us.
Suddenly . . .
«Ahhhhhhh!»
«Rachel!» I heard Tobias cry.
«lt's okay. I found the dropshaft. I am ... dropping.»
«What is it?» I asked.
«An elevator without a floor,» Rachel an swered.
Then I was there, at the edge of a long shaft that went down and down, maybe forever. Rachel already looked small. Which was not easy for her to do.
«He said to stop after fifteen levels!» I reminded her.
«Yeah? And how do I do that?»
«Think the number! It hears speech and un derstands simple thought-speak commands,» Ax instructed. Then added, «At least that's how it works on our ships .»
«l'm slowing down. Cool!»
«More Hork-Bajir back here! And some of those other ones. The little wrinkled ones!» Cassie yelled. «They're coming fast!»
145 «Here goes nothing,» I said. I took a look down the dropshaft and jumped off into empty space.
You know, if it hadn't been for the fact that I was just a few minutes from being trapped forever in a morph, and if there weren't a dozen or so walking Salad Shooters after me, it would have been fun.
I fell, but not too fast.
«Fifteen levels,» I thought as floors zipped past me.
Twelve levels down, I plummeted past a human Controller who was getting ready to step into the dropshaft. He had a very human look of total amazement on his face. Possibly because while standing there, he'd seen a flying elephant, followed by a gorilla, a wolf, an Andalite, and a tiger.
«Hork-Bajir, coming fast!» Tobias warned.
I looked up the shaft. A big Hork-Bajir warrior was gaining on us. But there was nothing I could do until he reached us.
«He's mine,» Tobias said. He flared his wings, flapped hard and was shooting back up the drop- shaft toward the falling Hork-Bajir.
"Tseeeeer!"
Tobias's talons came forward, outstretched, and slashed the alien's eyes.
"Ghaahharrr!"
The Hork-Bajir clutched at his face. I guess
146 he was too distracted to think about what floor he was heading to. He shot past us as we slowed to step onto the fifteenth level.
Hard floor under my feet again! A very good feeling.
«Rachel! You have to demorph!» I reminded her.
«Already working on it,» she said.
She was shrinking even as she lumbered along.
«The escape pods! Ahead there!» Ax cried.
They were only a dozen feet from us. A few seconds more and we would make it.
Rachel stumbled. She was half-human, half-elephant. A nightmare of pink and gray, with huge ears and human hair and fat arms and legs that had no feet.
I reached down and swept her up with my powerful arms. She was still large, maybe three hundred pounds. But not too much for me to carry.
We reached the door of the escape pod.
It closed behind us as we wedged our over sized bodies inside.
«Ax! Time!» Jake yelled.
«Five percent of the time remains!»
«Six minutes. Morph out!»
There was a surge as the escape pod ejected fr
om the underside of the Yeerk ship.
147 My dense black fur was already starting to disappear by the time the pod rotated. I could see Earth below.
Earth.
And as the tiny ship turned, I could see the Yeerk mother ship.
It was kind of a joke now, I thought. The Yeerk mother ship. My mother on the Yeerk mother ship.
Hah hah.
Before I became fully human again, before I lost the ability to thought-speak and had to re turn to words spoken out loud, I said, «Jake?»
«Yeah, Marco.»
«No one ever finds out. No one can ever know.»
«0kay, Marco,» he said.
«My mother died two years ago tomorrows
«That's how it will be, my friend.»
«Yeah. But someday . . .» Someday, somehow, in some way that I could not foresee, we would win this battle. Humans and Andalites to gether would defeat the Yeerks. And we would free all of their slaves.
All of them.
«Someday,» I whispered again.
«Someday, Marco,» Jake said.
148 J. guess there's no such thing as a nice graveyard. But the place where my mom is remem bered is as nice as it can be.
The grass is green. There's a tree nearby. It's always very quiet. You can smell flowers.
I hate going there.
My dad stood for a long time, looking down at the white marble headstone. It has my mom's name. The day she was born, the day she died. And a message that says, "No wife, no mother, was ever more loved. Or more deeply missed."
My dad and I stood a few feet apart. We didn't say anything. We both just kind of cried.
You probably wouldn't think I was the kind of guy who would cry. Mostly I don't. Mostly I make
149 jokes about things. It's better to laugh than to cry, don't you think?
I do.
Even when the world is scary and sad. Espe cially when the world is scary and sad. That's when you need to laugh.
"Two years," my dad said. It surprised me.
"Yeah," I said. "Two years."
He took a deep breath. Like it was hard for him to breathe. "I ... I ... look, Marco, I've been thinking."
"Yes?"
"I haven't been a very good father to you." It wasn't a question, so I didn't say anything.
"Your mom . . ." He had to stop for a moment to get his voice under control. "Your mom would not be happy about the way I've been these last two years."
What could I say? I decided to say nothing.
"Anyway. I talked to Jerry the other day."
Jerry was his old boss. Back when he had a regular job.
My dad shrugged. "I guess we have to live, huh? I mean, we can't. . . you know." Another heavy breath. "Your mom wouldn't want us to give up, would she? Anyway, I'm going in Monday to talk to Jerry about getting back to work. You know ... see if I still remember how to even turn on a computer."
150 It was a big thing. A big decision. I guess what I should have done was run over to give him a hug and tell him I was proud of him. I was proud of him. But that's not me.
"Oh, Dad, you never could figure computers out. Especially games."
He stared at me with the blank eyes I had seen for the last two years. Then, suddenly, he laughed.
"You punk kid, I've forgotten more about computers than you ever knew."
"Oh, right! So why did I always kick your butt whenever we played Doom?"
"I let you win."
I made an extremely rude noise. "Yeah? How about if we just go home and play a game so I can show you how totally wrong you are?"
I couldn't stop him from giving me a hug. I guess I didn't mind all that much.
We walked away from my mother's gravestone. The stone that marked the death of a woman who was not dead.
I raised my eyes up to the sky. The blue sky of Earth. My home.
She was probably gone from the mother ship, now. Off to some other corner of the galaxy.
But wherever she was, no matter how far, I would find her.
Someday . . .
151 Don't miss
o
DUD
"My . . . head ..." I said.
«Headache? No surprise, dude.»
"Something . . . wrong ... I can't. . . think."
«Don't worry. Take a break. We have it under control. More or less.»
«Unbelievable,» said a voice in my head. «Can it be? Humans?»
What was that voice? Where was it coming from?
Marco lifted me and slung me over a horse's back. Cassie.
«Cassie? A human, yes. And Rachel? The cousin? Human as well?»
. . . What was happening? There was a voice inside my head.
We were running now, running and running at full gallop, through trees, across lawns, down suburban streets where Cassie's hooves clattered loudly.
152 We jumped a fence. I flew through the air and landed hard on the dirt.
I felt pain, but it came from far away.
... I looked around. Trees, everywhere. A panting horse standing nearby.
I saw all this, but in a distant way, as if I were watching it all on TV. My eyes moved left, right. They moved all on their own. Like someone else was focusing them.
Cassie. I tried to say her name. Cassie.
But no sound came from my mouth.
«Don't struggle, Jake,» a voice in my head said. «lt's pointless.»
What? Who was saying that? What was . . . ?
Then, a laugh that only I could hear. «Put that primitive human brain to work, Jake. Jake the Animorph,» it sneered. «Jake, the servant of theAndalite filth !»
Then I knew.
I knew what the voice was.
A Yeerk!
A Yeerk in my own head.
I was a Controller. . . .
K. A. Applegate, The Predator
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