The Pretender Even the book morphs! Flip the pages and check it out! i ii ANIMORPHS The Pretender K.A. Applegate AN APPLE PAPERBACK SCHOLASTIC INC. New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney Mexico City New Delhi Hong Kong iii Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book." No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 555 Broadway, New York, NY 10012. ISBN 0-590-76256-7 Copyright© 1998 by Katherine Applegate. All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, APPLE PAPERBACKS, ANIMORPHS and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 189/90123/0Printed in the U.S.A. 40First Scholastic printing, November 1998 iv The author would like to thank Michael Mates for his help in preparing this manuscript. For Tonya Alicia Martin Also for Michael and Jake 1 My name is Tobias. That's my name. But names don't really tell you much, do they? I've known two Rachels. One was this whiny, obnoxious person. The other Rachel - the one I know now - is the bravest person I've ever known. But you'd think that my telling you my name is Tobias would at least tell you that I'm human, wouldn't you? You'd assume I have arms and legs and a face and a mouth. But names don't even tell you that. I am not human. I was human once. I was born a human. There are human characteristics within me. And I can 2 become a human for two hours at a time. But I am not human. I am a red-tailed hawk. A very common species of hawk, nothing exotic. Red-tails tend to live in woods near an open field or meadow. We hunt best that way: by sitting on a tree branch, gazing out across the field, spotting prey, then swooping in quickly for the kill. That's what I do. I live in the trees near a very nice meadow. Unfortunately, the hunting has been bad lately. Partly that's just the way it goes. There are good times and bad times in the predator business. But more, it's competition. Another red-tail has been moving in on my territory. He's been eating my mice. Between him and the minor drought we've been having, food's getting a little scarce. Stupid, huh? Stupid that I'd worry about something like that. I mean, I have powers far greater than that other red-tail. I can morph to human. I can morph to any animal. I could morph to some member of the feline family or some kind of snake and take out the red-tail. Only I don't. I could confront the other hawk. Red-tail to red-tail. We could fight it out. Only I don't. I don't do anything. Pretty soon he'll make a 3 move on me, push me aside. Maybe then I'll have to figure out what to do. But right now, I don't do anything. I just go hungry. I could go to the others for help. To Rachel and the other Animorphs, my friends. But how weak is that? How can I go begging for help to deal with a situation I should be able to handle myself? I sat on my branch, in my tree, and watched the dry grass. I watched as only a hawk can watch. With telescope eyes and a mind that never grows tired of looking for the clues to a kill. I waited and watched and listened. A twitch of a grass stalk. A slight puff of rising dust. The faint sounds of tiny feet scrabbling in the dirt. And from time to time I looked across the meadow at him. At the other hawk. He was a hundred yards away. The length of a football field. But I could see him clearly. It was like looking in a far-distant mirror. The angry, yellow-brown eyes. The wickedly curved beak. The sharp talons dug into the bark of a branch. He looked at me. Our eyes met. He was pure hawk. I was ... I was that unique, misfit creature called Tobias. I said to him, though of course he understood nothing. 4 He returned his gaze to the field. So did I. I had long since marked the burrow of a rabbit and its family. Three baby rabbits had survived. I was human enough to know that people - humans- would be disgusted by the sight of my killing and eating a baby rabbit. They would rather I at least go after the adult female. But they'd be wrong. Life in the meadow isn't a Disney movie. If I killed the mother, the babies would all die. If I killed only the baby, the mother would survive to breed again. Breed more babies for me to take. To rip apart. To eat. There was another consideration: Rabbits are tougher than mice. They can aim those powerful hind legs and deliver a blow that will knock you silly. This is my life. A meadow running short of prey. A competitor who would like to push me out altogether. And a family of rabbits who had to die so that I could live. See what I mean about names not telling you very much? In the old days, back when I was truly human, "Tobias" was a word that meant wimp. That's what I was. I guess I was a nice person, back then. I guess teachers liked me and girls felt sorry for me. But the bullies were drawn to me like a mosquito to a sweaty neck. 5 That all changed in the most unexpected way you can possibly imagine. It changed on the night Jake, Rachel, Marco, Cassie, and I went walking through the abandoned construction site. That's where we saw the damaged spacecraft land. That's where we met the doomed Andalite prince. Elfangor. It was Elfangor who told us that our lives as we'd known them were going to end. Had already ended. He told us about the secret Yeerk invasion of Earth. An intimate invasion by the parasite slugs who enter your brain and enslave you. And it was Elfangor who gave us powers no one but an Andalite had ever had before. It was Elfangor who transformed us with Andalite morphing technology. We gained the ability to touch an animal, absorb its DNA, and then to become that animal. Yes, to become. I morphed a hawk. I overstayed the two-hour time limit. I was trapped. Trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk. Trapped in a world where another bird can be a dangerous enemy. Trapped in a world where I must kill to eat. And not like humans do, where they hire someone else to draw the blood and shatter the bone and then get the food in sanitized plastic packages at the supermarket. 6 I must kill my own food. I must swoop down and drive the sharp talons into the brain, into the neck. I must feel the heart stop beating. After. . . after I have already begun to feed. That's what the name Tobias means. For this Tobias. For this one, strange, unique creature. Movement! Just a slight twitch of a single grass stalk. I looked at my opponent. He had not seen it. This kill was mine. I opened my wings, caught the breeze, and swooped down low across the reaching wildflowers and waving yellow grass. Swooooosh! I saw the flash of brown. I saw the small rabbit. I was intensely focused. I was electrified. It happened in seconds. I spilled air, changed the angle of attack, flipped my tail to aim, and dropped, talons wide open, onto the baby rabbit. It didn't see me! Its mother did, but she was three feet away. Too far! In seconds my talons would close . . . Suddenly, I was scared, helpless, frozen with terror! Above me the wings blotted out the sun. Huge, monstrous talons came down, like they were reaching down from the sky itself. 7 I screamed in terror. I plowed into the ground, beak first. I was a hawk again. But I had hit the dirt, missing my prey. I flapped madly, panicked. I tried to catch air, then . . . FWAPP! Two big rabbit legs kicked and hit me across the side of my head, snapping my head back so fast I almost blacked out. There was dust in my eyes. I blinked, frantic, terrified. I saw the baby rabbit hopping away. I saw the mother rabbit keeping station between it and me. The mother gaped at me with one perfectly round eye. Her mouth worked, her ears twitched. She did not see the second shadow. The one that came up from behind her, dropped, opened its talons, and flew away, dragging her baby to its death. 8 I was still hungry. And now I was shaken up, too. This was not the first time I'd had a similar experience. It had started in the last couple of weeks. Weird flashes like waking dreams. I would be closing in on my prey and then, in that ultimate moment, I would feel my mind transferred into that prey. At least that's how it felt. I know it sounds crazy. But then, if you're me, how can you even talk about crazy and sane? Sometimes I wonder if the truth is that I'm some lunatic. I wonder if in reality I'm a hopeless, raving madman locked in an asylum, merely imagining that I am a hawk. 9 Maybe I'm wearing a straitjacket. Maybe I'm in a padded room in a row of other padded rooms full of nuts who think they're Napoleon or George Washington or a red-tailed hawk. How would I know? Does a madman know he's mad? Does he realize that the delusion isn't real? I left the rabbit to the other hawk. But that indelible memory of being the prey instead of the predator hung over me, shadowed my mind. Even with the bright early-morning sun baking up thermals off the roads and parking lots, I felt like I was flying in shadow. But there was a stronger need than the need for sanity. I was hungry. Hungry in that desperate, all-consuming way a predator has. It's a mean hunger. A dangerous hunger. It was early still. The housing development below me was quiet. Parents were getting into their cars and driving off to work. Kids were waiting for buses. Some were talking or playing around. Most were standing glumly, wiping the sleep out of their eyes. I floated above it all, ignored by the humans below me. And then I saw it. It was fresh, I could see that right away. A raccoon, its back quarter smashed flat by a tire. Roadkill. Carrion. 10 But it was fresh. It hadn't been dead more than an hour. The flesh would still be warm, especially on this warm day. But the maggots would not have started growing. Not yet. I circled above it. If only it had still been breathing. Stupid, isn't it? Drawing a line between prey that's alive, that you have to kill, and somehow pretending that's okay, that's right. And on the other hand, acting like something already dead is off-limits. The truth is, I'd seen hawks eat roadkill. Older, weaker hawks. Unlucky hawks. It happens. It just hadn't happened to me. I circled lower. So fresh. I was so hungry. Such a stupid, meaningless distinction. My hunger argued with me. My hunger was convincing. I dropped down, as suddenly as if I were going in for the kill. Maybe I wanted to pretend that's what I was doing. I dropped down and landed on cracked blacktop. I looked around for cars. The street was empty. Quickly, furtively, I ripped my beak into the raccoon's belly. And I began to feed. Yes, it was still warm. I gobbled. I ripped and swallowed. Ripped and swallowed. "Tobias?" 12 I snapped my head around, but I had already recognized the voice. Rachel? No! Oh, God, no! No. She just stood there, schoolbooks under her arm. Rachel would be beautiful in the middle of mud slides and hailstorms. On a sweet, sunny day, she made my heart ache. She looked at me. Embarrassed for me. Wanting to say something that would make it all right. Not knowing what to say. Hurting for me. Feeling my humiliation. What could I do? I flapped my wings, skimmed across the pavement, and finally soared into the air. She might believe I was some other hawk. She might. Or at least she would pretend to. A piece of raccoon liver was in my mouth. I swallowed it. 11 Chapter 3 I saw Rachel again two days later. I'd checked in with Jake to see if anything was going on. There were no missions - we'd worked plenty lately, dealing with the horrifying matter of David, the first new Animorph. David had ended up like me, as what the Andalites call a nothlit. A person trapped in morph. But David had been trapped in the body of a rat. No flying for him. He was a prey animal. And unlike me, David had not, and would never, regain his morphing power. Jake said that although there was no mission, Rachel wanted to see me. He said it was important. I said, <0kay.