[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Rachel? Rachel?>
I couldn't. Couldn't look. Think. Just scream and scream. Scream.
SCREAM! SCREAM! SCREAM!
I fell silent.
137
Silent. Waiting. Feeling the terror stalking me, feeling it tickle up
beside me, feeling its cold hand reaching right through me. Trapped! A
roach in a clear, plastic matchbox. No way to de-morph. No way out. Trapped!
Ooooohhh!> I moaned. I knew why they were counting down.
scared. It's a countdown to make us think we're running out of time in
morph. But listen, Rachel? They aren't even sure we're not just real
bugs, okay? They don't know, Rachel. They're hoping. They're guessing.
They don't know. Do you understand?>
Counting down. Trapped. The rest of my life as a roach! Not a hawk like
Tobias, a cockroach! No! No! NONONONONO!
138
come. You can't say anything. No matter how much ->
Say? Say? My feverish mind grabbed on to that thought. I could talk to
them! I could beg them to let me go, let me go, let me go.
Jake said.
anything. It's the only way to survive. It's your duty.>
I began to scream in open thought-speak.
Suddenly, movement!
They were coming for me! The Hork-Bajir! Yes, they would let me out, let
me out and I would tell them anything.
WHAM!
My box was snatched up.
Fwit!
I flew through the air.
Then, slice]
I fell through the air.
139
Turned out I didn't need some big plan. I saw Hork-Bajir, I morphed to
Hork-Bajir and joined them. Hah! All I had to do was march along like
they told me.
The room was gloomy, lit only by faint, greenish luminescence that
seemed to glow from the walls.
There were a dozen pedestals. On each pedestal a small, glass box. And
in each glass box a bug or other small animal. Roach, ant, snail,
beetle, fly. Weird. Like some kind of insane collector had gone to a lot
of trouble to capture and display some rare animals that were not at all
rare.
140 One thing was for sure: Jake and my idiot twin were two of those
bugs. And they were dead meat!
I laughed. Silently, of course. The Yeerks thought they were going to
kill Jake and the other Rachel. Hah! I was going to kill them! No one
was going to deprive me of that.
I was in Hork-Bajir morph. Not any different than the other three
Hork-Bajir in the claustrophobic little room. Except that those three
didn't know who I was. They didn't know what danger they were in.
Me against three? I had the benefit of surprise. Besides, I was me. ME!
"Boring, huh?" I said to a big old Hork-Bajir beside me.
He glared at me. Probably a little thrown off by my use of correct
English. Hork-Bajir mouths and brains don't handle English all that
well, so they use a mix of languages: their own, and ours, and Yeerkish,
of course, and Galard, and I didn't care, because he was eyeballing me,
and I was enjoying the moment of suspense, the point where time slowed
down to a crawl as I prepared to attack!
He said something about how it wouldn't be boring once Visser Three
arrived, and as soon as he'd garbled out the last word, I struck!
141 Right wrist blade to his throat!
Ah HAH!
He slumped, looking surprised.
The second Hork-Bajir just stood there, puzzled, but number three was a
smart Yeerk. He knew right away. He leaped at me. Too late!
I had a foot up, cocked, as I leaned my weight back on my tail, waited
for him to rush me, STRIKE!
"RrrrAAAARRRGG!" he bellowed in pain.
I said in thought-speak as I mocked the
slow one. And then I swung. But even though he was dumb as dirt, he was
quick. He dodged. I slammed into a pedestal and knocked it, like a
domino, into more pedestals that fell over, sending their little bug
boxes skittering.
The Hork-Bajir who I'd gut-taloned was up, holding his insides with one
hand and fumbling for an alarm switch with the other.
BrrrrrEEEEET! BrrrrrEEEEET!
The dumb one lunged. Dug an elbow into me! I windmilled my arm, tore his
blade loose, and slammed the side of his head with my own head.
He didn't drop. I didn't drop. And now it was one-on-one mayhem!
Slash!
Slash!
