The Suspicion

by K. A. Applegate

  "That is one strange kid," I heard my father mutter. "Need to talk to Cassie about that one."

  Then he must have scuffed his shoe. I saw the vast, rounded front of his boot, a fifteen-

  57 story-tall hump of leather, come winging toward us.

  It hit the dirt. And kicked up a small amount of dust. A few tablespoons of dirt, no more.

  Just enough to bury us alive!

  58

  I was buried in rock!

  I gasped, desperate for air. But then I realized I was having no trouble breathing. The space between grains of dirt was plenty large enough for me to get air.

  But how was I going to dig my way out? Some of the rocks pinning me down felt as large as I was. I say "felt" because I couldn't see anything.

  I pushed against one large rock that was pressed right into my stomach. I didn't expect it to move, but it did.

  I wormed my legs up so I could get my feet positioned against the rock. Then I pushed with all my might.

  59 The rock moved. In fact, it didn't just move, I felt it pushing other rocks aside. Now there was a little, open space. I could even see a minuscule triangle of light.

  I pushed against other rocks and gradually the opening widened. Suddenly, a face filled the opening.

  "Oh, there you are," Marco said.

  He began to dig me out. I stuck my head up out of the dirt. And, like they were nothing, I saw him lifting grains of dirt that should have weighed more than he did.

  I clambered out and bent down to lift one of the rocks myself. To my shock, I could do it.

  "This is amazing," I said, holding a boulder the size of a beach ball over my head.

  "I know," Marco agreed with a laugh. "It's because we're small. You know, like how ants can lift things bigger than they are? Or how fleas can jump a hundred times their own height? I guess we have that same thing going on."

  Tobias swooped down from high in the air - probably three or four inches. «l have it, too. I can fly higher, relatively, than before. And I bet I could almost carry one of you.»

  "This doesn't make sense, does it?" I asked.

  Marco shrugged. "I don't know. Later we can ask Ax."

  «Actually, it does make sense because the

  60 bigger you get, your muscles and stuff have to increase geometrically. It's like birds. Little birds can beat their wings a hundred times a minute. A bigger bird can't.»

  "That's speed, not strength," I pointed out. "But maybe it's true, anyway. I mean, look how tiny gymnasts have to be. Rachel's always saying she can't do as well on uneven bars because she's so tall."

  "That has to do with rotation, doesn't it? Is that the same as strength? And excuse me, but why are we sitting around having a science class when we're the size of dust?" Marco asked.

  "What should we do?" I asked him.

  We were sitting in what was probably a quarter-inch depression, like a shallow bowl. We couldn't see much but dirt boulders and the big cage bar above us.

  "Well ... I don't know. All I know is: We're small. We are very, very small." He brightened. "But we're strong. We could play catch with some dirt boulders."

  «We should probably stay put till Jake can come back to get us.»

  "I'm worried my folks will wonder where I am," I said.

  "Jake will take care of that. Somehow. And we haven't exactly been gone long."

  61 I sighed. I looked at Marco and sighed some more. It was weird. He looked like regular, old Marco. Regular, old Marco, lounging around on boulders with a monstrous, sky-blocking, horizontal steel bar over his head.

  WHUMPF! WHUMPF! WHUMPF!

  My father was walking by. He seemed to be heading out of the barn.

  "I'm hungry," Marco said.

  «Me, too. And what's my prey now? What's small enough for me to eat? A flu germ?»

  And that's when they appeared over the edge of the shallow depression. A dozen of them.

  Their heads were all we saw at first. They were perfectly flat on top, quite wide. From that flat top their faces came down in a sort of squashed inverted pyramid to a hooked, barbed chin. Eyes sat atop the flat heads like big green marbles that looked like they could roll off at any moment. Their mouthparts looked insectlike, with gnashing sideways teeth.

  As they climbed all the way into view I could see that they were dressed in silvery, one-piece suits, covering bodies that were almost human, if you overlooked the extra set of legs. The suits had turquoise collars.

  "Well, you could eat them," Marco suggested to Tobias.

