And then, I was no longer the tiger. I was my own prey. I watched through eyes wide with terror as the tiger sprang.
I woke up. My eyes were already open.
«lnteresting dream,» the Yeerk said. «Very metaphorical.»
I looked out through the eyes the Yeerk had opened. Rachel was still sitting back against the wall. Her book was open on her lap. But her breathing was heavy and regular. Her eyes were closed.
She had fallen asleep!
Her flashlight was still on. It shone across the rough wood floor. It illuminated my right arm and leg.
My arm ... my leg ... they had changed! My arms were thicker, more powerful, and growing larger still. My hands had swollen and become huge. The fingers were disappearing, replaced by curved claws as sharp as stilettos.
Orange-and-black-striped fur appeared, a rip pling wave that grew to cover me.
128 I was becoming the tiger!
The realization hit me like a jolt of electricity. I was morphing!
The Yeerk was morphing!
How could I have been so stupid? Of course! The Yeerk controlled my hands and feet and voice, he controlled my very mind. Of course he had my morphing power, too!
The others . . . they didn't realize. They didn't understand. They had tied me up, but it was use less. The Yeerk had access to every one of my morphs.
The ropes around my hands were painfully tight as my wrists swelled to become powerful forepaws.
The Yeerk raised the rope and used the tiger's teeth to tear the rope apart.
I wanted to warn Rachel. She was still asleep. I had to warn her. The Yeerk would escape. He might even kill her.
But try as I might, I could not reach my own body any longer. I could not reach my own body.
«l won't kill her,» the Yeerk said. «Like you, she is capable of morphing. I will deliver Visser Three four morph-capable humans, as well as one Andalitescum.»
I now saw the world through tiger's eyes. The night was brighter. And I heard with tiger's ears.
129 Ears that caught any sound that might be made by a predator.
The tiger sniffed the air. But the breeze was slight, and carried no warnings.
«What a wonderful animal this is, this tiger,» the Yeerk said. «Excellent senses. Fast and silent and deadly.»
The forest was dark and quiet, but for the rustling of leaves in the trees above. Absolute si lence, as the tiger crept away. No sound as the tiger melted into the shadows. And Rachel still slept.
Soon the shack could no longer be seen. The beam of Rachel's flashlight was swallowed by black night.
But the Yeerk was uncertain now. He did not know where we were. He did not know which way to go.
And then ... a sound. A smell.
Humans!
«What are humans doing here?» He opened my memory. He searched my brain for an expla nation. I had none. «Your own thoughts tell me it is wrong. It is very late. Humans, this deep in the forest?»
The Yeerk moved away from the human scent. They might be hunters. They might be park rangers. Those were the possibilities he had pulled from my own brain.
129^
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130 The Yeerk sent the tiger body into a loping run. But after just ten minutes, the tiger tired and he had to slow down. Tigers are not distance runners.
«Which way?» the Yeerk wondered.
And then . . . once again. Human scent. Hu man sounds.
I looked through the tiger's eyes and saw nothing. The Yeerk once more turned from the human scent.
The Yeerk searched my memory. «South. I must go south. But which way is south? Anything else will send me deeper into the forest.»
«l guess you're lost,» I said. The first thing I had said to the Yeerk in a long time.
«Shut up, slave. Once the sun rises in the morning I will know the way to go.»
«Two hours in a morph,» I reminded him. «lf I'm stuck in tiger morph, then this body will be useless to you. Visser Three will want my body morph-capable.»
«Don't tell me what Visser Three wants,» the Yeerk said.
But the Yeerk knew time was passing. He had to morph back to my normal human shape.
Moments later, I was watching the world through human senses. The night vision was less acute. The ears heard too little. The human nose could scarcely smell a thing.
131 The Yeerk walked, pushing on as fast as my human body could move with no shoes.
«ln a hurry to go nowhere?» I asked.
«l know where I'm going,» the Yeerk snapped. Then he stopped. «Hah! I should have thought of it. Of course! The falcon morph. I will simply fly away.»