142 Hork-Bajir blood was flying!
I cried in sheer pleasure.
BrrrrEEEEET! BrrrrEEEET!
Old Gut-rip had definitely set off the alarm. And now the doomed fool
was throwing the stupid bug boxes at me! Hah!
Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!
Four bug boxes, four sliced in half by my su-pernaturally fast blades.
My main antagonist saw this and worried. He hesitated.
He lunged. I lunged.
Crunch. I heard the sound of a bug squashed beneath my foot. I could
only hope it wasn't Jake or Rachel. I wanted them to know I'd killed them.
Slash! I ducked. Swiped up, caught my foe beneath the chin.
Bye-bye chin!
Three of them! I'd taken three of them down! I was a goddess. Nothing
could stop me! No one! Invincible!
And now, to find Jake and the pitiful creature who called herself Rachel.
Suddenly, whooosh! The wall behind me slid up. Gut-rip staggered out.
Out into a much brighter room beyond.
A dozen more Hork-Bajir waited, vibrating
143 with destructive energy. And in the middle of them, the one, the
only, the most dangerous creature I had ever fought.
Visser Three.
thought-speak roar. I saw his Andalite tail whip and catch Gut-rip with
the blade that was sharper than any Hork-Bajir blade.
The wall slammed down.
he said, more calmly.
Andalite. But now, I doubt no more.>
I yelled.
he said smugly.
Instead, I think I'll simply wait. Call me when you are ready to submit
to me, Andalite.>
Andalite mind. And I know how to break you. Oh, yes, I do.>
I heard a strange sound. Sliding. Slipping.
I looked up. It was hard at first to tell in the dim light, but then I
realized it was true: The ceiling was coming nearer and nearer. And one
wall was closing in as well.
144 than being slowly, inexorably, crushed?> Visser Three said softly.
squeeze the air from your lungs, call for me, Andalite. Call for me.>
144
145
JL was on the floor! Out of the box!
Huge, Hork-Bajir feet stomped all around me. But then, after a while,
all was quiet. All but the sound of my twin's thought-speak voice raging
at Visser Three.
Then, the terrible realization of Visser Three's threat: that I had
escaped one box only to find myself trapped in another.
Demorph! I told myself. But, no, morphing was horrible. And Rachel ...
the other Rachel . . . might kill me. She had to be furious.
What should I do? I was trapped, unable to decide. To demorph was
terrifying, to stay in morph was terrifying. It was the ultimate horror
146 of the coward: I was caught between two frightening choices.
Logically if both choices were terrifying, then it didn't matter. But it
did! There was more at stake than fear. I had to find a way out! I had
to survive!
Demorph, Rachel, you idiot! I berated myself. You pathetic coward. It
was true. Without my other half, what was I? Someone too scared and weak
to save myself, someone who could be trapped, helpless, paralyzed
between alternatives.
The demorphing began. I don't even know when I started. I just did. And
slowly, then more quickly, I began to emerge, to grow, to feel flesh on
my returning bones.
"You," Mean Rachel grunted in disgust.
She had demorphed. She was human again.
"I came here to kill you. You and Jake," she said. "But as you can see,
we have other problems."
She jerked her head up at the ceiling. It was slowly descending. The
back wall was simultaneously moving forward. It would have been
impossible in a normal room. But the Yeerks had the technology.
"J-J-Jake?" I managed to stammer as my lips and tongue and throat formed
out of roach shell.
147 She shrugged. "Who knows. I stepped on a bug. Maybe that was him."
"Oh, my God!" I wailed.
"It's a war, he was a warrior, warriors die," Mean Rachel said
dismissively. "The important thing is I'm in charge now."
"We shouldn't be human," I said softly, crying hot tears for Jake.
"Visser Three ..."
"I don't think he can see in here," she said. But she was doubtful.
Obviously the thought had just occurred to her. But still, she was
probably right. If Visser Three had visual contact with us he'd have
come in by now, seeing us as humans. Mean Rachel was right. By accident.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]