”The Nartec who specialize in law, medi-
109
cine, and other such professions,” Naca contin ued, ”dwell in the area just outside the central part of the city. Those Nartec employed in the trades - such as those who make our clothes and sell our food - occupy a more remote neighborhood.”
With a disdainful flip of his webbed hand, Naca gestured to the distance.
”Finally, those who scrape together a living in an obscure or illegal manner inhabit dirty, shantylike towns on the outskirts of the Nartec world. There is no point in my taking you to see such places. They are unpleasant and not at all important.”
”Nice to know discrimination is alive and well among the Nartec,” Cassie mumbled. ”I feel so ... at home.”
I listened vaguely to Naca’s tour guide routine. Pretended to be really interested in a small building decorated with a carved and painted wooden prow. The kind shaped like the body of a woman with arms held tightly to her sides and legs that kind of disappeared somewhere.
And now that I was paying attention, a woman wearing not a lot of clothes, either.
”Any apartments for rent in this building?” Marco asked.
Slowly, steadily, we were moving away from the dock, away from the center of town.
110 Every move seemed natural. Too natural. Too casual. Every move too smooth. Too practiced.
I had the sudden conviction that Naca had done this before. Many times. I wondered how old he was. How could I tell with one of these creatures?
Old enough to have been alive in World War II? Had he led the Japanese flyers on this same path?
If only we had Tobias. I missed my eyes in the sky. My air force.
We were approaching a building built out of the center portion of a white-painted ship. Bow and stern were gone. The superstructure was intact. A sort of baroque office building perched at the top of steel cliffs.
There was a faint outline in red. The outline of a cross.
”This was a hospital ship,” Cassie said.
”Yes,” Naca agreed. He nodded like he was pleased. ”I would like to show you our medical facilities.”
We were on a causeway over a canal. The causeway was narrow, built of the gray, steel catwalk of some ship.
No signal had been given, but I was sure the trailing guards were moving closer. Sure that fingers were closer to triggers. Hands tighter on the hafts of spears.
111 ”Not necessary,” I said tightly. ”I’m sure it’s a great hospital.”
”But it is a great scientific treasure of our people,” Naca insisted. ”Queen Soco would be mortally offended if -”
”I don’t like hospitals,” I said.
No illusion: The guards were moving closer. But they could only get two abreast onto the causeway. Ax had drifted back to bring up the rear. Ax would take down both guards before they thought about squeezing a trigger.
I shook my head, feeling fairly secure. ”I don’t think so, Naca.”
What happened next happened so fast I had time for only one thought, one last stab of regret.
Amphibians, Jake. Amphibians.
With a rush the hidden Nartec shot up out of the water on both sides of the causeway.
112 CHAPTER 19
I woke up, eyes open suddenly.
I tried to move. Couldn’t. I was strapped down on a table. Facedown.
Shot a look left, right, Cassie on a table beside me. Stainless steel operating tables. Beyond her I caught a glimpse of Rachel, likewise strapped down. Marco? I couldn’t see him, but he could be next to Rachel.
Ax?
I twisted my head as far as I could.
”Do not squirm or resist, it will accomplish nothing,” Naca said. ”Soon you will be injected with a concentrated liquid from the ablata weed. It will render you peaceful and compliant.”
113 His bug-eyed face loomed over me. Two new Nartec faces as well.
”And then what?” I asked.
”And then we will make an incision from the top of your skull, down to your buttocks, then down along the back of each leg. Your ribs will be removed, then your internal organs, and eventually the rest of your tissue.”
”What are you doing this for?” I demanded, a little frantically.
”Your organs and tissue will be processed to extract the helical molecule that controls heredity and later employed to augment the development of -”
”There are easier way to get new DNA, you idiot!” Marco yelled.
Naca continued unperturbed. ”Then, your skin and bones will be stuffed and preserved to be used in our educational facility.”
”Okay,” Rachel said. ”Jake? Now can we kick these guys’ butts for them?”
The answer was yes. But I couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say it because something had happened to my mouth. My lips were rubber. My face was frozen. My hands were tingling.
