The Alien

by K. A. Applegate

Tobias agreed. He led the way down.

  We dived at high speed, rocketing down through the air. The brilliant white dome rushed up at us. I shot through the open rectangle and banked sharply right.

  It was much darker inside than outside. Below me was the incredibly long tube of the telescope.

  Tobias said.

 

 

  I said.

  We circled swiftly around the inside of the dome. As I flew, I kept expecting to see humans below. But none ever appeared.

  Tobias said.

  I agreed.

 

  Tobias swept up and out of the dome. I was alone.

  I drifted down toward the floor. Down and down, to land on a table. There was a computer console workstation. But no humans in sight.

  I saw an open door leading to what seemed to be a dark and empty office. I flapped my wings twice and was inside.

  Harrier eyes, like hawk eyes, are adapted for daylight. They are not very good in the dark. But the harrier also has extremely good hearing. I dimly saw a desk and came to rest on it. Then I concentrated on listening.

  I was alone in the room. I was certain of that. The only human sounds I heard came through the walls.

  Conversation. I could not make out the sounds, but they all seemed to be concentrated in one area.

 

  It was Tobias. His thought-speech was faint.

  I answered.

 

  I said.

  Tobias said.

  I said.

 

  My plan was to morph to my normal Andalite form, then quickly move into my human morph, just in case any humans saw me. But I was tired from the flight. And morphing is very tiring. Especially quick morphing. And if I had to make a quick escape it would mean passing through my Andalite body to move back to harrier.

  I would never be able to handle that many changes in a short time. I decided to risk staying in Andalite form.

  Besides . . . if it worked and I reached my home, I wanted my parents to know me when they saw me.

  I began the demorphing. I could only hope that Tobias would be able to give me enough warning.

  Even though I loved being a bird, it was a good feeling when my tail began to form again. An Andalite without a tail is just sad.

  And no matter how powerful a hawk’s eyes may be, they can still only look in one direction at a time. As my stalk eyes re-formed, I breathed a sigh of relief. I could once again see in all directions.

  There was no computer in the office. I was very annoyed by that fact. It meant I would have to go back into the observatory to use the computer there.

  My hooves slipped on the polished floor. I swung my eyes in every direction, keeping a sharp lookout.

  I pushed the chair away from the computer workstation. I began typing on the antique keyboard. The screen asked me for a password.

  I laughed. I disabled the security system and confirmed that Marco’s father’s new software was already in place.

  Good. That would make it easier. As quickly as I could, I wrote in a virus that would swiftly transform the software that controlled the radio telescope.

  Since humans had no awareness of zero space, they did not understand that a powerful radio receiver could be tuned in such a way as to create a Z-Space vacuum and open a cross-dimensional gateway.

  Once I had opened a small hole in Z-Space, it was child’s play to use the same receivers to modulate and reflect the background radiation into a coherent signal. The hard part would be using thought-speech to control the signal. That would take absolute concentration.

  Tobias said.

  I hoped the word I couldn’t hear was okay.

  It took about ten Earth minutes to adjust the radio telescope. Ten minutes, and I had moved human science ahead by a century or so.

  Ten minutes to completely violate Andalite law.

  I was done. The system was ready.

  I pressed the “enter” key.

  The thousands of lines of computer language disappeared from the computer’s screen.

  The screen went blank.

  I focused my mind as sharply as I could. I pictured the coherent signal. I pictured that beam going through my own head.

  I thought.

  The screen flickered.

  A face appeared. It was a hard, suspicious face. But it was an Andalite face.

  the Andalite demanded.

 

  The Andalite stared at me. he wondered.

 

  Earth!>

 

 

  For a moment my concentration wavered. I lost the signal. But then, I forced myself to focus. This was too important to let my emotions mess things up.

  I asked.

  He looked surprised that I would ask.

  I said.

  I could see that this was a surprise. Ithileran’s eyes were downcast, and he lowered his stalk eyes as well in a gesture of grief.

 

  I said.

 

  I tried to quickly organize my thoughts.

  I took a deep breath, and tried to hold on to my concentration. How much should I tell Ithileran?

 

  I said sharply.

 

  I said.

  That got Ithileran’s attention. That definitely got his attention.

  It was time to tell him the full truth, or decide to lie.

  have the power to morph,> I said.

 

 

  Ithileran looked startled. His eyes darted to the side and then he abruptly disappeared from the screen. In his place stood another Andalite.

  I was stunned. I instantly recognized the face.

  He was very old, and yet his power seemed to vibrate through the screen, across all the light-years that separated Earth from home.

  Lirem-Arrepoth-Terrouss.

