«Stay in morph,» David ordered.
I did what he told me. I saw him begin to change, watching the brown feathers melt into pink flesh and the fabric of his morphing outfit.
I saw the moment when David's smirk emerged from the long, hooked beak. Glancing up, I saw the others circling overhead, doing as they'd been told. The darkness was spreading. My friends were fuzzy gray shadows against the darker clouds.
"Now, Rachel, now you can demorph. But as soon as you do, I want you to go into the rat morph we'll both be using."
I didn't bother answering. I just did what I was told. As I changed, David said, "You know, Rachel, it's a shame it worked out this way. I
132 mean, if you weren't such a harsh person I would have invited you to quit this little gang and hook up with me. Jake doesn't even know how to use his powers. I mean, come on, who cares if the Yeerks are around? With Animorph powers we can have anything we want."
I began to change into the rat. It was a morph I'd done once before with Cassie. It was not something I wanted to do again. But David had to believe I had morphed it to help Cassie hide the pieces of the blue box.
I began to shrink. The fast, ever falling, falling, falling shrink you do when you're getting very small.
White fur rippled across my body. Down my arms, up my neck, down my back, itching against my outer clothing.
The concrete floor was rushing up at me. All the barely visible cracks and crevices in the concrete now looked like ditches and dried creek beds. The empty beer bottles loomed as big as buses.
My own legs were shrinking, becoming stubby, squat, shuffling things. My arms did the same. I could no longer stand. I fell forward.
I shriveled and shrank and became hideous as David seemed to grow ever more huge. He was a monster a million miles tall!
My face bulged out impossibly far, narrowing
133 down to a sniffing pink nose. My ears crawled up the side of my head. And from the base of my spine I felt the distant, numbed sensation of the long, hairless, ugly tail sprouting.
David began to morph, but I could not make it out for a while. Not till I saw the diamond-patterned scales ripple and replace his skin. Then his arms and legs began to dwindle away to smoke, and I knew for sure.
He was morphing the rattlesnake.
He was smaller and smaller, but as he morphed, he slithered his coils around me. Brown and tan and black coils looped around me, a fence twice, three times my height.
Sliding over the coils, the head appeared. A forked tongue as long as I was whipped out, tasted the air, and shot back in.
«0ne wrong move, Rachel,» David said. «Just one wrong move . . .» Then in "loud" thought-speak, he told the others to come down.
Down they came, spiraling through the last gasp of sunlight to land atop the walls that surrounded us. A falcon, a harrier, two ospreys. All deadly enemies of a rat.
«IMow, all four of you demorph. One wrong move and I bite this rat here.»
He opened his fleshy jaws, revealed the hollow, poison-delivering teeth, and moved to within an inch of me.
134 I knew the rat was fast. But not faster than a striking rattler.
I was completely and entirely in his power. And I was afraid.
I was afraid. But the rat, surrounded by birds of prey and with its ancestral enemy the snake just a breath away, was in a state of shrieking terror.
135 «l low, all of you demorph. As soon as you've demorphed, remorph,» David instructed.
«What morph?» Jake demanded.
«Cockroach.»
«That's not part of the plan!» Jake yelled.
«Too bad. You think I'm some kind of an idiot? You think I'm going to go into rat morph and have the four of you waiting around to squash me like a bug? Not a chance.»
«That's it, deal's done,» Jake said.
«0h, yeah? Then you're going to lose another cousin, Jake,» David said. «You are all going to morph to cockroach. Period. And if there's no deal, I bite Rachel right here and now.»
136 I knew logically that Jake would go along. I knew that as a human. But the rat brain inside my own mind only sensed greater peril. Suddenly, the rat's body froze. Froze stiff with terror. I could not move a muscle. All I could do was quiver.
«l want your word,» Jake said weakly.
«You have my word, Jake,» David said generously.
It took ten minutes for the others to demorph and remorph. Soon four cockroaches scurried just beyond the snake's coils.
