One came right at me. I ducked and slammed both fists into its belly.
WWHUMP!
He fell down.
“Rrroooooooaaar!”
Jake! With outstanding speed and agility he leaped forward. The force of the seven-hundred-pound Siberian tiger slammed two more Yeerk warriors onto the ground.
FWAAP! FWAAP!
Ax. Fighting alongside Gafinilan, he was even more amazing than usual.
A wolf’s howl!
Trotting away from a fallen Hork-Bajir.
“Tseeeer!”
Yes! Tobias. A howling Hork-Bajir clutched the red mess that had once been his eyes.
Rachel. Wrapping her trunk around a Hork-Bajir and …
THUWUUUMP!
Tossing him somewhere into the gloom.
This was too easy. Something …
More! Another five, ten warriors descending on us.
Jake ordered.
I said.
I dodged left. Slipped into the shadows.
A moment later, leaped out onto the back of a Hork-Bajir. Wrestled him to the ground.
Before I could get to my feet, my victim’s buddy brought his elbow blade down onto my shoulder.
It went deep.
FWAAP!
Gafinilan!
I said, wrenching the detached blade of the now incapacitated Hork-Bajir from tendon and muscle.
he replied.
I swear if the guy had a mouth he would have been grinning.
I promised.
The cut was bad but I’d lived through worse.
Rachel cried.
I knuckle-ran over to Rachel. Somehow she’d gotten herself in a too-narrow alley between train cars.
I tore the Hork-Bajir from her flank. Flung him behind me, into the side of a caboose.
she snapped.
But I was already gone, hurling oncoming Hork-Bajir left and right. The wound on my shoulder throbbing, my head now bleeding, too. I touched the damage and felt bone.
It was so dark and suddenly, there were so, so many.
I stumbled, backed away from the Hork-Bajir coming ever closer. Trapping me in a small corner from which there’d be no way out.
I realized I’d lost Jake and the others, though I could hear their grunts and howls through the terrible roar and brittle clash of battle.
Okay, I thought crazily, I got myself into this. Now I’ll get myself out.
The question was how.
I bellowed! Pounded my fists against my gorilla chest. It was a display of totally false machismo.
But it worked.
Gave me the split second I needed to slip through the partially open door of a boxcar, slam it shut behind me.
Scramble across the dirty floor, bumpy with rat droppings and crunchy with broken glass, and tear open the door on the other side of the car.
Drop to the ground, slam the door shut behind me.
Take a deep breath …
Uh-oh.
And realize I was facing another onslaught of Hork-Bajir.
Hard to tell exactly how far away in the heavy dark.
I leaned up against the side of the car. Held perfectly still.
Hoped the gorilla’s dark hair and skin would help camouflage me. Keep me hidden, just a darker spot in the shadows.
When you’re a kid, you know how you close your eyes and convince yourself that because you’re blind you’re also invisible?
Well, it doesn’t work when you’re surrounded by seven-foot-tall, horned and bladed lizardlike enemies.
Hork-Bajir vision isn’t spectacular in the dark, but their hearing is keen. From the beating of my heart and the hot breaths pumping in and out of my nostrils, they’d know I was here.
I got ready to start swinging.
And then …
Something made me glance to my right, almost over my torn shoulder.
A ladder rung. Built into the train car wall.
Maybe I could grasp it, swing out from it, adding force to my punches and kicks.
Unless …
A ladder rung is part of a ladder.
Ladders lead to places where you are not.
The first two Hork-Bajir were on me! I grabbed them by the necks and smashed them together. The daggerlike horns on their heads stabbed into each other’s flesh. Got stuck.
Then, as the next two Hork-Bajir skidded to a stop a few feet from their fallen buddies, I scrambled up the ladder.
Ignored the searing pain in my shoulder.
And was almost immediately on top of the train car.
Fantastic! From here I could see the clearing. The remains of the bonfire and the U-Haul truck, still parked.
But not for long.
I screamed.
And we were still too far from the clearing to stop it.