I watched like it was a TV program. Like I was far away from my own body. I watched with inter est as the body shrank. As wings sprouted. As talons appeared. As -
WHAM!
The half-bird, half-human body went rolling, end over end across the ground.
«What?» the Yeerk demanded. «What hit me?»
He looked around frantically. But falcon eyes are for daytime hunting. They are stunningly good in sunlight. In the dark, they are nothing special.
The Yeerk continued to morph. Falcon feathers grew, the wings became more fully formed.
WHAM!
A shadow within shadows. A sense of something dark that disappeared before the Yeerk could turn the falcon's head. From far away I realized the falcon body had been injured. There was a deep, bloody gash in the right shoulder.
The Yeerk was beginning to be afraid.
131^
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132 WHAM!
A hammer blow! A ripping of flesh and ten don.
The invisible enemy had struck again. The falcon would not be able to take wing. Not now. The falcon was crippled. Disabled by a silent, in visible enemy.
And then I felt hope come alive in me again.
Because even as the Yeerk, crying in pain, de-morphed and returned to human form, I saw the enemy.
It landed on a branch. It was outlined against faint moonlight and infrequent stars. The two little tufts on its head inspired its name.
«The great horned owl,» I said to the Yeerk.
«l can read your every thought, you don't need to tell me what it is,» the Yeerk snapped.
«0h, but I enjoy telling you. It's a great horned owl. It flies without making a sound. To bias watches them hunt sometimes. Tobias says they can hear a mouse burp from a hundred yards away. He says they can see a bug blink on a coal-black night.» I laughed silently in my corner of my own brain. I laughed at the Yeerk. «As far as that owl is concerned, you might as well have a spotlight on you.»
Then, to my amazement, Cassie's thought- speak was in my head. A voiceless voice that seemed to belong in a different life.
133 «Sorry I had to hurt you, Jake. But it was necessary. We realized the Yeerk would try morphing. So we were ready. Rachel only pretended to sleep. We wanted this Yeerk of yours to make his escape when we were most ready for him. So you hang in, Jake. The forest is full of your friends.»
The humans the tiger had smelled. ... My friends.
Then I felt it again. The sensation that filled me with a grim sort of pleasure. I felt the Yeerk's fear.
It was good to know that he was afraid.
It was very good.
133^
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134 J. could feel the Yeerk opening my memory like a book again. He was checking through the list of all the morphs I had ever done.
Dog. Fish. Flea. Seagull. Dolphin. Ant. Wolf.
I knew what he must be thinking. Which could he use to evade the watchful owl in the tree above us? The owl who saw through the night like it was day, and heard the sounds no human could hear.
«She can't stay in owl morph forever,» the Yeerk said. «She has a two-hour time limit. Just as I do.»
«But of course there's Rachel and Marco and Ax. You don't know how many of them are here. You don't know where they are or what they are.»
135 «Can the owl watch a flea?
I doubt it. Or an ant?» The Yeerk smirked.
«True. But how far can a flea travel in the two-hour time limit? Twenty yards? Thirty? Then you have to demorph and my friends will have no trouble finding you.»
«Shut up!» he yelled, losing patience.
I reveled in his anger. It meant he was scared. It also meant something else. I could not control my arms or legs. I could not even keep my mind closed from him. But he could not stop my thoughts. He could not stop me from talking to him.
And I had the power to annoy him. To distract him when he should be focused on escaping.
«You think you can harass me?» he said, reading my thoughts as soon as I had them. «You overestimate yourself.»
«You underestimate us, Yeerk. You thought you'd just morph and walk away. You guessed wrong. And your three days is less than two and a half already. Tick tock, Yeerk. Tick tock.»
«Let's see whether your owl friend can handle a wolf as easily as she handled the falcon.»
He began morphing. The wolf form was one I had enjoyed. Wolves are not subject to much fear. And their instincts are easily manipulated. Not like ants. Or the lizard that was one of my earliest morphs.
