Jake backed away but kept his face turned to the Hork-Bajir behind us. We trotted as fast as we could down the hallway, now a scene of devastation.
It was like the ant tunnels. We could only try to escape. The longer we tried to fight, the more the odds would turn against us.
Suddenly . . .
"Ahhhhhhh!"
"Rachel!" I heard Tobias cry.
"It's okay. I found the dropshaft. I am ... dropping."
"What is it?" I asked.
"An elevator without a floor," Rachel answered.
Then I was there, at the edge of a long shaft that went down and down, maybe forever.
Rachel already looked small. Which was not easy for her to do.
78 "He said to stop after fifteen levels!" I reminded her.
"Yeah? And how do I do that?"
"Think the number! It hears speech and understands simple thought-speak commands," Ax instructed. Then added, "At least that's how it works on our ships ."
"I'm slowing down. Cool!"
"More Hork-Bajir back here! And some of those other ones. The little wrinkled ones!" Cassie yelled. "They're coming fast!"
"Here goes nothing," I said. I took a look down the dropshaft and jumped off into empty space.
You know, if it hadn't been for the fact that I was just a few minutes from being trapped forever in a morph, and if there weren't a dozen or so walking Salad Shooters after me, it would have been fun.
I fell, but not too fast.
"Fifteen levels," I thought as floors zipped past me.
Twelve levels down, I plummeted past a human Controller who was getting ready to step into the dropshaft. He had a very human look of total amazement on his face. Possibly because while standing there, he'd seen a flying elephant, followed by a gorilla, a wolf, an Andalite, and a tiger.
"Hork-Bajir, coming fast!" Tobias warned.
I looked up the shaft. A big Hork-Bajir warrior was gaining on us. But there was nothing I could do until he reached us.
"He's mine," Tobias said. He flared his wings, flapped hard and was shooting back up the drop- shaft toward the falling Hork-Bajir.
"Tseeeeer!"
Tobias's talons came forward, outstretched, and slashed the alien's eyes.
"Ghaahharrr!"
The Hork-Bajir clutched at his face. I guess he was too distracted to think about what floor he was heading to. He shot past us as we slowed to step onto the fifteenth level.
Hard floor under my feet again! A very good feeling.
"Rachel! You have to demorph!" I reminded her.
"Already working on it," she said.
79 She was shrinking even as she lumbered along.
"The escape pods! Ahead there!" Ax cried.
They were only a dozen feet from us. A few seconds more and we would make it.
Rachel stumbled. She was half-human, half-elephant. A nightmare of pink and gray, with huge ears and human hair and fat arms and legs that had no feet.
I reached down and swept her up with my powerful arms. She was still large, maybe three hundred pounds. But not too much for me to carry.
We reached the door of the escape pod.
It closed behind us as we wedged our over sized bodies inside.
"Ax! Time!" Jake yelled.
"Five percent of the time remains!"
"Six minutes. Morph out!"
There was a surge as the escape pod ejected from the underside of the Yeerk ship.
My dense black fur was already starting to disappear by the time the pod rotated. I could see Earth below.
Earth.
And as the tiny ship turned, I could see the Yeerk mother ship.
It was kind of a joke now, I thought. The Yeerk mother ship. My mother on the Yeerk mother ship.
Hah hah.
Before I became fully human again, before I lost the ability to thought-speak and had to re turn to words spoken out loud, I said, "Jake?"
"Yeah, Marco."
"No one ever finds out. No one can ever know."
"Okay, Marco," he said.
"My mother died two years ago tomorrow."
"That's how it will be, my friend."
80 "Yeah. But someday . . ." Someday, somehow, in some way that I could not foresee, we would win this battle. Humans and Andalites together would defeat the Yeerks. And we would free all of their slaves.
All of them.
"Someday," I whispered again.
"Someday, Marco," Jake said.
81 Chapter 19
I guess there's no such thing as a nice graveyard. But the place where my mom is remembered is as nice as it can be.
The grass is green. There's a tree nearby. It's always very quiet. You can smell flowers.
I hate going there.
My dad stood for a long time, looking down at the white marble headstone. It has my mom's name. The day she was born, the day she died. And a message that says, "No wife, no mother, was ever more loved. Or more deeply missed."
My dad and I stood a few feet apart. We didn't say anything. We both just kind of cried.
You probably wouldn't think I was the kind of guy who would cry. Mostly I don't. Mostly I make jokes about things. It's better to laugh than to cry, don't you think?
I do.
Even when the world is scary and sad. Especially when the world is scary and sad. That's when you need to laugh.
"Two years," my dad said. It surprised me.
"Yeah," I said. "Two years."
He took a deep breath. Like it was hard for him to breathe. "I ... I ... look, Marco, I've been thinking."
"Yes?"
"I haven't been a very good father to you." It wasn't a question, so I didn't say anything.
"Your mom . . ." He had to stop for a moment to get his voice under control. "Your mom would not be happy about the way I've been these last two years."
What could I say? I decided to say nothing.
"Anyway. I talked to Jerry the other day."
Jerry was his old boss. Back when he had a regular job.
My dad shrugged. "I guess we have to live, huh? I mean, we can't. . . you know." Another heavy breath. "Your mom wouldn't want us to give up, would she? Anyway, I'm going in Monday to talk to Jerry about getting back to work. You know ... see if I still remember how to even turn on a computer."
It was a big thing. A big decision. I guess what I should have done was run over to give him a hug and tell him I was proud of him. I was proud of him. But that's not me.
"Oh, Dad, you never could figure computers out. Especially games."
82 He stared at me with the blank eyes I had seen for the last two years. Then, suddenly, he laughed.
"You punk kid, I've forgotten more about computers than you ever knew."
"Oh, right! So why did I always kick your butt whenever we played Doom?"
"I let you win."
I made an extremely rude noise. "Yeah? How about if we just go home and play a game so I can show you how totally wrong you are?"
I couldn't stop him from giving me a hug. I guess I didn't mind all that much.
We walked away from my mother's gravestone. The stone that marked the death of a woman who was not dead.
I raised my eyes up to the sky. The blue sky of Earth. My home.
She was probably gone from the mother ship, now. Off to some other corner of the galaxy.
But wherever she was, no matter how far, I would find her.
Someday . . .
83