Somehow my life had turned very, very weird.
I saw Ax was morphing quickly. His tail went limp, like an empty sock. Feathers were growing to replace his fur.
I looked down at my own arm and saw the feather patterns being drawn on my skin. They were beautiful, really, if you didn't stop to think about them being on you. You could see the quill, a gently curved shaft. From it the thousands of individual vanes spread.
Then, quite suddenly, the feather-drawing became three-dimensional. They seemed to simply pop out of my skin. It itched a little as the feathers grew out, all across my body.
I was shrinking all the while. Getting smaller and smaller. The dirt and pine needles and leaves and twigs all came rushing up at me.
My bare feet grew rough, as if they were one big callous. Toes melted together, then formed into talons. Long, curved, sharp, tearing claws grew.
The talons were the main killing weapon of the great horned owl. An owl would fly along, silent in the night. Then it would strike, grabbing the prey -- a rabbit, a squirrel, a rat, a skunk -- by the head. . . .
The bones all through my body were rearranging themselves. Many disappeared altogether.
Others became twisted and misshapen. My breast bone grew deeper. My various finger bones grew longer first, then shorter. All of this made a grinding noise that resonated up through my body.
My internal organs were radically redesigned. And my eyes seemed to swell and swell till they filled my entire head. My eyes were so huge compared to my body that they practically rubbed together inside my skull.
40 Suddenly, it was no longer night. It was as bright as day.
The amount of light that was a dim, flickering candle to my human eyes was a spotlight to my owl's eyes.
"Whoa!" I heard Rachel cry.
"I enjoy these eyes very much," Ax commented. "They are wonderful." I spread my arms wide and opened my wings. The change was complete. I felt the cold edge of the owl's instincts. The instincts of a predator.
I had morphed the owl before, so I knew what to expect. I had used the eyes and the wings and felt the brain. It wasn't exactly second nature, but at least it wasn't a surprise.
"Ready?" Jake asked.
I flapped my wings and drew up my feet and rose easily into the tree branches that, in the darkness, were invisible to humans, but clear as blazing neon to me.
I saw Tobias sitting perched on his branch. I felt his instinctive hawk's caution as a flight of five horned owls flew past.
The day belonged to the hawks. But night was ours.
"Good luck," Tobias said. "Don't eat anything I wouldn't eat. "
"Hah-hah," Marco laughed. He was high on the thrill of a good morph. So was I, I guess.
There is a rush of power that comes from being an animal in its natural element. Particularly a predator.
In the air at night, nothing could touch us. We reigned supreme in the forest.
We flew in a loose formation, not soaring above the trees, but flitting through them. Our wings didn't make a sound. An owl's wings are as carefully designed as the wings of the most advanced stealth fighter. More, really. The feathers are designed not to flutter or ruffle as the owl glides through the still night air.
Frightened mice, listening for any possible danger, hear nothing at all as the owl swoops down for the kill.
As well as I could see, I could also hear everything. I could hear as well as the wolves.
As we flew to what might be our destruction, I tried to focus on my other goal -- listening for the cries of skunk kits. Watching the ground below for the waddling, shuffling walk of a lost baby skunk.
"This is so weird," Marco said. "I love this part. It's the next part I'm not looking forward to at all."
"It'll be okay," Jake said.
41 "Yeah, I mean, what could possibly go wrong?" Rachel asked dryly.
I swooped and zoomed through the trees. All the while I watched the ground below me and focused my hearing, and in that way I reached the Yeerk compound without having to think too much about what was coming next.
42 Chapter ELEVEN
"Almost there," Jake said. "Another couple of minutes." Even in thought-speak I could hear the tension in his voice. I felt something like a cold hand squeezing my heart.
Then . . .
A noise. A noise against a background of noises. But this noise was one that the owl's brain wanted to hear. A noise the owl's brain had evolved to notice. The sound of helplessness. The sound of a weak creature. Weak, tiny, helpless babies.
There! It was coming from a hole that no other animal would have seen in the pitch-black of night. A hole dug beneath the roots of a thorn-bush.
Four... no, five separate voices. were they the skunk kits? Maybe. I couldn't be sure. But it was night, and they sounded like they were alone. It could be.
I looked around, swiveling my owl's neck. I tried to form a picture of the place. The trees.
The outcropping of rocks just twenty feet away. I wanted to be able to find the place again.
If I was still around to find anything.
The mewling sound of the babies reached something inside me. Inside the human Cassie. But to the owl it was the sound of a meal.
It's strange to have those two feelings in your head at the same time -- human compassion and the cold ruthlessness of the predator. Strange.
"Okay," Jake said, a few seconds later. "Here. "
We swooped low and landed. I started to de-morph quickly. I didn't want to feel that predator in my mind anymore. Not right then.
The world went dark as my human eyes reemerged. The forest was a darker, quieter place to Homo sapiens.
I looked around and couldn't see any of the landmarks I'd tried to spot. I would never find those skunk kits in the dark. Not with human eyes, anyway. Maybe by the light of day. I could come back in the morning.
If. . .
"Okay, we have to get as close to the edge of that compound as we can," Jake whispered.
"We can't be spotted as humans. But we can't morph termites too far from the building.
Termites don't exactly move fast."
"I have a suggestion, Prince Jake," Ax said.
43 Ax is under the impression that Jake is the equivalent of an Andalite prince.
"A distraction," he continued. "We could give the Yeerks something to chase. " I knew instantly what he had in mind. "An Andalite?" I asked him.
"The Yeerks would not be able to resist," he said.
"You could end up very dead that way," Marco said.
"No, Ax," Jake said. "We need you inside. There may be Yeerk computers in there. We need you. But a distraction isn't a bad idea." Jake looked at me. "Anyone want to volunteer? It would probably be safer than going inside."
He was offering me a way out. A way to avoid having to become a termite. I should have said yes. I wanted to say yes. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't take the easier way out.
"Okay, we draw straws. All except Ax. He goes in, regardless."
Jake pulled up four strands of tall grass. He shortened them all to about six inches. Then, he took one and shortened it further. "Short straw plays tag with the Yeerks."