The Arrival Read online

  For Michael and Jake

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  SNEAK PEEK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  Crumph! Crumph!

  The thudding of fists against human flesh is not a pleasant sound. It is particularly sickening when heard through a metal pipe. The sound echoes and is magnified.

  “That’s enough. Stop it,” a human voice commanded. The sound was muffled, vague, indistinct. I was feeling the voice through my six legs, through my antennae.

  “But he’s told us nothing,” a second human argued.

  I should not call them humans. They are human-Controllers.

  There is a difference.

  Human-Controllers are humans whose bodies have become hosts to the Yeerk invaders.

  Yeerks! Foulest creatures of the universe. Gray slugs who enter the body through the ear, fit themselves into the human brain, and take over. Mind and body.

  Of course, not all hosts are human.

  Visser Three, leader of the Yeerk Earth invasion, has an Andalite host.

  My name is Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. I am not human. I am Andalite. The only Andalite among the group that calls itself the Animorphs. Four humans. A red-tailed hawk. Me.

  We are the resistance. We fight the Yeerk invasion until help from my home planet arrives. Or until we die.

  The latter possibility seems ever more likely.

  It would be unwise to tell you very much more. The Animorphs and I have many secrets to keep. And I, as an Andalite, have the secret of my own race to keep.

  Crumph!

  The sound again. Had we not been on the pipe we would not have heard it. Roaches feel vibrations. The pipe carried those vibrations directly to us.

  We were making our way up a corroded, rusty metal pipe within the interior wall of a two-story office building. Our mission, to rescue our friend and collaborator, Mr. King. We had all seen the front page article on The Sharing, the Yeerk front organization. We had been suspicious that the paper had become yet another Yeerk-run organization. Mr. King had thought it safe to break into the offices of The Chronicle and examine their computer data, find the truth.

  Apparently that was a mistake.

  “Talk!” human-Controller Two shouted. “What are you doing here? Who are you? Why are you snooping?”

  Crumph!

  “I said stop it!” human-Controller One repeated angrily. “If you kill him, Visser Three will execute us for wasting a potential host body.”

  There was a long pause before human-Controller Two spoke again. “Visser Three will execute us for incompetence if he finds out we couldn’t beat the truth out of a mere human. Let’s kill him and incinerate the body. Visser Three will never learn that we failed.”

  “Visser Three will wonder why we did not simply infest him and learn the truth.”

  “I tell you there is something wrong with this human. I tried to enter the ear canal, but it’s blocked in some way. You don’t believe me, you try it!”

  Prince Jake asked me in the thought-speak language we use while in morph.

 

  Marco said, using the human tone I’ve come to recognize as sarcasm.

  I replied.

  Marco said,

  Cassie said.

  The sound of a new blow came echoing through the pipe again. “Talk! Talk or we’ll kill you!”

  We were inside the wall. To one side, the torture. On the other side? We would have to find out.

  Prince Jake’s voice was sharp and urgent.

  Marco asked.

  That was Rachel. Rachel never found reason to resist action.

  For my own part I sympathized with Marco. The Chee were frustrating. Very useful allies. But also liabilities. My human friends have a certain sentimental sympathy for the pacifism of the Chee. I do not.

 

  Rachel laughed.

  Prince Jake announced.

  Cassie inquired.

  Prince Jake explained.

  Prince Jake navigated a bend in the pipe and crossed to the wall itself. Above him was a tiny thread of light. I followed.

  Prince Jake flattened his body. Disappeared between two boards.

  I did the same.

  We emerged into the light. I fought the instinct to panic and retreat back into the baseboard. I waved my antennae, checking for danger.

  Prince Jake announced, although his roach senses were no better than mine. He had to be making an educated guess.

  Rachel said.

  Rock and roll is a type of human music. Its relevance to the battle before us was a mystery to me.

  Morphing is an odd and disturbing process. It is never the same twice. The last time I came out of cockroach morph, my hind legs were the first portions of my Andalite anatomy to emerge.

  This time, it was my eyes.

  The two that are on stalks. Not the ones on my face. I had no face at the moment so eyes would have been quite out of place.

  I felt the nub of both stalks pushing out through my hard, insect exoskeleton. My head split with an audible crack.

  It was not painful. At least not in the conventional sense. But there was a sense that it should hurt. Therefore while there is no actual pain, there is the anticipation of pain. Which, in its own way, is quite painful.

  My two eye stalks emerged and I was able to see the others with far more clarity than the roach’s dim senses allowed.

