The Unknown

by K. A. Applegate

  But then it was too wide! My eyes were staring out of the sides of my head. My eyes were where my temples should have been. And in between those eyes was a nose the size of Rhode Island. My nose had stretched out so far it had dragged my mouth along for the trip.

  I heard an awful growling, grinding sound coming from inside my own head. My teeth itched as they were replaced by the thick, flat teeth of a horse.

  I was now almost a complete horse. Then, somewhere way, way back, I felt a tail sprout like some hyperactive weed. Okay, now I was done.

  The real horse stared at me from one big watery eye. It sniffed me. What it smelled . . . was nothing. At least to a horse brain. Horses and other animals that rely on smell are not equipped for the idea that they could smell another horse and have it smell exactly like them.

  It would be like a human suddenly finding herself face-to-face with a person who was identical. Only horses aren't exactly the geniuses of the animal kingdom. They can't make any sense of it.

  So, weirdly enough, the real horse's reaction

  93 was to grow calmer. It was more or less as if I weren't there. And the stranger thing was that as I felt the horse brain in me awaken and bubble up beneath my own human consciousness, I felt the same way about the other horse.

  It was like: What other horse?

  I tested the horse's senses. Excellent hearing. Good sense of smell. But eyesight was a mess. I was nearsighted, but far worse than that was the way I was staring in opposite directions at the same time. My eyes looked left and right. I had no depth perception in those directions. I couldn't really tell very well if something on my left was two feet away or five feet. If you had put two sticks in the ground, I probably could not have told you which was closer.

  But directly ahead of me, there was a zone where my horse eyes overlapped. Only there did I have binocular vision like humans and hawks have. I could see depth but only in the area right in front of me.

  It was strange. But what was disturbing was the level of energy the big horse had. It was like every single muscle in my body was being given an electric jolt. I was an entire power plant of pure energy!

  But there was nothing uncontrollable about the horse brain. I felt hunger, but not the raving,

  94 lunatic hunger of some species. ! felt an edgy concern, but nothing like the insane, mind-eating fear of a small mouse or squirrel.

  / can handle this, I told myself. Just one thing left to do. I have to get out of the stall and out of the bam. And morph back and find the others. Okay, three things to do.

  There was just no way to be subtle about it. I stuck my big golden head out over the stall door and did what no horse has ever been smart enough to do: I slid the little lock to one side and pushed the stall door open.

  Just act normal, ! told myself. Yeah. A normal girl who's turned into a racehorse.

  I stepped out. I could see in both directions simultaneously, so I saw the two groups of stable workers at opposite ends of the barn.

  Ooookay. Just walk on down.

  One of the men froze. He stared. And then he came rushing over. "Hey! It's Minneapolis Max! He's out of his stall. How the . . . someone is going to catch some grief behind this! Joe! Grab his bridle, for crying out loud! Quick, before Max here starts raising Cain!"

  From the other side of my head I spotted the teenager I'd kicked earlier. He raced to the stall I'd just left. "Hey, Mr. Hinckley! There's another horse in here that looks exactly like -"

  96 "Just shut up and bring me his gear! Now! NOW!"

  "Yes, sir."

  The man called Hinckley approached me slowly, carefully. With good reason. The horse in me was skittish. He was a combination of scared and mad. Mad at the man, sure. But much madder at the smell of the other stallions in other stalls. One in particular. His scent stuck in my nostrils and really, really annoyed me.

  I didn't know what that other stallion thought he was doing on my turf, but I was ready to go hoof-to-hoof with him and show him who was boss!

  "HrrrEEEE-hee-hee-heeHRRRR-EEEEE-heee-heee-he!" I whinnied at ear-splitting volume, screaming my challenge to combat.

  "Hey, boy. You know you're in the next race so you decided to come on out? Save that energy, big guy. That's my champion! That's my Minneapoli s Max."

  That's when it hit me. I'm no racing fan. But the name penetrated my slightly deranged consciousness. I recognized that name.

  I had just morphed the horse who was expected to go on to win the Kentucky Derby.

  "Come on, boy, we have a race to run."

