The Hork-Bajir Chronicles

by K. A. Applegate

  «They may look like bright flowers. But they are suns. Hundreds of suns. Thousands. Mil ... I mean that there are more stars than there are trees. They look small because they are far away.»

  I heard these words. And these words made me think very hard. But then . . .

  "Yes," I said suddenly, amazed. "Yes! Things that are far away look small. This is true."

  "Far is far," Jagil said, looking alarmed.

  «These stars are very, very far away,» Aldrea said. «And around some of these stars are planets. Like this place. Other places with very different trees. And different creatures.»

  26 I felt... I did not have words for how I felt. Things that are far away seem small. Even when they are large. This idea was like an exploding seed pod in my head.

  Things that are far away seem small. If Mother Sky's flowers are very far away, they might be very large. They might be ... suns!

  My legs became weak. I rested back on my tail. I could not speak.

  "Are you sick?" Jagil asked me.

  «We come from one of those stars,» Aldrea said.

  "How . . . how can you come from so far?"

  «We flew,» she said.

  Mother Sky's flowers were suns. And these strangers had come from one of those suns. The things I thought were true were no longer true.

  I felt... I felt that I wanted to know more. This feeling was not new. But now I felt that this delicate stranger could help me. I could know so many things! So many things!

  On that day, the old Dak Hamee died. On that day I truly became Dak Hamee, the seer.

  27

  My name is Esplin 9466.

  I come from no regular Yeerk pool. I was born from the decaying bodies of my tripartite parents, along with several hundred brothers and sisters, aboard ship. And one twin, naturally, as you know from the double-number designation.

  I have never lived on the home world. I was born in a sterile, titanium-alloy tank, beneath the warmth of a portable Kandrona.

  It was all I knew.

  Older Yeerks spoke of the pools of home. Of their smells and temperatures; of their size and spaciousness; of their traditions that stretched back for hundreds of generations.

  My pool was simple and crude. It had been constructed using the host bodies of Gedds. Gedds are imperfect hosts. Even so, I wished we had more of them.

  But there were no host bodies available, not on

  28 this spacecraft. So we lived in our pool. As simple Yeerks must. And I would have lived happily enough.

  But then came the day when it was my turn to take "training."

  There were a certain number of Gedds, often old or crippled in some way, that we used as training hosts. We were given fifteen minutes to enter the host body, take it, and then release the host body and leave.

  Fifteen minutes. It was all the time allowed with so many untrained Yeerks and so few available hosts.

  We lined up in the pool six at a time. I was fourth in line. I waited impatiently, afraid. I admit it: afraid. You hear stories about what it's like. About the hallucinatory sensory input. About the strange sensation of having another mind under your control. About the extension of your own body through unfamiliar limbs.

  But you don't know till you do it.

  When it was my turn, the Gedd's head was thrust beneath the surface of the pool. My sonar found the head quite easily, of course. And I'd been taught how to pinpoint the opening into the head by extending two palps.

  It was quite a small entryway. I had to squeeze

  29 myself down and work my way slowly inside the ear canal. From there on, it was all by feel. My sonar didn't work, of course. And the smells I encountered were unfamiliar, useless.

  But then, after what seemed far too long a time, my palps encountered a surface alive with electricity!

  The brain. I could feel the activity, the snapping neurons, the arcs of microvoltage between synapses. I had to flatten myself all the way. My palps sought for trenches, gaps, openings around the brain. And I found them. I pushed my body down inside each wrinkle of the brain. Just as I'd been taught to do.

  And slowly at first, then faster and faster, I began to make contact! I felt the neurons connecting to me!

  Only someone who has done it can understand. It was ... it was beyond description. Suddenly, I was not just myself, I was something much larger. Where my body ended, a second body began, so that very soon I forgot my own body entirely.

  I had arms many times longer than myself. They ended in three-fingered hands that could actually move objects. Lift them, turn them over, set them down in different ways. I had legs that lifted my new body up high. I could move through the air!

