"I had a lot of hallucinations back there. A lot of crazy visions." I tried to keep my tone casual. I paused. "But there was this one. It was just so real. I mean, as real as if I had lived it. It was Elfangor."
Ax looked up from his work. He stopped fussing with the string.
"A series of memories so intense. I was drowning in pain, Ax. I really thought I was dying . . . and then, all at once, I felt the icy cool steel of a tail blade against my forehead and I ..."
Ax made a sort of gasping sound and dropped his spool of string. His eyes were wide with a startling intensity.
"A blade? Against your forehead . . ." He trailed off, his voice quaking with surprise.
"Ax. What?"
He was clearly disturbed. Like I had just shaken his reality. The wind began to drag his kite across the sand. He didn't care. Just sat there, absorbed in his thoughts. I ran after the thing and brought it back to him.
154 He shook off whatever it was and regained his customary composure.
"No," he said, more to himself than to me. "It's all nonsense, of course. We are a rational people . . ."
"What is it, Ax-man?"
He started hesitantly. "A legend. A spiritual rite, really. Utzum. Certain medicine men believed they could pass memories through DNA. Legend says these memory messages are triggered by imminent death. A surge of strength during the last moments to ease their passage. Ancient superstition."
"Yeah. You're probably right. Just a hallucination," I said.
A flash of gold. Way down the beach. A tall, graceful form pushing over the dunes to meet us. Rachel!
I jumped up. Ax was back to work on his kite, muttering something about thick, clumsy human fingers. The others all now engaged in a game of Frisbee that seemed to involve a lot of splashing.
I started to run toward Rachel. She saw me and smiled. I slowed as I neared her, breathing hard.
And suddenly I had my arms around her. I buried my face in her hair. She held me tightly.
155 "Bad,"she said.
"Yeah," I whispered. "Real bad. I came close to, you know. Awfully close. I was so ... I mean, I didn't..." I took a couple of shaky breaths. "I lost myself. Didn't know who I was. Not sure I do now."
"Tobias," she said quietly, "I know who you are."
A long, long time while neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved.
Then, she said, "Hey, it's nice and warm. But there are some killer thermals."
I smiled. "Let's fly."
"Yeah," she agreed. "Right after I do this."
She kissed me.
"Okay, now let's fly," she said and laughed her wild, wicked, self-mocking Rachel laugh.
And in a short time we were coasting on a thermal, high over the beach. Over the distant hills. Over the city. Over everything.
The memory of the mission was far behind. The close call with death forgotten. For a while.
Who am I? What am I? A bird. A boy. Something not quite human. Something more than human.
The person Rachel loves.
I discovered something amid the pain and terror and confusion. I discovered that the an-
156 swer to what I am, to who I am, isn't something to be answered in a single word or a single moment.
It could take a lifetime to figure out who I am.
For now, I'm willing to hang in there, floating on a thermal. Biding my time.
157 Don't miss
Three days had passed. Three days of having the strange, sad secret Andalite-turned-Hork-Bajir in my head.
Sleeping with her on the hard, cold deck. Awakened shaking, sweating, wanting to tear my head open with my bare hands as I felt the awesome grief of her nightmares.
Eating with her, if you could call the concentrated nutrient pellets food. Going to the bathroom with her. A lot more togetherness than I'd have preferred. Bad enough figuring out how to pee in a toilet designed for Hork-Bajir. Worse doing it with an audience in your own head.
We had gotten good at sharing control of speech. I controlled everything else. I had gotten used to it. I still didn't like it.
The Arn had stayed at the helm, ignoring us
158 for the most part. I'd learned nothing more about him. Was this really some voyage of redemption for him? Aldrea doubted it. And she knew a hundred percent more about the Arn than I knew.
Jake was talking with Quafijinivon when we translated out of the blank white nothingness of Zero-space into what now seemed to be the warm, welcoming black star field.
The Arn checked his sensors.
"Quafijinivon says we are now in Hork-Bajir space. We may pass the Yeerk defenses unnoticed. Or not," Jake announced. "We should get ready. We don't know what we'll be walking into. I want everyone ..."
Marco held up his hand like he was asking a question.
"Yes, Marco."
"Do we have correct change for the tolls?"
Jake blinked. Then he grinned. He and Marco have been best friends forever. Marco knows how to knock Jake down a peg when Jake starts taking his fearless leader role too seriously.
Jake sat down on the floor across from me/ Aldrea.
"I don't see why we couldn't have gone Z-space the whole way," Marco whined.
Ax and Aldrea both laughed. Then they real-
159 ized they were both laughing at the same thing and they both stopped laughing.
"Just say it," Marco told them. "I am but a poor Earth man, unable to understand the ways of the superior Andalite beings."
"Hork-Bajir," Aldrea corrected him.
«Aldrea, why do you -» Ax began.
A flash of green streaked by.
"Shredder fire!" Aldrea yelled, and suddenly I was up and running toward the front of the ship. She had taken control of my body! It was so sudden, so effortless.
Ax reached the "bridge" first. He leaned his torso forward and looked over Quafijinivon's shoulder.
«0ne of ours,» Ax said. Then he clarified. «An Andalite fighter. It must be on a deep patrol. Harassing the Yeerk defenses.»
"Can we outrun him?" Jake demanded.
"They're between us and the Arn planet," Quafijinivon answered. "We're smaller. It's possible we could outmaneuver them. But it would place us well within their firing range."
Tseeeeeew!
The Andalite fired again. A miss! But the cold, hard data from the computer made it clear exactly how close it had come.
"Fire back!" Rachel burst out. "Knock out
160 one of his engines or something. Enough to keep him busy until we can land. They can't follow us down."
Quafijinivon's red mouth pursed thoughtfully. "Young human, that pilot is an Andalite warrior One of the best trained fighters in the galaxy. I cannot hope to win a battle with him,"
Ax and Aldrea both said roughly the same thing, which translated to human vernacular was, «You've got that right.»
«We can't fire on an Andalite,» Tobias said. He was flapping a little nervously, being tossed around as the Arn swung the ship into an evasive maneuver.
"So we let him shoot us down?" Rachel demanded. "There's one of him, seven of us. Or eight."
The Andalite fighter was coming back around in a tight, swift arc. In a few seconds his weapons would come to bear on us.
"Ax?" Jake asked.
«l cannot fire on a fellow Andalte who is merely doing his duty. Do not ask me,» Ax pleaded. «Maybe I could communicate -»
"No!" Aldrea interrupted. "If the Yeerks pick up a voice transmission, we're dead. They'll vector everything they have at us. We'll all be killed and so will the Andalites."
161 "Here he comes," Toby said. I looked - and my stomach rolled over. The Andalite fighter was on us. Seconds from firing.
This time he wouldn't miss. . , .
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Applegate, K A - Animorphs 33 - The Illusion Page 9