> I flew to Rachel's house that night, after the 13 lights in her sisters' and mother's bedrooms were turned off. She had left the window open, as she often did. Sometimes I'd come by and do her homework for her. I don't know why. Some weird desire to stay in touch with my old life, I guess. I flew silently, with the ease of long practice, through her open window and landed on her desk. She was sitting in the dark with one of those little book lights on so she could read. She put down her book. "Hi, Tobias," she whispered. "Something has happened," she interrupted. "Someone has come around asking about you." My heart missed about a dozen beats. When it started again I had to gasp in air. Rachel rolled off her bed. She was wearing a long sports jersey of some kind. It's what she wore to bed, I guess. I didn't recognize the team colors or the number. I was never very interested in sports, and now that whole thing means nothing at all to me. She flicked on the dim lamp beside her bed and came over to me. "Some lawyer. He says he was your father's 14 lawyer. And he's also representing some woman. She says her name is Aria. She says she's your cousin." Rachel shrugged with that impatient, "What are you, an idiot? Pay attention!" way she has. "Who cares what her name means?" "I didn't exactly cross-examine her," Rachel said snappishly. I laughed. Don't ask me why, but Rachel being cranky always makes me laugh. "This comes secondhand," Rachel clarified. "From Chapman." That killed any amusement I was feeling. Chapman is the vice principal at my school. Or what used to be my school. He's also a high-ranking Controller. A human infested and utterly enslaved by the Yeerk in his head. I asked sharply. She shook her head, a movement that caused her long, blond hair to shiver across her shoulders. "No. He was asking his daughter Melissa if she knew anything about Tobias. I just happened to be there." 15 "No one trusts anything about this," Rachel said. "Marco is in full-blown psycho paranoia mode. But for what it's worth, it sounded real to me. I mean, maybe Chapman knows more than he's letting his daughter know, but I didn't get the feeling he was interested in me." Rachel laughed. "Definitely. Chapman was all like, Tobias hasn't been in school in months. I contacted his last address and his guardian says he thought he was with some other aunt.'" I said, trying to sound lighthearted. Both of my parents are probably dead. I used to be sort of passed back and forth between an uncle and an aunt. One was a drunk and the other just couldn't be bothered. No one wanted me. I don't say that to get pity; it's just reality. I couldn't blame them, I guess. I mean, they didn't ask to have a kid all of a sudden. And when I disappeared I don't guess either of them spent much time looking for me. "Look, I know where this lawyer is staying," Rachel said. "Jake says we are all available to help check this out." I said. "I don't know what to tell you," Rachel said. Rachel nodded, but not like she completely agreed. "Maybe. Probably. But I guess this woman has been in Africa all this time. She just got back and found out that no one knew where you were. I guess she contacted this lawyer of your dad's. She told him and Chapman she wanted to take you in." "Give you a home, Tobias. A home." 17 The lawyer's name was DeGroot. His office didn't look like much. It was in one of those strip malls with a convenience store at one end and a State Farm Insurance office on the other end. It didn't look like a place to lay a trap. But that's the thing about traps: If they looked like traps, they wouldn't be very effective. And the place did have one big problem for us: There was nowhere to hide any big morphs. Nowhere to conceal Jake's tiger or Rachel's grizzly bear. Behind the building was a fenced-in Dumpster. Between the Dumpster and the back wall of the building was a narrow space. Dark enough, private enough for me to morph. 18 But I hesitated, floating above the building on the wonderful updrafts created by sun and concrete. I could see in the front window of the lawyer's office. I saw a secretary sitting at a desk. I saw some old magazines on tables in the waiting room. I couldn't see DeGroot. Didn't matter. Seeing a man's face doesn't tell you much. Not when the most important thing about him is the slug hiding, wrapped around his brain. I looked around. I saw some of the others. Jake and Cassie were sitting on the outside benches of a Taco Bell across the street. Jake was eating nachos, looking past Cassie at me. He knew I could see him. I did a little roll, you know, rocking side to side to say "hi." He raised a nacho to me, like he was making a toast. I saw Marco coming out of the convenience store with a drink I could have taken a bath in. He acted like he'd just noticed Ax - in human morph, of course - and ambled over to say hello. I could not see Rachel. But I knew she was in the Laundromat next door to the lawyer's office. She was my first backup. If I yelled for help she'd head into the Laundromat's bathroom, morph to grizzly bear, and come straight through the wall to save me. 19 I pitied any poor soul who happened to be using the bathroom if Rachel needed it. Everyone in place. Everything was ready. Still I hesitated. Not because the situation worried me. Not because I was afraid. It's very comforting, knowing you have an on-call grizzly bear. Mostly I was just nervous. What was I going to discover? What was I going to learn? What temptations would I have to face? Strange word, temptations. Strange concept. But that's what worried me most. Temptation. Okay, Tobias, I told myself, everyone can see you're dawdling. Get it over with, I swooped low over the roof of the strip mall and dropped swiftly down into the space behind the Dumpster. A lovely place: beer cans, weathered Dorito bags, candy wrappers, cigarette butts. I landed on damp dirt and scraggly grass. And I began to morph. It's funny, you know, because when Jake or one of the others becomes human, that's demorphing. But for me, the human is just another animal shape I can take on. Human DNA flows in my veins. My own human DNA, thanks to some neat work by the vastly powerful creature called the Ellimist. 20 On one of our first missions, I was trapped in the hawk body I now thought of as my own. Some months later the Ellimist used me to help some free Hork-Bajir escape. The Ellimist paid me for my services. But as usual with that unfathomable creature, there was a complication. I had asked him to give me what I wanted most. I had assumed he'd make me human again. Instead, he left me a hawk but gave me back my morphing powers. And by twisting time itself, he brought me face-to-face with my old self and let me acquire my "own" DNA. I could be my old human self. I could be that human boy for two hours and keep my morphing powers. Or I could remain more than two hours, be my old self forever, and forever lose my morphing ability. Ax's people, the Andalites, know a little about the race or the individual called "Ellimist." No one knows for sure whether there's just one, or many, or whether it matters. Anyway, the Andalites tell fairy stories of the Ellimists. They see them as tricksters. Unreliable. Creatures who use their power in unpredictable ways. Well, the Ellimist had tricked me. He left me hanging, stuck between two impossible choices: become human and stop being an Animorph. Or live the life I live now. 21 All this flashed through my thoughts as I began to focus on the change I wanted to make. I felt the resentment I'd often felt for the Ellimist. But more, I felt my own indecision. Slowly at first, because my mind was confused, then faster as I focused, my body began to change. I grew taller. My sharp talons dulled, became pink and chubby toes. My leathery legs sprouted out of their feather sheath and thickened. I heard the bones stretching, becoming more solid. I felt, as though it were happening far off, my internal organs shift and change. It was a squirmy, almost nauseating feeling. Which wasn't bad, considering the bizarre transformation that was going on in my insides. My wing bones thickened and became heavy. Fingers began to emerge from the feathers, and at the same time, all over my body the feathers curled and twisted and disappeared. In their place was pink skin and the minimal clothing I'd managed to incorporate in my morph. My beak became soft, gradually melting into lips. Teeth appeared in my mouth with a grinding, disturbing sound that resonated in my expanding skull. My hearing grew confused. My eyesight dimmed. It was as if anything more than a couple 22 of dozen feet away grew irrelevant. My eyes would not naturally focus on faraway things, preferring to see up close. I felt exposed without my feathers. I felt deaf and blind. It was as if someone had gotten hold of the "brightness" and the "contrast" knobs on an old TV and turned them both down by half, then lowered the volume to a whisper. Human senses work okay for what humans do. But compared to a hawk, a human is deaf, blind, and helpless. Worst of all was the leaden pull of gravity. Not that a hawk ignores gravity. It's just not so ... final when you have wings. I felt like someone had remade me in iron and the earth was one big magnet. We'd left a paper bag with more appropriate clothing behind the Dumpster. I put it on as quickly as I could with unfamiliar fingers. Still, even clumsy fingers are a marvel. If there's one big physical advantage a human has over a hawk, it's the hand. Yes, human brains are the best around. But the brain would be nothing without that hand. I checked my clothing. I looked down at my shoes. I ran my tongue around inside my mouth, feeling the barbaric sensation of big, bony teeth. "Hello," I said, trying out my voice. "Hi. Hi. My name is Tobias." 23 ?Hello. My name is Tobias. I ..." I hesitated. The secretary was looking at me skeptically. Like maybe I'd come in looking to borrow a quarter for the video game at the convenience store. "My name is Tobias." I told her my last name. Weird. I could barely remember it. It felt like I was using an alias. "I think Mr. DeGroot wanted to talk to me." She was puzzled. I looked at her nameplate. Ingrid. "It's pronounced DeGroot. It rhymes with boat." "Oh." 24 "Let me just check with Mr. DeGroot." She picked up her phone and punched a tine. "Mr. DeGroot, there's a young boy named Tobias ____ out here. He says - Oh. All right." She hung up the phone. "I guess he does want to see you," she admitted. "Right through that door." I checked the door. Fine. The lawyer's office was still sharing a wall with the Laundromat. If I started yelling it would take Rachel about three minutes to morph and come through that wall. Three minutes is a very long time when you can't even fly. I used the doorknob. Yes, human hands were very cool. As a bird I'd have been totally defeated by the doorknob. DeGroot was younger than I'd expected. More in his twenties or thirties than really old. He was wearing a white shirt and red suspenders. His jacket was thrown casually over a chair. He jumped up and smiled. "So, you are Tobias." "Yes. I'm Tobias." He looked me up and down. I did the same to him. "I've been hoping I could locate you, Tobias. Have a seat, please. Would you like some water? A soda? Coffee? No, I guess you don't drink coffee at your age. A soda? We have Coke, Diet 25 Coke. And we might have some Dr. Brown's cream soda. I'd have to have Ingrid check." If he was getting ready to pull a gun and shoot me, or expecting to have Visser Three come storming in the door, he hid it very well. I relaxed a little. But I was baffled. Water? Coffee? Soda? What was the right answer? "Urn ... urn ..." Good grief. You'd think it was Final Jeopardy and the category was Obscure Modern Poets. I was so out of practice being human. "I'd like a Coke!" I practically yelled. DeGroot pressed his intercom. "Ingrid, our young friend would like -" "- a Coke. Yes, I heard him. All the way out here." The lawyer and I stared at each other till the Coke came. I gripped the can self-consciously and pressed it to my beak. Lips. It had been a long time since I'd tasted sugar. I almost burst out laughing. It was like being Ax in human morph. The taste of sugar was overwhelming! And the coldness. I hadn't felt cold in my mouth in a very long time. "Tobias, where have you been staying? Your legal guardians both seemed to think the other one had you." Not a question I wanted to answer. "I take care of myself." 