We dug our clothes and shoes out of their hid ing place. I pulled jeans and a sweatshirt on over my wet morphing suit. I shoved muddy feet into my boots.
«Strange,» Ax said, watching us very closely.
145 «What is the meaning of the things you place on your bodies?»
"It's clothing," Rachel explained.
«Why do you wear it? Does it protect you from the environment?»
"Yes. That, plus the fact that people get very upset if you walk around naked," Marco answered.
There was a fluttering overhead. One of the shadowed branches dipped with a sudden weight.
"Is that you, Tobias?" I asked.
«Yes. You . . . you found an Andalite!»
"Yes. Tobias, meet Ax. That's his nickname, anyway. Ax, meet Tobias. Tobias is one of us."
«Sort of, anyway,» Tobias said dryly. «l liked this morph so much I moved in permanently.»
The Andalite was shocked. «You were trapped?»
«Yes.»
Ax turned his eyes on me, then looked from each one of us to the next. He seemed very solemn. «You have paid a price for the gift of my brother, Elfangor.»
«Prince Elfangor was your brother?» Tobias demanded. His hawk's eyes glittered. «l was with him at the end.»
"This is all fine," Jake interrupted, "but we have to get out of here. And we have to decide what to do with Ax. He can't exactly just go walk ing through town with us."
146 "I think he should come to my farm," I said. "It's not so different from the dome ship. Fields, meadows, woods, all the way into the national forest land. He'd have to be careful, but it's the only place we have to hide him."
"That still doesn't deal with how we're going to get him there," Marco pointed out. "It's a long walk. People are gonna notice a big blue deer with extra eyes and a scorpion tail."
«l must morph,» Ax said.
"Yeah, but into what?" Rachel wondered.
Then, to my surprise, Ax walked over to me. He placed one delicate, many-fingered hand on my face.
«With your permission^ he said.
I felt myself getting spacey. Not sleepy, exactly, but sort of like I was in a trance.
I realized what he was doing. He was "acquir ing" me. He was absorbing my DNA.
"Urn . . . excuse me, but you're going to morph Cassie?" Marco asked. "Can you do that?"
Ax went to Marco and touched his face. One by one, Ax acquired each of us.
And then he began to morph.
I've seen a lot of strange morph ings. But nothing was ever like this. Ax wasn't becoming an animal. He was becoming a human being.
But a human being we all knew, in some ways. A melding of the four human Animorphs.
147 His front legs began to shrivel away. His back legs thickened and strengthened. Suddenly a mouth appeared in his Andalite face.
The scorpion tail shrank and disappeared.
He reared up and stood erect.
"Urn, you know, I think we better give Ax some privacy," I suggested.
"Is he going to be a boy or a girl?" Marco won dered.
"Either way, let's turn our heads," I said.
We did. Probably just in time.
"Hey, Ax? In the pile of clothes there is an extra pair of boxers and a T-shirt," Jake said. "Put them on, okay?"
A few minutes later we turned around. We all stared.
Ax had the T-shirt pulled up like a baggy pair of shorts. The boxers were on his head.
" O -o-o-o-kay," Jake said. "A few small adjust ments needed. Ax, are you male or female?"
"I chose to be-be-be-be-be male." He stopped suddenly, eyes wide. He was surprised by his mouth. It was not something Andalites un derstood.
"I chose male because I am male. Word. Male. Is that a good choice? Ch-oy-ce? Chuh chuh choy-yuss?" He twisted his lips around and stuck out his tongue. "Strange," he said.
"Male is fine," Jake said. "Rachel? Cassie?
148 Turn around. Marco and I will help Ax adjust his clothing."
When I looked again, Ax was dressed normally.
But he did not look normal. He was of medium height, a perfect balance between Rachel and Marco. He was of medium build, somewhere between Jake and Marco. His hair was brown, with just a little of Rachel's gold and a little of my curl. His skin was the color of light brown sugar, a blending of my brown and Marco's olive, and Jake and Rachel's pale white.
