Sometimes my life was just too weird.
I had questions to ask my father, but I wanted them to sound natural. You know, like I was just making normal conversation.
"So, Dad. What are you doing at work lately?"
He shrugged and gave me a wink. "We're finishing up the observatory project. I still can't figure out what happened there. That software your friend No accidentally created just sort of disappeared."
My friend "No" was really Ax. There was a long story behind all that. You could probably ask our friendly neighborhood Andalite about it, but it wasn't a story I could tell my father.
"What'll you do then, after you get done at the observatory?" I asked, trying to seem totally casual by chomping on corn the whole time.
My dad's eyes flickered toward me, almost suspiciously. He shrugged. "A project I can't talk about for this company called Matcom."
I laughed, trying to stay very casual. "Building a better bomb?"
He didn't answer for a few seconds. Then, in a strange voice, he said, "I've never done weapons research."
I was actually surprised. "Why not?"
"You gonna eat that chicken or just tease it?"
He gave me a long look, like he was trying to decide if I was old enough to hear what he was going to say.
I picked up the chicken breast. Chicken wasn't crow, after all.
"It was your mom," he said.
I stopped eating.
"The last year, year and a half before . . . you know. Before. It was like this perfect time for us." He smiled at some picture only he could see. "We used to fight every now and then when you were younger, like most couples. But then it was as if all our problems were gone, settled. Maybe I had changed. Maybe she had. I don't know."
I felt cold fingers around my heart.
"It was the best time of my life," he said. "It was like we'd achieved some level of perfect peace and perfect love. But at the same time, there were these times when your mom would seem upset. Like she was struggling with some problem she wouldn't tell me about."
I had stopped breathing. I knew. I knew now when the change had been made. The perfect love my father was talking about was the Yeerk at work in my mother's head. The Yeerk wasn't interested in stupid little domestic battles. It wanted peace so that it could focus on deeper goals.
"Anyway, one day I woke up in the middle of the night. Your mom was sitting up in bed, wide awake. I knew she'd had a bad dream or something. But it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It was just. . ." He shook his head.
"It was so strange. She sounded like she was trapped in a deep well, and trying to call out to me."
There were tears in my eyes. I hoped my father wouldn't notice.
"She said, They won't take you if you stay away from the military." It didn't make any sense.
But the way she said it... like it was the hardest thing she'd ever said . . . like it was the most important thing she'd ever said."
I had some idea just how hard it had been for my mother to say that. Sometimes, when there is some terrible need, the human being crushed beneath the Yeerk can force its way out. It can seize control for a few desperate seconds.
They say the price the human host pays is terrible. The Yeerk has mental tortures it can carry on for weeks.
My mother, my real mother, had struck when the Yeerk was distracted, and for a few seconds regained control.
"Anyway," my dad said, "I know it was just your mom having a bad dream. But ever since then, whenever an opportunity came up to do defense work, I just got this bad feeling about it."
I couldn't even pretend to eat any more.
"Dad, are you thinking about taking on a military project now?"
He avoided my gaze. "There are some very exciting things going on with this Matcom. The thing they want me on isn't military in any way.
But... well, they do carry on some very secret work.
I guess some of what they do is probably military."
There it was. The reason Tom was trying to get me to bring my father to The Sharing. My father was working on some project that the Yeerks wanted to control.
My mother had warned him. It may have been the last words that she, the real, human woman, ever spoke to him.
He was going to ignore that warning, and now the Yeerks wanted him.
92 We had decided to meet with Erek at his house.
We had not decided to trust him completely.
Jake, Cassie, Ax, and I were going to the meeting.
Rachel and Tobias stayed outside as backup.
Rachel was all primed to use her grizzly bear morph if we called for help.
"I'll be within range of Ax's thought-speak,"
she said for the tenth time. "I can morph my bear in a minute and go through that door about ten seconds later."
"If you do that, try not to stomp over me in the process, okay?" I said.
I glanced up and saw Tobias swooping down to settle in the tree in Erek's yard.
I could joke about it, but the truth was, it did feel reassuring to know Rachel and Tobias were ready to be the cavalry.
We went up to the front door of the very ordinary-looking house. I sent Jake a look that said, "Man, I hope we're right about this." But Jake was busy exchanging solemn glances with Cassie.
"So? Someone knock on the door," I said. I glanced at Ax. He was in his human morph. His human morph is made up of DNA gathered at the same time from all of us except Tobias. There's some of Jake and Rachel and Cassie and me in Ax's human shape. In the end result he's male, but almost as pretty as a girl.
Plus, he's annoying in human morph.
"Knock? Knock on the door? Why? Knockon. Knock-kuh."
Andalites don't have mouths, and Ax can't get over how fun it is to make actual sounds.
Plus, you don't even want the boy in the same room with certain foods.
Jake knocked.
The door opened. I was surprised. It wasn't Erek. It was his father, Mr. King.
He nodded. "Come in."
We stepped inside. I felt completely dorky. It was like we were coming over to ask if Erek could come out and play. I mean, the house looked so normal inside. Normal furniture and normal lights and normal dishes displayed in a hutch. A normal TV on "mute," showing pictures from CNN.
There were two dogs, a Labrador mix and a fat little terrier. The Lab just lolled over on its back. The terrier came running over to sniff our shoes.
"Is Erek here?" I asked.
Mr. King nodded. "Yes. Would you like a soda or anything?"
"No thanks, Mr. King," Cassie said. She bent over to scratch behind the terrier's ears.
"You like dogs?" Mr. King asked.
"She likes any animal," I answered.
"She even likes skunks."
"But dogs, do you like dogs?"
Cassie smiled. "If reincarnation were real, I'd want to come back as a dog."
Mr. King smiled, nodding as if Cassie had just said something profound. "Would you all come with me?"
He turned and led the way toward the kitchen.
Once again, the total normalcy of it seemed jarring. There were little Post-It notes on the refrigerator saying things like "dozen eggs, bell peppers." Someone had left a box of Wheaties out on the counter.
Mr. King opened a door. It led down to the basement. We followed him down the narrow wooden steps.
At this point I started to wonder. I noticed that Ax was morphing slowly out of his human shape, returning to Andalite form a little at a time.