Unfortunately for the Hork-Bajir who had fired, the Dracon beam did not stop when it buzzed by me. No, the Dracon beam hit the underside of the vast truck ship. A small, neat, round hole appeared in the bottom of the ship. It was too small to amount to anything.
But suddenly the Hork-Bajir lost his interest in me.
"Fool!" the human-Controller cried. "Visser Three will have your head for dinner!"
While they were busy panicking, I dropped Rachel into the water with the others.
"Good work, Tobias," Jake said. "Be careful up there, my friend."
"You, too," I said. "Good luck, you guys."
I could just barely see them, a small school of fish in the shallows. They swam off and disappeared into deeper water.
71 As I've told you, there are limits to how far thought-speech can reach. We don't really know what those limits are. But I wanted to stay as close to them as I dared, in case they needed me. Not that there was much that I could do to help someone underwater.
I didn't want to stay right over them. I figured that would look suspicious to anyone on shore.
It was hard to figure out what to do. The monstrous bulk of the truck ship was overhead, leaving only a few feet open above the surface of the water.
I decided I had to chance it. I flew under the ship, skimming the dappled water below and practically scraping the metal belly of the ship above me.
It was a very difficult flight. I had to stay almost totally level. I couldn't rise or fall by more than a couple of feet.
"You guys still okay?"
"Tobias? I can't believe you can still thought-speak with that whole ship between us," Rachel said.
I guess I could have told her the truth. That I was within a few feet of them. But then Jake would have just gotten all mad and told me not to take stupid risks.
I figured that between the time it had taken through the entire morphing process, and carrying them one at a time to the water, plus now the time spent swimming out to the big intake pipe, Cassie had been in morph for just over half an hour. Jake had ten minutes more, then Marco and Rachel.
"What are you guys doing now?" I asked.
"We're looking at the bottom of this intake pipe. There's tremendous suction," Rachel reported.
"I'll go first and look around. See what's what," Jake announced. "Here goes. Whoooaaaaa!
Man! Whooooaaa! Yah!"
"Jake! Jake, are you okay?" Cassie cried.
"Oh, yeah! What a rush! They should have a waterslide like that at The Gardens. It's like being sucked up a straw by a giant."
"Cool," Rachel said. "I'm next."
"No, let me look around first," Jake said. "I seem to be in some kind of big tank. It's not very deep. At least not yet. It's filling up. With these lame fish eyes I can't see beyond the surface of the water very well. But I think up in the ceiling there's an opening. Like a grate or something."
"Up on the ceiling? How are we going to get up there?" Marco asked.
72 "Well, I think if they fill this whole tank, we'll be near the top eventually. We should be able to morph to human, let ourselves out, then morph into something more dangerous than our human bodies."
"Excuse me," Marco said. "But does anyone else ever stop to realize that some of the things we talk about doing are totally INSANE?"
"What? Turning into fish, so we can be carried by a hawk and let ourselves be sucked up the pipe of an alien spaceship, so that we can then turn into tigers and gorillas and whatever, and overpower the creepy aliens?" Rachel said. "Is that what you mean by insane?"
"That's it exactly."
"Yep," Rachel said. "It is insane."
"Well, okay," Marco said. "As long as we all know we're nuts. Let's do it!" 73 CHAPTER 23
There was nothing to do but wait. Wait while the water level inside the ship rose and carried my friends toward the top of the chamber. Up to where the grate was.
I could not maintain my level flight beneath the ship any longer. I said good-bye to my friends and zoomed out the far side. The open air was a blessing. I soared high on a nice thermal pattern created by the ship itself. I rose high up and over the top of the ship.
The Park Rangers were all around on the ground. The helicopters and two of the Bug fighters were still parked on the ground in the little clearing. The Blade ship was there, too.
Two other Bug fighters continued zipping around at treetop level.
While I watched, they brought the Hork-Bajir who had carelessly fired off the Dracon beam.
They dragged him before Visser Three.
We'd gotten so we thought of Hork-Bajir as these totally fearless, deadly monsters. But this Hork-Bajir was not looking very brave. He collapsed on the ground before Visser Three. I almost felt sorry for him.
It was one of the terrible things about our battle against the Yeerks. See, our enemy was just the Yeerk slug that lived in the heads of Controllers. That Hork-Bajir may have been made a Controller totally against his will. He had lost his freedom to the Yeerk in his head. Now, he was about to lose his life, for something that he had no real control over.
I couldn't hear what was happening down on the ground. But I could see. My hawk's eyes could see far too well.
I turned away. I won't tell you what was happening to the Hork-Bajir. That memory will be my own private nightmare.
But when next I looked, the Hork-Bajir was gone. And in his place was a sudden rush of other Hork-Bajir and Taxxons and humans, all surrounding Visser Three. The Visser looked angry. He was pointing at the sky.
Within a few seconds, the helicopters were lifting off.
The two Bug fighters powered up and took off.
I had a very bad feeling that I knew what had happened. The doomed Hork-Bajir had told Visser Three about the bird he had fired at. And some other Controller had probably said, "Oh, yeah, I saw a bird acting suspiciously, too." And someone had no doubt said, "Hey, wasn't it a bird that distracted the Hork-Bajir yesterday and let that human get away?"
Visser Three had put two and two together. An animal acting unlike an animal meant just one thing to him: Andalites in a morph.
I guess I should have been flattered that Visser Three believed we Animorphs were true Andalite warriors. But it didn't make any difference whether he thought I was an Andalite or a human. He was sending his creatures into the sky. Looking for a bird that was no bird.
74 Me.
A Bug fighter skimmed over the trees. Its twin Dracon beams fired again and again in short, sharp spears of burning light.
My heart was in my throat. They were killing every bird they saw!
The hawk! This was her territory.
But then, behind me, a helicopter! Thwak thwak thwak thwak! Ssshhhheewww!
A Dracon beam. A near miss. I couldn't get away. Between the Bug fighters and the helicopters, they were too numerous, and too fast.
But there was one place no one was going to risk firing a Dracon beam. Not after what Visser Three had just done to the careless Hork-Bajir.
I let go of the air beneath my wings and dropped. Down, down, down. Toward the vast truck ship, spread below me like a steel meadow.
In an instant they were all on me. But the angles were wrong. I was too close to the ship.
They couldn't fire!
I landed on top of the hovering ship. I planted my talons on the hard, cold metal surface. It stretched in every direction around me. The surface curved down and away from me so that I couldn't even see the edges. It was as if I were standing all alone on a metal moon. Over my head hovered helicopters and Bug fighters. I could see human and Hork-Bajir and Taxxon eyes all focused on me.