26 DeGroot smiled. "No doubt. But you are underage. You can't 'take care of yourself.' Not legally." "You can't lock me up," I said. Literally true. One thing about being an Animorph: No home, no building, no school, no jail or prison could hold me. The lawyer looked pained. "That's not what I am talking about." "Okay. What are you talking about?" That seemed to set him back a little. It was weird. I had a toughness I'd never had when I was human. As a human I'd been a bully-magnet. "Here's the thing. I represent your father's estate." "My father is dead." "Tobias . . ." He leaned across his desk. "Your father, that father, the man who died? That may not have been your real father." "What?" "I have a document. . . it's a strange situation. Very strange. Look, Tobias, I'm going to level with you. My father used to run this office. He's dead, too. He left this document along with the rest of his clients' papers. But on this he wrote me specific instructions. Very specific. On the date of your next birthday your father's last statement was to be read to you, if at all humanly possible." 27 I didn't know what to say. If this was a trap, it was a weird one. "Are you okay? You don't seem surprised." No, I didn't, I realized with a start. I had forgotten to make facial expressions. It was something I didn't do as a hawk. "I am surprised," I said. I twisted my face into what I hoped was an expression of surprise. But it occurred to me that I was facing a new problem: He'd said he'd read the document on my next birthday. When was my birthday? I couldn't exactly ask him. "Now there's this new complication. A woman named Aria, who says she is your cousin. Your great-aunt's daughter. Apparently she's only just learned of your situation. She's a very acclaimed nature photographer and she's been on a long-term assignment in Africa. She wants to meet you." "Why?" "You're family. She wants to help you." "Oh." "She'd like to meet you tomorrow. At the hotel where she's staying. If that's okay. It's the Hyatt downtown. Do you know where that is?" I could have said, yes, I am familiar with their roof. A peregrine falcon has a nest there in a niche in the radio tower. And the thermals are 28 great, sweeping up the south face of the building, warm air radiating up from the street below and gaining strength from the sunlight reflected off all those windows. What I did say was, "Yeah, I know where it is." "She's very concerned for you." "Uh-huh." "Do you need money? A place to spend the night?" "No, I'm fine." He shrugged doubtfully. "You look healthy enough. Well dressed." I almost laughed. Rachel had picked out my wardrobe. I looked like a poster boy for Tommy Hilfiger. "I get by okay. Urn ... so when did you say you're going to read this document?" "On your birthday." "Ah. Okay. Bye." 29 My birthday. When was my birthday? This month? What month were we in? I left the office and walked to the convenience store. Ax and Marco studiously avoided noticing me. Ax's human morph face was smeared with something I could only hope was chocolate. I didn't even look at them. No nod, no wink, nothing. If we were being followed the slightest thing would give us away. The signal for "danger" was me going to the donut display and looking inside. The signal for "okay" was me picking up a Mounds bar and putting it back down. 30 I toyed with the Mounds bar. The guy at the counter said, "You gonna buy that?" Ax and Marco left. I went to the newspaper rack. I checked the date. The month. Yes, that was my birth month. Today was the twenty-second. My birthday was ... the twenty-fifth! Yes. That was it. Probably. I waited till Marco and Ax were clear then I went outside. I blinked at the sun and almost flapped my wings. My father! My father was not my father? There was some "real" father somewhere? Also dead or gone? That was a lot of coincidence. And some long-lost cousin showing up within days of when this "father's" will was supposed to be read to me? Way too much coincidence. I started walking. I was heading to the nearby park to demorph at a spot we'd chosen in advance. Halfway there, I heard Jake's thought-speak voice in my head. I didn't wonder too much where Jake was. In the sky somewhere. Up flying free. We had planned for this. I glanced across the street and saw a Speedy Muffler King and an Applebee's. I headed for the Applebee's. 31 Across traffic. Trotting, like I'd suddenly realized I was hungry. Jake reported. In the front door of Applebee's. Fast, fast toward the men's room before my tail could catch sight of me again. Then a quick cut left, past the bathroom, into the kitchen. Waiters and waitresses were running around, pushing, laughing, yelling. The cooks were banging pots. I pushed past the dishwasher, looking for the back door. "Hey, if you're looking for the bathroom ..." someone called out as I blew past. Out the back door. I broke into a run. There was a residential street of small homes behind the restaurant. Down a connecting alley, I cut right again, heading once more for the park. I wasn't too worried. Someone might think he could follow me without being noticed. But I had eyes in the sky watching over me. Jake reported. I trotted on toward the park. They had a covered but open kind of rest room thing. You know, with a roof, only the walls didn't go all the way up? I found an empty stall and waited. Cassie said. I demorphed. Back to hawk. I flew up and out 32 of the stall, up away from humans and back into the blue sky. Only then did it hit me full force: Someone wanted me. Family. Wanted to take care of me. Unless, of course, what they really wanted was to learn my secrets. And then kill me. 33 I should have met with the others. That was the plan. But once I was back in the sky, I just didn't want to. I didn't want to have to sit down and explain it all to them. I guess, too, I didn't want to have to deal with Cassie's hopefulness and Rachel's concern and Marco's abrasive skepticism. I didn't want it all analyzed and picked apart. I knew the routine. Cassie would make me go over everything, word by word, gesture by gesture, expression by expression. Cassie has an amazing talent for understanding other people and their motives. She would want to understand all she could about DeGroot. 34 Marco would be different. He would barely listen before he started zeroing in on all the problems and inconsistencies. Rachel would pace restlessly, angrily, looking for some way to make me safe. Looking for some action to take. Jake would wait and listen calmly, and judge. I didn't want my friends thinking for me. I didn't want them to decide what I felt. I wanted to do it alone. This was mine. My problem. My hope. My choice. I flew. Flew and flew, circling higher and higher on lush thermals that felt as if they could lift me effortlessly beyond the clouds. Below and behind, I saw a falcon I knew as Jake. And a harrier I knew as Cassie. They saw me. Jake, at least, could easily have caught up with me. But they let me go. I guess they knew I needed to think. I circled up till I could feel the ceiling of a flat-bottomed cumulus cloud right above me. Then I translated my altitude into distance and headed for the woods. Headed for a very specific place in the woods, far back, far from any trail. I had been to this place twice before. Once when the Ellimist showed us all the way. Once when I went there only to hear an amazing story. But even now, even knowing precisely where it 35 was, even with all my hawk vision focused, all my innate direction-finding ability carefully attuned, I had a hard time finding it. Call it a spell. That's what the Ellimist had done: He had cast a fairy-tale spell over this place, making it almost impossible for any mere mortal to find it. The eyes slid away. The feathers did not feel a breeze that blew from it. The ears heard no sound that came from it. It was the valley of the Hork-Bajir. The free Hork-Bajir. Jara Hamee and Ket Halpak had been the couple who'd escaped their Yeerk slave masters. How much the Ellimist had intervened . . . well, he would say he never intervenes in the affairs of other species. But Jara and Ket had evaded their Yeerks and avoided recapture with help from us. And they had come to this concealed valley. Since then, others had come. Some were escapees. Others had been born into freedom. That's where I flew. To the valley of the Hork-Bajir. The last time I'd come, they'd been surprised. This time was different. This time, as I flew through the narrow opening of the valley, I saw two dozen Hork-Bajir standing, looking up at the sky, waiting. When they saw me they began to point and wave. I thought I recognized Jara and Ket. Standing 36 at their center was the young Hork-Bajir girl named Toby. Named after me. She was Jara and Ket's child. And she was what the Hork-Bajir call a "seer." The Hork-Bajir are not the geniuses of the galaxy. They may look like death and destruction on two legs, but the blades that adorn their seven-foot-tall bodies are designed for stripping edible bark from trees. That is not what their slave master Yeerks use them for. The Hork-Bajir have been made into the shock troops of the Yeerk Empire. In any case, whether fearsome or sweet, the Hork-Bajir are not an intellectual species. Except for the very rare genetic anomalies they call "seers." Looking down at the gaggle of waiting Hork-Bajir, I easily spotted Toby. I'd have spotted her even without knowing her. The rest of the group had the dopey, dim expressions of Teletubbies. Toby had the kind of eyes that looked through you and made you feel like you needed to pull a robe on over your brain. "Tobias!" Jara Hamee yelled happily. "Friend Tobias! Friend." "Toby say you come," Ket said, nodding with great satisfaction. "Toby say, Tobias will come."' 37 "Yes," Jara agreed. "Toby say, 'Friend Tobias will come.'" "You are here," Ket said. Like I said, the Hork-Bajir are long on decent and kind and sweet and generous, and a bit short on witty, clever, and brilliant. If Marco spent a day with the Hork-Bajir, he'd lose his mind and run screaming away looking for someone, anyone, who'd get a joke. I landed on a nice, level branch just a foot above their weird, forward-raked head blades. "We need you, Tobias," Toby said. I sighed inwardly. I didn't want to be needed. I wanted some peace and quiet and a chance to think. But that feeling evaporated the instant Toby explained. "One of the children, a male named Bek, is missing. He has left the valley. We fear that he may be taken by humans or by human-Controllers. That he may be harmed. Killed. Or worse, made into a Controller." 38 Once before when I was feeling low, I went to the Hork-Bajir valley. They'd made me feel better. After all, the Hork-Bajir think I'm their liberator. They think I'm George Washington or whatever. It's hard not to feel good under those circumstances. But obviously, this visit was going to be different. I demanded. "Yes. Search," Jara said. "Look and look and look." "Cry, 'Bek, Bek!'" another Hork-Bajir added helpfully. "Bek, Bek!" Ket confirmed. 39 "Bek is not in the valley," Toby said. "I ... we found tracks leading out of the valley. The right size for a Hork-Bajir of his age." I said several words I can't repeat. Jara Hamee asked what they meant. I said. I couldn't believe this. A Hork-Bajir child missing! Wandering the woods alone. Or worse: not alone. "Since this time yesterday," the young seer said. <0h, man. I have to get back to the others. We'll start a search. But I don't think our chances are very good.