Elfangor's Journey

by K. A. Applegate

  "Rebels are just fresh meat," Sub-Visser Seven said calmly. "But being a Taxxon, you understand. Any rebels we catch go to feed loyal Taxxons. It's sad, really. But I have no choice. It's one of the idiotic regulations I have to deal with. It's all part of our deal with the Taxxons: Any suspect Taxxon is turned over to loyal Taxxons for interrogation. Of course, Taxxons don't really interrogate. They don't have the patience for it. They ask one or two questions, then . . . well, then it's dinnertime."

  I must have quivered in terror. The sub-visser grinned a Hork-Bajir grin. "Of course, you could tell me why you're here, and what your mission really is ... Andalite. You'll still be executed, of course. But I can make it painless. Much better than being eaten alive."

  He did know what I was! He'd been toying with

  98 me. He knew I was an Andalite. But I sensed he was telling the truth: I could either confess and de-morph, or die the death the Taxxon-Controllers would inflict.

  This is what it had come to. All my hopes of being a great hero. It all ended here, just this quickly.

  I felt sick down to my bones. How had everything gone so horribly wrong?

  But I couldn't tell the Yeerks anything. The Jahar was still up in orbit. If I confessed, the two humans would be taken by the Yeerks. Alloran and Arbron, who were probably still free, might be caught, too.

  And there was the Time Matrix. The Time Matrix sat unnoticed in a Skrit Na ship, just a mile from where we stood. And that could mean the end of all Andalites.

  I couldn't talk. I couldn't.

  The sub-visser leaned close to me. He actually whispered. "There is one other possibility. This Hork-Bajir body I use is fine, but there are millions of Hork-Bajir-Controllers now. And what are my other choices? To go back to being a Gedd? Or to take a Taxxon body? No thanks. I won't live with that Taxxon hunger."

  The train plunged into the Taxxon hive. Darkness descended. In the darkness, my Taxxon eyes actually worked better.

  The sub-visser's Hork-Bajir face was a shattered

  99 sparkling of tiny images to my Taxxon eyes. I could hear his heart beating faster.

  "There is one other possibility, Andalite. There h as never been an Andalite-Controller. None of us has ever succeeded in capturing an Andalite alive. Your warriors use that nasty Andalite tail blade on themselves rather than be taken alive." He grinned. "Such a waste. Really. See, I want to be the first to have an Andalite body. With that body, with the Andalite morphing power, I wouldn't remain a sub-visserfor long. I could be a full visser."

  An Andalite-Controller? This Yeerk scum wanted to take over an Andalite body?

  I felt a wave of revulsion. A wave of revulsion that seemed to grow out of some deep insight, as if I had caught a glimpse of the future. I wasn't a mystic. I was in the military. But still, I felt a weird, unsettling sensation.

  I looked at the sub-visser. I looked into his greedy, murderous eyes. And it was as if I could see him clearly. As if the veil of time was lifted.

  And I knew then I would not die. Not yet, at least. I knew it deep in my heart. Because I knew that in looking at this creature, this Yeerk, I was looking at my true, personal enemy.

  "Let me take that Andalite body," he said. "You'll live. It's the only way you'll live."

  «My name is Elfangor, Yeerk,» I said. «Remem-

  100 ber the name. You'll be hearing it again. But you will never take me alive.»

  "A pity," the Yeerk sneered. "Stop the car!" he yelled to his Hork-Bajir. "Open the door."

  The mag-lev train stopped smoothly. The door opened.

  We were on a track deep inside the Taxxon hive. There was a large, open cavern around us, as if the hive was hollow at its core. And down below, perhaps twenty feet down, there was a seething mass of Taxxons.

  "See them?" the sub-visser asked. "Taxxons. Not Yeerks. No, those are Taxxons in their natural state. Unimproved, you might say. As savage and bloodthirsty as any creature in the galaxy."

  The Taxxons below spotted us above them. They raised their eternally hungry red mouths up to gape at us. They knew what was going to happen next.

  The Hork-Bajir surrounded me. I wanted to fight, but I had no weapons. There was nothing I could do.

  "Throw him out," the sub-visser said.