  30 Oh! How can I explain it? The power! The joy! The feeling that I had suddenly grown huge, vast, powerful.

  No one had told me it would be so wonderful.

  And then I felt inside the brain, a place I had not been. A place untouched by my control.

  I opened that part of the brain. And in doing so, I opened the Gedd's eyes.

  For a long, frozen moment of disbelief, I did not know what was happening. I didn't understand what my brain was receiving.

  How could I? How could any Yeerk who has not had a host?

  Sight!

  Objects ? not felt, not smelled, not reflected on sonar ? but seen. It was like a sonar image, but oh, so much more. So much! The data assaulted my brain. I reeled, overwhelmed, unable to understand or accept.

  I looked through the Gedd's eyes. I used the Gedd's own brain to filter and interpret the eerie, insane input. And then, slowly, I understood.

  I was looking at other Gedds.

  I was looking around at the inside of the spacecraft.

  I was looking down at my own pool.

  So small, it was. So dark. So ... insignificant.

  31 I saw movement within the pool and caught a flash of something gray and wet.

  I had never before seen one of my own people. I felt like some super-being. Like I was no longer a Yeerk at all. I could see! And in a flash I knew that this one sense was more powerful than every other sense combined. Sight plus powerful limbs! It was inconceivable.

  And then my time was up.

  I had to leave the Gedd host and return to the pool.

  Afterward I communicated with my friends and siblings. Many of them found the whole experience terrifying. Sickening. Awful.

  Not me. From that moment on, I swore that I would do whatever it took, pay any price, to have eyes again.

  There were more than a quarter million of us on the two transport ships. A quarter million of us and so few hosts. Only the most fit, the most useful, would be given hosts. I would be the most fit. I would be the most useful.

  The ship we were in was one we had taken from the Andalites some years earlier. We were using it to travel the galaxy in search of suitable hosts.

  Most Yeerks were not interested in the ship. Not even interested in the link we'd managed to create

  32 that allowed us to access the Andalite ship's central computer. A computer is a machine made of manipulated matter that stores information, like a flawless memory.

  Those who cared about the computer were the scientists and technicians. They learned all they could about Andalite science.

  I would never be a scientist. I knew I didn't have that kind of mind. But perhaps there was something else I could learn from the Andalite computer. Something that would make me fit for a host.

  I searched the data banks hungrily. And one day I realized I'd found my true calling.

  I came across an old Andalite saying in the computer files. «Know your friends well. Know your enemies better.»

  The Andalites were our enemies now.

  Yes. Know your enemy.

  That was my calling. That was the way to gaining my own host. I would learn all the computer held about the magnificent, powerful creatures called Andalites.

  Someday we would face the Andalites in battle. Then I would be needed.

&nb
sp; 33

  ALDREA

  «How are you getting along with your young friend?» my father asked as we galloped across the grass together, side by side.

  «Dak? Oh, fine,» I said.

  «l notice that you are not making regular data entries. You did for the first three months. Then you stopped.»

  I shrugged. «l . . . fell out of the habit, Father.»

  «Well, I understand that Dak is almost a friend to you, Aldrea, but we have a mission here. We are supposed to be learning about the Hork-Bajir.»

  Actually, Father, I thought privately, we are supposed to be watching out for any possible Yeerk interest in this planet. I didn't say that, of course. My father chose to pretend this was some kind of scientific mission. Even now he didn't want to accept the fact that the Yeerks were marauding around the galaxy.

  He still preferred to think it was just the Yeerks

  34 who had stolen the ships who were guilty. He clung to the belief that the main population of Yeerks were in favor of peace with Andalites.

  We would get transmissions from the home world. News that the Yeerks had attacked a moon colonized by Skrit Na and taken additional ships and weapons.

