The Encounter (12 page)

Rachel’s eyes flared the way they do when someone tells her something she doesn’t want to hear. “I’m calling nine-one-one,” she said tersely.

“No, Rachel, I’m okay,” I said. I sat up. My head felt a little woozy, but I was all right.

Rachel hesitated, her fingers just above the keypad. “What about Tobias?”

I looked around the room and saw Tobias spread out on the floor, one wing crumpled beneath him.

He looked dead.

I jumped up and ran to him.

“Rachel, Cassie seems okay, and nine-one-one can’t help Tobias,” Jake said.

Rachel replaced the receiver and ran over to Tobias.

“He’s not dead,” I said. I could feel him breathing. Then, just as suddenly as I had, he woke up. His enormous brown hawk’s eyes opened, instantly fierce.

His first reaction was pure hawk. He hopped up and flared. Hawks flare just the way cats do when they’re trying to intimidate someone. They hunch their shoulders and fluff up their feathers to make themselves look bigger than they are.

“Everybody stand still,” I said quickly. “It’s okay, Tobias, you were just out for a minute there.”

He quickly gained control over the hawk instincts. he said.

“It happened to me, too,” I said. “I passed out. And then I had the dream again. Only this time I could hear an actual voice. Or at least I heard thought-speech.”

Tobias confirmed.

“Okay, now this is getting weird,” Rachel said. “Because at the same time I thought I kind of felt something.”

“Yeah,” Jake agreed. Marco nodded.

“Only this someone is in the water, or under the water, or something,” I said. “Seeing that video, seeing that writing, it was like suddenly the message grew stronger.”

“Or it may have just been a coincidence,” Jake said. “This isn’t a dream. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t a dream. Even I halfway saw something. This is some kind of a communication.”

“Well, this is all very interesting,” Marco said, “but so what? I mean, are we getting some kind of psychic message from the Little Mermaid? What are we supposed to do about it?”

Jake looked closely at me. “Cassie? Was the voice in your dream a
human
voice?”

I was startled by the question. I hadn’t really thought about it. I actually laughed. “When you asked me, the first thing that popped into my head was no, it isn’t human.” I laughed again. “But that doesn’t make any sense.”

Tobias said suddenly.

“So what is it?” Rachel asked. “Yeerk?”

I let my mind drift back to the dream. I tried to hear the sound in my head again. “No, not Yeerk. It reminds me of something … of someone.”

Tobias blurted.

I snapped my fingers. “Yes! That’s it! It reminds me of the Andalite. When he first thought-spoke to us. That’s what it’s like.”

“The Andalite,” Marco muttered. He looked away. I knew he was remembering. We all were.

We had been walking home from the mall at night. Walking through a big abandoned construction site, when the Andalite ship had appeared above us.

It landed, and out came the Andalite prince, fatally wounded in a battle with the Yeerks somewhere in space.

He was the one who had warned us of the Yeerks — the parasite species that inhabits the brains of other creatures and enslaves them, making them Controllers. It was the Andalite who had warned us, and who, in desperation, had given us the great and terrible weapon—the power to morph.

We had been hiding, cringing in terror, when the Yeerks caught up with the Andalite. When Visser Three himself, the Yeerk leader, had murdered him.

I shuddered at the terrible memory of the Andalite’s last, despairing cry.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Tobias is right. It’s an Andalite. That’s who is calling to us from the sea. An Andalite.”

For a few minutes no one said anything.

Then Rachel said, “He died trying to save us.” She looked defiantly at Marco. “I know that doesn’t mean anything to you. But the Andalite died trying to save Earth.”

Marco nodded. “I know. And you’re wrong, Rachel. That means plenty to me.”

“Yeah? Well, if there’s some Andalite calling for help, I’m going to try and help him,” Rachel said.

I looked over at Jake and we shared this look, like “Oh, big surprise, Rachel is ready to go.” I hid my smile and Jake kept a straight face.

“Tobias?” Jake asked. “What do you say?”

Of all of us, it was Tobias who had stayed longest at the Andalite’s side, even as the Andalite ordered him to get to safety. Something really deep had gone on between the Andalite prince and Tobias.

It was my turn. “I can’t just ignore someone crying out for help, if that’s what this is.”

We all looked at Marco. I could see Rachel getting angry, like she was ready to jump all over Marco if, as usual, he disagreed.

Marco just grinned. “I really hate to do this. I really hate to disappoint you all.” Then he grew serious. “But I was there at the construction site, same as all of you. I was there when Visser Three —” Suddenly his voice choked. “What I mean is, if there’s an Andalite who needs anything, I’m there.”

You do realize that if
we’re
down here at the beach because of that news story, some
Controllers
are probably down here, too?” Marco asked for about the tenth time.

“Yes, Marco,” Jake said patiently. “But maybe Cassie and Tobias can get some feeling from being down here, closer to the sea.”

“So let me get this straight—we are now making decisions based on Tobias and Cassie’s dreams, right?” Marco said. “And yet my dreams are totally ignored. The fact that I once dreamed about staying home and watching TV in total safety, that means nothing, right?”

“Right,” Jake said flatly.