135
n
136 I watched as my body sprouted gray fur. As my face bulged out to become a long snout. As my ears slid up the side of my head to rest on top.
«l see our owl friend is keeping her dis tance^ the Yeerk said. «l thought as much.»
He set out at a fast trot. Unlike tigers, wolves are long-distance travelers. They can cover amaz ing distances at a run. And worse, the wolf brain seemed to have some interior sense of direction. It knew which way was deeper into woods, and which way led to the city.
We ran through woods, through a night as dark as night can be. Clouds hung low over the forest, allowing only the palest glow from the moon.
«A quick jog back to what passes for civilization on this planet, demorph to human, and your friends will be powerless to stop me,» the Yeerk said.
I wondered who he was trying to convince. Me, or himself?
«You're an arrogant bunch, aren't you? You Yeerks, I mean.»
«Arrogant? Why wouldn't we be? We are the most powerful race in the galaxy. Overlords of the Taxxons. Conquerors of the Hork-Bajir and the Ssstram and the Mak. Soon to be conquerors of the humans.»
137 «Don't count the humans just yet,» I said. «And there are still the Andalites.»
«We'll save the Andalites for last,» he hissed.
He stopped moving and pricked up his wolf's ears. There came a distinct howling sound. Loud and not very far away, it rose and warbled and rose again before dying away.
A second wolf voice howled.
«Another wolf. Two,» the Yeerk said. I felt him contact the wolf's own submerged instinc tive mind. What was the meaning of the howling?
A notice. A warning to any other wolves that we are here. Don't come around, unless you want to risk a fight.
Suddenly I realized what it meant. I laughed.
«This is an area we were in before,» I said. «As wolves. We discovered - »
«Silence! I know what you found. When will you figure out that I can read your memory as well as you can?»
«We found another pack of wolves. They think this is their territory,» I went on, enjoying the fact that I was bothering him. «Those howls you hear? Those are my friends. They're calling to the other wolf pack. Better run faster, Yeerk. That big male who runs the other pack is tough.»
The Yeerk began running all out, pushing the wolf body for all the speed and endurance it had.
The dark tree trunks were a blur as we ran
138 through the night, followed by the howls of wolves who were not wolves.
Then, a smell on the wind. The smell of an other wolf. A male wolf.
«l believe that's my old friend now,» I said, laughing.
The Yeerk stopped running.
Ahead, through the trees, a pair of glittering yellow eyes glared at us. Other eyes appeared. Five wolves - five real wolves - waited for us to try to move forward.
«Go ahead ? » I taunted the Yeerk. «Go kick his butt. Of course, that's a real /wolf there. An al pha male. Leader of his pack, which means he's probably been in a dozen fights and won them all. Go on, Yeerk. Tell him how the Yeerks are masters of the galaxy. I'm sure he'll be very impressed^
I could sense the Yeerk's hesitation. His un certainty.
«So many species on this planet,» he said to himself. «So many balances and connections. Everything preying on everything else. Every power is checked by some other power. Every ad vantage is canceled by some disadvantages
«Yeah. Earth. It's a tough neighborhoods
«When we take this planet, we will eliminate these species. We will simplify. Things should be simpler. Yes, much simpler.»
139 «l have a news flash for you, Yeerk. I don't think you're going to take this planet. I think this planet is going to take you.»
Just then, a human voice. "So. You about done playing games? Ready to come back to the shack?"
It was Marco. He was shoeless and wearing his morphing outfit. He had been one of the wolves who'd led us straight into the enemy pack.
Marco shivered. "Look, Mr. Yeerk, it's cold and I'm freezing. I always knew this situation with the morphing outfits was going to be trouble some day. So come on. Let's go back to the shack."
For a moment the Yeerk was so enraged he was ready to leap at Marco and tear out his throat.
But then, lumbering up behind Marco came Rachel. The very large version of Rachel with the trunk, the big leathery ears, and the two huge tusks.