  Head of the Council. Veteran of more battles than I could count. His appearance on the screen would have made me lose concentration, but I was too awed to dare.

 

 

  He ignored my babbling.

 

  Lirem stared at me with a gaze that was known to make great princes tremble.

 

 

 

  I said. I surprised myself by practically yelling.

  To my surprise, Lirem did not tell me to be silent. But his eyes grew darker, his expression more serious than ever. Then he said,

  I said.

  Lirem looked hard at me.

  I said grimly.

  For a moment no one spoke.

  Then Lirem said,

  I couldn’t believe what Lirem wanted me to say. He wanted me to lie. He wanted me to clear Elfangor.

  I said, too shocked to argue.

  Lirem continued.

  I whispered bitterly.

  Lirem said.

  I said blankly. Why had I done this? Why had I communicated with my home?

 

  I knew I should shut up. But part of me was getting angry.

  Lirem’s eyes were cold.

 

 

  From what seemed like far away, I heard a faint voice in my head.

  But at that very moment, Lirem said,

  Ax — you hear? — there’s —>

  my father said. It was his nickname for me.

  I couldn’t believe it was really him.

 

  It came so quickly, the question I dreaded. I almost lost the contact. I desperately wanted to see my father’s face and listen to his words. But at the same time, I did not want to tell him that his oldest son was gone.

  And there was another thing I did not want to tell him.

  my father said.

  My father looked like someone had punched him. He rocked back.

  I looked away. I had tried so hard not to think about Elfangor being gone. Somehow it wasn’t real till this moment. Seeing my father’s pain made me feel my own.

  my father asked. The question is part of the ritual of death. It was the question he had to ask.

  I said. This also was part of the ritual.

  My father nodded.

  This was the part I had feared.

  My father looked up at me.

 

 

 

 

 

  The ritual was complete. We had both said all the things we were supposed to say.

  my father said.

  I said.

  The connection was broken. Instantly, totally. I was staring at a blank screen.

  “Sorry, but you were breaking my heart,” a human voice sneered. “I had to cut you off.”

  I spun around. A human! He was thirty feet away.

  And he was holding a weapon, pointing it at me.

  Only slowly did I realize that it was no human gun. The weapon in his hand was a Dracon beam. Standard Yeerk issue.

  “You and I have a lot to talk about, Andalite. Quite a lot.”

  I was frozen. I could not move. The Human-Controller was too far away for me to hit with my tail.

  “Don’t try it, Andalite,” he sneered. “I’ll fry you before you can even twitch that tail of yours.”

  But then . . .

  “Tseeeeeeeeeerrr!”

  Tobias dived from the top of the dome at full speed, wings swept back, talons raked forward. He aimed for the man’s face.

  The man threw up his arm. Talons raked the bare flesh of his forearm, leaving red slashes behind. But the man had held on to the Dracon beam. Tobias flew past. Shreds of the human’s shirt hung from his talons.

  I leaped forward. Too late!

 
“Freeze! I don’t want to kill either of you, Andalites, but I will if I have to!” the man snapped. Tobias swooped away to perch on the huge telescope itself.

  “I just want to talk,” the Human-Controller said.

  I pointed out.

  Then, he did something that amazed me. He knelt down and placed the Dracon beam on the floor. He kicked it aside. The weapon went skittering across the polished floor.

  “Now I’m at your mercy, Andalite,” he said. “You can use that tail of yours. Or you can listen to what I have to say.”

  With my stalk eyes I glanced up and saw Tobias.

  Tobias said.

  I said to the Human-Controller.

  “My name is Gary Kozlar,” he said.

  I snapped, trying to sound strong and unafraid.

  He nodded. “All right. My name is Eslin Three-Five-Nine. And you are Aximili, a young Andalite warrior-cadet. Brother of Beast Elfangor. You see, I heard the last few minutes of your touching conversation.”

 

  “Your brother is dead,” Eslin snapped. “And so is the one creature in all the galaxy that I cared about. Her name was Derane Three-Four-Four. And do you know what they have in common, your brother and my Derane?”

 

  Eslin’s human face twisted into an expression of rage. “They were both killed by the same being.”

 

  “As I said, you and I have a lot in common, Andalite.” He struggled to gain control over his human face, but his jaw was twitching as he explained. “You Andalite bandits did a lot of damage by destroying the Kandrona. There is widespread starvation. The most important Yeerks, those in vital positions, or those whom the Visser happens to favor, are being shuttled back and forth to the mother ship every three days. They get a minimal dose of Kandrona rays. Enough to keep them alive.”

  I asked.

  “No, I expect the usual Andalite self-righteousness and hypocrisy from you,” Eslin spat. “Andalites. The meddlers of the galaxy.”