The Stranger (5 page)

D
own into the Yeerk pool.

The very last place I ever wanted to go again.

The first time we went to the Yeerk pool complex, we had taken an incredibly long stairway.

This time it was more of a ramp. It wound downward at an easy angle, no worse than walking down a driveway. And to our roach bodies, which barely experienced gravity, it was like walking on level ground.

Under our scampering feet there was bare dirt, covered by footprints. We climbed in and out of depressions that seemed to be several feet deep, by our cockroach standards.

We let the Controller pull away from us, even though we could have moved as fast as he was.

No point in taking the risk of getting stepped on.

It was dark all around, with only an occasional bare electric bulb, high, high overhead like some dim sun. Still, we wanted to be careful not to be seen. My antennae were tuned in for any vibration that might be another Controller on the path.

Down, down we went, curving and twisting between rock walls.

Jake asked. Ax has the ability to keep perfect track of time, even without a watch. It's a very useful talent.

your
minutes now, too,> Marco said, just to make conversation. Earth
where we only have one type of minute.>

We had two hours total in any morph. At two hours and one minute, we would be stuck. Like Tobias. And this was one time I actually agreed with Marco. I was not interested in being a roach forever.

Cassie reported. Over, down. Over, down. Over, down. Seventy-five steps.

At last we sensed that the walls were no longer hemming us in. The path had emerged into the cavern itself.

Our roach “eyes” could not see it, but I remembered the first time I had looked down on the Yeerk pool.

It was a vast underground cavern. Larger than one of those big sports domes. The stairways and paths emerged from all sides, right about where the upper tier of seats would have been in a sports dome.

In the center of the area was the pool itself, a sludgy, muddy-looking lake that seemed to seethe with the mass of Yeerk slugs in it.

But that was not the worst of it.

Two piers were built out over the lake. One was where the Controllers — human, Hork-Bajir, Taxxon, and other species — disgorged the Yeerks from their heads. Hork-Bajir guards would watch carefully as each Controller knelt at the far end of the pier and held his head down close to the surface of the lake.

The Yeerk slug would then slither out of the host's ear and drop with a flat splash into the lake.

That's when you would discover whether the Controller was a “voluntary” host, or someone who had been taken against his will.

See, the voluntary hosts — the ones who had
chosen
to turn themselves over to the Yeerks — would stand up and calmly walk away.

The involuntary hosts would realize that they were temporarily free of the evil alien in their heads. That they once more had control over their own minds and bodies. Some would scream. Some would cry. Many would beg to be released.

A few would try to escape. But the Hork-Bajir were there to grab them and haul them to cages. That's where they would await the moment when they would be taken to the second pier.

The second pier was the place where Yeerks, now strong from their swim in the pool and full of the nutrition of Kandrona rays, would slither back inside their hosts.

When I had nightmares about the Yeerk pool … and I had those nightmares a lot … it would always be about that second pier.

The voluntary hosts would kneel and receive the Yeerks back into their brains.

The involuntaries would struggle. They would fight. Curse. Some would dare the Hork-Bajir to kill them.

We were on a ramp again. No one had said anything for a while as we still raced lower and lower, deeper and deeper, closer and closer.

That memory was in all of our minds. All except Ax, who had not been there.

Ax said.

I told him.

W
e were at the end of the ramp. We reached the flat floor of the cavern.

Cassie wondered.

Ax said.

Jake said.

Marco joked.

I said.

Cassie said.

She was right. I don't know if they were fries, but my roach brain definitely detected food.

Jake said with a laugh.

We barreled away across the dusty ground. Just ahead, a wall loomed. It was easy enough to find a crack. A roach can slide through a crack no thicker than a quarter.

We emerged into brilliant light and an assault of sounds and smells.

Marco asked.

I said.

Ax confirmed.

I said, only half-joking.

Ax argued. bad
smell. Sort of like an animal we have back on my planet called a
flaar
.>

Marco said.

Cassie said.

Suddenly a shadow fell over us. Something huge was overhead, blocking out the harsh fluorescent light.

that
… that is not a human smell,> Ax said.

I said.

Cassie said suddenly.

hate
those things,> I said.

Hurtling down from the fluorescent sky at incredible speed came something like a bright red whip.

I powered my six legs in instant response.

It was too fast!

The red whip slapped the ground all around me. It fell over me like an awful, wet quilt. Something like glue oozed around me, seeping under my shell, gumming up my legs.

I screamed.

Marco cried.

I was lifted up off the ground. My back was glued to the red whip, and I was hurtling through space. I caught a wild glimpse of the others, stuck to the red whip just like me.

Cassie cried.

Ax said.

We were stuck to the froglike tongue of the Taxxon, as the evil creature slurped his tongue back down his throat.

Jake yelled. In an instant, without warning, death had come for us. I was glued down, helpless, as the Taxxon's red tongue sucked back into its mouth.

And then …

And then … everything, everywhere, stopped.

T
he sticky red whip of the Taxxon's tongue stopped moving.

But it was more than that. Nothing was vibrating against my antennae. There were no sounds. There were no smells, because the air itself had stopped moving.

Then, without meaning to, I began to demorph.

I asked.

Cassie said.

I asked.

Jake said.

I swiftly grew larger and larger. My center pair of cockroach legs dwindled and disappeared. My lower legs swelled and grew skin.

I fell from the Taxxon's tongue to the ground, too large and heavy to be stuck any longer.

Toes appeared. Fingers appeared. My true human eyes opened.

