The Predator (2 page)

Rachel is Jake’s cousin, and a total babe who, unfortunately, is also totally insane. See, somehow, underneath all that perfect hair and perfect teeth, there’s this lunatic Amazon warrior-queen, just fighting to get out.

Here’s what Rachel’ll say whenever we decide to do something so dangerous it makes you want to wet yourself: “I’m in! Let’s go! Let’s do it!”

I swear that, if she could, Rachel would be wearing a suit of armor and swinging a sword. And it would be a fashionable suit of armor, and she would look great in it.

Then there is Tobias. That night in the construction site, he was just this kind of dweeby kid I barely knew. He liked Jake because Jake once kept some guys from beating him up.

To be honest with you, I don’t even remember what Tobias looked like back then. Now, of course, he looks like a fierce, angry bird of prey.

There’s a downside to the morphing power we have. A time limit of two hours. Stay more than two hours in a morph, and you stay forever.

That’s why Tobias was flying overhead, with his wide wings catching the warm updrafts. Tobias is
a hawk. A red-tailed hawk, to be exact. I guess he always will be.

I tease Tobias sometimes.

What happened to him scares me.

Anyway, on that night we were cutting through this big, abandoned construction site. It was supposed to be a shopping center, but they got it half-built and then stopped.

Then, to make a long story short, there was this spaceship. It was carrying an Andalite who was dying of wounds he’d gotten fighting the Yeerks up in Earth orbit. Or thereabouts.

He’s the one who told us about the Yeerks. The Yeerks are parasites. They use the bodies of other species. They take them over. They control them. That’s what you call a human who’s been taken over—a Controller. A Human-Controller.

Jake’s brother, Tom, is one. A Controller.

And Melissa, Rachel’s friend, her father is one, too.

The Andalites fight the Yeerks. They had been trying to stop the secret Yeerk invasion of Earth, but basically they got their butts kicked. Before he died, the Andalite promised us that reinforcements would come. Eventually. In the meantime, all he could do for us was give us a weapon.

That weapon was the power to morph. To acquire the DNA of any animal we could touch, and then to
become
that animal.

So that was the deal. The five of us, five regular, everyday kids, were supposed to fight the Yeerks until the Andalites came along and rescued us.

Five kids versus the Yeerks. The Yeerks, who had already conquered the terrifying Hork-Bajir and made them into Controllers. The Yeerks, with their creepy allies, the Taxxon-Controllers. The Yeerks, who had already infiltrated human society, making Controllers out of cops and teachers and soldiers and mayors and TV newspeople. They were everywhere. They could be anyone.

And all we had was five kids who could turn into birds.

Or gorillas.

“I just don’t think we should be morphing out on the street in order to get involved in everyday crimes,” Jake lectured me. “Remember what happened at the used car lot with Rachel and Tobias—and you asked them if they were insane!”

I was about to argue when Rachel spoke up again.

“I think Marco did the right thing,” she said. “What was he supposed to do? Just walk away? I don’t think so.”

“Okay, now I
know I
was wrong,” I said. “Any time Rachel thinks I did the right thing, it has to be wrong. Besides, that was my whole point. I risked my life for that old man, and I don’t even get a thank-you.”

“I don’t know if it was a good idea,” Cassie said, “but the feeling behind it was good. I think it was heroic.”

Well, what could I say to that? It’s very hard to disagree with someone who has just called you a hero.

Jake decided to let it go. Unfortunately, the reason he decided to drop it was that he had something bigger to talk about.

He got his serious look.

I groaned. I hate that serious look. It always means trouble.

“Jake? Are you going to tell me why we’re all out walking in the fields together? Aside from the fact that it’s a nice day and all?”

“We’re going to see Ax,” Jake explained. “Cassie and I have been talking to him the last couple days. You know, about what he wants to do.”

“Uh-oh,” I muttered. “I just know I’m not going to like this.”

“Well … probably not. Ax wants to go home,” Jake said.

“Home?” Rachel repeated.

“To the Andalite home world,” Cassie said.

Ax, whose real name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, is an Andalite.

I stopped walking. The others stopped, too. “Um, excuse me, but isn’t the Andalite home world kind of far away? “

“Ax says it’s about eighty-two light years,” Jake confirmed.

“Light travels about one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per
second
,” I pointed out. “Times sixty seconds per minute. Times sixty minutes per hour. Times twenty-four hours per day. Times three hundred and sixty-five days per year. That’s one light year. Times eighty-two years.”

Rachel laughed. “So you
have
been staying awake in science class, Marco.”

“We tried to figure it out in miles. But none of our calculators go that high,” Jake said.

“You know, Jake, I could be wrong, but I don’t think any of the major airlines fly to the Andalite home world,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” he said with a nod. “I know. That’s why we’ll have to steal a Yeerk spaceship.”

T
here he is,” Cassie said.

I followed the direction of her gaze. Over toward the line of trees at the edge of the field, I saw him.

Ax.

The Andalite.