  That was fine with me. I wanted to run.

  95

  «Cassie. It's me, Tobias. I don't know if you can hear me, but you're the only one I haven't found. If you can, give me some kind of sign, anything. Where are you?»

  «l'm down on the track,» I said.

  «Hey! You must be in morph if you're thought-speaking!»

  «Yes, i am definitely in morph.»

  «Well, where are you? What are you?»

  «l'm in horse morph, Tobias.»

  «Cool. So where are you?»

  I sighed. «Look at the track. See the horses being led into the starting gates? See the horse whose jockey is wearing red-and-green silks? Number twenty-four?»

  97 «You're kidding.»

  «No, Tobias. I am not kidding.»

  «How did this happen?»

  «lt's a long story. And I don't have time to tell it. I have a race to run.»

  My jockey was barely a feather on my back. That didn't bother me. But I really did not like the bit in my mouth. It was infuriating! Almost as infuriating as the dark brown stallion one stall over.

  I snorted defiantly at the brown stallion.

  "Easy. Easy," the jockey said.

  Out of my right eye I spotted Marco pushing his way through the crowd. He waved frantically.

  «l see you, Marco. It's okay, don't worry.»

  Obviously, Tobias had told the others of my predicament.

  "Who's worried?" Marco yelled. "I just want to know if you're going to win. I have five bucks I could bet on you!"

  «Very funny. Oh, very, very funny.»

  My jockey yanked my bridle and dug his toe into my side. And the dumb thing was, I didn't really know what he wanted me to do. See, I had the instincts of the horse I had morphed. But I did not have the lifetime training of the professional racehorse named Minneapolis Max.

  So I had to actually think about it. With my human brain, I was pretty sure he wanted me to move toward the starting gates. So I did.

  97

  . * i

  98 A trainer was standing by the gate. Cigar-man. The cigar was even more disintegrated by slobber now.

  "He's always balky at the gate," Cigar-man said to the jockey.

  Oh, really? Well, I would show them. I tossed my head proudly and I walked calmly into the narrow gate.

  But once inside, I realized why Minneapolis Max was balky. There was zero room. The wooden slat walls pressed in on me from both sides. It was a trap! A trap!

  Run!

  I reared up, flailing my front legs wildly. I kicked the gate with my forehooves and yelled at the top of my horse lungs.

  WHAM!

  "HreEEE-heee-he!"

  "Take it easy, Max, easy," the jockey said.

  I was scared. Or at least my horse brain was scared. And I still had the obnoxious scent of that other big stallion in my nose. So I was mad, too.

  That's my excuse. I just wasn't thinking. Because when the jockey once again told me to take it easy, I did something I shouldn't have done. Something I wouldn't have done if I hadn't been distracted.

  99 «You take it easy. I'm crammed into a little box here!» I said in thought-speak.

  Thought-speak is like E-mail: It only goes to the person you address it to. So he did hear me. I know for a fact he did because he said, "Huh? Wah? What the?"

  BRRRRMINNNNNG!

  WHAP!

  A massively loud bell rang, the gate slammed open, an
d I started running.

  I kicked out with the big, bunched muscles of my back legs. I threw my front legs out to catch myself with each stride. I exploded from the gate. Exploded!

  I felt the adrenaline flood my system. To my left, horses! To my right, horses! We were running all out. Running like mad, hooves flashing, muscles firing and releasing, manes streaming, tails bobbing, our nostrils flared wide to suck in gasping breaths.

  I ran. I ran, and the other horses faded from my thoughts. I ran, and it was like I was the only horse on Earth. I saw the track ahead of me, and that's all I cared about. I just wanted to run and run for as long as there was open ground ahead of me.

  I was doing what I had been designed to do. I was fulfilling millions of years of horse evolution.

  100 I was running. And running was what I did. Running was what I was.

  The jockey tried to rein me in. He was conserving my strength and stamina for the end of the race.

  «Forget winning,» I told him. «The point is not to win. The point is just to run.»

  To his credit, he didn't fall off in shock. And also to his credit, he gave me control, and I did what horses do:I hauled hoof.