The injection!
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t... but it really didn’t matter. What was I getting so tense about? No need to get all worked up.
114 ”Jake ... I ...” Rachel said. Then, slowly, from far away . . . ”Never mind.”
I knew what was happening. I knew we were being drugged. Knew it meant death. Knew it meant me and my friends being eviscerated, stuffed ...
Couldn’t manage to hold on to.the outrage.
Couldn’t . . . focus.
All lost. Didn’t matter.
Faces swimming above me, around me. Huge eyes. Blue skin. Knives in their hands. Cold steel on my neck . . .
A new face. New Nartec. Carrying a mace, an ancient, medieval club. Like Sir Fishalot.
Hah-hah-hah . . . what?
He looked at me.
Then he slammed the butt of the mace into Naca’s ribs. Naca went down, sinking with magical slowness past my face.
A dreamy, upward swing caught the next Nartec on the chin. The third one turned and ran.
I heard a door slam. Heard a wheel spin.
Then the mace-wielding Nartec was back. He was back, but not the same, anymore. His rubbery, blue skin was now covered in a spreading pattern that looked a lot like feathers.
115
CHAPTER 20
It took several minutes for my head to clear. By then Tobias had morphed back to the redtailed hawk.
There was loud banging on the door of the operating room.
”Tobias? Nice to see you, man.”
Rachel gave him a hug - or as close as she could come with a bird. Then she yelled at him, ”Cut it kind of close, didn’t you?”
«Hey, you try finding your way around this nuthouse. Those Nartec morphs are weak, slow, and easily tired out of the water. They’re much stronger in the wet. But probably not ten percent of the population is strong enough dry to go on a long walk. This Naca guy is one of the lucky few.
116 Like the guards they let you see. My morph was not so good.»
I nodded toward the closed and locked steel hatch. ”Bad guys out there?”
«Yep. Lots of them. One by one they aren’t too tough, but fifty of them, armed, is another thing.»
”Now about Ax?”
«0h. He’s in there.»
He pointed to a second, smaller hatch. Rachel spun the wheel lock and yanked it open. Cold air blew out. It was a refrigerator. An airtight one.
Ax stepped out looking about as mad as I’ve seen him.
«l suppose my DNA was not good enough to improve this pathetic species,» he said archly.
”Don’t complain,” Cassie said. ”You wouldn’t have enjoyed the extraction process.”
«l am not afraid of needles.»
”They use the entire body. Grind it up and process it, and stuff whatever is left,” Cassie explained.
«Ah. Well, they are merely mutated humans. One can only expect so much.»
”I screwed up,” I said. ”I forgot they were amphibious. That’s how they surprised us on the causeway. But they don’t know we can fly.” I pointed at the round, open porthole. ”They�
�ll get in here soon. Let’s be somewhere else.”
117 We morphed. The Nartec broke down the door just as the last of us cleared the porthole and took to the air.
«Where to?» Rachel said.
«The Sea Blade. Visser or no visser, I’ve had it. We’re taking that ship and getting out of here. Tobias? Can you get us back?»
«0h, yeah. I’ve gotten to know this city pretty well in the past few hours.»
«l’m glad you’re okay, Tobias,» Rachel said. «l hate it when you don’t get taken prisoner with us.»
«Yeah, well, I was worried about you, too.»
Tobias led us back to the air over the dock. We landed in an alley not much different from the alleys we used at home. Trash is trash, I guess, anywhere in the galaxy. It was the equivalent of two blocks to the Sea Blade.
«0kay. Demorph. Then let’s get ready for a fight. We go in hard and fast»
«You mean Rachel-style?» Marco mocked.
«Yeah. Let’s do this Rachel-style.»
Feet and paws and pads pounding, hooves clopping, we ran toward the wooden dock. Through the narrow Nartec streets. Across stretches of sand and mud and shells.
Past staring Nartec citizens. Mothers pulling their kids out of the way. Vendors crying out as we pushed over carts and stands in our path.
