The Pretender

by K. A. Applegate

  Aria shrugged. "I don't know. I've never seen anything like it. But you know, you shouldn't call it a 'freak.'"

  "Not politically correct, huh?" Frank said knowingly.

  "It's not that," Aria said. "It's just that it's like nothing I've ever seen. No animal I know." She smiled. "You could present it as an alien and no one would be able to dispute you."

  "Alien, huh?" Frank nodded. "Hey, that's not a bad idea. Lot of crazy people out there believe in all that UFO, space alien crap."

  "Yes. And while you're changing things, maybe you could show a little humanity to these animals. They need bigger cages, more light, more fresh air. At the very least."

  74 "I'll think on that," Frank said with an expression that said he'd do no such thing.

  Aria turned and walked away, brushing past Rachel and me. I turned my head away so she wouldn't be able to recognize me later.

  We followed Aria at a safe distance, trying to look like we were scoping the caged animals. Aria stepped out into the bright sun and looked around expectantly.

  Seconds later, a black limousine came tearing into the dirt parking lot, raising a cloud of dust.

  The limo pulled to a stop and the driver jumped out to open the door for her.

  I stared with my weak human eyes as she stepped in and sat down. For a moment the door remained open and I could see her as clearly as human eyes would allow.

  She was looking in our direction, but could not see us. She was in sunlight and we were in dark shadow.

  Aria gazed thoughtfully up at the Frank's Safari sign. There was a flicker of a smile, but no more.

  "Who are you?" I whispered.

  The driver shut the door and she was gone.

  75

  There wasn't a lot of debate back at the barn that evening about what to do with the baby Hork-Bajir.

  "We go in and get him," Jake said.

  "It could be a trap," Marco pointed out. "This Aria person could still be a Controller. This could all be a setup."

  I wanted to ask why a Controller would care about the conditions of the animals in that hideous zoo. But I didn't. I guess I've gotten so I say less and less. Sometimes all the communicating that people do just seems irrelevant. Action is what counts.

  Jake nodded. "We have to act on the assumption

  76 that this is a trap. We'll divide our forces. Group A goes in, Group B hangs back."

  Marco smirked to Rachel. "He's just so Pat-ton."

  Jake grinned and aimed a punch at Marco's shoulder.

  Then followed one of the more bizarre parts of Animorph life: Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Marco all sat down in the hay of the barn, whipped open their backpacks, and pulled out books and notebooks.

  Homework. I guess when you're fully human and a kid, there's just no escaping homework.

  Ax looked over Cassie's shoulder at her science textbook. «But that's not true,» he kept muttering. «That's not at all how gravity works.»

  I sat comfortably in the rafters and eavesdropped on Jake's homework. I still enjoy reading when I get a chance. Sometimes I'll go to the park or the beach, places where people read out in the open. I'll find a nice updraft or steady breeze, float fifty or sixty feet up, and read over someone's shoulder. I've read a lot of John Grisham and Stephen King and Nora Roberts. Not whole books, unfortunately, but pages and occasionally whole chapters.

  Now I sat reading over Jake's shoulder. And when that grew dull, I fluttered over to spy on Rachel's book.

  77 Then, at last, it was time to go.

  «lf you would really like to understand the laws of motion as they apply at the quantum level, and how they relate to both gravity and what we Andalites call the seventh force, then -»

  Cassie laughed and put a hand on Ax's arm. "Ax, it must be hard not having anyone around to discuss things on your level."

  He looked disconcerted. «l . . . no, it's not that,» he said lamely.

  "Okay, everyone cool with their parents?" Jake asked.

  "Yes, all the right lies have been told," Cassie said, shaking her head regretfully. "Everyone is over at someone else's house. As usual."

  "Well, this won't take long," Rachel said.

  The others morphed to various bird morphs and we flew to Frank's Safari Land. The sign had been changed. It now cried out that Frank's had the first ever actual space alien. It was working. The lot was filled with a dozen cars.

  I was in Group A, along with Rachel. We were the two who were familiar with the place. Also with us was Jake. Cassie, Ax, and Marco were backup, ready to come in if things went wrong.