> Suddenly a thought occurred to me. Toby looked wary. "No, Bek would not know the way back. But we are able to find our way back." That made me stare. "Yes, Tobias. How else can we free our brothers and sisters?" She waved an encompassing arm around the group. "How else have these Hork-Bajir come to freedom?" 40 Toby grinned the frightening Hork-Bajir grin. "We make it happen. We go at night and raid places where we know Hork-Bajir are." I asked incredulously. Toby looked down. "Tobias, we owe you a great deal." "Freedom," Ket Halpak said solemnly. "Hork-Bajir free. Tobias make free." I said a little sarcastically. "But... but the place where we liberate Hork-Bajir is a secret Yeerk facility that is being built. Not in your city. In the human town beyond the far end of this valley. Tobias ... it is very important for us to continue freeing our brothers and sisters. We are few. We must become many. To fight the Yeerks. Also . . ." She let it hang there. I said. I said harshly. Toby looked proud. "The Hork-Bajir trusted Andalites to save us from the Yeerks. The Andalites failed. The Andalites took care of their own. We must do the same. We are grateful to the humans called Animorphs. But do you say we should trust all humans?" 41 Well, she had me there. It was way too easy to see a day when the Yeerks were defeated and these Hork-Bajir were left behind on Earth. What would happen to them? Humans didn't exactly have an unblemished record of tolerance for different races. After all, before this valley had belonged to the Hork-Bajir, it had probably been inhabited by Native Americans. "Yes." "We don't know. He may have followed the scent trails left by our raiders." She sounded doubtful. "It is possible. But he did not leave from that end of the valley." The seer smiled. "If you promise not to destroy the place, I will show you how to find it." I sighed. Toby started to say something, but I interrupted her. 43 It was Jara who stepped forward then. Toby may have been the brains, but Jara and Ket were the heart of this tiny community. Jara put his big, dangerous claw out, palm up, and I hopped into it. He lifted me up to his goblin face and said, "Tobias ask the Hork-Bajir. Hork-Bajir give. Always. Forever. Anything. Even life. Jara Hamee never forget." Toby nodded her agreement. Well, what are you going to do? People like that you pretty much have to try and save. 42 Chapter 9 Morning. The meadow. My meadow. I saw the other hawk. He was flying, inscribing low circles over the meadow. His eyes were aimed downward, looking for breakfast. But he saw me. I knew he saw me, because if our roles were reversed, I would see him. He was wondering why... no, that was wrong. He wasn't wondering. He was a true red-tailed hawk. Hawks don't wonder. The question "why" is owned entirely by humans. At least, on Earth it is. Only Homo sapiens asks why. Buteo jamaicensis-red-tailed hawks - don't ask at all. 44 He saw me. He knew I was a threat. He watched. He waited. He expected my attack. When my attack came, he would fight. If my attack did not come, he would come after me. It would be a "show" fight. Bluff and threaten and see who ran first. But it could also end up being a very real fight. I saw him drop down swiftly on some target. A few seconds later he flapped his way back up into view. His talons were empty. He'd missed. Not enough prey in the meadow. Not enough for both of us. One of us had to go. Or both of us would starve. I sat on my perch and saw the twitch of grass that told me a rabbit was coming out of its hole. We all have to eat. Rabbits, too. My opponent was too far away and at the wrong angle to see what I saw. I opened my wings and swooped out of the shadows. This time I would take one of the rabbits. This time my talons would close on squirming, living flesh. This time the rabbit would die so that I could live. I saw them! Yes! The mother and one of the babies. Just my size, the perfect prey. Slow moving, unaware, unlike the wily mother. I was approaching them on a perfect glide path. I was in the mother rabbit's blind spot. I 45 opened my talons wide and moved them forward. I trimmed my wings and tail just so. Just perfectly to intercept the little rabbit on its next heedless hop. Now! Now! Now! Drop and strike! The vision seized my mind again. I was the rabbit, not the hawk! I saw the talons! Too late! I tried to hop away but the panic froze me in place. I shook with terror. I could see death coming from the sky, but I could not move. I screamed and broke off. I flapped up and away, and the awful vision faded. The baby rabbit hopped to his mother's side. I yelled to an empty sky. 46 ?Just tell me this," Marco raged. "When do we get a vacation? I mean, Ben-Hur rowing that Roman galley while the guy whipped him and the other guy banged on that big drum got more downtime than we do." We were in Cassie's barn. It was the next day, after the others got back from school. I was in the rafters, in my usual place. From there I could look out through the hayloft to see Cassie's house and the driveway. And I could listen to sounds coming from outside. I could know whether anyone was sneaking up on us. "Our lives have become Nintendo games," Marco went on, enjoying the sound of his own outrage. "We're always walking down some dark 47 hallway with our blasters drawn and there's an endless array of enemy guys. We blow 'em up, but they keep coming. When do we get to hit the pause button? When do we get to switch over to a nice, peaceful Riven? When do we get to turn off the power and put down the joystick and just veg out with some HBO? When do -" "When do we get to shut you up?" Rachel interrupted. "When do we get to switch you off? I mean, good grief, Marco, you act like you have something better to do. Before we became Animorphs your entire day consisted of figuring out which girl to annoy next." Marco grinned. "And now I always know which girl to annoy next." He put his arm around Rachel and laid his head on her shoulder. She laughed and shoved him away. It was just a dumb little routine, but I felt a flash of jealousy. There are little intimacies that most humans can have that I can't. I can't shake hands or hug or lay my head on anyone's shoulder. And, as I'd expected, Cassie had questioned me closely, listening intently to everything I related about my meeting with DeGroot. Marco came up with about eight different ways it could all be a scam. But then I'd told them all this new piece of information: A Hork-Bajir kid was on the loose. 48 That's when Marco had started ranting and raving. "Okay," Jake said, "we have a lot happening at once. And we can't blow off any of it. We need to find out if DeGroot is for real or a Controller. We need to find out the same about this possible cousin Aria. And we need to try and find this little, lost Hork-Bajir. Twenty-four hours plus last night, plus this morning while we were in school. Coming up on forty-eight hours he's been missing." "I hate to think of what could be happening to him," Cassie said. Jake nodded. But Marco said, "No, wait. You should try and think of what's happening to him. What are the possibilities?" Ax wondered. "No. Not necessarily," Cassie said. "Most people don't believe you aliens exist," Rachel said. Ax nodded, a gesture he'd picked up from humans. "Deformed," Cassie speculated. "Affected by birth defects. Or seriously sick." I said. "Or calling an ambulance," Cassie added. 49 I said. <0r stick it in a cage and charge people to look at the freak.> Jake nodded agreement. "Yeah. Okay. Marco? Get on the Internet and look for any news reports or whatever. Ax? You help him. Cassie and I will go back to the valley entrance, morph wolves, and see if we can pick up Bek's scent. Rachel, you're with Tobias. Figure out if DeGroot and this Aria woman are Controllers. Follow them. Watch them. How long do we have till your birthday, Tobias?" I asked. "Today's the twenty-third. When's your birthday?" Marco laughed, then I guess he realized I wasn't kidding. I forced a laugh. 50 I felt uncomfortable being paired with Rachel. She'd seen me eating roadkill. She hadn't mentioned it, and I didn't think she would. Rachel's blunt but sensitive enough, too. Still, uncomfortable or not, I wasn't going to start arguing with Jake. I have my problems in life. He has his. I'm not going to complicate his situation. Besides, what could I say? I'd rather work with Cassie because she doesn't know I eat road-kill? Rachel went into her bald eagle morph. I've seen her do it many times before, of course, but for some reason this time it fascinated me. Is that the right word? No, it mesmerized me. 51 Rachel is a beautiful girl. She's beautiful in that way you know will last her whole life. She'll be a beautiful woman. But beauty alone isn't that big a thing. What makes Rachel "Rachel" is what's inside. And watching her morph to eagle was like seeing her soul emerge through her flesh. Feather patterns appeared across her skin. The golden hair gave way to the characteristic white feathers of the baldie's crown. Her arm bones narrowed and hollowed and grew feathers to become wings. Her face, never exactly soft or inviting, became forbidding and intense. Her blue eyes turned golden brown and glared with the fierce glare of a raptor. Her lips became the eagle's huge beak. She grew smaller. But she was becoming one of the largest birds in existence. Was she more beautiful to me because she was a bird now? No, of course not. For one thing, eagles and hawks don't mate. For another, her eagle morph is male. But sometimes it seemed to me that this body suited her better than her own. Her own body misled people with superficial resemblances to the glossy images of magazine models. This body was Rachel: fast, strong, smart, intense, and dangerous. 52 she asked. I said. She spread her wings. So much broader than my own. I am proud of being a red-tailed hawk, but there is no avoiding the fact that the human eye is drawn to a bald eagle. People can see me and think, What is that, a big brown crow? But when you see a baldie floating on the air, with its six-foot wingspread and yellow beak and unmistakable white head, you know you're looking at something special. I read once that Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey to be the official symbol of the United States. But come on. He must never have seen a bald eagle. We caught a late afternoon thermal and rode it high into the air. Rachel had her wings, but I had my experience, so I kept pace with her easily enough. Not to brag, but when you can add human intelligence onto bird instinct, you get so you can outfly just about anything in the air. Instinct only takes you so far. I said. Rachel asked. 53 I'd been about to say that the very idea of Aria made me nervous. Unsettled. Rachel laughed like that was the funniest thing in the world. she said. I said. We turned west and felt the propulsion of the wind coming around behind us. Flying is a lot like sailing. You can fly against the wind, but it'll wear you down fast. You can sort of tack, flying against the wind by turning at angles to it. But when the wind is cooperating and going your way, hey, you ride it and be thankful. 54 I said with a dismissive laugh. she grumped. I felt like an idiot the minute the words were out of my head. This was like the "old" Tobias style: treating people to displays of stupidity and weakness. No wonder I'd gotten beat up so often when I was human. It was like I was begging people to sneer at me. I muttered to myself. Why didn't I just keep my mouth shut? Yeah, right. That was believable. I said. 55 My heart was beating even faster than usual. I might be about to see a cousin who wanted to take me in. Or I might be sniffing around the edges of a clever trap. I counted up the floors to twenty-three. We swept around the building to the city side. It is especially thrilling flying around tall buildings. Something about being outside a skyscraper really reminds the human part of you how high up you are. You can imagine humans suddenly outside and picture their helpless terror as they fall, and . . . well, like I said, it reminds you. I complained. Rachel said. 56 I pointed out. <0r maybe she doesn't keep up with fashion. 