118 A tiger, a bear, a wolf, n ^orill.i, .1 h.iwk, ami an Andalite, we managed to be tin- slhuiyoM sight in this, the strangest of places.
«There it is!» Cassie cried.
I heard voices rising. The dim rumble ol ,i crowd forming.
«Prince Jake. I believe word of our escape has reached Queen Soco.»
«Yeah. Tobias! Do you see a way into the ship?»
«lt’s wide open. A main hatch just behind the raised bump on its back.»
«Show the way.»
Tobias dove for the open door. Slowed so we could see where he went. He was first inside, but Rachel was just a few feet behind. Several Nartec tried to block her path. She hit them like a runaway bus.
Nothing stands where a grizzly bear charges. Nothing made out of flesh and blood, anyway.
We piled through in her wake. She grasped the edge of the heavy, metal door with one massive paw and -
WHAAAMMM!
Threw the door shut and with Marco’s help slid the bolts into place and secured the latches.
«Prince Jake.» Ax’s voice was grim. «l request some assistance in removing the visser’s former crew from their stations.»
119 We hurried on through a corridor that led into n i milml control room.
And stopped dead in our tracks at the threshold of the bridge.
«Oh, God . . . » Cassie gasped.
Mummified Hork-Bajir.
Sitting upright in the various chairs for pilot and other crew. Standing at a video display screen. ! Leaning over a radar map.
I swallowed hard to keep the bile from rising in my throat. «Forget them,» I snapped. «Work around them. Push them aside, we have notime.»
Though the mummified Hork-Bajir weighed conciderably less than they had alive - with bones and blood and muscle - it still wasn’t easy to remove their stiff bladed bodies from the crew’s stations.
And it wasn’t easy to touch them.
Knowing they’d been breathing only hours before.
Remembering the Hork-Bajir cries I’d heard while in Soco’s palace.
Remembering Hahn.
«Ax? Can you operate this thing?»
Ax stood at the main control panel on the bridge, his back to us. «The ship has been adequately repaired. At least as far as I can tell. However, there is a security protocol I must now attempt to bypass.»
120 «Tobias? There’s a porthole. What’s up outside?»
He fluttered over and looked outside. «Not good, Jake! We’ve got a crowd gathering. And it’s not happy. Maybe a hundred of them out there. Armed.»
I ran over to look out the porthole. It was as he’d reported. A crowd of Nartec armed with spears, rifles, flamethrowers, machine guns, swords, clubs, grenades, and longbows.
The crowd was on the move. Coming for us.
«Ax?»
«Nothing, yet,» Ax said, his voice agitated. «The security protocol is far more complex than I had hoped - or assumed. I cannot access the ship’s weapons until - »
Buh-Boom!
Sheeeeeeewowww!
WHAMMMM!
The Sea Blade rocked violently in its berth.
«We’re under attack!» Rachel cried.
I saw smoke curling from the barrel of a fiveinch naval gun mounted atop Queen Soco’s palace.
More and larger guns were slowly traversing, bringing their barrels to bear on us.
They couldn’t miss at this range. The Sea Blade had been crippled by a pod of killer whales. Those shells, some as heavy as small cars, would blow the Sea Blade apart.
121 CHAPTER 21
«Ax, sooner would be better than later,» I said.
«0r too late,» Tobias said.
Bun-Boom!
The five-inch gun had fired again.
S h eeeeeeeewwwwww!
The shell screamed toward us.
WHAAMMMM!
My tiger paws kept me from falling over from the impact. But Ax sprawled, scrambled back up.
«lt blew the outer hatch!»
«Here they come!» Tobias reported from his perch near the porthole.
122 I heard rapid, rushing footsteps on the deck outside.
«How are we going to dive with a blown hatch?» Rachel demanded.
«Ax? Stay on it. Tobias, rear guard. Everyone else, with me!» I ran toward the outer hatch. That was the place to stop them.
I reached the hatch and waited, braced for the onslaught. It was quick in coming. A body of Nartec came swarming. But a swarm can’t move through a hatch designed for Hork-Bajir in single file.