  We landed and demorphed just outside the alligator lagoon. It was dark, but not pitch-black. A hint of dying sun still glowed in the west. The moon wasn't out, but the sky was full of stars.

  78 The others demorphed. I waited. I was going to a morph I'd only used once: Hork-Bajir.

  Normally I would never use the Hork-Bajir morph. Hork-Bajir are sentient creatures. We have a rule about morphing humans or other free, sentient species. We're not the Yeerks, after all. We don't just go around taking and using the DNA of free people.

  But this was a unique case. We needed Bek, the Hork-Bajir child, to come with us willingly. And I knew that Ket Halpak - whose DNA was the basis for my morph - would not object at all.

  "Okay," Jake whispered. "One more time. I go in human and turn off the main power switch so we have darkness. Rachel morphs and as soon as the power goes out, she goes in and removes the back wall. Tobias? You stay here in the dark till Rachel says go. Then you run in, snatch the kid, and run back out. Cassie will be ready to take him after that. We get him a quarter-mile down the back road to the cornfield. All clear?"

  Rachel winked at me. "You know, Marco's right. He's gotten so Patton."

  "Oh, shut up," Jake said good-naturedly.

  Jake remained human and began to walk carefully around the outer fence of the alligator lagoon.

  79 "Hey, did Jake say knock down one wall? Or did he say knock down some walls?" Rachel asked, dripping with fake innocence.

  «You know perfectly well he just wants you to get us into that place. He did not say you should knock the whole place down just because Frank is a creep and he mistreats animals,» I said sternly. «0n the other hand, it is dark. You might get confused. . . . »

  Rachel laughed her slightly insane, ready-for-a-fight laugh. "Yeah. I might."

  She began to morph an elephant. Now, earlier when I said it was kind of cool watching Rachel go to eagle? It's not the same, watching her turn into an elephant. There is nothing even slightly attractive about it.

  For one thing, there is the way she grows. In sudden lumps of flesh that pop out of her thighs, her stomach, even her head. It is disturbing to see a lump of gray flesh the size of a refrigerator bulge out of the side of someone's head.

  She lumped and bumped and glooped her way from being a normal-sized girl to being a shapeless behemoth. Her legs became pillars. So did her arms. Her elephant feet sank into the damp soil.

  She was grinning at me when her white teeth seemed to flow together and then sprout out and

  80 out like a spear coming at me. They curved up to a point: a pair of tusks.

  Her nose began to hang down like it was running, then like it was melting, then it began to thicken and darken and grow. Of course, by then the beach-blanket-sized ears were already formed.

  The last part of Rachel to disappear entirely was her hair. For several seconds she looked exactly like an elephant wearing a blond wig.

  All this time, I had started morphing as well.

  It's strange morphing anything. I mean, no matter what you become it is a nightmare. Just imagine watching your own flesh squirm and melt and wither, shrink or swell. Imagine hearing your own internal organs go watery and squish away. Imagine having body parts you've never had before, and a brain that knows how to use them.

  Morphing is always a freak show. But there is a special quality to morphing a nonterrestrial animal. According to Ax, DNA is
a very common thing in the galaxy. That same double helix of atoms forms the blueprint for all of life on Earth and almost all life-forms elsewhere.

  But beyond that, there aren't a lot of similarities between alien bodies and say, humans. Real life turns out not to be like Star Trek. Aliens are not just humans wearing funny ears, nose putty, and costumes.

  81 There is nothing remotely human about a Hork-Bajir. What's weird is there are slight similarities between hawks and Hork-Bajir.

  The taloned feet are very much alike. The almost beaklike mouth is similar. And . . . well, that's about it for similarity.

  Hork-Bajir are huge. Seven feet tall. Where my bones are hollow and light, theirs are thick and dense as steel. Where my insides are built for digesting raw meat, a fairly simple job, theirs are infinitely more complex to allow them to digest tree bark.

  And while I have some natural weapons - beak and talons - the Hork-Bajir are a natural weapon. The claws that allow them to climb the skyscraper-sized trees of their home world, the wrist and elbow and forehead blades that allow them to scrape the bark from those trees, can all be used as weapons.

  But the Hork-Bajir had never used them as weapons until the Yeerks and the Andalites brought their war to the Hork-Bajir world.