I looked around, dazed and disoriented.

The others were all there. We were all human again, barefoot and dressed in our skintight morphing outfits, like we always were when we came out of a morph.

Ax was back in his Andalite body, just adding to the general weirdness of the scene.

We were inside a building. As we had guessed, it was a lunchroom. There was a kitchen to one side. There were a dozen long tables down the middle of the room.

People sat at the tables, eating. Only … they weren't eating. They were holding forks. They were looking down at plates of food. They were getting ready to speak. They were holding mugs of coffee.

But no one was moving.

No one was breathing.

The steam rising from the mugs of coffee was frozen and still as a photograph.

“Okay. I'm ready to wake up now,” Marco said. “This dream is getting weird.”

“Look,” I said. “Hork-Bajir.”

Two Hork-Bajir were standing by the door. I had never seen one standing still before. Even frozen in place they were frightening — seven feet of knife-edged arms, legs, head, and tail. SaladShooters on legs, as Marco said. Walking razor blades.

And then there was the Taxxon. The one who had been about to eat us. It was a monstrously big centipede, as big around as a concrete sewer pipe. It had a round, red mouth at the very top of its worm body. The long, red whip of a tongue stuck out and hung in the air.

“I have an idea,” Marco said. “Even if this is a dream … let's get OUT of here!”

“Definitely,” I agreed.

“MOVE!” Jake said loudly.

We ran for the door of the lunchroom. Out into the vast, intimidating openness of the cavern.

Outside, the same freeze had occurred. The surface of the Yeerk pool was still. The humans and Hork-Bajir who were involuntary hosts were frozen in their cages, screaming and crying and shouting without a sound or a movement.

On the infestation pier, a woman was bent low over the water, held down by a Hork-Bajir. A Yeerk was halfway into her ear. She was crying. Her tears were motionless on her cheeks.

Then I saw something moving. One single thing in all that eerie stillness.

A boy. He was tall, a little gangly. He had hair that looked as if it had never been combed.

“Oh …” I whispered. “Oh … look! It's Tobias!”

The others all turned to see.

Tobias shrugged his human shoulders. He held up his hands to stare at his own fingers. “It is me,” he said, sounding like he doubted it. “My old body. Here.”

I ran to him. I don't really know why, I just did. I wanted to touch him. To know he was real.

“Ah! Ah! Ah!” he yelled. He jumped back and suddenly threw his arms up and down.

He was flapping, trying to get away. Trying to fly. I had scared him by rushing at him.

“Sorry,” he whispered, terribly embarrassed. “Sorry.”

I put my arms around him and hugged him tightly.

“Tobias, what's going on?” I asked him.

“I don't know,” he said. “I was flying … then suddenly, I was here. Like this.”

Ax said.

“Something is very, very wrong,” Cassie said darkly. “Is this some trick of Visser Three's?”

Ax said.

WHAT
?
HUMILITY
?
FROM AN ANDALITE
?

“Yaaahhh!” Marco screamed.

The voice came from everywhere at once. And from nowhere. It wasn't a voice, not really. It wasn't even thought-speak. It was like an idea that simply popped into your head. The words exploded like bursting balloons inside your own thoughts.

I spun around, looking for the source, ready to fight if necessary.

NO
,
RACHEL
.
THERE IS NO THREAT
.

“It knows your name!” Tobias hissed.

I glanced at Ax. He had gone rigid. He wasn't frozen like all the world around us, he was afraid. He was shaking.

AXIMILI
-
ESGARROUTH
-
ISTHILL HAS BEGUN TO GUESS WHAT I AM
.

Ax said.

DO NOT BE AFRAID
.
I WILL APPEAR IN A PHYSICAL FORM YOU CAN UNDERSTAND
.

The air directly in front of me … no, not in front, behind. Beside. Around. I can't explain it. The air just opened up. As if there were a door in nothingness. As if air were solid and … it is just impossible to explain.

The air opened. He appeared.

He was humanoid. Two arms, two legs, a head where a human head would be.

His skin was glowing blue, as if he were a light-bulb that had been painted over so that light still shone from him.

He seemed like an old man, but with a force of energy that was definitely not frail. His hair was long and white. His ears were swept up into points. His eyes were black holes that seemed to be full of stars.

“I am an Ellimist,” he said, speaking with an actual voice, “as your Andalite friend guessed.”

Ax was shaking so badly he looked like he might fall down.

“Be at peace, Andalite,” the Ellimist said. “Look at your human friends. They do not fear me.”

Ax managed to say.

The Ellimist smiled. “Neither do you. All you know are the fairy stories your people tell to children.”

“Well, how about if someone tells us who and what you are?” I said. I was not in the best mood ever. It was extremely bizarre and unnerving to be surrounded by Human-Controllers, Hork-Bajir, and Taxxons, in the very heart of the enemy's stronghold. They were all frozen, but that could change.

To be honest, I was scared. And when I'm scared, I get mad.

The Ellimist looked at me. “You cannot begin to understand what I am.”

Ax said simply.

“This one doesn't look all that powerful,” Marco said skeptically.

Ax snapped.

“So why are you here?” Jake asked the Ellimist. “Why all of this? Why did you bring Tobias here?”

“Obviously, you saw right through our morphs,” Marco said. “You knew who we were. You even know our names. You brought us all here together. Why?”

“Because you must decide,” the Ellimist said.

“Decide what?” I demanded.

“The fate of your race,” the Ellimist said. “The fate of the human race.”