57 I see a lot of camera equipment. That'd fit with the whole nature photographer thing.> I said sharply. Then I softened my tone. Rachel laughed. <0kay to look now.> I banked into a turn, flapped to keep my altitude, then glided as slowly as I could, forty feet out from the window. She was maybe twenty-five or thirty. She had dark hair, pulled back into a ponytail. Not tall, not short. Thin. She seemed very tan. Rachel asked. I didn't answer. The truth is, I hadn't really heard Rachel. I was off in my own mind, watching the strange woman who said she wanted to take care of me. Why? Why would someone want to take care of me? She didn't know me. So why? Because of some vague family loyalty thing? Maybe. I guess 58 some families are like that. You know, they feel connected to anyone who shares a biological connection to them. But my family wasn't that way. Not the ones I'd met, anyway. My mother disappeared and my father died when I was little. I barely remembered either of them. I had pictures, of course. Back when I was human. But now when I tried to remember them I couldn't tell whether the memories were real or just something I'd made up. Sometimes I wondered if it was all an illusion. That I'd never had a mother and father. That I'd never really been human. I was a freak of nature. No, that wasn't right, either. Nature at its most perverse could not create me. I was a freak of technology. Of alien technology. I was a bird with the mind of a human boy. Or I was a boy with the body of a bird. Either way, that woman I saw through the glass, the woman now channel-surfing with her remote control and stopping at CNN, that woman did not know me. Not the old me or the real me. Surprise, Cousin Aria, your adopted son is a red-tailed hawk. Rachel asked. I admitted. Aria ... if this was Aria . . . hefted a camera bag onto her shoulder. She paused in front of a full-length mirror, adjusting her hair and checking her clothes carefully. Rachel sniped, I laughed. But at the same time something bothered me about what I'd just seen. Something . . . But then the woman was out the door of her room and out of sight. Rachel said. 60 I yelled as the hotel doorman waved for a taxi. Rachel said. I said grimly. I said. Rachel laughed. <0kay, that actually is insane. Let's do it!> We dove, hurtling down out of the sky. What I had in mind wasn't exactly subtle. It was dangerous 61 and would make heads turn as we raced through the city streets. But it could possibly work. The red lights atop the police car were mounted on a raised bar. There was a light at either end, and a couple of feet of open bar between. The cab headed east down a major boulevard. So did the police car. They were only doing twenty miles an hour in the traffic, but hawks and eagles can't just fly long distances in a straight line. We need to turn, to ride the thermals upward. Even at twenty miles an hour the cab could lose us. Down we swooped, turning height into speed. Down, down, me slightly in front. She lined up behind me and we swept down from twenty-something floors up to just above street level, executing a smooth glide path that an airline pilot would have been proud of. Rachel yelled in that giddy way she gets whenever she's an inch away from utter disaster. 62 The cop car moved horizontally. We came down at an angle. The two lines would meet. . . now! I swept my wings forward, killed just a hint of my airspeed, opened my talons, spread them wide, and . . . yes! Snagged the crossbar and held on. Rachel grabbed with one talon but missed with the other. She folded her wings and the wind current slammed her back. I cried. <0pen your wings. Surf, don't ride.> Somehow she made sense of my gibbering. She lunged with her other talon and caught the bar. She muscled her body forward into a flying profile. She spread her massive wings. And off we went. A red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle riding the roof of a cop car, wings open, beaks forward, talons straining to take the pressure. Rachel laughed, still high from the rush of danger. Drivers behind and beside us stared, mouths open. Some to the point where they barely avoided crashing into one another. But the police beneath us remained oblivious. I worried. Rachel reassured me. One very odd-looking police car continued down the boulevard, shadowing the cab from a distance of three or four car lengths. We rode for two miles that way, till we'd reached the edge of the city, out where the buildings grew smaller, older, and shabbier. We were passing the airport. A big 747 roared by overhead. And then . . , Red lights swirled all around us. The car surged forward. Wind resistance doubled and I could barely hold on. Then came the siren. Think police sirens are loud? Try having better-than-human hearing and being eight inches from the siren itself. Then add in four jet engines from a slow-moving jumbo jet. The cop car took off. In a second we'd pass the cab. No! A sudden turn, and the cab and police car were separating at a rapid clip. Too fast for us to keep our wings open. We were moving at fifty, maybe sixty miles an hour. We closed our wings and hunkered down as close to the bar as we could crouch. I tucked my head low and kept my tail feathers tightly closed. Now we were just alongside the airport. An- 64 other jet, a smaller 737 this time, was readying for takeoff. But before it gathered speed, something much smaller rose from the tarmac. A helicopter. The helicopter lifted off and headed at right angles to us. It was going the same direction as the cab. I said. I yelled. Rachel screamed. "You're a hawk?" Rachel sneered. "You talk, Tobias. You read. You have emotions. Those are human things, not hawk things." "That's just stupid," Rachel said angrily. "It doesn't even make sense. You know what? You have to make a choice, Tobias. You can be a hawk. But you will never, ever, not in a million years, be a pure, true hawk. If you want to stay a hawk you'll be like you are now: confused, conflicted, 109 torn up inside, never knowing what you really are. Or... or you can be human again. All human. You can live with the Aria woman and eat at the table and sleep in a bed." I said. "You wouldn't lose me," Rachel said. For a long while neither of us spoke. Then Rachel, in a whisper, said, "What am I supposed to do, Tobias? I'm a girl. You're a bird. This is way past Romeo and Juliet, Montagues and Capulets. This isn't Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio coming from different social groups or whatever. It's not like you're black and I'm white like Cassie and Jake. No one but a moron cares about that. We are ... we can't hold hands, Tobias. We can't dance. We can't go to a movie together." "One more change, Tobias. Back to human. You'd be free of this stupid war and free of all the danger of living as a hawk. I wouldn't have to worry about you anymore." I couldn't take anymore. I just couldn't. It was too much. I felt like I'd explode if I didn't get 110 away from her. I couldn't be that near to her... couldn't. I turned and prepared to fly. "Tobias. It's tomorrow, by the way. Your birthday. I had Marco hack into the school records. It's tomorrow you have to see the lawyer and Aria. Whatever happens there - whatever you decide - come see me afterward, okay? Maybe we can have a cake with a candle." I spread my wings and flew away. 111 I. didn't sleep a lot that night. Talking to Rachel had not exactly made me feel peaceful. In the morning, in a couple of hours, we would all go to the Hork-Bajir. I would ask them where the secret Yeerk facility was. We would tell them that's where the Yeerks had Bek. Maybe that would even be the truth. There would be a battle. Maybe we'd survive and maybe not. And then I would have a different battle to fight. One with myself. Human or hawk? What was I? I sat in my tree and clutched my perch and stared out across the meadow. The hunger was terrible now. Terrible enough to leave me weak. If 112 I didn't eat I would not have the strength to fly to the Hork-Bajir. I would not make it to the battle. Was that so important? Hadn't I done enough? Hadn't I paid a high enough price? I could morph to human. Stay human. Eat as a human. No fighting over territory, no fighting Yeerks. And I would still have Rachel. Such a simple decision. So easy. Any fool knew the answer. Be human! Be human! I spotted the slight movement of grass in the dim predawn light. The rabbit coming out to feed. So cautious now. She'd lost one baby. Then I saw the other hawk. He was waiting, he was watching me. And I knew right then today was the day. He could see my weakness. He knew he could take me. I began to shake. To tremble. Some combination of hunger and fear and emotions too numerous to list. I saw the rabbits clearly. They were mine for the taking. But I knew the terrible vision that awaited me. I knew that as I descended on my prey I would become that prey. It was the human in me. I had to fight it! If I wanted to be a hawk, I had to destroy the part of me that felt, the part of me that cried for the creatures I killed. No predator could feel for his 113 prey. I could not allow myself to feel the terror I inflicted, feel the pain I caused. I told the other hawk. I fluttered to the ground. And I began to morph. Morph to human! No. Not yet, I told myself. The others are counting on me still. The Hork-Bajir are counting on me. Later. After the battle. Then I can morph to human and go to Aria. I flapped my wings and rose into the air. I needed food and I had seen a cat killed by a passing car. Just this one last time. Then I would put it all behind me. One last time, picking the dead animal flesh from the pavement. One last humiliation, one last battle, and I would be done forever. It was my birthday, after all. A good day to be reborn. I found the cat. I ate as much of it as I could hold. 114 We, the Animorphs, stood before the free Hork-Bajir. I rested on a low branch and did the talking. I told them about our failed rescue attempt. I explained our guess that Bek was at whatever facility the Hork-Bajir had been raiding. "A trap," Toby said. "And you want to step into that trap, anyway?" Toby considered this for a moment. Even now it was weird talking to a Hork-Bajir who could 115 think and speak on my level. And maybe a little over my level at times. "We will go with you," Toby said. "No, no," Jake said. "We work alone. Besides, we're just going to grab one little Hork-Bajir. We don't need a whole army." Toby said, "This is a trap. But it is a trap because the Yeerks expect us to come after Bek. We must do the unexpected. We must surprise them even as we step into their trap." I looked at Jake. Jake raised an eyebrow at me in surprise. I said to Jake in private thought-speak. "The Yeerks expect a rescue mission. Or at worst, a raid like the ones we have carried out: stealthy, in and out, quickly disappearing into the forest," Toby explained. "What do you want instead?" Jake asked her. Toby got a hard look in her eyes. "Attack! Destroy the entire facility. Even if it means destroying other Hork-Bajir. Even if it means losing Bek." Even I was shocked. She smiled grimly. "The Yeerks must not be allowed to think that they can use hostages against us." 116 "Aren't you kind of missing the point?" Cassie said quietly. "I thought the point was to save Bek." "No," Toby said. "The point is to defeat the Yeerks. We must be strong. Once we free a Hork-Bajir, he must never be taken again." "Do you think the Yeerks will respect you? They won't. They'll come after you harder," Cassie pointed out. Toby nodded. "That is true. But the Hork-Bajir will respect themselves. A fool is strong so that others will see. A wise person is strong for himself. The Hork-Bajir will be