  News that the Yeerks had attacked and seized a Hawjabran colony ship. They had attempted to infest the Hawjabrans, but had failed because Hawjabran brains are not centralized, but spread in small nodes throughout their bodies. They had left the Hawjabrans to die. Their ship's life support had been knocked out in the attack. An Andalite courier had come across the ship, drifting, with eight thousand Hawjabrans frozen in the vacuum of space.

  News that a group of Ongachic minstrels had been taken and successfully infested. Fortunately for the Ongachic race, they'd long ago abandoned their planet. They are entirely a nomadic, space-faring race now. The Yeerks would have to hunt down literally millions of Ongachic ships spread in every direction through the galaxy. The Ongachic race would survive.

  But, my father kept insisting, the Yeerks on their home world have been peaceful, these years since the attack that destroyed his honor.

  I didn't point out that the Yeerks on the home

  35 world had no choice: An Andalite fleet was parked in orbit above them, ready to shred anything that tried to come or go in the system.

  «l am learning about the Hork-Bajir,» I said. «But I feel like a spy or something, transcribing it all into the computers

  My father turned his nearest stalk eye toward me and made a small smile. «l'm proud that you wish to keep Dak Hamee's trust,» he said. «But after all, he is Hork-Bajir, not Andalite. I don't think they would even understand the concept of trust, or of "spying," as you call it»

  «Dak understands more than you might think,» I said. A/lore every day, I added silently.

  We turned and headed back toward the scoop. It was uphill heading back. I ran slowly enough for my father to keep up.

  «The Hork-Bajir I've encountered barely function at the level of a small child,» my father said sadly. «The Yeerks were so fascinating. Highly intelligent, yet so limited physically. It's as if the Hork-Bajir are the exact opposite: physically impressive. Mentally . . . well, simple.»

  «l think Dak Hamee is different,» I said. «He can read now, and write. And he can do basic math. He's up to calculus. I think he may be capable of n-dimensional geometry.»

  My father frowned. «Your mother has studied

  36 the intellectual capacity of Hork-Bajir. I assure you, they are not capable of reading. Not more than recognizing one or two words. And certainly no math beyond what they need to keep track of family members.»

  I sighed. I'd been through this before. My parents both assumed I was just exaggerating. Barafin believed me, but he didn't care. Barafin was becoming depressed by the Hork-Bajir planet. There were no other Andalites to recreate with. And of course, Andalites cannot climb trees.

  Barafin spent his days near the scoop, playing combat games with the computer.

  My father wasn't much better. He'd given up trying to communicate with the Hork-Bajir. They simply had nothing to say that interested him.

  My mother was happier, of course. She would go off and study the different trees and the various other animal species.

  With my father withdrawn, my mother busy, my brother depressed and indifferent, I was left to myself. So I spent time with Dak. And we explored the valley together.

  I had learned to walk on a slant, coping with the slope of the valley. But Dak, like all Hork-Bajir, spent most of his time in the trees. Hork-Bajir are able to run out on branches and leap through the air to the next tree. It's as fast as running along the

  37 ground, and easier, when the ground is always at a slant.

  One day we were going along this way, me on the ground, my muscles aching from coping with the slope, and Dak leaping easily through the trees, when I saw it.

  «Dak! What is that animal?»

  "The small, feathered one? It's called a chadoo."

  It was no more than two feet long and covered in deep blue feathers. It had four short legs and two elongated arms ending in claws. It moved by racing along branches and then leaping through the air, much as Dak did. But the chadoo had skin flaps that caught the air like an airfoil, so that it could glide.

  "Would you like me to bring it to you, Aldrea?"

  I hesitated. What I was thinking of doing was wrong. My parents would be furious if they found out.

  If they found out.

  «Yes, can you catch it?»

  "Of course," Dak said with a laugh. He used his wrist blade to make a horizontal slash in the tree bark. A pale, green-yellow liquid oozed from the gash. He collected some of this on his claw-tip, and held it out to the chadoo.

  The little blue creature came running. Dak gathered it up carefully and dropped the twenty feet to the ground.

  38 "Here it is," he said, holding it out toward me.

