“Would have been hard to do any worse,” Marco said. “Anyway. Visser Three will never find Aftran now.”
On Aftran’s second day out of the Yeerk pool, everyone in the group was well enough for a short meeting. We all agreed that we couldn’t let Aftran die. It was Jake who thought of the way to save her.
He suggested that we give her the power to morph, on the condition that she choose one morph and stay in it forever. It was just safer that way. For everyone. Like I said, the decision was unanimous.
Aftran took another sparking flight. I felt like my heart was leaping with her.
“Whoa! Good leap!” Marco exclaimed.
It felt good. We were all together again. Alive. Well. And Aftran was free. How amazing was that?
“She must feel like she’s in paradise,” I said. “Can you imagine living in the ocean after the Yeerk pool? And in that body — fast, powerful, able to see, hear, feel, and communicate.”
“I bet she’ll miss the fight though,” Rachel added.
“She’s done her part,” Jake said.
I thought back to that moment when I had first allowed Aftran into my head. One decision, so many consequences.
I caught Jake watching me.
“What?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Just wondering what you were thinking.”
“Nothing very profound,” I said. “Just …”
“Just what?”
“Just that every now and then, we actually win one.”
He nodded. “Sometimes we do win,” he agreed. “This time? This time, Cassie, you won.”
The author wishes to thank Melinda Metz for her help in preparing this manuscript.
It was happening again. Unbelievably, it was happening again.
A woman was drowning. Not the dreaded leader of an alien force. Just a woman. Alone in a roiling sea. Defenseless. Vulnerable.
My mother.
There was no way I could let it happen again.
I powered toward her. My arms strained with each stroke. My legs kicked wildly.
Hold on. Hold on!
So close. Close enough to see her straining to keep her head above the cold black water.
Then I was on her, one arm around her shoulders, the other paddling madly to keep us afloat.
“Hold on!” I cried. “I’ve got you!”
She looked up at me, wet hair plastering her face. Then she spoke. “Thank you, Marco.”
“Mom …”
“I’m free, Marco. I’m free!”
And then a powerful current swept her out of my grasp and sucked her under the glittering surface of the midnight ocean.
“No! No, no, no!”
I dove. The salt stung my eyes. I pushed deeper and deeper into the darkness. My lungs ached but I would not allow it to happen again. I would not let her go! Not when she was free. Not …
“NO!”
“Marco? Are you okay?”
I shot up straight as a board. Where … ? My bed, my room. My father.
I put my hands to my head and looked at the picture of my mother that sat on my nightstand.
“You okay?” he repeated.
No. I wasn’t. “Yeah. Yeah. Bad dream, I guess.”
“About her?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
Dad sat on the edge of my bed and hugged me.
I returned the hug weakly. Patted him on the back.
“I’m okay, big guy,” I said. “What time is it?”
“About time to get up and get going,” he said. “I get the shower first. I have to be in early today.”
I watched my father leave the room. But instead of getting out of bed and heading downstairs for a bowl of Honeycomb, I sat amidst the tangled, slightly damp bedcovers, too exhausted to move.
My name, as you probably know by now, is Marco. And that was how my Friday started. Not the greatest way to greet the last day of a long week. But not exactly uncommon. Dreams of fear and loss and despair.
Before I lost my mother to the enemy, before I learned of the Yeerk invasion of Earth, my life was pretty tame. Mostly I worried about things like whether I’d dropped enough hints at dinner about which Sega disk I wanted for my birthday.
Not about things like the enslavement of the human race.
Those were the days. Or, as Dad says, “The salad days.”
I’m not sure what that means exactly — “salad days” — but he says it a lot. I’m not a big fan of salad myself, unless it’s heavily croutoned.
Anyway, here’s the rough sequence of events. I’ll keep it brief.
My mother — my beautiful, pretty-smelling, intelligent mother — took our boat out late one night and never came back. They found the boat. They didn’t find her.
She was presumed drowned. With no explanation of why she had done such a strange thing like take the boat out alone. At night. I mean, my mother was not exactly the suicidal type.
Next. My friends — Jake, Rachel, Cassie, and Tobias — and I had the distinct misfortune to stumble upon a dying Andalite warrior prince who told us about the Yeerks and their invasion of our planet. He gave us the gift and curse of morphing, an Andalite technology that allows us to acquire the DNA of any animal and become — morph — that animal.