Maybe … if we headed toward the main entrance, maybe we could cut it off before it hit open road.
Maybe.
I called.
It was Rachel.
Good question. I scanned the old train yard. Spotted the dark hulk of the old station. Figured that the parking lot for cars would have been close to the station. Convenience. Figured the main entrance/exit would lead off the parking lot.
I shouted,
Tobias said.
Jake cried.
Going overland was definitely the way.
Thud thud thud thud …
I made my way to the other end of the roof. The roof of the next train car to the left was about ten feet away. Too far for me to jump.
I scanned. Okay. There was another way across the tops of the cars. A way that would get me close to if not right at the old station house. A slightly circuitous path, a weird, twisting metal road over a sea of battle. If I weren’t stopped by Hork-Bajir, I could make it before the U-Haul left the yard.
If …
Thud thud thud thud …
Closer. Roof to roof. Moving ahead, then, slowly, bit by bit, to the left, toward the station.
Tobias called.
Thudthudthudthud …
Rachel said.
Jake.
Jake’s thought-speak disappeared.
A light. Two. Round and small. Yeah, there was the truck, moving slowly with only its own headlights to guide it. I dropped close against the roof of the train car. Crawled the last few feet to the edge.
And prepared to drop onto the roof of the truck.
Tobias called.
I flew! Launched my big gorilla body down onto the metal roof of the U-Haul.
WHUMMPF!
Landed in a crouch and allowed my weight to fall quickly to the side.
Safe.
And still only going about twenty miles an hour.
Tobias reported.
Well, duh. I’d left a big ole dent in the metal roofing. This was a surprise attack.
I crawled forward across the cargo bay and onto the roof of the truck’s cabin. Peered over the side into the driver’s seat.
Saw a very nervous human-Controller.
I tore open his door. Reached for him.
Too slow! The driver slammed on the brakes.
The truck stopped moving.
I didn’t.
Forty feet through the air!
WHOOF!
I hit the ground. Rolled another twenty.
Finally, came to a stop. And not a pretty one, let me tell you.
Hurt but alive.
Thanked the stars for the helmetlike gorilla skull.
SCREEEEEEE!
The driver hit the gas!
Now he was going to hit the gorilla.
Closer! Closer!
The grill of the truck loomed.
The stench of burning rubber.
I scrambled unsteadily to my feet.
Then …
CRAAAAAASSSHHH!
A train car! It smashed right into the path of the speeding truck, stopping it dead.
Above the sizzling wreckage I heard Rachel’s trumpet of triumph.
I knuckle-walked toward the smash.
she replied.
The cab of the truck was completely impacted. A twisted and bent remnant. The front two wheels were off the ground, resting on the top of the flattened boxcar.
The driver’s door was open. I don’t know how he managed to survive the crash. But he had and he’d been Yeerk enough to get away.
I called, loping around to the back of the truck, now in real blackness again because the truck’s headlights were destroyed.
Great. Another Mr. Philosophy.
Rachel said.
I wrapped my thick gorilla fingers around the gate latch on the back of the truck and pulled. Yanked.
Nothing. The muscles in my chest and arm strained as I tried again.
Still nothing. Now my shoulder was really on fire.
Rachel said.
I muttered.
It was Jake, slinking out of the shadows, bloody, but I’d seen him worse. Cassie, Ax, and Gafinilan were with him. Each bearing evidence of the fight.
A second later, Tobias fluttered silently to the top of a nearby caboose.
Rachel explained.
Gafinilan stepped forward.
Mertil answered.
Gafinilan said.
He moved into place directly behind and facing the rear door.
CLAAAANG!
I jumped. Couldn’t help it, the sound was enormous.
Gafinilan’s battle-ax tail blade had punctured the steel door.
The guy might be dying, but he was still inconceivably strong.
SKKREEEEEUUUUULLLL!
Cassie’s wolf whimpered involuntarily at the awful sound of Gafinilan’s tail blade tearing a long gash down the steel door.
Rachel said.
When he’d created a sort of tall, elliptical slit, Gafinilan stepped back.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
And Mertil kicked his way out.