Then David demorphed.
I knew what was coming next. We all knew what was coming next. Still, it wasn't easy to act the part we had to act.
«So far, so good,» Jake whispered to me.
«Yeah. Let's just hope he doesn't go nuts on us,» I said.
«Cassie thinks he'll play it out the way we think he will,» Jake said.
I would have smiled if I'd had lips. Jake has a lot of respect for Cassie's ability to "read" people. So do I. Although, I reminded myself, Cassie had not seen how evil David could be.
«ln any case, we do have a backup plan if he starts stomping us all,» I said.
«Not a great backup plan,» Marco said morbidly. «More like a really pathetic backup plan.»
137 David loomed larger and larger as he sprouted back into his human form. I saw him reach down and scoop up what could have been a beer bottle. He rummaged and found a cap.
«Here we go,» I told Jake and the others.
«What's he got?»
«Like we planned: a bottle.»
«Beer or soft drink?» Cassie wondered.
«Looks like Pepsi.»
«l guess that's good,» Marco said.
«Do cockroaches have a sense of taste?» Ax wondered.
David reached down and scooped up one of the four cockroaches. He put the mouth of the bottle beneath it and dropped it into the bottle.
«Hey! Hey, what's happening?» Marco yelled.
David laughed. "I'm putting you somewhere safe."
«What are you doing?!» Jake yelled.
"Don't worry, I'll keep my word," David said. "I'm not going to hurt any of you. I just want to make sure you don't hurt me. Now stand still and we can get this over with."
One by one, David scooped up my friends and dropped them into the Pepsi bottle. Then he screwed the bottle top back in place.
"Now, Rachel, we go get the blue box," David said. "Now that there's no chance of your friends interfering."
138 I saw four brown cockroaches trapped within the bottle. There was no way they could de-morph. If one of them tried he would begin by crushing the others and would then be smothered within the bottle, ending up as nothing but a blob of unformed flesh.
David lifted the bottle up to eye level and laughed. "I've done what Visser Three and all his Yeerk Empire couldn't do! I have the Animorphs! Trapped! Hah-hah-hah!"
«You don't have the blue box yet,» I reminded him.
"But I will, Rachel. I will if you expect to see any of these friends of yours alive again. Yeah, I will have the blue box."
Cassie started screaming. «We'll be trapped as cockroaches! We'll be trapped forever!»
David sat the bottle down.
"Two hours, Rachel. Two hours till they are trapped forever as roaches. Let's go get that blue box."
139 Ln the concrete floor of the never-to-be-finished building was a drain. The drain cover was off. Scurrying on rat feet, I led David to it.
It was about six inches in diameter. To a rat it was plenty big.
«Down there?» David asked nervously.
«Down there,» I said.
«You go first,» he said.
I nosed over the edge and blinked blindly at the darkness. I took a deep breath. At least it was better than the time I'd had to morph a mole and dig through the dirt. Not much better, though.
I dove over the side and into the pipe. I landed hard after a six-inch drop onto damp, rot-
140 ting leaves and filth. I was expecting it.
I had tested the route with Cassie earlier.
I quickly scurried a few inches down a horizontal pipe. David made a satisfying splat as he hit face first.
«Aaahh!»
«Watch out for that first step,» I said.
«l can't see anything!»
«Well, that would be because we're in a pipe underground^ I said.
«Don't make me mad, Rachel,» David said ominously.
«First piece is down this pipe,» I said. I scurried off, utterly blind, with David bringing up the rear.
«This better not be a trap,» David said. «You mess with me, I'll make sure you never get out of here. And your friends will spend the rest of their lives afraid of bug spray.»
«So what are you going to do with the bluebox?» I asked.^«,
«What do you care?»
«Just curious,» I said meekly.
«l'll need some people to help me. Like a gang.»
«Aren't you afraid that once you give someone morphing power they'll turn out to be a ... to do what you did to us?»
