"0kay, let's go save Jake," I said. "That guy. He's always needing me to come along and rescue his butt."
I broke into a loping run. Tobias flapped away. And Ax ran, tail at the ready.
"At least I can introduce Visser One to my tail!" Ax said gleefully.
"No!" I yelled. "l mean, you guys go help the others. I'll clean up Visser One and her group."
Ax and Tobias went ahead. I hit the group of Hork-Bajir that was following my mother. They didn't see me coming.
WHAM! I slammed a Hork-Bajir down to the concrete and he stayed down.
SWISH! A Hork-Bajir spun around and swung his arm, wrist blade turning toward me. But he'd already been wounded. He was slow. I was slow, too.
But I didn't miss. I drove my canned-ham-
sized gorilla fist, with more power than ten Evan-der Holyfields, into the Hork-Bajir's chest. The other Hork-Bajir stayed back.
My mother turned around. "Kill it, you cowards! Kill it!"
One of the Hork-Bajir leaped at me, arms and legs all flashing with deadly blades. I tried to dodge, but gorillas are not exactly fast.
"Aaaahhhh!" I was cut! My left arm was slashed deeply. Blood was flowing out onto my dark, coarse fur.
"That's it! Kill it!" Visser One crowed gleefully.
The Hork-Bajir cut me again, less deeply but more painfully, with a blow that sliced through my rubbery gorilla muzzle. His buddies decided it was safe to come after me now, too.
They were wrong. I was a gorilla. People might look at a gorilla and think, Well, it's only twice as heavy as a big man, and not even as tall. So how strong could it be?
How strong? You could hit a gorilla in the head with a sledgehammer and he'd just grab it and make you eat it. Arnold Schwarzenegger using his entire body could not have bent back my wrist if I didn't want him to.
In the wild, gorillas are gentle, sweet animals. But I wasn't just a gorilla. I was Marco with the power of a gorilla. And the Marco part of me was not feeling gentle or sweet.
I grabbed the big Hork-Bajir by his snake neck. Grabbed him with one hand and closed my fingers tight. He slashed at me wildly. He cut my arm again and again. But I held on. And with my other arm I grabbed another Hork-Bajir by the wrist. Then I simply introduced them to each other.
The hard way.
They decided that was enough. They left. And Visser One stood alone.
Just me and Visser One. Just me and my mother.
"So, Andalite," she said calmly. "I see you are enjoying the use of all these wonderful Earth morphs. But you must know you cannot escape from this place. However, if you surrender peacefully, I can let you live."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't. The Yeerks think we're all Andalites.
That's what we want them to go on thinking. We've always worried that if we started talking to them we might let something slip that would tell them we're human.
If they ever find out what we really are, we're done for.
But there was a second reason I couldn't talk to Visser One. See, I knew if I started talking to
my mom, I would never be able to stop myself. I'd spill it all out.
I'd tell her everything because it's been so long since I've been able to talk to her. I've thought about it many times. Many, many times. All the things I'd like to tell her. About my life. My friends. What I did in school. How I made some teacher laugh.
Visser One's so-familiar eyes flickered. "If you kill me, you'll die as well, Andalite."
And then I heard a rasping, rumbling, almost belching voice. It said, "Ha tu ma el ga su fa to //'." An alien voice speaking an alien language. But I understood it. I felt it in my mind. It was like thought-speak, only this was deeper, more profound. This voice seemed to use my own words in my own brain.
What it said was, Don't be fooled. Visser One, this is no Andalite.
I spun around. And there, standing just behind me, was a Leeran-Controller, its tentacles waving. I could squash the big amphibian without breaking a sweat. But I just froze. I froze and looked back at my mother.
It is not Andalite, the Leeran said again. It is a human.
Visser One's face remained impassive. "No, you idiot," she sneered.
"It's a gorilla. They are related to humans, but not human. This is an Andalite in morph."
beg your pardon for disagreeing. Visser. but -
Two things happened then, within seconds of each other.
I broke out of my trance, whipped around and punched the Leeran right in his froggy mouth.
And from the nearby dock a huge yellow serpent reared up suddenly.
"Visser Three, I assume," my mother said contemptuously.
"Well, I see you've made a mess of things, Visser One. Our old friends the Andalite bandits seem to be annihilating most of your troops."
"I'd have more troops, but for your interference!" Visser One raged.
"And if you weren't incompetent and a traitor to the empire you'd have cleaned these vermin up before now!"
The massive snake head grinned an evil grin as it towered above us. "No doubt the Council of Thirteen will certainly enjoy hearing your excuses for failure."
"What the Council will hear is how you've allowed a handful of morphing Andalites to go unpunished!"
"You'll lose Leeran for us yet, you half-human fool!"
"Like you've already lost Earth, despite the fact I handed it over to you in perfect shape?"
It was bizarre. You have to understand that
there was a huge, roaring battle going on between my friends and the Hork-Bajir. And I was standing there, having just punched out a Leeran.
But all the two vissers seemed to care about was trashing each other.
Politics. I guess it's the same everywhere.
And then a third thing happened. A massively loud alarm that went off.
An automated voice bellowed from speakers up in the rafters.
"Brr-REEET! Brr-REEET! Warning. Warning. Containment seals will shut down in three minutes. Extreme hazard. Countdown beginning. Countdown will be in intervals of ten seconds. Thank you and have a nice day!"