We were at the beach. The same beach where the guy on the news had found what we now believed was a piece of an Andalite ship. It was night, with a sliver of moon that painted ripples of silver across the black water. A salt breeze blew off the water, making me feel peaceful and yet a little overwhelmed, intimidated, the way the ocean always makes me feel.

There is nothing as big as the ocean. It’s like this entirely different planet, full of strange plants and fantastic animals. Valleys and mountains and caves and broad, flat plains, all hidden from our sight.

All I could see was the surface. All I could feel was the barest edge of the ocean, rushing over my toes as each wave crashed ashore.

But I could sense it out there. I could sense how vast it was, and how tiny I was.

“How about my dream of living long enough to get a driver’s license?”

Jake gave Marco an exasperated look. “Marco, you can turn into a bird and fly. You could do it right now. Why would you care about driving a car a few years from now?”

“The babes,” Marco said instantly. “Duh. You can’t pick up girls when you’re a bird.” He glanced overhead, where we could see just the hint of dark wings against the canopy of stars. “No offense, Tobias. The wings are great, but I’m thinking of something bright red with about four hundred horsepower.”

Marco’s cooperative mood hadn’t lasted long. I knew it wouldn’t. Marco is never happy unless he’s complaining about something. Just like Rachel is never happy unless she has something to fight against. And Tobias is never happy, period. He thinks if he’s ever happy, someone will just come along and take his happiness away.

“So, Cassie?” Rachel said. “Do you
feel
anything?”

“Well, I feel a little embarrassed,” I admitted. “And a little foolish.”

“Maybe we could try calling a psychic hotline,” Marco suggested. “Hi, is this Madame Zora? I’ve been dreaming about aliens lately—”

“Why Cassie and Tobias?” Rachel wondered aloud, ignoring Marco. “Why would they get these images so clearly and the rest of us barely felt anything?”

Jake shook his head. “I don’t know. I mean, okay, say you’re an Andalite. And you want to call for help. Who do you want to come and rescue you? Other Andalites, obviously.”

“Tobias isn’t an Andalite, and neither am I,” I pointed out.

“I know,” Jake said. “But maybe this communication, whatever it is, is tied into the ability to morph. You know, like morphing ability makes you able to ‘hear’ it. That way, only Andalites would be able to receive the call for help.”

“Which still doesn’t explain why Tobias and I —”

“Maybe it does,” Marco interrupted, serious again. “Look, Tobias is permanently in morph. And Cassie, you’re the one who has the most talent for morphing.” Then he flashed white teeth in the dark. “Besides, you know you like animals more than humans, so it’s like you’re halfway into morph, anyway.”

Suddenly a dark shape swooped low over our heads. Tobias said.

“Who are they?” Jake demanded.

Tobias said.

With that he was gone.

“Come on,” Jake said. “He’s right. Let’s hide in the dunes.”

We crouched down in a pocket between two dunes. I lay flat on my belly in the cold sand and peered through the tall sea grass, focusing on the bright line of the surf.

Tobias was back a few minutes later.

he said. He came to rest on a piece of driftwood. He turned his head to look at Jake.

The Sharing is a front organization for the Yeerks. Supposedly it’s this group for all ages, like Girl Scouts or whatever. In reality it’s a way for the Controllers to try and recruit new voluntary hosts. As impossible as it may seem, some humans actually
decide
to become hosts for the Yeerks. The Yeerks like it that way. It’s easier for them to have a voluntary host instead of a host that resists their control.

The Sharing is very subtle, of course. People are brought along very slowly, over time. New members have no idea what it’s all about at first. They think it’s just fun and games.

I don’t know when they tell the members what’s really happening. By then I guess it’s too late. They either become hosts voluntarily, or, like Jake’s brother Tom, they are taken anyway.

“Tom is with them?” Jake asked.

Tobias said.

“So it
is
Andalite?” Rachel asked, excited.

Tobias said.

The way he hesitated made me tense up. “What?”

“It’s because of Visser Three’s Andalite body,” Marco said.

“That’s the connection. These dreams or visions or whatever they are must be some kind of communication that’s only supposed to be heard by Andalites.”

Suddenly I saw the line of flashlights swing into view. There must have been twenty people strung across the beach, all looking down at the sand, moving forward slowly.

“They’re searching for any other fragments,” I whispered.

A part of the line stopped moving. I heard someone yelling. Others came running up, excited.

“What did they find?” Jake wondered.

“I don’t …” Then, in a flash, it came to me. “Our footprints! Four sets of fresh footprints that suddenly turn off into the dunes!”

“Let’s get out of here,” Jake hissed. “Now!”

Too late!

The flashlight beams raced across the rippling sand and up the side of the dune. In an instant a dozen flashlight beams focused on the notch where we crouched.

We slithered back, down and out of sight. Then we jumped up and ran.

“We should morph!” Rachel gasped as we stumbled over the sinking sand.

“No!” Marco said. “Tracks. We would leave tracks that went from human to animal.”

“Get them!” someone yelled. Chapman, I think. He’s our assistant principal at school. I knew his voice from hearing him yell in the hallways.

Jerky, wild beams of light danced all around us. We ducked and ran as fast as we could. But running across the sand was like running through quicksand.

Jake was gasping out whispered instructions. “Double around … if they follow us deeper into … the dunes … we can double around … get to the water … then morph …”