David laughed. «You don't think I already
141 thought of that? You guys made a big mistake: You got me. See, I was smarter than any of you. That's why you lost. I'll be more careful. I'll only choose the kind of guys who are too dumb to do anything except obey me.»
I rolled my little rat eyes. This guy's ego just kept growing.
«Here's the first piece,» I said.
«Where?»
«Squeeze up here and you can feel it.»
«How do we get out of here with the piece?»
«Back up. There's a side pipe we can use as a turnarounds
«0kay. You drag the piece.»
I grabbed the piece with my sharp little teeth and scooted backward, running occasionally into David's nose. Served him right.
We found the side pipe and awkwardly turned around.
«Where's the next piece?»
«Right down that side pipe. But we have to drag this one out first,» I said.
«Why? Why not get all the pieces and then push them all back to the exit pipe?»
«!...! guess we never thought of that,» I said.
«0f course not,» he said condescendingly. «But it's kind of obvious, don't you think?»
«Yeah. I guess it is.»
142
I headed down the second pipe. Now my heart was really pounding. So hard I thought David might hear it and begin to suspect.
But no, I had carefully fed his bloated ego, and I had played the role of the beaten-down, humiliated girl. His guard was down. He'd killed Tobias. He had my friends trapped. What was there to be afraid of?
«Everythingready?» I called in private thought-speak.
«Everything is ready,» Cassie answered in a tortured voice. «May I be forgiven for what I am about to do.»
143 D,
down the pipe. Through muck and standing water and filth. Past bugs of several types.
Down the black, claustrophobic tunnel. With David literally stepping on my tail.
I was close. Very close.
Fresh air! No! No! David would sense it, he'd realize . . . distraction! I had to distract him.
The pipe suddenly opened into what felt to us like a cavern. It was perhaps a foot square, steel all around, but the smell of fresh air was unmistakable to my sensitive rat's nose.
To my utter horror, I heard the sound of a distant jet flying overhead. There was no way we should have been able to hear that jet.
144 «What's that?» David demanded. «That sound, what is that sound?»
«Water in the pipes?» I suggested nonchalantly.
David pushed into the chamber beside me. All I had to do was back out, get back down that pipe before he did. But if I lunged he would know instantly.
«Smells different in here,» he said.
«Yeah, it does,» I agreed.
Neither of us could see the other. But I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head.
A sudden sound of movement!
He knew! He was going for the exit.
I jumped to block his path. Damp fur against damp fur, we collided. In a flash he was on me, teeth and paws tearing at my face.
«You think you can trick me?!» he shrieked.
We fell back, face-to-face, both bleeding. The pipe was on my right, on David's left. We were equally close to it. Equally far away. Both utterly blind.
«Be ready,» I told Jake grimly. «Be very, very ready. We have problems.»
David rushed at me, but this time I slid beneath his gnawing mouth, then jerked upward, throwing him off-balance.
I leaped for the exit.
Stopped!
145 He had my tail in his jaw. He was pulling me back. I couldn't reach him, and if I tried we'd go around in a circle like a dog chasing its tail. He'd be able to get back out of the pipe, maybe escape altogether in the sewer network.
«Have a good grip back there, Davey boy?» I said.
«You won't get away!»
«Yeah?» I twisted back, just as David hoped I would. Only I didn't attack him. Instead, ignoring the hideous pain, I chewed through my own tail.
«Aaaahhhh!» I cried in agony as the last shred of skin parted.
«Nooooo!» David screamed as he fell back, holding nothing but a few inches of tail.
I darted for the exit, and before I was halfway into it yelled, «NOW! NOW! NOW!»
The steel gate slammed down. It would have snagged my tail, if I'd still had one.
David slammed against the barrier. It was adull thump.~««M!»-
«No! N00000!»
Suddenly, there was light everywhere. A flashlight shone right on my face. I blinked like a miner coming up after a day digging coal.