strong for the Hork-Bajir. That way, when the Yeerks are all gone, we will still be strong." "Fair enough," Jake said. Marco stepped forward and jerked his thumb at Rachel. "Toby, meet Rachel. You two can visit the psychiatrist together." "She's right," Rachel said. "Someone pushes you, you push back. Doesn't matter who it is. You have to make the other guy pay a price." Cassie rolled her eyes. "That's like a perfect rationalization for gang warfare." "World War Two," Rachel shot back. "The Nazis push, you push back. If you don't, they kill you anyway." "Northern Ireland? The Middle East?" Cassie said. 117 Marco said, "They shend one of yoursh to the hoshpital, you shend one of theirsh to the morgue. That's the Chicago way." Cassie and Rachel both just stared at him. "Sean Connery in The Untouchables," he said, disbelieving. "C'mon, don't you people have cable?" "Ah, Sean Connery. I thought you were doing Urkel," Cassie teased. "Marco is Urkel," Rachel said. It took Toby just minutes to assemble the Hork-Bajir. Ten of them ended up coming with us. More would have come but we insisted some be left behind. Just in case. Ten Hork-Bajir and the six of us. Not exactly an army. But not exactly a group to laugh at, either. If I went through with my decision to become human, it would be my last battle. We traveled along the valley to its farthest end. It was a good walk. The valley was big enough to house a lot more Hork-Bajir. The Ellimist had been looking ahead when he'd chosen it. "I fight you," a Hork-Bajir I didn't know said to me as I fluttered along, keeping pace with the group. "In Yeerk pool. Before. I fight you." He grinned 118 and pointed to a nasty scar across his left eye. Then he pantomimed a bird coming down and raking his face with its talons. "Fal Tagut say 'Aaaahhhh!' " "No sorry! Fal Tagut not free." He tapped his head with one long claw. "Fal Tagut have Yeerk. Now free. Good! Hork-Bajir and humans friends. Toby say." It was a long speech for a Hork-Bajir. Fal Tagut seemed worn out by it. I wondered about the image of Hork-Bajir and humans living side by side if the Yeerks were defeated. Humans didn't have a great record of getting along with people different from themselves. Humans killed one another over skin color or eye shape or because they prayed differently to the same god. Hard to imagine humans welcoming seven-foot-tall goblins into the local Boy Scout troop when they couldn't even manage to tolerate some gay kid. Get pushed, push back. Toby had already seen it. She knew that the Hork-Bajir would need to be strong to defend themselves against humans once the Yeerks were defeated. Get pushed, push back. The only way. No, not the only way. There was another way. Don't push to begin with. It's the aggressors who start the cycle. It's the guy who wakes up in the 119 morning and decides he can't get through the day without finding someone to attack, to insult, to hurt. But where does that leave you? Letting jerks dictate your reactions? Always sinking to the level of whatever creep comes along? My mind went to that other hawk. The one who wanted my territory. There it was: Push and push back. But it wasn't a good comparison, was it? That hawk wasn't human. All he had was instinct. Couldn't blame him for doing what was natural. So maybe humans were no better. Maybe you couldn't blame a human animal for just being an animal. Except that my hawk opponent had no choice, no free will. He'd never heard "Blessed are the peacemakers." or "I have a dream." or "All men are created equal." It suddenly occurred to me, right then, for the first time, that what I thought was so unique about me - that I was half instinctive predator, and half human being - wasn't so unique after all. Every human - Jake. Rachel. Marco. Cassie, all humans - kind of lives on that edge between savage and saint. And the thing is that sometimes when you get pushed you do have to push back. And other times, you have to turn the other cheek. 120 I saw the scar on Fal Tagut's face. I'd put it there. I'd been trying to kill him at the time because he'd been trying to kill me. Now we were on the same side. I guess the trick is to figure out when to do which thing. When to fight, when to let up. A balancing act. And even if I went back to being fully human in body and mind, that balancing act wouldn't go away. Maybe realizing that should have made me feel bad. But it didn't. Just made me feel human. 121 Ax said. He was struggling to keep the slow-burn anger out of his voice. We were at the edge of a perfectly round bowl blasted or cut into the earth. We were in dense forest. And anyone approaching from air or land would have still seen dense forest. Hologram projectors maintained perfect illusion. Until you got close enough. Hikers or campers who got close enough would most likely never return. They'd be dispatched by the patrols of human-Controllers and Hork-Bajir. 122 A patrol had intercepted us. Now they wished they hadn't. The human-Controllers were trussed up tightly and hanging from a very high branch of a very tall tree. The Hork-Bajir may not be rocket scientists, but they are very good with vines, roots, and trees in general. Those Controllers weren't going anywhere for a while. The Hork-Bajir-Controllers, four of them, had been knocked unconscious, their faces shoved into dug-out holes in the dirt. Apparently, this kept Hork-Bajir unconscious longer. These four would be coming with us. Unwillingly at first. But in three days or less, when the Yeerks in their heads died for lack of Kandrona rays, there'd be four more free Hork-Bajir. We had slipped through the hologram and could now peer down cautiously from the lip of the vast hole the Yeerks had made. In the center was a single structure. It looked like some power station or something. Blank steel and bits of this and that jutting out at odd angles. Atop this structure was something that looked like a miniature Washington Monument mounted on a swivel base. I said. Ax swiveled his stalk eyes toward me. he said flatly. <0r destroy an Andalite ship in orbit.> "Can it be pointed down? At the ground?" Jake asked him. Ax peered closely at the weapon. Then he smiled that strange Andalite smile they do without a mouth. "How do we get down there?" Rachel wondered. "Fly? They'd see us and shoot us out of the air," Cassie said. I wondered. Toby looked at me and nodded. "They would cage us and hold us till we could be made into Controllers again. Until they could transport us to the Yeerk pool." "They know we were at Frank's Safari Land the other night," Marco pointed out. "So they know we have some contact with the free Hork-Bajir. And if they brought Bek here it means they're expecting a rescue attempt." "Well, Visser Three knows we're connected to the free Hork-Bajir. But does whoever is running 124 this project know it?" Cassie speculated. "Maybe. Maybe not." Jake asked Toby, "When you've raided this place in the past, how many of your people have come on each mission?" "Usually three or four. We did not want to risk everyone." Jake smiled. "Then we send in three or four Hork-Bajir. It'll look exactly like previous raids. Only these four Hork-Bajir will have hitchhikers on board. They put up a fight, then let themselves be taken. Only then do we demorph and strike." Marco groaned. "We're not talking fleas again, are we? I hate morphing fleas." He had good reason. Marco had come very close to being trapped in flea morph. Being trapped as a hawk is one thing. But a flea? I'd rather die. "Pick a bug, any bug," Rachel said with a laugh. "Flea, fly, mosquito. A bug's a bug." "Yeah, right," Marco muttered. "I'm an ant and I get chomped in half, I'm a flea and I almost get stuck in morph. I don't have a good record with bugs." "I got slapped as a fly," Jake offered, like that was helpful. In the end, after some debate, four Hork-Bajir headed stealthily down toward the secret Yeerk facility. On board them was a collection of in- 125 sects. A flea, a mosquito, two cockroaches, one housefly, and a wolf spider. Marco was the spider. I went ahead and did the flea morph. They're gross, mostly blind, bloodsucking, brainless little things, but have you ever tried to kill one? You could swat it all day and it would just laugh. Unfortunately, I couldn't see anything from my vantage point at the base of Jara Hamee's front horn. I mean nothing. But I could listen to a running, thought-speak description courtesy of Marco. He, after all, had eight eyes. <0kay, we're sneaking.> A few minutes later: Then, I felt a sudden, violent jerk that translated itself up through Jara Hamee's body. Marco said, sounding satisfied. 126 Marco reported. Cassie wondered. Marco asked. Marco said. Rachel mocked. Marco said. Jake said. 127 I said. No one argued. It was obviously true. I fired my springy flea legs and hurtled, somersaulting into the air. I fell for what felt like a very, very longtime. Then I hit. Pht! I had probably just fallen a thousand times my own height. The equivalent of a human being leaping off a building five times the height of the World Trade Center. And when I hit it was like, "Okay, what's next?" I began to demorph. Very slowly. I grew to about an inch across, then stopped. "Jara sees bug." "Tobias? Tobias is bug?" I found myself wishing we had let Toby come along. Although she was too valuable to risk. "Jara do." I demorphed some more. Till I was a six-inch monster with pinfeathers growing out of rust-red flea armor. Not a pretty sight. Trust me. You don't want to see what a cross between a hawk beak 128 and a skin-piercing, bloodsucking flea mouthpart looks like. But I had eyes now. Dim, weak ones, but eyes. I looked around and sighed. The Hork-Bajir turned outward and I finished demorphing. I was easily hidden by the forest of tree-trunk legs and tails all around me. All I had to do now was open the lock. Without benefit of fingers. There were guards now. Now that the trap had been sprung. Six big Hork-Bajir armed to the teeth stood outside and around the cage. But the entire prison was in the shadow of a sharp escarpment leading up to the weapon. It was maybe fifty feet high, almost vertical. A mound in the center of the scooped-out bowl. I could see occasional glimpses of Hork-Bajir and Taxxon workers at the top of the slope, but they'd have had to look almost straight down to see us. A road had been cut into the escarpment, wide enough to accommodate human trucks. We had to go up that road to reach the weapon. I hawk-walked out the back of the cage. We hawks aren't fast on our talons, but we do know how to walk. I walked right through the gap between the bars. 129 A Hork-Bajir-Controller looked down at me, puzzled, but then looked away. I looked at him, equally puzzled. Just how was I supposed to get a key from this guy? Walk up and ask him? Actually . . . I hawk-walked around behind a toolshed. It's always weird when you find the Yeerks using normal, human stuff. This looked like one of the backyard toolsheds you buy at Sears. I walked behind the toolshed and I began to morph. The one morph that would seem perfectly at home here. I morphed Ket Halpak. I swaggered confidently out from behind the toolshed and walked over to the Hork-Bajir who looked like he was in charge. "They want to see you," I said. "Who?" I jerked my head over my shoulder toward the main building. "They." It's one of the things you can count on in this world: There's always a they. The Hork-Bajir scowled. The Yeerk in his head was half annoyed, half afraid. "The Visser isn't here yet, is he?" I turned my head and looked away. Like I wasn't allowed to say more. Now the guy was ten percent annoyed and ninety percent scared, I held out my claw. "Give me the key." 130 And it was just that simple. He handed me the key. I walked over and unlocked the cage. "What are you doing?" one of the other Hork-Bajir-Controllers demanded. I turned on him and swung my left fist up in a vicious uppercut. It connected with his jaw. He went down. The remaining four guards hesitated for a split second. Just long enough for Jara Hamee and the others to come tearing out of the cage. I caught sight of something growing fast on the dirt floor of the cage. It was still about halfway mosquito, but there was no mistaking the tail growing out of that bug. There was a minute of sharp, brutal combat. Five free Hork-Bajir (including myself) against the four guards. Then Ax joined the fight and it all ended quickly. We shoved and dragged the guards into the cage and locked them up. Everyone morphed to battle morph. Me, I de-morphed. We would need an eye in the sky. I caught a little breeze and floated up, just a dozen feet off the ground. I looked at our little force. Four free Hork-Bajir, a tiger, a wolf, a gorilla, an Andalite, and a very large elephant. A strange little platoon of warriors. Cassie said of the guards in the cage. <0kay,> Jake said. <0oh, he's getting all John Wayne,> Marco said with a laugh. Jake ignored the remark. There was a moment of expectant silence. Then Marco said, ?