We had found Mertil. Probably saved his life.
His dear friend Gafinilan had gone to terrible lengths to set him free.
Mertil must have been pleased. On some level, in some way. But he didn’t look all that happy.
We were in the woods. Far safer than hanging around the train yard, waiting for a stray Hork-Bajir-Controller to find us.
Mertil said plainly,
He held the stump of his tail down, as flat as it could go against his body. As if he were ashamed. The position had to be uncomfortable.
Cassie said kindly.
Ax said. He paused. Turned a stalk eye to me and added,
Rachel said.
I murmured.
Mertil and Gafinilan remained silent.
Jake said.
Ax nodded. One of his favorite adopted human gestures.
Rachel snapped.
Cassie asked, rhetorically.
I said.
Tobias glared.
More weird silence. I, for one, was dying to hear what would happen next.
Ax said. Respectfully.
Well, it was a start.
Jake said.
And again I saw the trembling I’d seen before. Only worse. And I remembered Gafinilan’s not being sure he’d seen the human me that first night. Peering closely at his own printed labels in the greenhouse. He was going blind.
When the trembling ceased, Gafinilan went on.
Mertil, who was no lousy specimen of Andalite warrior himself, stood tall.
Jake pointed out.
Gafinilan retorted.
I said.
Cassie said dryly.
I said.
You know that old party game, “Who Am I This Time?” Or that nursery rhyme about a doctor, lawyer, baker. Whatever. People tend to get identified by what kind of hat they wear during the day. By what is visible, noticeable, obvious about them.
So, if you’ve got one arm or get around in a wheelchair or are blind, you’re a handicapped person. Maybe you’re also a poet or scholar, a sinner, or a saint. But first and foremost in people’s minds, you’re handicapped.
Not a lot you can do about it, either.
My mother is — was? — host to Visser One. Originator of the Yeerk invasion of Earth.
Everyone, including my dad and his new wife, thinks she’s dead.
Maybe she is.
Maybe she isn’t.
Maybe she can be saved.
Maybe she can’t.
I just don’t know, after the last time we came face-to-face. In a Taxxon tunnel off the main Yeerk pool. During her trial by the Council of Thirteen.
Most times, I don’t even pretend to want to know. Though if a call comes again …
Well, I’ll wait until that happens to decide. And then I’ll do what I have to do.
Anyway, for the time being, I am “the boy with a dead mother” to people on the outside. To my friends, I’m “the kid with the big mouth and mother stolen by aliens.”
Can’t get away from it.
Vecol, mentally challenged, handicapped. Dumb, psycho, gimp.
You just learn to live with it.
Jake’s the responsible leader.
Rachel’s the gorgeous warmonger.
Cassie’s the tree-hugger.
Tobias, Bird-boy.
Ax, resident alien.
Gafinilan is the one with the fatal disease.
Mertil …
So we rescued Mertil and agreed to leave him and Gafinilan in peace. We were pretty sure the Yeerks were going to back away from them, too. At least for a while.
I mean, like Gafinilan said, what had either Andalite done for them? Nothing. Except exhibit a depth of loyalty totally puzzling, totally incomprehensible to Visser Three and his minions.
So given the fact that in the Yeerk opinion Gafinilan was, essentially, a dead man and Mertil useless, we figured they stood a fair chance of living unmolested.
At least until Gafinilan died and Mertil was all alone in Henry McClellan’s house. Unable to morph. A virtual prisoner in a foreign land.
How would he survive?
Maybe I shouldn’t have done it …
How often do I say that? A lot.
Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I did.
Paid one last, unauthorized visit to the McClellan house. In osprey morph, and while Gafinilan/Henry was at work.
I am not totally stupid.
I found Mertil in the greenhouse. Called out to him from a distance so he wouldn’t be scared and zap me with a shredder or something. Identified myself as the handsome gorilla from the other night.
Mertil answered, his voice a bit strained.
I said.
Nothing. I shifted on my perch in the big old oak tree where Tobias had sat during our first visit to the house.
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