“You forget to mention that I clearly have a superior sense of style,” Rachel added.
“Actually, I’m curious about why you chose me, too, Aldrea,” I said, speaking out loud for Rachel’s benefit. “We all thought you’d go for Rachel or Toby.”
Aldrea finally admitted.
Maybe it was because she’d been able to feel my admiration for what she had done by becoming Hork-Bajir.
No, that didn’t make sense. I wasn’t the only one who believed her decision to defy her own people to fight the Yeerks was heroic.
I relayed her answer to Rachel. I could have shared control of my mouth, perhaps, but it would have caused problems, confusion. I didn’t want to give her any more than she needed. But neither did I want to make her hostile by treating her with suspicion. I don’t think Miss Manners covers this particular social situation, I thought.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes what?” Rachel asked.
“I-she-jamrff-coo har dabdiligg …” Two minds, one mouth.
Rachel gave us a fish eye. “Uh-huh. And meanwhile, back at the psych ward …”
“I thought I’d been given a ridiculous receptacle at first,” Aldrea admitted, speaking to Rachel almost as if I weren’t there to hear. “I didn’t know how I would be able to fight in this soft little body. No blades of any kind. It doesn’t even have hidden poison sacs!”
“Yeah, but she has an enema bag she uses on raccoons,” Rachel joked.
“But now that I know it has morphing abilities, I’m sure it will work well enough,” Aldrea continued.
It. I guess “it” is the right word to use when you’re talking about a body. “It” stepped in to reach the speech centers.
“So, are you ready to try this?” I asked. “I’m concentrating on my wolf DNA right now. Can you sense it?”
“To start to morph all you need to do is —” I said.
Her superior tone reminded me of Ax. Every once in a while he makes it clear how primitive our human technology still is.
I could have asked her how many times she’d morphed. How many animals. I could have pointed out that my friends and I were probably the galactic morphing champions. But I didn’t feel right. I felt … I don’t know. Aldrea was a hero right out of history. And I was the girl with the raccoon enema bag.
“Well, go ahead, then,” I mumbled.
I felt the tip of my nose turn wet and cold. But only for an instant. My fingernails grew thicker and longer. But a second later they returned to their usual shape.
“You’re fighting me, Cassie,” Aldrea said.
“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know,” I answered. “Go ahead.”
I felt Aldrea begin to concentrate on the wolf DNA. I started to take a deep breath, then I realized that right now she should be controlling the breathing. The changes began again. The bones in my legs cracked as the joints reversed direction. The skin on my arms itched as coarse hair popped through it. Morphing has always been creepy. This time it was terrifying. Each sensation felt magnified by a hundred. I wanted to scream as I felt my intestines shift and my ribs contract.
I ordered myself to get a grip. I decided to pretend I was watching a movie. I even tried to imagine I could feel the nubby material of the theater seat behind my back and the sticky floor under my feet.
When my lips began to stretch away from my face, I tried to think of it as a cool special effect in the Aldrea: Alien Werewolf movie.
It helped a little. Very little.
I fell forward on my hands. No, my paws. They were paws now. A moment later, the transformation was complete.
Aldrea took off running through the forest. I could feel her exhilaration. She felt powerful and free.
I felt as if I was locked in a speeding car with no brakes and no steering wheel. I tried to hold on to the image of the movie theater I’d created, but I couldn’t. Not with Aldrea racing straight toward a huge pine tree! If we hit that tree at this speed there wouldn’t just be a splash of fake movie blood. There would be an explosion of very real pain.
She swerved, missing the tree by inches.
She was right. I’d probably come that close to trees dozens of times when I was in wolf morph.
Aldrea was obviously having no problems controlling the body. I just had to trust her. Except she wasn’t from Earth. What if a situation came up that she couldn’t recognize? Would I be able to take over the body quickly enough to deal?
I decided to try a little experiment. Without saying anything to Aldrea, I tried to wag my — our — wolf tail.
It didn’t move.
I tried again, concentrating all my energy on the muscles in the tail. The tail gave a twitch. It wasn’t exactly a full-out wag. But at least it moved.
I hesitated. I didn’t want to admit I’d been trying to see what kind of control I had.
Rachel loped up beside us in her own wolf morph. I couldn’t help thinking that if Rachel had been in my situation she would have gotten a lot more than a pathetic little twitch out of the tail.
Rachel would not have been intimidated by Aldrea. She’d have laid down the law: Do what I tell you, or else.