  62 «We are the Mighty Helmacrons of the Planet Crusher, the deadliest ship in the glorious Helmacron fleet!» one of the group announced. «Surrender to us now and live as our degraded beasts of burden. Or resist us and be utterly annihilated^

  They were about the same size we were. Maybe a sixteenth of an inch. And my first inclination was to burst out laughing. These characters actually thought they were going to conquer the world.

  But then they raised their handheld ray guns at us. And I realized something. Their Dracon beams, or whatever they were, hadn't hurt me much when I was the size of Mount Everest, but now I was a bug.

  The Helmacrons began to advance on us.

  "Fight or run away?" Marco muttered.

  He was looking at me. I turned to Tobias. Tobias looked at Marco.

  "Boy, you miss Jake when he's not around to make the life-and-death decisions," Marco said ruefully.

  Fortunately, we were spared a decision. Because now a new group of Helmacrons, this time with magenta uniform collars, came racing up from behind us.

  «These are the rightful prisoners of the Galaxy Blaster*. Stand back, you cowards, and

  63 let true Helmacron heroes gather up their just booty !»

  "We're just booty?" Marco said with a nervous giggle.

  The standoff was complete. Two groups of Helmacrons, each with weapons pointed at us, but glaring at each other with their green marble eyes.

  Then the cavalry arrived.

  64

  They were gigantic. They were brown Godzillas. They were . . . cockroaches.

  Their antennae were hundred-foot-long bull-whips. Their legs were jointed telephone poles. They were vast, overpowering, terrifying machines made of five-inch-thick armor.

  They towered over us, two humongous, clanking cockroaches. I mean, you think you know how gross cockroaches are. But you know nothing till you've seen a cockroach literally the size of a Wal-Mart. Next time you go to a Wal-Mart or K Mart or Target or a big grocery store, stand out in front and look at it and think "cockroach."

  They were very, very big.

  And they didn't smell very good, either.

  65 «Hi, it's us,» Jake said.

  «You just scared the pee out of us!» Tobias answered. «Can you see us down here?»

  «No, our eyes aren't very good, as you know. But Ax can see you. He led us to you.»

  «Ax?» Tobias asked.

  "Ax?" Marco and I said, looking at each other.

  Then slowly, very slowly, we turned.

  Ax.

  A wolf spider.

  "AAAAHHHH!"

  "AAAAHHHH!"

  It didn't matter that we knew it was Ax. My brain wasn't working. My legs turned to jelly. I sat down very hard, very fast.

  You cannot begin to conceive of how terrifying that sight was.

  Twice as tall as the roaches. With eight legs, each the size of the Saint Louis arch. Gnashing, wickedly sharp mouthparts that looked like the gates of hell. A swollen, stinking, bloated, hairy body.

  But none of that was what made Marco and Tobias and me shake with uncontrollable fear.

  It was the eyes.

  Eight of them. Some were glittering, multifaceted compound eyes. Others were blank, dead, black simple eyes. The smallest ones looked bigger than we were.

  66 And that face, that evil, staring face . . .

  I could feel that image being laser-printed directly onto my brain. I would never forget it. If I lived
a hundred years, I would be seeing that face.

  «Hello,» Ax said. «Did I make an error when I said I was Canadese?»

  "Ax, I hope you have control over that morph," I said.

  I tried to look away and figure out how the Helmacrons were reacting, but there was just no looking away from those eight big eyeballs.

  However, the Helmacrons were reacting.

  «Do you think to terrify us with your pitiful morphs? We are Helmacron warriors!»

  They were yelling this as they hustled away at top speed.

  «Ax, make sure they keep running,» Jake said calmly.

  Ax turned, a movement that made me yelp in fear. But at least those eyes were aimed somewhere else.

  "Yuh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uk," Marco shuddered. "Man, I did not need to see that. That's worth about thirty nights of waking up screaming in a cold sweat."

  Ax took off after the Helmacrons, jerky but swift, and as evil-looking a creation as I ever hope to see.

  67 His lower half was obscured by the lumpy dirt around us when . . .

  TSEEEEEW! TSEEEEEW!

  «Aaaahhhhh!» Ax cried.