> <0h, I forgot,> she said. And then, in true Rachel style, she yelled, Marco said. We formed up and then, on a signal from Jake, they tore out of there, out of concealment, out into the open, racing like mad to reach the weapons platform before something could go wrong. But I was in the air, and I had my own hawk's eyes. So I could see that already something had gone wrong. 132 Up the steep road my friends and allies ran. They were directly behind a big dump truck. Mostly invisible to the unsuspecting Yeerks above them. But they were not invisible. Not to the helicopter that came fwap-fwap-fwapping its way over the trees and into the concealed facility. It came around and swept low. It was a small helicopter. With one of those bubble canopies just large enough to hold a pilot and one passenger. One human passenger. Nothing else would have fit. The Hork-Bajir guard had acted as if Visser 133 Three was expected. This had to be him arriving now. The sun was on the canopy, blinding, hiding the persons inside. An eagle or an osprey might have been able to see better. They're adapted for looking through sunlight on water. But all I could see was the vague outline of a human form. A finger pointing at my friends. And a flash of a pony-tail. Aria! The helicopter roared past, oblivious to me, spinning me roughly in its rotor wash. It disappeared around the far side of the mound. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have ever been stupid enough to hope? How could I have failed to know? Had I been blinded by some pathetic desire for normalcy? It was all an act! Aria, saving the little girl's life, just an act! A show put on for the benefit of any Animorph who might be watching. I raged at myself. Raged and berated myself, piling anger on top of anger. Anger was good. Anger was safe. Anger was so much better than the other emotions that threatened to surface and overwhelm me. I cried. Two hours! Two hours in morph! A morph! Aria was a morph! I felt sick. I could barely flap my wings. I couldn't think. I couldn't see. Everything was just spinning around me. I hadn't realized till that moment how much this hope had meant to me. A home. A family. I couldn't fly. I landed hard and lay there in the dirt. I just kept saying it, over and over in my head. In my life as a human, in my life as a bird, I have never been lower than that. I knew my friends were fighting. I knew they needed me. But I couldn't. . . . . . couldn't. After a while, a clawed hand snatched me roughly from the ground and I realized I was moving very fast. "Come with me, Tobias. The weapon is about to explode." It was Toby. In some distant corner of my mind ! wondered how, why she had come. Later I would learn that the battle had gone badly for my 135 friends. It was Toby who'd come to the rescue with the other Hork-Bajir. She had seen me fall. She saved me. And when we were safe again, she handed me to Rachel. How did Toby know to give me to Rachel? I don't know. All I know is I was carried, bundled up in Rachel's arms, till we made it back. They took me to the barn. Cassie looked me over, lifting wings and spreading feathers. Looking for an injury. "Tobias, where were you hit?" she asked me, puzzled. I felt like I had to pull the words out of a deep well, like they each weighed a thousand pounds. I said. "Then what's the matter?" Jake asked. I said. "Your cousin? The woman who wants to take you in?" Jake said. I said without any emotion at all. Then I laughed. 136 I didn't have much time to sit and feel sorry for myself. That would have to come later. I had an appointment. It was my birthday. I was supposed to hear the last statement left to me by my father. Or my real father, whatever that meant. All a sham, of course. But I had to go through with it. It was a trap, but the only way out of the trap was to step right in. Aria was Visser Three. She/he had been looking for me. Which meant she/he suspected me. If I didn't show up, the Yeerks would assume I had figured out the trap. They'd assume I was an Animorph. 137 Why did they suspect me in the first place? Who knew? But it was an easy leap from deciding I, a human boy, was one of the so-called Andalite bandits to guessing that the others were human, too. To guessing that they were kids I had known. From then on, it would be a deadly chess game with only one possible end. They would get Jake. He had been my friend. Jake would be made into a Controller. Even if he died resisting them, they'd move from him to Marco, his best friend, and Rachel, his cousin. From Rachel to Cassie. Game over. I had to find a way to walk into that lawyer's office and let Visser Three spring his trap. And not get caught. And worst of all, I had to do it alone. He would have his forces clustered all around De-Groot's office. One glimpse of a strange animal and it would be all over. Visser Three would know, In fact, my friends would have to be somewhere else. While I went in to face DeGroot and the foul fake of Aria, they would go back and launch an attack on the Yeerks, attempting to clean up the weapons site we'd hit earlier. I morphed to human a long way from the office, just to eliminate any chance of being seen. I walked eight blocks to the lawyer's office. Walked. I hadn't walked that far in a very long time. 138 It's a lame way to travel. When you fly, you're living in three dimensions. When you crawl the earth like a human, there are just two. It was slow as well. And there were traffic lights and other people and cars and . . . flying was so much better. So be happy, I told myself bitterly. It's a good thing you aren't going to be human again. You can still fly. No family, but I could fly. I was shaking and scared by the time I reached the office. It wasn't so much for me. I guess at some level I didn't care all that much if I lived or died right then. I just worried about blowing it somehow. For the others. For my friends. I guess it's true what they always say about combat soldiers. They may start out fighting for their country, but they end up fighting for the guy next to them in the foxhole. I didn't so much care about the fate of the human race at that moment. I wasn't human. I was a hawk. But I cared about Jake, and Cassie, and Marco, and Ax-man, and Rachel. Always Rachel. The receptionist was gone when I walked, trembling, through the door. I stood there, unsure of what to do. Then the two of them came from the inner office. 139 Aria smiled a big smile. "You must be Tobias," she said. I remembered seeing her for the first time. Watching her through her window at the hotel, me flying hundreds of feet in the air. Then it struck me. The thing that had bothered me then: Supposedly, she'd been in the African bush for years or whatever. But when she'd left her room, she'd paused to check her hair. Perfectly appropriate for a normal woman. Just a bit wrong for a woman who spent her days hiding in blinds and racing around in open-topped Land Rovers. I nodded. "Yeah. I'm Tobias." My role was tough street kid. It was easy for me to pull off, given that I usually forgot to make facial expressions and had a tendency to stare. She came and put her arms around me. She hugged me close. The morph that called herself Aria. Visser Three. I stiffened and tried to pull away. "It's okay," she said with perfect sincerity. "Tobias, we're family. I want to take care of you." DeGroot came over and shook my hand. He said, "Come on in, young man." If you weren't looking for it, you'd never notice it: the way DeGroot stayed back from Aria. 140 Like she was someone he didn't want to get too close to. Like she was someone he didn't want to touch. Someone he feared. So, I thought, DeGroot is in on this. He's a Controller. He knows who Aria is. We all took seats in the office. DeGroot, looking to Aria for cues. Aria, playing the role of concerned, decent woman. Me, being the tough street kid. One wrong move. One slight wrong move, and Yeerks would pile in on me from directions I hadn't even thought of yet. "We are here today to carry out the reading of an important document left for Tobias by his father. By ... by a man different than the man you believed to be your father." I shrugged. "Whatever." Aria leaned toward me. "Aren't you interested in finding out who your real father is?" I laughed. "Did he leave me any money?" DeGroot's eyebrows shot up. "No." I rolled my eyes. "Figures." DeGroot tapped the pages to straighten them. "Then we'll just go straight to reading the document. If that's -" Some little bit of Visser Three showed through then. "Read it," he/she snapped. Then, forcing a 141 smile, said, "I'm anxious to hear what this is all about." So the lawyer began to read. I had forgotten how to use facial expressions. I was used to being a hawk and not a human. It saved my life. 142 ?Dear Tobias," the lawyer read. He hesitated, pulled a pair of glasses from his desk, and put them on. Then started again. "Dear Tobias. I am your father. You never knew me. And I never knew you. I do not know what your life has been over these many years. I hope that your mother found someone else to love. I know that all memory of me has been erased from her mind. All evidence of my time on Earth has been erased." I could feel Aria staring at me. I could feel her predatory alertness. She was watching my eyes. I did not look at her. She was watching for the twitch that did not come, for the grimace, for the worry, for some emotion that would give me away. 143 I gave her/him nothing. "I am being given this opportunity to communicate with you by the very creature who has erased my life on Earth. He has called me back to my duty, and I cannot fail. "This will all seem very strange to you, my unknown, unseen, unmet son. But I am not one of your people. I have taken on the form of a human, but I am not human." My lungs wanted to stop breathing. My heart wanted to stop beating. I felt like suddenly everyone, everything was very close in, like Aria/Visser Three was breathing on my cheek, and the lawyer was leaning clear over his desk to whisper his words right in my ear. Not human! A reaction! I needed a reaction! I rolled my eyes and said, "Oh, man," in as sarcastic a tone as I could manage. The lawyer glanced at Visser Three, then went on. "I was in a terrible war. I did terrible things. I had to, I suppose. But I grew tired of war, so I ran away. I went and hid among the people of Earth. Among humans. While on Earth, and living as a human, I took the name Alan Fangor." The lawyer was quoting from memory now, no longer reading. His eyes were narrowed to slits as he watched me. 144 "I took the name Alan Fangor. But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul." Time stopped. I felt like I'd grabbed hold of a million-volt power line. Every cell in my body was tingling. Elfangor! My father! I could not let a flicker of recognition appear. Not a movement. Not a widening