Or else what, though? That was the question, wasn’t it. Or else … what?
I wondered again why Aldrea hadn’t chosen Rachel as her receptacle. But maybe the answer was all too clear: Maybe I’d been chosen because she sensed that I was the weakest.
Had she felt that I would be the easiest to control? Had Aldrea, even in her inchoate Ixcila form, marked me as an easy victim?
“Okay, there’s that girl, Holly Perry, you know, she transferred from Polk?” Marco said from his seat on one of the big bales of hay in my barn. “I want my Chee to ask her out for me. I tried a couple of times, but this thing happened with my voice.”
“He started clucking like the chicken he is,” Rachel commented.
“Holly Perry. No problem,” Erek the Chee told Marco. “It’s not like we have anything else to do but work on your love life. Yeah, the Chee who plays you will also hold down his regular full-time job as a restaurant manager, but hey, your love life comes first.”
Marco nodded. “Good. As long as we have our priorities clear.”
Aldrea was completely lost. It was comforting to feel her confusion.
“If we’re not back before the date, my Chee should just go out with her and make sure she really has fun,” Marco continued.
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Rachel asked. “Won’t Holly be disappointed when she goes out with the real you?”
I felt impatience from Aldrea. The emotional wall between us was becoming more of a sieve. Her thoughts were still beyond my reach, but I could “feel” her now as a person more inside me than out.
Her impatience didn’t lessen.
I got the strong feeling that she didn’t appreciate the comparison.
“Any other instructions?” Erek asked.
“Ask whoever is me not to be so nice to my sisters this time,” Rachel answered. “They get to expecting it.”
Erek smiled. “Jake? Cassie? Anything?”
Jake shook his head. I could tell that in his thoughts at least, he’d already left Earth far behind.
“Maybe I shouldn’t ask this,” I said slowly. “Maybe it’s bad luck or something. But if we … if we don’t come back, would …” I couldn’t finish the sentence. A terrible grief welled up beneath my own less intense worry.
It took me a moment to realize that most of it was coming from Aldrea. My thoughts had made her think of her own parents and her little brother. All lost to her forever.
“We could stay with your families,” Erek said. “If you really wish.”
“No,” I said quickly. “Forget it. No. I … I don’t think I want anyone being me permanently.”
Erek nodded. “No. I’ve lived a long, long time. Seen a lot of death. I’ve never seen the point in denying death. People die. People grieve. It’s better than playing games with it.” He turned to go.
“Oh, Erek, one more thing,” Marco called after him. “I kind of need a makeup paper on some great figure from American history. It’s kind of due day after tomorrow.”
“How about Franklin Roosevelt? I was the White House butler during his administration. I was the one who came up with the phrase ‘New Deal.’ Of course, it was during a poker game.”
For the second time in less than one full day, we were flying to the Hork-Bajir valley.
No one was talking. Marco and Rachel weren’t bothering with their usual exchange of insults. Aldrea wasn’t even communicating with me in our private shared-mind communication.
Jake wasn’t saying much to me, either. He couldn’t talk to me, even to reassure me, without talking to Aldrea, too. I knew he was aware of potential problems there.
I felt relieved when I spotted Quafijinivon, Toby, and the other Hork-Bajir already gathered around the small Yeerk spacecraft. It was larger than a Bug fighter, but still fairly small. Instead of the cockroach-shell shape with the twin serrated Dracon cannon, it was closer to the oval shape the Andalites use, with an engine pod on either side. But the Dracon cannon were slung underneath rather than mimicking a raised tail.
I wanted to get on that ship as quickly as possible. The only way to complete this mission was to begin it. The only way to return to Earth was to leave it. The only way to regain the sole use of my body was to allow Aldrea to use it now.
I was ready. I had to be ready. That choice was made for me when Aldrea chose her receptacle.
I tucked my wings close to my body and let myself drop to the ground. I demorphed quickly.
“Anyone who doesn’t have a Hork-Bajir morph, get one now,” Jake instructed before the feathers had all disappeared from his face.
I stepped up to Jara Hamee and reached toward him. “May I?” I asked.
“Jara help,” he answered.
I pressed my hands against his leathery chest. Aldrea fought to resist a renewed wave of grief. I couldn’t figure out why for a minute, then I realized that touching Jara must remind her of how it felt to touch Dak Hamee.
It was all new to her. A loss that had occurred before I was born had happened to Aldrea just hours before. I couldn’t stop thinking of it all as a story. Dak Hamee was history to me. To Aldrea he was a living, breathing person.