A spear lanced by my head, and shredded my left ear. It was followed by the Nartec who had thrown it, wearing at least three other crude weapons on his body.
I backed up, waited till he was framed in the hatchway and leaped. I hit him, paws out but claws retracted. The impact knocked him back into his brother Nartec.
A Nartec warrior nimbly leaped over his fallen friend and I batted him down in mid-leap.
One after the other heavily armed Nartec warriors swarmed toward me.
Old and young. Each one grasping a weapon. Another weapon strapped to his side or back. Some with knives held in their teeth.
Walking arsenals.
123 We were trapped! Nothing to do but to fight!
And now, someone had decided to go to more modern weapons.
BlamBlamBlamBlamBlam!
Twanggg!
The machine-gun bullets ricocheted off steel bulkheads. One passed through my right hind leg. Another through the haunch directly above it.
The pain staggered me. My right rear leg was weakened. I backed up, gave way to Rachel.
She moved with the deceptive grace of the huge grizzly bear and more than filled the opening.
BlamBlamBlamBlam!
Hhhhoooroarrrrr!
An unwary Nartec leaped at Rachel, armed only with a sword. Rachel grabbed him in a bear hug. Literally. One massive arm wrapped around the helplessly struggling mutant. She held him with absolute ease. His weight irrelevant to her power.
And she used him as a shield.
The gunfire stopped instantly. The Nartec saw that they could not fire without killing one of their own.
But they evidently felt safe enough using spears, swords, and other handheld weapons.
124
Rachel had only one hand free. That was enough for the first dozen or so attackers. But then . . .
”RROOOOAAARRR!”
A harpoon, clear through Rachel’s right shoulder!
With a loud grunt she broke off the shaft.
With a ham-sized paw she swatted at the head of a Nartec rising to his feet. He fell back.
But now Rachel gave way, st
aggered back as the wound took its toll. The Nartec poured into the gap.
Marco punched and pounded. Cassie tore and shredded.
Tobias joined the battle. The Nartec’s oversized eyes made clear targets for Tobias’s talons.
We were fighting hard and fast.
But still the Nartec flooded the room!
They weren’t great warriors. They were physically weak. Some ran away in panic. But they had weapons. And they had courage.
They kept coming, pouring into the dock, pushing through the doorway, filling the corridor. . .
CLAAANG!CLAAANG!
Harpoons bounced harmlessly off the Sea Blade’s hull. I glanced up through a porthole to see more Nartec scrambling up the sides of the ship, their webbed hands and feet helping them climb.
125 THWAP! THWAP! THWAP! THWAP!
The Nartec’s slapping footsteps on the deck above us.
«Ax!»
«Progress. But not enough to attempt launch.»
We couldn’t lose this battle! We couldn’t let the Nartec use the Sea Blade. We couldn’t let the ship survive.
And we had to get back to the surface!
I bit and tore, leaped and scratched. But we kept backing up. Back to the bridge. Back to where Ax stood working feverishly. In seconds we’d have to pull him into the battle. And then . . .
We were cornered. There were just too many of them! They were exhausting us with sheer numbers.
Blood ran down my haunches from the points of handheld spears.
The harpoon wound in Rachel’s shoulder oozed badly.
Cassie was panting, her sides heaving, her right front paw partially gone.
Marco had a short sword protruding from the black, leather chest of his gorilla morph. Shocking to see.
Even Tobias was wearing out from struggling to gain altitude over and over again in the small, relatively low-ceilinged space.
126 From diving, talons outstretched. Raking one Nartec face after another. Something had to give. Something . . . BOOUUUSSSSHHHH!
127
CHAPTER 22
BOUUUSSSSHHHH!
A massive blast of heat and light from the corridor!
Ten, twelve Nartec at the mouth of the hall fell to the floor, their skin smoldering. They crawled away, desperate to escape.
«What the heck was that!» Marco yelled. He held up his right arm. The dark coarse hair was singed from sturdy fist to shoulder.
The Mutation Page 7