  I forgot my fear and ran up the slope to see over the lip of the depression. There, hovering just a quarter inch above the dirt, was one of the Helmacron ships.

  Ax twisted in apparent agony, his mile-high legs flailing madly in pure reflex. He turned toward us and then I saw the smoking, sizzling, burned-meat-smelling eye that had been incinerated by the Helmacron ship.

  TSEEEEW! TSEEEEW!

  They fired again, point-blank range, and all four of the legs on the left side of Ax's spider body were cut in two. He fell from the sky like some slow-motion asteroid. The severed legs toppled slowly over, like impossibly tall trees.

  «Demorph!» Jake shouted. «Ax! Demorph!»

  We had made a deadly mistake. It was all a question of size. The Helmacrons were laughable when we were big. But down here, at this scale, they were as dangerous as Yeerks.

  68

  ?Neep! Neep! Neep!"

  A triumphant cry went up from the Helmacrons. A spoken cry, as opposed to their usual thought-speak.

  POOMPF!

  Ax hit the ground,

  «Ax, demorph!» Jake yelled.

  «l may crush Cassie, Marco, and Tobias as I do, Prince Jake,» Ax said. He sounded pretty calm, under the circumstances. As he well knew, if you die in morph, you die, period.

  «Cassie, Marco, over here!» Jake yelled. «We'll carry you out of AAAAAHHHH!»

  The second Helmacron ship had fired from behind. Jake's cockroach antennae were severed.

  69 It was like someone cutting a power line. The falling antennae whipped around like cables.

  Tobias was in the air. He might survive Ax's demorphing, but there was no way Marco and I would. And if Ax didn't demorph, the next blast from the Helmacrons might finish him.

  "Marco! We have to surrender!" I yelled, grabbing his arm.

  "What?"

  "We can escape later. Ax has to demorph! Jake and Rachel, too. The Helmacrons will stop firing long enough to take us."

  He looked furious. But he knew I was right. He shook off my arm and began waving at the closest Helmacrons.

  "0 mighty Helmacrons, make us your slaves! We fear your might!"

  They hesitated, probably sensing a trap. But they could see that Ax was helpless. That Jake was injured.

  Four of the little monsters came racing out to grab us. Up close, they gave an even more bizarre impression of being half-human, half-insect. We knew that in reality they were minuscule, but to us they seemed big enough. They kept their weapons leveled at us as they quick-marched us toward their ship.

  The ship settled down all the way to the ground. It was very big at this scale. It may have

  70 seemed like a toy to us before, but now it was immense, bigger than a Yeerk Pool ship. There would be room for hundreds, if not thousands, of Helmacrons on board.

  «Up, up, up!» one of the Helmacrons shouted, shoving me up the ramp that had lowered from the ship.

  I ran as well as I could with Helmacrons shoving me, yanking me, pushing me.

  The ramp began to move while we were still on it. I looked around and realized that Marco and I were rising up into a vast, open hangar area. To the left and right, what looked like smaller fighter ships were hanging from racks. Perhaps a dozen of them on each side.

  «Ah-hah! You see our might and tremble!»

  "I see your might. Where's your tremble?" Marco said.

  The Helmacrons stared with their wobbly, marble eyes.

  "Oh, no. We're prisoners of creatures with no sense of humor," Marco said.

  «You are slaves now, aboard the glorious Helmacron ship Planet Crusher. We will take you to our captain. You will crawl!»

  Two of the creepy little aliens shoved me down onto my knees. It didn't hurt at all, even though I felt like it should. But then, I was about

  71 the size of a large flea. I didn't exactly fall very far.

  And it was weirdly easy to crawl. It was what I was starting to think of as the "insect effect." When you're tiny, it's easier to be strong. I was able to scoot along on my knees quite easily.

  It was a good thing, because we crawled a long way. The ship felt like it was a mile long. Down brightly lit corridors and up ramps and across narrow bridges that spanned huge mechanical facilities of some sort, we crawled.

  It was a noisy ship. Clanging and pounding and groaning. It was intensely bright as well. Far brighter than any human would find comfortable.