I acquired Jara’s DNA as quickly as possible and slid my hands away.
“It is time,” Quafijinivon announced.
He took a step toward the ship, leading the way, then stopped and turned back to the expectant Hork-Bajir.
“Friend Hork-Bajir: I am deeply grateful for the gift of your DNA. I will do everything in my power to aid the new colony in banishing the Yeerks from your home planet. Believe me, or do not, but I tell you that I, the last of the Arn, will atone for the sins of my people.”
Of course the Hork-Bajir didn’t grasp half of this little speech. But they caught the tone.
Jara Hamee slapped his hand against his chest. “Free or dead!” he exclaimed.
“Free or dead!” Ket Halpak echoed. She slapped her hand against her own chest.
The other Hork-Bajir joined in the cry.
“Free or dead!”
Thump!
“Free or dead!”
Thump!
My eyes began to sting. I didn’t know if it was my emotions or Aldrea’s that caused the tears to form. In that moment our feelings were almost identical.
“Okay, let’s go,” Jake said.
Aldrea and I took one last look at the Hork-Bajir. We thumped our hand against our chest. “Free or dead!” we shouted.
“We” is the only way I can describe the experience. I’m really not sure if it was my voice or hers that uttered the Hork-Bajir battle cry. For that moment, the wall between us was down.
But as we made our way to the ship’s door, I felt Aldrea pull away from me. I pulled away a little, too.
We were still almost strangers to each other. We both needed a little privacy. I stepped into the ship, Marco right behind me.
“Hey, all right. A hot tub,” he exclaimed. “All you ladies are invited to join me.” I followed his gaze to the small, drained Yeerk pool that dominated the only “room.”
“It’s empty,” Quafijinivon reassured us. “I’ll take the helm. We will translate to Zero-space as soon as we clear the atmosphere. I must prepare for the trip to the Arn planet.”
“The Hork-Bajir planet,” Rachel muttered, with a significant look at me.
Quafijinivon didn’t appear to hear her. He squatted uncomfortably, leaning back against a captain’s chair designed for Hork-Bajir. The space beside him was without any chair, appropriate for a Taxxon.
Ax went to look over the controls.
“My father,” Aldrea answered defiantly. “My father, Prince Seerow. Without my father, the Yeerks would never have had the opportunity to spread their evil,” she continued. “Without my father, we would not all be risking our lives on this mission. That is the point the Andalite wishes to make.”
She ignored me.
“All this is true,” Aldrea insisted. “It is also true that my father did what he believed was right. He believed he was helping a worthy race to advance.”
Aldrea whipped her — our — head toward him. “What he did is not so different from giving these humans the power to morph. And who did that, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill? I know they could not have developed the technology on their own.”
“Oh, but I can!” Aldrea cried triumphantly. “If your brother gave the humans the power to morph, that means he gave an inferior species technology they were incapable of developing themselves. That is all my father did.”
“Wait a minute, are you comparing humans to Yeerks?” Rachel demanded. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Well, we’re off to a good start,” Marco said with a laugh. “We haven’t even gotten to the first rest stop and alread
y the kids are fighting in the backseat.”
“Okay. Discussion over,” Jake said. Tobias fell silent in mid-word. I could feel Aldrea’s incredulity at being silenced by what she saw as an alien youth.
“We have to be a team here,” Jake said in a voice so quiet it forced everyone to lean forward to listen. “We have to be able to count on each other. We’re going deep into enemy territory. The Hork-Bajir planet is Yeerk-held. Ringed by Yeerk defenses. And we’re relying on two people we don’t know: Quafijinivon and Aldrea.”
He shot me/Aldrea a hard look. “We’ll be advised by Quafijinivon and Aldrea. And we’ll always listen to Toby. But this is an Animorph mission.”
“Meaning that you are in charge?” Aldrea demanded, almost laughing.
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Jake said.
I felt Aldrea’s emotional reaction. A mix of resentment, condescension, and worry.
Using my — our — mouth, Aldrea said, “I will follow Jake as though he were my prince.”
Did she mean it? I couldn’t tell.
I had the feeling Ax was about to say something snide. Jake raised his hand, cutting Ax off. “Thank you, Aldrea. It’s an honor to have you on the team.”
The moment passed. I saw Rachel smirking at me. No, at Aldrea.
My eyes went straight to the blue-and-white ball that was Earth. It was so far away already.
The ship picked up speed. It hurtled through space faster and faster.
The Prophecy Page 4