  I grew and grew. Grew till I could almost look Rachel straight in the eye.

  My talons became Tyrannosaurus feet. My mouth grew teeth, sharp ones for cutting bark and serrated molars for grinding it up.

  My wings lost their feathers and extended out and out. Hands grew where my "finger" bones

  82 had been. Muscle covered my entire body. And from that muscle the bony projections of blades grew.

  «Well, we're a nice-looking couple,» Rachel said. «Let's go to the dance.»

  I heard a noise. Car engines racing, brakes screeching. Then car doors slamming. Several. Many. I shot a look toward the parking lot, but it was mostly blocked from view.

  And at that moment the lights of Frank's Safari Land went out.

  «Show time,» Rachel said and laughed her wild laugh.

  83

  Out went the lights and I quickly discovered that Hork-Bajir don't have much in the way of night vision. Neither do elephants. But elephants don't care all that much, since they can pretty well stomp anything that gets in their way.

  HhhrrrEEEEE-uh! Rachel trumpeted and took off around the perimeter of the alligator lagoon, heading for Frank's Safari Land.

  I was amazed how fast she was. I could barely keep up.

  I heard annoyed yelling coming from the building.

  "Hey, turn on the lights!"

  84 "I want my money back!"

  We rushed at the closest wall. Rachel came to a stop and carefully pressed the flat front of her wrecking-ball head against it. She leaned her weight forward and we both heard a creaking sound.

  «Heh-heh-heh,» she cackled. «Just wood. Doesn't this little piggy know he should build his house out of brick? Come out, come out, little piggy! Or I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll crush this dump like a matchbox!»

  She reared back and slammed her weight forward.

  WHAM!CRRRRREEEK!

  «That should have gotten people to step back,» she said. «Now we go in.»

  She backed up three elephant steps and lunged forward, hurtling her dump truck weight against the flimsy wooden wall.

  WHAM! Crrrr-ACK! Crunch!

  WHOOOMPF! The wall fell in.

  Now people were really yelling. "Hey, I'm getting outta here!"

  Rachel happily stomped in across the shattered timbers and splintered plywood, trumpeting like mad, swinging her big trunk back and forth and generally making the kind of destructive mess she loved to make.

  «Everybody out!» she ordered in wide-band

  85 thought-speak. «Rabid elephant! Psycho elephant on the loose! It's Dumbo-zilla!»

  In the general panic, no one would recall that they didn't really "hear" anyone shout that warning.

  I followed gingerly in Rachel's wake. She was busily tossing her trunk up and down, making the low ceiling jump with each impact.

  I squeezed past her and searched for the little lost Hork-Bajir. I found him in his cage.

  But I was not alone.

  On the other side of the cage stood three men. Two carried standard handguns. The third carried a weapon I'd seen far too often before: a Yeerk Dracon beam.

  The three human-Controllers gaped at me. Not the way actual humans would react to suddenly encountering a Hork-Bajir. But the way people already familiar with Hork-Bajir would react to seeing one where he wasn't expected.

  «Uh, Rachel?» I said.

  «What? Sorry, I'm all turned around and can't help stomping this place to pieces.»

  «Save that for Jake,» I said. «We have company^

  "Who are you?" one of the men demanded. "Visser Three didn't tell us that . . . wait! It's one of the renegade Hork-Bajir! One of the escaped hosts!"

  87 Bek looked at me pleadingly. The Controllers leveled their weapons at me. And one of them began yelling into a watch that must have also been a communicator.

  This was going to get ugly fast. They were here to grab the baby Hork-Bajir. So were we. One big difference: They might not care if Bek lived or died.

  86

  Chapter 18

  ?So, a renegade Hork-Bajir," one of the Controllers said. "Let's grab them both! Visser Three will be very pleased." He raised his Dracon beam and leveled it at me. "You can make it easy or hard, Hork-Bajir."

  Bek was between them and me. If I attacked . . .

  Fortunately, I was not alone.

  I never even saw the wolf till it was on the Controller. Its big jaws clamped down tight over his gun hand.

  "Aaaahhhh!" he screamed.