Marco seemed to guess what had gone through the Yeerk's mind. "Go ahead. Try some thing. A wolf pack ahead. A very large, surpris ingly fast African elephant behind you. And more surprises in the woods all around you. Oh, and one more thing . . . Cassie is nestled down in your fur. Sucking your blood, I imagine. She did the flea thing."
140 I realized then that there is a very basic dif ference between Yeerks and humans.
A human will fight even when he knows he can't win. Maybe our species is just a little crazy. But human history is full of cases where a handful of guys would fight an entire army. They'd get stomped, but they'd fight anyway.
That's not the way it is for Yeerks. They are ruthless. They will do anything, absolutely anything to win. But when the situation is impossible, totally impossible, they stop fighting. They figure that other Yeerks will carry on the fight for them.
Different ways of looking at your world.
«You are fools,» the Yeerk said, having read my thoughts. «lt is madness to fight when you cannot win.»
«Yes, it is foolish. It is crazy,» I agreed. «And it's why we will win.»
The Yeerk demorphed and returned to human form. My human form.
Marco walked away into the woods. Rachel rumbled off. And a few minutes later, an owl ap peared to lead the way back to the shack.
141 I he next morning, when it seemed like no one was watching, the Yeerk tried again. He morphed into an ant. He got three feet before running into a group of ants from a different colony. About forty of them attacked. They were ripping the ant body apart when the Yeerk de-morphed and returned to human form.
«This is a savage planet,» he said. «We will tame this world, when we take it over.» But I don't think even he believed it anymore.
It was around nine in the morning on Saturday that the Yeerk first took over my body and brain. By Monday evening, when the sun went down, he was growing distracted, unable to concentrate clearly.
142 By the time the moon rose in a newly clear, starry sky, he was weak with hunger. His slug body cried out for Kandrona rays the way a human would cry for food or water.
I could feel his arrogance evaporate. I could feel his despair.
He still had fantasies of being rescued. But he couldn't make those fantasies end very well. Even if he was rescued, he would no longer be the big hero who had destroyed
the Animorphs.
He would try to think of clever ways to outwit my friends, but he could never be sure who was in the woods around us. Or what form they might have taken.
He tried to take on a bird shape again, reforming the peregrine falcon. The DNA had not been affected by the injuries Cassie had caused to the earlier morph, of course. The falcon was fine. But it was daylight this time, and Tobias landed while the falcon was still half-morphed. He grabbed the falcon head in his talon and simply explained that if the Yeerk did not demorph, he would be killed.
For the first time, the Yeerk broke his silence with the others and spoke as a Yeerk.
«lf you kill me, you'll kill your friend, as well,» he warned.
«Yes,» Tobias said. «l know.»
«You won't do it»
143 «Right from the start we have all said the same thing - better to die than be a Controller^ Tobias said. «But in any case, I don't need to kill you. I can simply put your eyes out. A blind fal con doesn't fly far.»
The Yeerk surrendered and demorphed.
We waited, as the minutes and hours of the night ticked away. He still hoped for a miracle to save him. But his hunger was a terrible thing, growing with every second.
«You think you'll win,» he sneered at me. «You won't win. Your people are blind to what is happening. And the Andalites will not return in time.»
«Maybe. But you won't be there to see it,» I said. «lt must be four in the morning. Five hours left. Ticktock.»
«You're a cruel little human, aren't you?»
«l don't think so, no.»
«You know I am dying and you laugh at me.»
«What do you expect? Pity?»
He laughed. «No. We don't offer pity. And we don't expect pity. We are the masters of the galaxy. Conquerors of the Hork-Bajir and - »
«Yeah, yeah, I know. The mighty Yeerk em pires
After that he said nothing to me for a while. It was impossible to sleep. He sat with my eyes open. He was too hungry to rest. The hunger infil trated his mind. It twisted his thoughts.
144 «The Yeerk home world is a simpler place than this planet. Simple and elegant. No more than a hundred animal species. What do you have on Earth? A million species? More? What does a planet need with a million species?»
Applegate, K A - Animorphs 06 - The Capture Page 8