«Hey, you want to point that somewhere else?» I grumped.
In the light of two wavering flashlights, everything could be seen. The way the ground
146 above the pipe had been dug up, baring the pipe. The way the pipe had been cut. And the steel box that had been affixed to the pipe end.
Not to mention the sliding door that turned the box into a cage. A trap.
The top of the box hinged up. But there was a strong wire grid to keep David inside.
There he was, a rat. He blinked up at the faces around him: Jake, Cassie, Marco, Ax. And my face as I quickly demorphed.
«No way! How did you get out of that bottle?» he demanded.
That's when Tobias swooped down from the dark sky and landed atop the cage.
«But. . . but you're . . .»
«Dead?» Tobias supplied. «No. You killed some poor red-tail who was minding his own business. I broke the Pepsi bottle. The bottle we deliberately left where you could be inspired to use it.»
"See, David," Marco said, "we knew you were in the barn, listening to our every word. How did we know? Tobias. So we played out that whole pathetic scene for you about how disgraced Rachel was. We knew you'd get so much sick pleasure out of forcing her to obey you."
"That piece of the blue box we retrieved? A Lego," I said.
«AII of your actions, even your emotions, were
147 anticipated,» Ax said. «We anticipated how you would respond. So we were able to manipulate you.»
«0kay, okay,» David said with a laugh. «0kay, so you guys won. That's cool. I can accept that. Fine, I'll go my own way now.»
No one said anything.
«look, I'm serious, all right? Jake, you're the man, okay?»
I looked at Jake. He looked like he hated being alive. I turned my gaze to Marco. He was carefully staring into empty space.
Cassie was crying.
David hadn't asked who the mastermind of the plan was. Who it was who had so accurately appraised his emotions, his need to build his ego, the fact that he would choose me to be his "companion." Cassie, of course. Cassie had worked it out, step by step, after Jake and I failed to come up with anything.
For Cassie, it was an improvement over the alternatives. See, no one was goi
ng to have to die.
But David's life would end, just the same. And so would "Saddler's." Eventually, they would find the real Saddler's body, and then they would know, that at least for them, there was no such thing as a miracle.
«No,» David whispered as the truth began to dawn on him. «No, no. No.»
148 None of us had a watch, of course, since we'd morphed. But Ax was very accurate about keeping track of time.
Jake looked at Ax. Ax showed no visible emotion. But I knew Ax well enough to know that he was not exactly enjoying any part of this.
«He has been in morph for thirteen minutes^ Ax reported.
«No, no, no. You guys aren't going to do this!» David cried.
"You tried to kill us," Jake said. "You threatened to turn us over to Visser Three. Not to mention what you've done to Saddler's family."
«You can't judge me!» David cried. «You're not God!»
"David, we have fought the Yeerks for a long time now. It seems like forever," Jake said wearily. "We are not going to let you beat us. We are going to save the human race if we can. There are larger issues . . . more important . . ."
Jake looked at Cassie helplessly. He shrugged and made a face like he couldn't stand hearing himself talk.
"We're doing to you what you were trying to do to us," I said. "Law of the jungle: eat or be eaten."
I looked at the others. "No need for all of us to hang around here. It looks too obvious. It's bad security. I can handle this."
149 «l will stay, to keep track of the time,» Ax said.
I nodded.
"You don't have to do this, Rachel," Jake said. "Everyone is in on this. We all made this choice."
"Yeah, but it won't bother me. It will bother you guys."
Of course Jake didn't believe me. Neither did Cassie or Tobias. Maybe Marco did. I don't know.
No one made a move to leave.
"Look, get out of here!" I roared. "Get out of here! You're just drawing attention. What if someone comes by? Get out of here!"
Jake nodded. "Yeah," was all he said.
Jake's a good leader. He knows when to use us. He knows when to protect us. He knew he had to protect as many of his people as he could from what was going to happen.
He took Cassie's arm and called to Tobias and Marco.
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