  The Hork-Bajir rushed at me. They pushed my sagging, flaccid flesh. I scrabbled desperately with my rows of cone legs, but it was useless. They rolled and shoved and slid me, helpless, to the door.

  And then I was falling . . .

  101 Falling...

  «Demorph!» I screamed at myself.

  Even as I was falling, I was demorphing. If I was going to die, I'd die an Andalite, not some disgusting, cannibalistic worm.

  WHUUUMMMPPPFFF!

  I hit the ground. I hit it hard. The sides of my Taxxon body burst open from the impact. And in a flash, the other Taxxons were on me.

  «Demorph!»

  But I couldn't possibly morph quickly enough. Red Taxxon mouths drew back and rose up high, plunging straight down into my shattered flesh.

  The pain of the fall had been dulled by sheer shock. But this pain . . . this pain I felt. I have never known anything so terrible. In my darkest nightmare I've never even imagined . . .

  «Ahhhhhhhhhh!» I screamed. But just as loudly, I screamed, «Demorph!»

  It was a race. A race to see whether I would die before I could demorph. Again and again they

  102 ripped at me. But now my Taxxon flesh was shrinking away from them. It was changing. Becoming some strange, new meat.

  It would all depend on how the morph happened. If my head emerged too soon, the Taxxons would simply rip it off. I didn't need my head. I didn't even need my legs.

  I needed my tail.

  If any Andalite in all of history needed his tail, I needed mine. Right NOW!

  «Ahhhhhhhhhh!» The pain was unbearable. I was delirious, unable even to think, to focus, to keep track of what was happening to me.

  It wasn't going to work! I had been wrong to hope. Wrong to imagine I could survive.

  But then ... I felt some distant part of me move.

  And I sensed a shudder pass through the ravenous Taxxons.

  With what was left of my Taxxon eyes, I saw it appear... all the way back at the end of my Taxxon body.

  A bright blade! My tail!

  I slashed! Missed!

  But it made the Taxxons back away. And while they were reconsidering, my legs grew long and strong. The last of my bleeding worm body shrank and hardened. I heard bones growing inside me.

  And then I could see. I could see again!

  103 The Taxxons came at me again, rushing at me, bold with hunger. But now the situation had changed.

  Oh, yes, the situation had definitely changed.

  I aimed, I slashed! I aimed, I slashed! I aimed, I slashed!

  «Come on, you filthy worms! Come on! Come ON!»

  And suddenly, even the Taxxons had decided they didn't want to eat me. Instead, the Taxxons I had cut were set upon by the rest.

  Through my stalk eyes I saw the sub-visser and his Hork-Bajir soldiers looking down and laughing.

  The cold voice of the sub-visser said, "Kill him. Shoot the Andalite scum."

  The Hork-Bajir soldiers raised their weapons and sighted on me.

  TSEEWWW! TSEEWW!

  Dracon beams singed the air above me and melted the dirt at my feet. I couldn't outrun them. I had to hide! But hide where?

  Oh.

  I dove back into the Taxxon feeding frenzy. Their sluggish, sloppy bodies pressed in all around me. It was sickening, but it gave me cover.

  "Go in after him," the sub-visser ordered. "Cut him to pieces!"

  Six huge Hork-Bajir leaped down from the train

  104 track. There was no way I could defeat six Hork-Bajir warriors. I was exhausted, on the edge of collapse.

  But there was one last desperate hope. The kafit bird.

  Once you do a morph, the DMA stays with you. Once you've morphed a creature, y
ou can morph it again. And I needed wings as much as I'd needed my tail.

  I squirmed between the huge worms, keeping away from their mouths. Not that they wanted to fight an Andalite right then.

  And as I felt the Taxxon flesh pressing in around me - smothering me, but at the same time hiding me from the Hork-Bajir- I morphed again. I shrank. I grew smaller and smaller.

  "Back, you Taxxon hogren kalach" the Hork-Bajir yelled in a mix of Galard and the Hork-Bajir language.

  The Taxxons began to pull away, driven back by slashing Hork-Bajir wrists and elbows. I was in the open. A Hork-Bajir was standing over me. He was looking right down at me.

  Had I finished morphing?

  No time to worry. I would either fly ... or die.

  I opened what I hoped were my six pairs of kafit wings. I spread them wide. I flapped hard.