  «Dak, do you understand the idea of a "secret" ?»

  "I have learned very much from you, Aldrea. But I have not learned this."

  «A secret is something you know that you never tell anyone else. So that if I tell you something, only you and I will ever know it»

  He looked troubled. "What is the purpose?"

  I sighed. Dak had come an amazing way in a very short time. His ability to speak was incredibly improved, for example. And he now fully understood the concept of planets, stars, and galaxies. But he was still Hork-Bajir. And I was still Andalite.

  «Trust me,» I said. «And never tell anyone what you are about to see.»

  I placed my hand on the chadoo. And I began to acquire the animal's DNA.

  39

  ALDREA

  «l am going to change now,» I said. «lt may seem frightening. But it isn't magic. It is a new technology we have developed.»

  "Technology. Science. Spacecraft and computers," Dak said.

  «Yes, like all those things. But different, too. My parents don't even know I have this technology. They don't know that I've used the Escafil Device.»

  "This is a secret," Dak said.

  «Yes. Dak ... I am going to become a chadoo.»

  He had no answer to that. I wasn't surprised. The morphing technology is so new that there are even Andalites who doubt its safety or usefulness. Fortunately, I had a friend back on the home world whose mother was one of the designers of the Escafil Device. She had shown it to me. I'd used it.

  «Just don't be afraid. Trust me.»

  I began to morph the chadoo. It was only the

  40 second time I'd morphed. So as much as I was telling Dak not to be afraid, I was telling myself, too.

  I began to shrink. My legs grew shorter, more stunted. My belly sagged toward the ground. My tail seemed to simply wither, as if it were very old and dead and drying up at hyperspeed.

  Dak jumped back, eyes wide.

  «Don't be afraid,» I told us both. «lt won't take long.»

  My stalk eyes darkened and disappeared. An opening formed like a cut or sore in
the front of my face. Tiny, red teeth sprouted.

  My fur grew shaggier, longer. Hundreds of individual hairs twined together to form feathers.

  I was on the ground now. My legs were stumps. My arms had grown stronger and longer, relative to the rest of my body. Skin flaps extended down my sides, stretched between back leg and foreleg.

  I was no longer Andalite. I was a chadoo.

  I looked out through chadoo eyes. Just two, and only able to see in one direction. It made me feel blind. But they were good eyes, despite there being only two. They saw brilliant color and even more brilliant lines and shapes.

  They were eyes adapted for spotting handholds while gliding through the air.

  I found the mouth the strangest thing. It felt so

  41 wrong, having this gaping hole in the front of my face. It's silly, but I felt like it was a wound.

  The chadoo's brain and instincts were gentle enough. This was not an environment with predators. The chadoo was almost tame.

  «lt's still me, Dak,» I said.

  "You have become a chadoo," he said.

  «Yes, but my mind is still the same. I'm still Al-drea. And in a little while, I will change back. But first, I want to know what it's like in your world, up in the trees.»

  I had seen some of the valley from the ever-slanted ground. But now I saw the true Hork-Bajir world.

  I raced for the trunk of the nearest tree. My four stubby legs each ended in a sharp little claw, and these claws propelled me up the trunk at a shocking speed. Small as I was, and as large as the tree was, the rough bark looked more like a desert plain from the Untouched Wilds on my own world.

  I was moving vertically, straight up. I saw an endless expanse ahead of me. To my left and right I saw what might have been the curvature of a small moon or asteroid. The vertical surface curved away, out of sight.

  Far ahead of me ? upward, that is ? I saw what seemed like an entire new tree. It was a

  42 branch perpendicular to me. Massive. Huge. Surging up out of the gently curved bark plain.

  Dak Hamee kept pace, just behind me. When I paused to look back I became aware of how high up I was. How I was hanging from a vertical surface. If I had let go, I'd have fallen straight down onto Dak.

  I paused at the base of the branch. Perspective was bizarre. Up was forward. Down was back. Left and right were emptiness.