He was human and yet, somehow, strange.
He jerked his head this way and that. "How do you look? Lookuh. LooKUH. KUH. How do you look around? Ound. Ow, ow, ownd behind?"
I grinned. It was exactly like every time I first morphed a new animal. He was getting used to his new body. Or at least trying to. As I watched him play with his lips and try out new sounds, he suddenly tumbled forward.
Jake grabbed him and held him.
"You only have two legs now, Ax," he said.
"Yes. Two. Oo. Very shaky."
"Yeah, we're a shaky species," Marco said.
"Well, let's get out of here," Jake said.
"Ax?" I said. "Don't talk to any strangers on the way home, okay?"
149
I t was a couple of days later. After we had recovered. After I had made sure that Ax was safe in the far fields of our farm, away from curious eyes.
I waited till dark, and changed again into the seagull morph.
I flew out of my barn and through the night to The Gardens.
It was closed and empty, aside from a few scattered security guards. They would have stopped me if I had tried to enter normally. But no one was looking out for seagulls.
I landed near the dolphin tank and became human again. There were no lights on and just a sliver of moon, but I could hear the dolphins
150 swimming. One came over to me, curious about why a human would be hanging around at night.
"Hi," I said. "Sorry, I don't have any food for you."
Then I climbed up on the side of the tank. I let myself go, slipping into the cool water.
Three of the dolphins came over to take a look. This was definitely something unusual. Some strange human was getting in the pool with them. This was a new game.
I began to morph.
This definitely got their attention. All six dol phins swam around, looking up at me, sideways at me, back at me as they passed.
And slowly I became one of them.
It was a dumb thing to do, really. I knew it was dumb. But it felt like something I had to do.
I wanted to show them what I had done. I wanted their permission to become one of them. I wanted to find some way to tell them . . . every thing.
But you know, once I was in that dolphin body again, it was hard to remember all my solemn worries. It was hard to remember why I had come.
Hard to remember fear and worry and guilt.
One of them came over, gave me a nudge, then shot toward the surface. She exploded into
151 the air and fell back, as silent and smooth as an arrow.
They were asking me to play.
They were asking me to dance with them.
And so I did.
152 Don't miss
Animorphs
#5 The Predator
?S top!" a cop yelled. "I'm ordering you to halt!"
But Ax wasn't interested in halting. He was panicked.
A woman stepped out of the Body Shop holding a bag full of colorful jars. Ax plowed into her. The bag went flying.
The stalks began to grow out of the top of his head. The extra eyes appeared on the ends and turned backward to watch the people chasing him.
Jake and I were two of those people. We were ahead of the cops, but not by much. Fortunately, I guess the cops assumed we were just idiots running along for fun.
I could hear one of the cops yelling into his walkie-talkie. "Cut him off at the east entrance!"
Legs began to grow from the chest of Ax's hu man morph. His own front legs, small at first, but growing rapidly.
153 He was slow
ing down as his human legs began to change. The knees were reversing direc tion. His spine elongated into the beginnings of a tail.
Then's when the screaming started.
"Ahhhahhhhh!"
"What is it? What IS it?"
People were screaming and running and dropping their bags as they caught sight of the nightmare creature Ax had become. Half-human, half-Andalite. A fluid, shifting mess of half- formed features.
I couldn't blame them. I felt like screaming myself.
. . . Suddenly, Ax fell forward, tangled up in his own mutating legs. He skidded down the polished marble floor. . . .
"You kids get out of the way!" one of them yelled at us. "This guy could be dangerous."
Ax sprang up. He was much more sure of himself, now that he was on his four Andalite hooves. . . .
It was then that I heard the nearest mall cop, in an awed frightened whisper, say, "Andalite!"
I quickly turned and looked at him. Only a Controller would recognize an Andalite. The Controller cop drew his gun from his holster.
"RUN!" I yelled at Ax. . . .
Applegate, K A - Animorphs 04 - The Message Page 9