This is our most spectacular weapon. The others are cunning, courage, and secrecy. (And in my case irresistible cuteness.)
Then, we were joined by Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, younger brother of Prince Elfangor.
Another highlight. This happened long after I’d learned my mother had not fallen overboard and drowned but had been infested by the Yeerk known as Visser One, originator of the Earth invasion. I’m talking about the time I’d seen her frail, Yeerk-infested body floating facedown as the Yeerks’ underwater headquarters destructed.
Since that moment I’ve spent at least, oh, a bazillion hours wondering if my mother could have survived. Rachel heard a submarine speeding away from the chaotic scene. And I’d seen a Leeran-Controller swimming toward my mother’s floating body. So there was a chance she’d lived, a chance the Leeran had dragged her unconscious body to the sub and powered away.
At least, that’s what I chose to believe. But alongside that belief was the realization that the chances she’d made it to the sub were slim.
You can understand how sometimes my particular daily grind gets to be a pain in the …
I mean, five more or less normal kids, one of whom is now more bird than boy, plus an Andalite cadet are supposed to save the Earth from an army of evil sluglike parasites?
What are the odds that’s going to happen?
The Yeerks are parasitic. They squirm their way into your ear canal and from there seep into every nook and cranny of your brain. They assume total control over your thoughts and your actions. They leave you alert and alive — but absolutely powerless to act or speak on your own behalf. You are locked in a kind of brain cage while the Yeerk takes over every single aspect of your life. The Yeerk is in total control.
Total control.
The Yeerk moves your eyes and hands and feet. The Yeerk speaks with your voice. The Yeerk opens your memories and reads them like a book. Every memory. Every secret.
The Yeerk in my mother’s head can look through her memories and see what she saw as she comforted me in my crib long, long ago. The Yeerk can see memories of me crying from a skinned knee. Memories of grouchy breakfasts with my dad and me. Memories of the hideously embarrassing “birds and bees” conversation.
The Yeerk saw all of that. The Yeerk who held the rank of Visser One. The original overlord of the invasion of Earth. The Yeerk who made a slave of my mother.
Because of this invasion our lives have become a series of fierce battles and narrow escapes. Of soul-crushing experiences and bone-shattering fights. You can see why my mornings have taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
Just the same, when Dad left for work, I to
ok a shower and got ready with every intention of going to school.
Really, I did.
About the Author
The Animorphs series, written by Katherine (K. A.) Applegate with her husband, Michael Grant, has sold millions of copies worldwide, and alerted the world to the presence of the Yeerks. Katherine and Michael are also the authors of the bestselling Remnants and Everworld series. On her own, Katherine is the author of Home of the Brave, Crenshaw, Wishtree, and the Newbery Medal–winning The One and Only Ivan. Michael is the author of the Gone and Front Lines series.
The invasion has begun.
Catch up on Newbery Medal–winner K. A. Applegate’s world-conquering series.
#1: The Invasion
#2: The Visitor
#3: The Encounter
#4: The Message
#5: The Predator
#6: The Capture
#7: The Stranger
#8: The Alien
#9: The Secret
#10: The Android
#11: The Forgotten
#12: The Reaction
#13: The Change
#14: The Unknown
#15: The Escape
#16: The Warning
#17: The Underground
#18: The Decision
#19: The Departure
#20: The Discovery
#21: The Threat
#22: The Solution
#23: The Pretender
#24: The Suspicion
#25: The Extreme
#26: The Attack
#27: The Exposed
#28: The Experiment
#29: The Sickness
#30: The Reunion
#31: The Conspiracy
#32: The Separation
#33: The Illusion
#34: The Prophecy
#35: The Proposal
#36: The Mutation
#37: The Weakness
#38: The Arrival
#39: The Hidden
#40: The Other
#41: The Familiar
#42: The Journey
#43: The Test
#44: The Unexpected
#45: The Revelation
#46: The Deception
#47: The Resistance
#48: The Return
#49: The Diversion
#50: The Ultimate
#51: The Absolute
#52: The Sacrifice
#53: The Answer
#54: The Beginning
Text copyright © 1999 by Katherine Applegate
Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly
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All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
e-ISBN 978-1-338-21692-9
First edition, May 1999
The Sickness Page 9