  Around the turn, digging my hooves in to keep from slipping. I moved in toward the whitewashed rail, cutting straight across the path of another horse. But I didn't care. Hah! I was running! Everyone else could just get out of the way!

  Down the backstretch. No sound but my own gasping breath and the pounding, pounding, pounding of dozens of hooves on dirt.

  The far turn! I was tiring now. My lungs ached. My muscles burned. I felt each new impact of my hooves on the dirt. It was time to slow down. Rest a little.

  But then I saw him. The dark brown stallion. I saw him sneak up, getting between me and the rail. And I saw him pull ahead of me.

  "Don't fade on me now, talking horse!" the jockey said.

  I saw the wild, triumphant look in the stallion's eye. It made my blood boil.

  101 «Hang on, Mr. Jockey. We're gonna win this race!»

  Easier said than done. The other horse was fast. Very fast. But I had something he didn't have: a human brain. See, I knew the finish line was not far off. I knew that I could pour every last ounce of energy into running. I could override my horse instincts that told me to slow down.

  I stretched out my stride and powered down the track.

  I was ahead!

  He was ahead!

  I was a head!

  He was ahead!

  The crowd was screaming deliriously. I saw thousands of faces flash by, all with their mouths wide open. The roar just gave me more energy still.

  The finish line!

  FLASH! FLASH! The cameras went off.

  ZOOM! I blew across the line. Exactly two feet ahead of the other stallion.

  I had won!

  I think it was the first time in my entire life I'd ever won any kind of athletic contest. Sure, I was a horse, but hey, a victory is a victory.

  102 Fortunately, in between running from stable hands and trying to find me, everyone in the group had managed to acquire a horse morph.

  We flew out to the Dry Lands. It was a long trip, made even longer by the fact that the entire time we had the same conversation, over and over.

  «AII I'm saying is think of how cool it would be,» Marco pleaded. «We morph racehorses-»

  «l don't think so, Marco,» Jake said.

  «- then, using our human abilities we figure out if we think we can win, and the others put money down.»

  «Not happening, Marco,» Rachel said.

  103 «We start out betting whatever we have saved. Like I have about twenty dollars. But if we bet that at say, three-to-one odds, before you know it -»

  «Marco, forget it, okay?» I said. «it wouldn't be right.»

  «- we'd have sixty dollars. Bet that at three-to-one odds you have a hundred and eighty. Then bet that and you have five forty! Then sixteen hundred twenty! Then four thousand eight hundred and sixty!»

  «How is it you can multiply in your head like that?» Rachel asked. «You barely scrape by in your math classes.»

  «lt's a whole different thing when you're multiplying money,» Marco said. «A whole different thing.»

  We repeated this conversation with small variations all the way to the Dry Lands.

  «Hey,» Tobias said. «l think we're in luck. Isn't that the same bunch of horses we saw be-fore?»

  «The modest horses?» Jake asked.

  «Yep. That is them,» Tobias confirmed. «l remember the markings. Look at the way they move.»

  Down below, my osprey eyes spied the horses. They were walking almost in a line. Like soldiers.

  104 Not like wild horses. But alongside the disciplined group were other horses. These other horses were moving normally.

  «l think our main group of horse-Controllers has picked up a few tagalongs. It would make sense. The real horses don't know these are Yeerk-infested horses. So they hook up, figuring to be part of the same herd.»

  «And look where they're heading,» Marco said. «Right toward the base. Right into Zone Ninety-one.»

  «l understand what a racetrack is now: a place where horses chase each other in circles as humans scream. But what exactly is this Zone Ninety-one?» Ax asked. «You were all talking about it before, but I am still confused.»

  «You probably already know what's going on at Zone Ninety-one,» Marco said darkly.

  Jake sighed. «lt's a secret base. They say it's a place where the government is hiding an alien spacecraft that supposedly crashed here about fifty years ago.»

  «Who is they?» Ax asked.

  «Marco is they,» Rachel said. «Nuts. Wackos. Conspiracy freaks. People who go on the Internet and call themselves DarkTruth or whatever.»

