I caught up to him, but it was difficult. He has more practice running on two legs.
"Prince ... I mean, Jake. Are you sick?"
He shook his head. "Pardue was a Controller. The Yeerk was starving. And why? Because we destroyed the Kandrona. Me and you and the others. We did this!"
"It was necessary," I said. "We struck a powerful blow against the Yeerks by destroying the Kandrona."
"Chapman killed him, didn't he?" Prince Jake said. "The little steel cylinder. Did you see that? Not just the Yeerk, but the real Pardue. He killed them both."
31 There was no point in lying anymore. Prince Jake had seen the truth. And the idea of lying now, here, made me feel unwell inside.
"If the Yeerk inside the teacher had died, the teacher would have survived and been free," I said. "He would have told other humans what happened. He would have warned them. The Yeerks can't allow witnesses."
"They're going to kill every host whose Yeerk dies, aren't they?" Prince Jake asked bitterly.
"Every human-Controller whose Yeerk dies is going to be eliminated. That's true, isn't it?"
"Yes."
Prince Jake's face showed an expression. I believed it was an expression of sickness.
"We did this," Prince Jake said.
"It's war," I said.
"My brother," Prince Jake said. "Tom. He's a Controller. What about him?"
I had no answer. The Yeerks would save as many as they could. But if their emergency system was breaking down, they would do what had to be done. They would eliminate any evidence.
Prince Jake was staring at me. "You knew they would do this?"
I glared back at him. Maybe it was the human adrenalin in my system, but I was becoming angry now. Angry at the accusing look in Prince Jake's eyes. "Yes, I knew."
"How did you know?"
I hesitated. Prince Jake did not like my hesitation. He suddenly wheeled around and pushed me against the wall.
' How did you know the Yeerks would do this?"
"Because it's happened before. You think this is the first planet the Yeerks have infiltrated?
Do you think Earth is the only place where we Andalites have fought them? They don't leave witnesses."
Prince Jake let me go. But he looked at me with unmistakable suspicion. "I don't like you keeping secrets from me, Ax. I'm your friend. We're your friends. We should know whatever you know. You didn't tell me about this."
"Terrible things happen in war," I said. "You did what you had to do. Destroying the Kandrona was part of that war."
"You can say it's a war," Prince Jake said. "But I hate it."
"Love the warrior. Hate the war. War-ruh."
32 "What is that, an old Andalite saying?" Prince Jake asked sarcastically.
"Yes. My brother used to say it."
Prince Jake looked at me for a very long time. It made me uncomfortable.
"You know some thing, Ax? Sometimes I get the feeling we humans are just pawns in this big game between you Andalites and the Yeerks. We're just ammunition in this war, aren't we? Too dumb to know what's going on. Too primitive to be real warriors."
"That is not the way it is," I said. My own anger was diminishing. Prince Jake's suspicion was not.
"You fight alongside us, Ax. As far as I'm concerned, you're one of us. But then I find out you're keeping secrets. Rachel and Marco keep asking me: What do we know about Ax?
What has he ever told us about his own planet, while we show him everything? I told them we could trust you.
Now I wonder. I really wonder. There's no trust when you keep secrets. You should have told me this is what the Yeerks would do. You know I have a brother who . . . you know about Tom. I had a right to know what could happen."
"Maybe you would not have destroyed the Kandrona if you had known it could endanger Tom," I pointed out.
Prince Jake stuck his face very close to mine. "That's what you think? You know what, Ax?
You're right to try and learn more about humans. Because you don't know a thing about us.
Not a thing."
33 Chapter SEVEN
An Andalite may think that humans are simple, open, trusting creatures. But they are more subtle than they seem to be at first. Possibly this is because of their spoken language, where no word ever means just one thing. - From the Earth Diary of Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill
My day at the human school ended with the removal of the teacher who had been a Controller. Prince Jake went home. I went back to the woods and gratefully resumed my true shape.
But I spent a very bad afternoon and night. I realized that Prince Jake and the humans could never be true shorms. I knew there was a wall be tween me and them. But they were all I had.
Without them, I was utterly alone. And Prince Jake's anger and suspicion had hurt me.
It is a terribly lonely thing to be a billion Earth miles from every living member of your own people.
The next day, Marco invited me to "hang out" with him. This was a surprise. Marco has never been very friendly, unlike Cassie and Tobias and Prince Jake. Rachel, too, has never seemed to take to me.
I morphed into my human body and met Marco at the edge of the woods.
"So," he said. "You want to be Pinocchio, huh?"
"What?"
"Pinocchio was a little boy carved out of wood. He wanted to be a real, live human."
"I do not want to be a human. I merely wish to study them."
Marco smiled. "What a coincidence. And I want to study Andalites."
It took several minutes for me to understand what he was saying. "Oh. Prince Jake asked you to press me for information."
"Jake was a little ticked off that you didn't tell us everything you know," Marco said. "Rachel was even more ticked. Come on, we have to catch the bus. You want to learn about humans, right? I thought I'd take you to a book store. Smart as you are, you can learn to read English."
"Bookstore? Book-kuh-store?"
"Yeah. Books. Fiction. History. A hundred thousand books all about the human race. And you get to choose any of them you want. We have no secrets, unlike certain species I could mention who don't even tell us a little thing like how they eat with no mouth."
"I see. You open your society to me. Soci-eteee. Teee. And you want me to do the same in return."
"I told Jake I could cleverly weasel all the in formation out of you, but he said, 'No, Ax is a friend. Show him we have nothing to hide. Maybe he'll finally decide to trust us.'"
34 I felt a pang of guilt. They were treating me with trust. They had never done anything to hurt me. On the contrary, they had been wonderful to me. Good in every way.
"I have reasons for keeping secrets," I said.
Marco nodded. "Yeah, we know. Rachel says you probably aren't allowed to interfere with primitive races like humans."
I was surprised. It was very close to the truth. At first I did not know what to say.
Marco smiled a cold smile and nodded his head. "So that is it, right? Kind of too late for that attitude, isn't it? After all, the Yeerks are interfering with us like crazy."