of the eyes. Nothing! Nothing! The lawyer had stopped. Visser Three glared at me with a woman's eyes. I shrugged. "Is that it?" I saw Aria's eyes dim. He/she was disappointed. The tension, the electricity, seemed to slowly seep out of the airless cube of an office. "There's more," the lawyer said, drawing a delayed breath. "But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul," he repeated, like he couldn't quite believe that name didn't make me jump up and run around the room. "And though you will never know me and we will never meet, I wanted to make sure that you knew my disappearance from your life was not by my choice. I wanted nothing more than to live out my life, loving your mother and loving you as well." But we did meet, Elfangor, I thought. We met as you lay dying. Did you know? Did you guess . . . Father? Did you sense, at that last, terrible moment 145 when I had to leave you to the murderer who now sits beside me, that I was your son? Tears! NO! NO! One tear and I would die. DeGroot looked annoyed now. Let down. He mumbled through the last paragraph of the letter like he had somewhere else to be. "But I was part of something larger than myself. I had my duty. There was a great evil I had to fight. There were lives I had to try and save. Including yours and your mother's. I am from a race called Andalites. Duty is very important to us. As it is to many, many humans. I cannot say that I love you, my son, because I do not know you. But know that I wanted to love you. Know that, at least. "It's signed Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, Prince." I barked out a harsh laugh. "Well, that figures, doesn't it?" "What figures?" the creature calling itself Aria asked. "My so-called 'real father' shows up and he's some lunatic. Some idiot. Perfect. So: No money, right?" "No money," DeGroot confirmed. I stood up. Aria did, too. "You really want to take me in, or were you just hoping I was going to inherit something?" I demanded. 146 "I do want to take you in," she said, smiling falsely. "But it may have to wait just a little while. You see, I was suddenly called back to Africa to do some reshooting of ... of some lions." I laughed derisively, still the tough street kid. "Great. I have a nut for a father and a fake for a cousin." I turned my back on them and walked away. "Tobias," Aria said. I turned back to face her. "What?" "I ... I knew your father. We were, shall we say, on the opposite sides of certain issues. But he was no fool." Suddenly Aria/Visser Three smiled. It was a faraway smile, like she/he was remembering something from long ago. "Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul was no fool. And the galaxy will not soon see his like again." I threw up my hands. "Good grief, you're as crazy as he was." I walked out and closed the door behind me. I heard DeGroot say, "Shouldn't we take him? Just to be safe? Make him one of us?" Aria snorted derisively. "He's street trash. A waste of a Yeerk. Elfangor would be ashamed. His son should be a warrior. A worthy adversary, not some young fool. A pity, really." I'd been in morph for a long time. I left the office and made it to a safe place without being followed 147 or watched. I demorphed. I didn't think about the fact that I'd decided to remain as a human. I demorphed to hawk before I could be trapped. But then I morphed again. Back to human. See, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry a lot, for a long time. And hawks don't cry. 148 I could see it all, now. DeGroot said he had inherited the letter when his father died and he took over the law practice. The younger DeGroot was a Controller. He must have almost had a heart attack when he went through his father's old files and the name Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul jumped up at him. There was not a Yeerk alive who didn't know that name. Visser Three had wondered what happened to the son of his archenemy. Did Elfangor's son know the truth? Was Elfangor's son somehow connected with the "Andalite bandits" who caused the Visser such pain? 149 Investigation had revealed that I had disappeared from school and from the custody of my indifferent relatives. That must have really piqued Visser Three's interest. So he devised a trap. Invent a cousin. Offer me what I obviously did not have: a home. Lower my defenses. Then read me the letter. But then came the complication: Visser Three had a crisis to deal with. The young Hork-Bajir named Bek. He would need two traps: one for me, one for the free Hork-Bajir. Just in case I was connected with the "Andalite bandits," he would play the role to the hilt: In that first visit to check out Bek, he pretended to a humanity he did not have. Later he arranged to make it seem he'd saved some girl's life. What better proof that he was truly a human? It would have worked. Except for the fact that Visser Three was called suddenly to the facility where they had just "captured" a group of free Hork-Bajir. He'd been passing as Aria at the time. He needed to get to the weapons facility quickly. A helicopter would do the trick, but he would need to travel in human morph. I saw him. And that was all that saved my life. And doomed his plan. 150 I flew back to my meadow, my mind and heart more full than I would have thought possible. Elfangor. My father. I had no doubt about who had erased Elfangor's life on Earth. Who had allowed him to leave me that one, short letter. Only the Ellimist could have done it. I landed back on my favorite branch in my favorite tree. He had left me. My mother never remembered him. He had never existed for her, so she did not feel the pain of it. And I would not have known, but for the letter. And now, I guess I could be angry at him. But that wasn't how I felt. Elfangor had run away from his duty when he came to Earth. He'd had no choice but to return to that duty. No choice at all, if he was to play the part he had to play, and be the great prince he was. I'd lost a father. Because of that fact, Elfangor had been where he had to be, when he had to be there, to change the lives of five ordinary kids forever. And maybe . . . maybe. . . save the human race. I wondered why the Ellimist had allowed my father to leave that letter. But I didn't wonder for long. The answer was too simple. See, I had a duty, too. And who is there to re- 151 mind you that what you want for yourself is less important than doing what is necessary and right? 152 I swept down across the grass, silent, my wings carefully aligned. I raked my talons forward, flared my tail, swung my wings forward, and dropped with perfect precision. My talons sank into the back of the rabbit's neck. And then again, as before, I was not the hawk, but the rabbit. I was not the remorseless killer, I was the victim. Not predator, but prey. In this vision I felt the pain of my talons in my own neck. I felt the terror of the death from the sky. But I held on. I had to accept what this vision was telling me. What some corner of my own mind had wanted me to understand. 153 The rabbit became calm and quiet as I absorbed its DNA. I acquired the rabbit, made it part of me. Then I tightened my grip till the rabbit stopped squirming. Till its heart stopped beating. I am, after all, the predator hawk. I kill to eat. But I am also the human being. And I can never take a life, not even for my own survival, without feeling. I had heard my father's message come down through the years. Now I heard the message my own mind was telling me: You are both, Tobias. Hawk and human. You always will be. You will always kill to eat. And you will always regret. It's a rotten situation, I guess. But my duty is to be what I am. A hawk. A boy. Instinct. And emotion. I'll have to go on walking that tightrope. I ate the mother rabbit. All I could hold. Then I morphed into the mother rabbit. And I shepherded the babies safely back to their den, as over our heads the other hawk flew, looking down at us for a chance to hunt and eat as I had done. Life would have been a lot easier for me if I could have been a simple, ruthless animal. If all my decisions were straightforward. If everything made sense. But that's not the way it is for human beings. I looked up at the other hawk through terrified 154 rabbit eyes. I had become prey, this time for real. This is what it felt like. This is what my prey saw when they felt my shadow blot out the sun. It was good that I knew. I said to the shadow of death above me. I killed to eat. But I didn't need to eat these little ones. These I would save. These little ones I could pity. That was the human thing to do. That night I went to Rachel's room. She was asleep. She was ticked off when I woke her up. But she rolled out of bed and put on a robe and told me she'd never get any sleep with some idiot bird coming in and out at all hours. Then she showed me the cake. She lit a candle and I blew it out by flapping my wing. Neither of us sang "Happy Birthday." But she said it. "Happy birthday, Tobias." 155 Don't; miss Animorphs #24 The Suspicion I. was getting small. I was getting small very fast. I've shrunk before, when I've morphed various insects, for example. But this was new. I was shrinking as a human. The only good thing was that at least my morphing suit was shrinking, too. Bad to be shrinking. Worse to be shrinking right out of your clothes. "Hey!" I yelled. "What did you do to me?" I spun around and spotted Tobias, swooping in like a 747 coming in for a landing. "Tobias! Look out! They have a shrinking ray!" FLASH! "Never mind. You'll find out soon enough." Tobias said, sounding puzzled. "Tobias! You have to warn the others not to come in here! Somehow they're using the power of the blue box to do this." he said. A huge, galumphing form appeared in the doorway: Marco. "Get back!" I screamed. But of course what he heard was, "Get back!" FLASH! "Hey!" Marco ye I led. "No flash photography." "Say what? Before I what?" But he turned and yelled over his shoulder. "Jake! Ax! Rachel! Stay out of here!" I could see him peering down at me. His face was about the size of the Goodyear Blimp - if it was about to land on top of you. "Oh, this isn't good," he said. I was shrinking still further. I was already as small as a cockroach. The roof of the barn already looked like it was the sky. A dim overhead light might as well have been the moon. Marco was standing on sequoia legs, with feet the size of twin Titanics. "What's happening in there?" Jake yelled. "Well," Marco said calmly. "The Helmacrons have the blue box and they seem to be using it in a kind of bizarre way." "I'm coming in," Jake said decisively. "No!" Marco yelled in a voice that already sounded like someone breathing helium. 158 "No, Jake and Ax, do not come in!" Then, as an afterthought, he said, "Rachel, you could come in." Tobias chided. "Hey, the Wicked Witch gets to be full size and I'm down here singing, 'We represent the Lollipop Guild'? I don't think so." Tobias cried in thought-speak that we all heard clearly. "Okay, everyone just stay put," Jake ordered. "Look, the other Helmacron ship took off. Rachel hit it with a brick." I would have laughed. Only I was now shrinking down to the point where scattered bits of hay on the ground were looking like huge, felled trees. Grains of dirt were the size of soccer balls. "I think I'm done shrinking!" I said. Not that anyone heard me. Something flew into view. Something that seemed weirdly large. Tobias. He was roughly the size of a very small fly. But he was about as big as me. he said. "Me, too." "I guess that's not how it works," I said. "I think the idea here is to shrink us all to the same size as the Helmacrons themselves." 159 Marco, now no more than three inches tall himself, came walking over. He was huge to us. But his face was getting closer all the time. "Oh, man, you guys are small," he said. "Honey, I shrunk the Animorphs!" "Rachel! Get a brick!" Jake said in a huge voice that reverberated around us.