"Yeah. I guess so," I said. "The Ellimist says he'll . . . he'll . . .
you know. Make me human again."
Somehow putting it in actual words didn't sound right. And yet that was what I wanted. To be human again. To live like the others. To eat cold cereal and fried eggs for breakfast instead of hunting and killing.
To walk. To spend my nights inside, in a bed. To sit down and watch TV.
Or just to sit at all.
"Tobias, that would be so great!" Rachel said.
"Yeah. But like Ax said, the Ellimist plays games. And we still have to save the Hork-Bajir without getting wiped out ourselves."
In a thought-speak voice Jake and Cassie and Marco could hear, too, I said, "Follow me, guys. I'll take you to our two alien friends."
I turned at an angle to the breeze. It was coming up just behind my right wing. It can be hard flying that way if the wind is too strong.
You have to keep correcting your direction because the wind will kind of sneak up and push you off-course.
We flew hard and soon left the Yeerk army behind. I spotted the two Hork-Bajir through the trees. They looked like they were talking.
Looking closer, I realized they were holding hands.
I felt embarrassed, just dropping out of the sky on them. "Hey, you two," I said. "l'm coming in. Some friends are with me."
We landed in the trees. And now we were facing a serious decision. A life-and-death decision. The others were all close to the two-hour time limit. They needed to demorph.
But so far we had not revealed our true species to the Hork-Bajir. If they were ever recaptured by the Yeerks, the Yeerks would have access to everything in their heads. Every memory.
"Jake?" I asked. "What are you guys going to do?"
"lt's a big gamble, letting these two know what we are," he answered.
"l don't mean to get all CIA about this," Marco said. "But if they know we're human, they can't ever be captured by the Yeerks. I mean -"
"l know what you mean," I interrupted.
"Probably better to be dead than a Controller, anyway," Marco said.
"Easy for you to say," Rachel said.
"Let me talk to them. Jara and Ket are my friends," I said.
"Hork-Bajir?" Marco crowed. "These two walking Cuisinarts, these two seven-foot-tall lawn mowers, these living razor blades are your friends?" I ignored Marco. I looked at Jara Hamee. "Jara Hamee. I need to know something. If the Yeerks capture you -"
He didn't even let me finish. He flung out a bladed arm, slashing the air. Then, more care-
fully, he pointed at his own head. Right at the scar from the cut he'd made. "No more Yeerk here. Free! Or no Jara Hamee. No Ket Halpak.
Only free!"
"Free or dead," Ket Halpak said harshly.
"l see why you like them, Tobias," Rachel said. She fluttered down from the tree. She began to demorph.
I heard Jake sigh. "Well, I guess we take a chance."
Within a few minutes everyone was human again. Except me, of course.
I guess we surprised the Hork-Bajir. I don't know what they expected us to be, but it wasn't human. The two big aliens just stood and stared.
And then, when they realized what Jake and Rachel and Cassie and Marco actually were, they laughed.
"KeeeRAW! KeeeRAW!"
At least, I think it was laughter. Who knows how a Hork-Bajir laughs?
"Human folk!" Ket Halpak said, sounding amazed and possibly gleeful.
Jara Hamee looked at me. "You human folk?"
"l used to be," I said. "l, um, well . . . well, I'm not exactly the same as I used to be. I've changed."
"Jara Hamee change, too. Not free. Now free."
That's when Ax came barreling through the woods and leaped right into the middle of our little group. He was carrying a bag. In the bag were shoes for the others. See, when you morph you can morph tight clothing, but shoes just can't be done.
Ax set the bag down and stared in the way that only an Andalite can stare - in all directions at once.
"This is very dangerous, letting them see what you are," Ax said heatedly. "These Hork-Bajir can never be recaptured. They can never be taken alive now!"
"They won't be," I said. "They're going to be free."
"Free or dead!" Jara Hamee yelled.
"Okay, I definitely like these guys," Rachel said. She kind of cocked her head and looked up at Jara Hamee. "Free or dead!" she yelled, just as loudly as the Hork-Bajir had.
Cassie and Jake and I yelled it, too. With slightly less enthusiasm. In my case, I'd been too close to being dead just a few minutes earlier.
"I'll give you two-to-one odds on 'dead,'" Marco said grimly. "And if we all keep yelling with a bunch of Taxxons half a mile away, I'll make it ten-to-one."
Rachel ran over, grabbed Marco by the shoulders and gave him a good hard shake. "Come on, you big baby, say it - free or dead!"
"Yeah, yeah, free or dead," Marco said. Then he laughed. "Rachel, you do know you're insane, right?"
"Yes, but she's a Packard Foundation Outstanding Student who's insane,"
Cassie chimed in.
"I'm sure the Yeerks will be impressed," Marco said.
Jake smiled a curious smile at me. "Well? Let's get going."
o where exactly are we going?" Marco asked.
"We're going to wherever this valley is. The valley the Ellimist showed me," I said.
"Should we be singing that valderee, valdera, valderee, valdera-hah-hah-hah-hah-hah song?" Marco asked. "I mean, we are 'a-wandering.'"
"Marco, you should never be singing anything," Rachel said. "I've heard you sing."
We were a strange little parade. After an hour we had reached the lower foothills of the mountains. And for the last two hours we'd been climbing up those hills. Up and up.