  Finally, we seemed to have arrived. We entered a room with a dome ceiling and shallow bowl floor. In the center of the room stood a single Helmacron. Beams of light illuminated him like a movie star on Oscar night. He looked like any of the Helmacrons, except for the fact that he was wearing a flowing, gold cape.

  And there was one other difference.

  "He's dead," I said.

  "He's about as dead as you can be," Marco agreed.

  The Helmacron captain did not move. Did not breathe. His eyes did not look at us. He was covered

  72 with what looked a lot like bread mold and cobwebs.

  What was worse, it was fairly obvious how he'd died. His arms and four legs were shackled, bolted to the deck. Three long, steel swords were sticking through his body. It all looked very ceremonial.

  And it looked . . .

  "Insane," Marco muttered. "These guys are nuts."

  73

  O Greatest of the Great, Most Magnificent of the Magnificent, we have taken two of the strange, transforming aliens prisoner! They tremble before us! They abase themselves! They quiver in cowardly terror! And it should be noted that the Galaxy Blaster was of no help whatsoever.

  - From the log of the Helmacron ship, Planet Crusher

  «Grovel before the captain!»

  Marco looked at me. "How do you grovel? I've never groveled before."

  I shrugged.

  «Grovel!»

  "We don't know how," I told the closest Helmacron. "I mean, you know, different folks, different customs. Maybe you could show us."

  74 They looked at one another. Then the one I'd spoken to said, «You may grovel in the style of your own people. Grovel as you normally grovel.»

  I saw the sly gleam in Marco's eye. "You heard the man, Cassie. Let's grovel."

  He scooted his legs forward, lay on his back, stuck his hands behind his head, and relaxed like he was at the beach soaking up sun.

  "I grovel before the mighty Helmacron captain, most mighty of the mighty, undisputed champion of the world in the dust-weight category! We grovel like the pitiful losers we are! We grovel like a guy who hasn't got a date the day before the prom and the only girl around is the head cheerleader, that's how much we grovel. Cassie, you could join in any time, you know."

  "We grovel . . . um, like grovelers."

  Marco turned his head to shoot me a disdainful look. "Oh, good groveling. Put some feeling into it."

  "I grovel like, uh .
. . like a person who is really, really groveling," I said lamely.

  Meanwhile, Marco was, of course, getting into it. After all, he had an audience.

  "0 mighty Helmacron dead guy, we grovel like a video game addict trapped in an arcade without a quarter, that's how much we grovel. You would not believe the depths of our grovelry! We grovel

  75 like a guy with a large order of fries and the only saltshaker is at the table of the school bully. We grovel -"

  «Enough! Now you will tell us the location of the power source.»

  "The blue box?" I inquired.

  «Yes, the blue box of transforming power!»

  "I don't know where it is. One of my friends must have taken it and hidden it."

  «Friends?»

  "Yes, the others like us. The others we were with."

  «Turn on the external viewer!»

  Suddenly, the entire dome ceiling lit up with a three-dimensional view of the inside of the barn. I saw Jake, Rachel, and Ax. All alive, all back in their own forms. They were glaring angrily at the ship we were in.

  The viewscreen zoomed in to magnify a very tiny Tobias, sitting perched on Rachel's shoulder.

  «Which one of them knows the location of the blue box?»

  I was incredibly relieved that they were all apparently okay. I hoped Tobias was okay, too. Although he was obviously still small-size. There was no way we were going to put one of them on the spot.

  «Which one!» the Helmacron screamed. «The one with four eyes? The one with wings?

  76 The one with hideous blue eyes? Or the larger one?»

  "None of them," Marco said. "The other one. The one who's not here."

  I nodded solemnly. "Yes, the other one."

  We had no idea what we were talking about, of course. But then the Helmacrons actually sort of supplied the answer.

  «Do not attempt to deceive us! Our sensors reveal those who radiate with the transforming energy. We will find anyone who bears that energy signature!»

  Marco and I stole a glance at each other.

  "Transforming energy . . . you mean, you can tell who has the morphing power?" Marco asked.

  «We are the Helmacrons, lords of the galaxy! Our science and technology are vastly superior. We can easily penetrate your simple disguises and see the transforming power at work.»