  And I flew.

  105 Up off the ground. Up from the dirt. I flew!

  I flew inches above the Hork-Bajir. I flew over the sub-visser, who was now screaming in rage at his soldiers. "Shoot it! Shoot it!"

  " But the Taxxons may be hit!" one of the Hork-Bajir protested.

  "I really don't care, shoot! Shoot! Kill it! SHOOOOOT!"

  But it was too late. I was in the air. I raced as fast as my wings would take me, back down the stinking tunnel toward daylight. I saw the brown-gray light ahead, and I flew toward it as if my life depended on it.

  I exploded from the tunnel into the open with the outraged cries of the sub-visser ringing in my ears.

  «l made it!» I cried to no one but myself. «l made it! I'm alive!»

  I flew at the kafit bird's top speed back toward the spaceport. Somewhere back there were Alloran and Arbron. Somewhere back there the Time Matrix still waited to be discovered. There was still a mission and the hope of returning safe and alive to the Jahar.

  And . . . there was life. Life! Life never feels so sweet as when you've come right up against death.

  Then I saw it.

  It was descending the last few feet into a large

  106 ship-cradle. It was unlike any other craft at the spaceport. Unlike anything any Yeerk had ever designed or built.

  The Jaharl

  The Jahar was landing.

  It was impossible! There was no one aboard the Jahar but the two humans. How could it be landing? Why was it landing?

  I soared as high as I could and saw that Yeerks in all shapes and sizes were rushing to meet the amazing ship.

  They clustered around, many with weapons drawn. Looking back, I saw a mag-lev train come tearing at top speed from the Taxxon mound. I knew in my heart that Sub-Visser Seven was on that train.

  It took several minutes for the docking clamps to be fitted to the alien craft. And more minutes while the Yeerks trained every weapon they had on the one small ship.

  The mag-lev train arrived, slamming carelessly into two slow-moving Gedds. Out stepped Sub-Visser Seven. He had only four of his original six Hork-Bajir with him. I guess the other two had paid the ultimate price for failing their commander.

  The hatch of the Jahar appeared. It opened, and out stepped a creature no Yeerk had ever seen before.

  107 It walked on only two legs.

  It held up its hands, and said, "Hey, hey. Relax. You can put down the weapons. I'm not here to fight. I'm here to trade."

  Chapman!

  He realized that the Yeerks did not understand him. So with his hands he pretended to be handing them something, and then receiving something from them.

  Sub-Visser Seven strutted to meet the alien. He laughed cynically. "It wants to trade," he said. "This strange creature wants to trade. So. What do you have to trade, alien?"

  Neither Sub-Visser Seven nor Chapman had understood a word the other had said. And yet, they understood each other perfectly.

  Chapman kept his hands raised and made a human smile. Then, very slowly, he stepped back into the shadowed interior of the ship. And when he reappeared, he was shoving someone before him.

  It was Loren. She was bound with wire. Chapman pushed her viciously. She fell to the ground before Sub-Visser Seven.

  "That's what I have to trade," Chapman said. "A whole planet full of. . .that"

  108 Don't miss

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  andallte

  chronicles

  «You have a plan?»

  «Sure,» I saidxWe bluff. We tell those Gedd-Controllers up there that we've come to fix the computers. Then we fly that sorry Skrit Na ship away.»

  I wanted to sound casual. Nonchalant. The way the fighter pilots always sound when they are describing some terrifying battle. Like it was all no big deal.

  Arbron stared at me through red jelly Taxxon eyes. «Okay. Lead the wayr» he said.

  Arbron and I slithered out from beneath the ship cradle and motored our rows of Taxxon needle-legs up the ramp to the ship itself. Just a pair of bored Taxxon technicians going to work. Totally calm.

  109 Or as calm as any Taxxon, even a'Taxxon-Controller, can ever be. There is simply no way to explain the awful hunger of the Taxxon. It is beyond any hunger you've ever imagined. It is constant. Like a screaming voice in your head. Screaming so loud you can't think.

  Every living thing you see or smell is just meat to you. You hear beating hearts and smell rushing blood and the hunger almost takes over your body.

  And when someone is injured . . . when there is blood spilled . . . well then, as I knew personally, the hunger is all but impossible to resist.