From a distance you’d think he was a small horse or a deer. He has four hooved feet that flash with amazing speed. His upper body looks like a horse’s neck and head, except that when he gets close enough, you see that he has two smaller, human-sized arms sticking out.

His head is kind of a triangle, with two huge, almond-shaped eyes. Those are his main eyes. There
are two extra eyes, each stuck atop a sort of stalk. The stalks stick out of the top of his head and move, pointing the extra eyes in any direction.

But the thing that really makes you stare is the tail.

According to Cassie and Rachel, Ax is cute. I wouldn’t know, being a guy. All I know is, when you see that tail, you know right away that Andalites aren’t exactly cuddly koala bears or puppies.

The Andalite tail resembles a scorpion’s tail. It curls up and over, and is armed with a wicked scythe blade. They can strike with those tails faster than your eye can see.

I’d seen the first Andalite do it. In the seconds before the evil creature known as Visser Three murdered the Andalite prince, he had struck with that tail again and again.

That memory came back to me as I watched Ax galloping toward us, tail arched and ready.

“I hope there’s no one around,” Jake said anxiously. He scanned the area. It was pretty remote. Cassie’s house and barn were way out of sight. And there was no reason why anyone would be in this distant field.

I looked up and saw Tobias’s reddish tail feathers. I gave him a wave.

Tobias called down to us in
thought-speak.

Ax came galloping up. he said, also in thought-speak.

Jake groaned. Ax had gotten it into his head that Jake was our leader, which was partly true. And I guess for an Andalite, any leader is some kind of prince.

Ax has no mouth. No one had asked him yet how he eats with no mouth.

He communicates by thought-speech. It’s the same way we communicate when we’re morphed. For us humans it
only
works when we’re morphed. For Andalites, it’s the normal way to communicate.

“Hi, Ax,” Jake said, as the Andalite came to a skidding stop just a few feet from us. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine,” Cassie said.

Tobias swooped down out of the sky. He braked and landed neatly on the grass.

“I’m fine, too, Ax,” I said. “Or at least I was until I heard someone say something really stupid.”

Ax looked uncertain. He swiveled one of his stalk-eyes forward to get a better look at me.

“Someone said we were going to try and steal a Yeerk spaceship,” I said.

He smiled an Andalite smile, which is hard to describe, except that it involves his main eyes.

“Dangerous? No, jumping off a ten-story building is dangerous. Sticking your tongue in an electrical socket is dangerous—not to mention painful. But stealing a Yeerk ship is beyond dangerous.”

Ax said.

I gave Rachel a sidelong look. “I think we’ve found your future husband.”

“It may be honorable to try and get a Yeerk ship, Ax,” Jake said, “but honor
isn’t
our most important goal.”

The Andalite looked surprised — I think. His main eyes widened, and his stalk-eyes stretched up to their maximum height. It looked like surprise to me.

Jake shrugged. “Look, we’re trying to do whatever we can to hurt the Yeerks. But we’re also trying to stay alive. We’re all there is. I mean, no one else even knows there is a Yeerk invasion. So if something happens to us …” He let it hang.

Ax said.

“So the question is whether this is something we can do without getting killed,” Jake pointed out.

“Yeah, we’re mostly against the idea of getting killed,” I added. “So how are we supposed to grab a Yeerk ship? They’re up in orbit. We’re down here. It’s not like we can call them up and ask them to come down.”

Ax said.

“What?”

“Right.”

“You mean like, ‘Hello? Hello? Is this Visser Three? Could you send a ship down to pick me up?’” I said.

I expected everyone to laugh because the idea was so totally ridiculous. No one laughed.

“Um, excuse me?” I said, trying again. “Personally, I have had plenty of Visser Three in my life. I don’t need to call him on the phone.”

Ax said.

That was one thing I liked about Ax. He hated Visser Three. He reminded me of the Andalite prince, who was Ax’s older brother. When either of them said the word “Yeerk,” let alone “Visser Three,” you could just feel the air vibrating from their anger.

Ax said.

“There is always at least one Hork-Bajir and one Taxxon aboard each Bug fighter,” I pointed out. “Anytime you start playing with Hork-Bajir, it’s not a minor thing.”

Ax demanded. He stared at me with all four eyes.

“You better believe I fear them.”

He seemed a little too determined for me. I don’t know much about Andalites, but I had a feeling I understood this one, at least a little. See, he was alive. But every other Andalite who had come to Earth, including Ax’s brother, the prince, was dead.

So I took a shot. It wasn’t fair, maybe, but he’d made me mad, acting like I was some kind of coward. “How many times have you fought Hork-Bajir?” I asked him.

His stalk-eyes drooped. He pawed the ground with one hoof. he said.

I nodded. “I thought so. So let me tell you something, Ax. It’s scary. It’s so scary that sometimes you wish you could just go ahead and die because it’s easier than dealing with the terror.”

Well
, I thought as I looked around at my friends,
that pretty well killed everyone’s happy mood.

It was Tobias who broke the silence.

Ax seemed abashed, but he answered,

Jake took a deep breath. “Okay. Time for a vote.”

I groaned. I already knew what it would be.