  «Cassie? Good timing!»

  «Yeah, it's me, but don't just stand there. There are more coming! Lots more!»

  88 I didn't hesitate a second longer. I leaped over Bek's cage and landed, T-rex feetfirst, on one of the men. Hork-Bajir may not be geniuses for the most part, but they are quick.

  My victim went down, yelling and scrambling to get away.

  BLAM! The gunshot was so close the sound hurt worse than the bullet. The bullet knocked a neat, round hole in my left elbow blade.

  I slashed instinctively. The gun dropped to the floor. And the Controller would now have a hard time counting past eight on his fingers.

  We had a momentary advantage, Cassie and I. I fumbled with clumsy Hork-Bajir fingers at the lock on Bek's cage. Then something black, shaggy, and massive pushed by me.

  «Here. Let Gorilla-boy do that for you,» Marco said. «See, it requires delicacy, patience, a subtle touch.»

  He grabbed the front of the cage, twining his sausage fingers through the bars and . . .

  RRRIIPP!

  He tore the cage open like a bag of chips.

  «Come with me, Bek,» I said to the terrified Hork-Bajir baby.

  «Ket Halpak?»

  «Um . . . yes. Come.»

  89 He took my hand, and that's when everything broke loose.

  BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

  TSEEWW! TSEEWW!

  The blinding light of muzzle flashes and even more blinding Dracon beams. Explosions that rocked the room.

  Suddenly, an elephant.

  Suddenly faces, angry, frightened faces visible in the flash of gunfire.

  I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach. For a moment I was confused. Had Bek hit me? No. A bullet! I could see the hole. I could seethe blood.

  Hrrreee-YAH! Rachel trumpeted.

  And now there were more creatures. The lynx, loose from its cage. A tiger, roaring, rushing, slashing.

  A gorilla, swinging fists the size of canned hams.

  An Andalite, his tail flying like a bullwhip, slashing with terrible accuracy.

  The attack was reckless, desperate, heedless. Bullets flying! Dracon beams burning holes in cages and walls. Flames rising around me. Smoke.

  I clutched Bek's hand an
d staggered back, looking for an escape route. But it was pretty dark aside from the angry weapon's flashes. The

  90 ceiling was sloping down in places where it had almost fallen. Walls were twisted. Cages were strewn here and there. Animals screamed. Human voices shouted.

  The pain hit suddenly. Late, but not forgotten. I doubled over, but kept my grip on Bek's hand. He was yanking, tugging, pulling in panic.

  Now the battle was becoming more organized. The Controllers had the front half of the building, and more were around the back, splashing hurriedly through the alligator lagoon to cut us off.

  Rachel was demorphing. Her elephant bulk was doing more harm than good. As she shrank toward human she ducked out of sight and faded into the dark.

  The Controllers - there must have been a dozen by now-had learned a little humility. They were cowering behind cover, shooting wildly around corners, waiting, no doubt, for our retreat to be cut off.

  «Tobias! Get that kid out of here!» Jake yelled.

  «You need me.» I gasped.

  «Get. Him. Out!»

  I grabbed Bek more tightly and began to back toward the crushed wall we'd come through. The pain in my stomach felt like someone had shoved a red-hot sword into me.

  92 I felt a cool breeze on my back. I turned, ready to plunge through the opening into the night beyond. But the way was not clear.

  An Andalite stood there.

  He was older than Ax, larger, battle-scarred. He exuded a darkness that was blacker than the night. A darkness that came from the twisted, evil slug that lived inside that captive Andalite brain.

  Visser Three!

  He whipped his Andalite tail forward, and I stepped back. But even as I registered the Andalite body that had once belonged to a powerful Andalite war-prince, I began to see the changes.

  He was morphing. Visser Three, the only Andalite-Controller. The only Yeerk with the power to morph.

  Visser Three, who had traveled the galaxy acquiring morphs of the most deadly creatures of the known universe.

  «Ah, a renegade Hork-Bajir,» he said, sounding delighted. «The little runaway and the renegade. Ket Halpak, if I am not mistaken. Well, my Hork-Bajir friend, I'll soon have you back at the Yeerk pool. You'll soon belong to us again.»