  I had come within a haunch hair of eating an injured Taxxon myself. Not something I wanted to remember. But not something I'd ever forget.

  «Don't hesitate,» I advised Arbron as several Gedds turned to blink curiously at us. «Look like you're on your way to work.»

  «Shut up, Elfangor,» Arbron said harshly.

  Again I felt the chill of fear. Something was horribly wrong. But there was no stopping now. I pushed rudely past a Gedd who was in my way.

  The Gedd-Controllers looked resentful. But they had no reason to suspect us. We were Taxxons. They had to assume we were Taxxon-Controllers. We looked like we were there to work. No reason for them to be at all suspicious.

  Except that one of them was.

  110 One of the Gedd-Controllers stood right in front of us, seemingly unimpressed. He spoke in Galard, the language of interstellar trade. It sounded hard on his Gedd tongue, but I could understand him.

  "Rrr-what arrrre you doing herrrrrre?"

  If it was hard for the Gedd to make Galard sounds, it was almost impossible for me, with a Taxxon's mouth and tongue. But I couldn't use thought-speak. I might as well announce that I was Andalite. I had to try to speak Galard with a three-foot-long Taxxon tongue.

  So I tried. "Sreeeee snwwweeeyiiir sreeeyah!"

  Which was not even close to being the sounds I'd wanted to make. What I had meant to say was "computer repair." But the Taxxon's tongue is so long, that it would be hard even if I was used to using a mouth to make sounds.

  The Gedd stared at me with its tiny yellow eyes. "Rrr-use rrr pad!" He pointed furiously down at a small computer pad attached to his wrist.

  «lt's some kind of translator^ Abron said. «Some primitive version of our own translator chips. Let me do it»

  He reached with one of his weak, two-fingered Taxxon hands and pressed several buttons. From the pad came a disembodied voice, speaking Galard.

  "Computer repair."

  111 The Gedd snorted angrily. "Rrryou Taxxon wearrrers think you rrrown the planet! Arrrogant as Horrrk-Bajir!"

  Abron and I shoved past him into the Skrit Na ship. Unfortunately, it was so cramped and low that we could barely drag our massive bodies inside.

  The bridge of the Skrit Na ship was identical to the Skrit Na ship we'd boarded to rescue the two humans. There were two cocooned Skrit glued into a corner. They wouldn't cause any trouble. They didn't look ready to hatch into Na just yet. And there was an active Skrit, what Loren had described as a giant cockroach, scurrying aro
und almost brain-lessly, polishing and cleaning.

  There were no Na that I could see. Aside from the Skrit, the bridge of the ship was empty.

  «So far, so good,» I muttered. «l'm going to close the hatch. We'll demorph, power up, and be off-planet before they know what's hit them.»

  «Yeah. Okay,» Arbron said. «Ready?»

  «Yep.» I focused on my breathing, trying to fight the raging Taxxon hunger and my own fear. «Okay, do it!»

  Arbron punched the pad to close the hatch door. It slid shut and made a snug vacuum seal shwoompl

  I focused all my thoughts on demorphing. I wanted out of that Taxxon body. The two of us

  112 could barely move in the cramped bridge, let alone fly the ship. The idiot Skrit kept banging against me, unable to find a way to go around.

  I demorphed. I shed that vile Taxxon body as fast as I could. I felt the awful hunger weaken and my own Andalite mind rise above, freed of the Taxxon's instincts.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  The Gedds were pounding on the hull. "Rrrrwhat arrrre you doing? Open rrrup!"

  I ignored the noise and punched the engine power. The main engines began to whine as they powered up.

  And then I realized it. Arbron was not demorph-ing.

  «Arbron, what are you waiting for? Demorph!»

  Arbron didn't say anything.

  Thump! Thump! Thump!

  "Rrrr-open up! Powerrrrdown rrryou fool!"

  «Arbron! What are you up to? Demorph!» I yelled. I guess I hoped that yelling would make it happen. But I already knew. He stared at me through those shimmering, red jelly eyes, and I knew. More quietly, almost begging, I said, «Come on, Arbron. Demorph.»

  «l really wish I could, Elfangor,» he said. «l really wish I could.»