  «Ah,» Ax said, like he understood.

  Marco was right about one thing, however: The horses were heading directly into the base.

  105 *

  Of course, so were other horses. Horses not connected to the band of horse-Controllers.

  «lf you want to infiltrate a heavily guarded base, what better way?» I admitted. «l saw horses wandering through the base when we were there.»

  «True,» Jake said. «And if you want to watch a group of horse-Controllers, what better way than to join the herd, just like those others did? Let's fly up ahead. Morph to horse. And join up with this bunch. See where they go. What they do.»

  «Power those wings,» Tobias said cheerfully. «We still have some flying to do.»

  «AII I'm saying is, think of how cool it would be,» Marco began again.

  It took ten minutes to get far enough ahead of the horse-Controller herd with its stray tagalongs. We hid behind some rocks and morphed into our horse bodies. This time we did it quickly. Before base security could begin to think someone was in the rocks.

  Once we were morphed ! realized we had a problem. «We look way too good to be scruffy old wild horses,» ! said. «We need to roll in the dirt a little. Run through some brambles. Look like we've been living out in the wild, not in pampered barns.»

  By the time the horse-Controllers passed by,

  106 we were six dirty, dusty, scruffy-looking beasts. But we were also the coolest-looking wild horses anyone would ever see. After all, one of us could be going on to win the Kentucky Derby.

  «Here they come,» Jake said. «Just try to act natural.»

  The horse herd came ambling by. A couple of the "real" horses raised their heads to give us a suspicious look and a sniff. But the horse-Controllers totally ignored us.

  I resisted my idiot horse urge to challenge the other stallions to mortal combat. We fell into step, not close, but not too far from the others.

  And we walked, with the slow CLOP-CLOP-CLOP of horses, right into the heart of the fabled Zone 91.

  107

  The whole herd of us wandered onto the base. We wandered past even more intense warning signs. The last one actually said you may be shot. We wandered right past men and wom
en armed with submachine guns.

  No one suspected horses.

  Of course, if anyone had heard what we heard next, they would definitely have been suspicious.

  "Hullak fimul fallanta gehel. Call is feellos."

  «Who said that?» I asked.

  «Um . . . that horse said it,» Rachel said.

  "Yall hellem. Fimul chall killim fullat!"

  «And that was another horse. We're trapped in a Mister Ed rerun,» Marco said. «We are in the Nick at Night zone.»

  108 «That's Galard!» Ax said. «They're speaking Galard!»

  «Two questions,» Jake said tersely. «What's Galard, and can they hear us thought-speak? And answer the second question first.»

  «No. They can't hear us. Galard is a sort of universal language spoken by different races throughout the galaxy. It's what people speak when they come from different species and don't share the same language. These horses must have been fitted with speech synthesizers.»

  «Why wouldn't Yeerks be speaking Yeerk or whatever?» I asked.

  «l don't know,» Ax admitted. «But the standard speech synthesizers use Galard. Maybe they acquired less sophisticated speech synthesizers. Sometimes it's easier to get older, less cutting-edge technology.»

  «You mean they bought speech synthesizers on sale?» Rachel asked.

  «At the Pluto Wal-Mart,» Marco said.

  «Ax, can you understand what they said?» Jake asked.

  «Yes, of course. They said to follow the plan. "If we do this right we'll be off this idiotic assignment, out of these idiotic stupid bodies, and back onboard ship where we belong." That's what the leader said.»

  109 «Uh-oh,» Tobias said darkly, «They're splitting up.»

  «We'll have to split up, too. Follow each group,» Jake advised. «Me. Cassie, and Tobias go with one group. Ax, Rachel, and Marco go with the other. Ax? Listen to them if they talk anymore. And let us know by thought-speak.»

  «Yes, Prince Jake.»

  «Have ! mentioned don't call me prince?»

  «Yes, Prince Jake, you have.»

  I fell in step alongside Jake, trying to look like any old horse walking along, minding her own business.

  «This is weird,» I said. «These horses are definitely on a mission. I'm almost surprised no one has ever noticed how bizarre their behavior is.»