  Marco. Rachel. Cassie. And Prince Jake. All demorphing from roach to human. Neither transition, roach to Andalite or roach to human, is attractive to watch. I try to be sensible about such things but it is simply disturbing to watch human flesh grow out of a roach’s hard, caramel-colored exoskeleton. The melting of enlarged roach mouthparts to re-form as human mouthparts is particularly unsettlin
g. Possibly because for an Andalite all mouths seem alien.

  We were in a room filled with what appeared to be filing cabinets. There were newspapers piled high in stacks. The sound of torture came from the other side of the wall.

  Tobias reported. He sounded bored.

  Tobias is a nothlit, a person who overstays the two-hour limit and becomes trapped in morph. He has, in fact, reacquired his power to morph and could, should he choose to do so, resume human form permanently. Assuming he would be willing to become a sort of human nothlit, trapped forever in his original form, never able to morph again.

  He has chosen to remain a red-tailed hawk. He usually provides air surveillance for us during a mission.

  Prince Jake looked at the others. And then at me. “Ax, you go in as yourself. Everybody else, battle morphs. We’re doing this fast. And we’re doing it right.”

  We heard the door to the next office open and close.

  “I brought in three Dracon beams,” human-Controller Two said. “Enough to reduce him to a little pile of ash.”

  Prince Jake began the tiger morph. His eyeteeth grew, surging forward like plunging daggers. Two sharp tiger ears sprouted from his hair before his own human ears disappeared, creating a very odd appearance.

  His forearms bent at an odd angle, growing shorter and sprouting orange-and-black fur.

  The others were right behind him. Or, in Cassie’s case, ahead of him. She is quite talented at morphing. I was soon in the company of a tiger, a wolf, a grizzly bear, and a gorilla.

  If someday an Andalite reads this and wonders what these animals represent, I should point out that the animals of Earth are often very powerful, capable of doing tremendous damage with a combination of claws, teeth, lightning reflexes, and highly acute senses. Among the animals of Earth, these four, each with its own strengths and weaknesses, formed a powerful force.

  For human readers I should explain that my own Andalite body is of course sufficient for battle situations. I have four eyes, four legs, two arms, and a tail blade that can slice a human in half with one swipe.

  Well, perhaps two swipes. I may perhaps have a tendency to overstate my capabilities.

  Cassie said. Her wolf senses could pinpoint our targets within a few feet one way or the other.

  Prince Jake said.

  Rachel stood. Eight hundred pounds of loose, shaggy brown fur over massive muscle and bone.

  KABOOM!

  Rachel slammed into the wall.

  The flimsy drywall cracked from baseboard to ceiling in several places.

  “What the … ?” Before the human-Controller on the other side of the wall could finish his cry …

  SNAP!

  Marco grabbed the cracked wallboard and ripped it back.

  Fwapp! Fwapp!

  I whipped my tail over my head and sliced the bent Sheetrock so that it fell away with a clatter and a puff of dust.

  Cassie was through the gap in a flash of gray fur, teeth bared. Jake was right behind her.

  “Andalites!” the two human-Controllers screamed.

  The Yeerks believe we are all Andalites. Actually there was just the one Andalite. Me.

  I felt that would be enough.

  It was a small room. Badly lit. One wall was formed of reinforced glass and beyond that glass a dark office.

  I should have worried about that. We all should have. But our attention was drawn to what appeared to be a badly beaten human, barely holding onto consciousness, slumped on a chair. His arms were bound behind his back with metal chains called handcuffs. His ankles were likewise affixed to the legs of the chair.

  One of the human-Controllers was drawing a gun. He took aim at Cassie. Cassie’s teeth found his arm in midair. The man screamed.

  BLAM! His shot went wild.

  BLAM! BLAM!

  The second Controller fired two shots at Rachel. One missed. The other nicked her shoulder. It was badly aimed. Most likely because Marco was shaking him like a rag doll.

  Fwapp! Fwapp!

  I hit each of the Controllers with the flat of my tail. Both fell unconscious.

  The seemingly near-dead Mr. King sat up, suddenly whole, healthy, and unscarred, calmly snapped the handcuffs, and said, “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  I warned.

  “Ah, yes.” The wounds, the blood all reappeared instantly. He let out a very convincing groan and slumped.

  Marco dropped the human-Controller and picked up Mr. King.

  Rachel swung her arms from her enormous shoulders, impatient. she complained.

  Marco said.

  Something was moving beyond the reinforced glass. Several somethings. Hork-Bajir! And one shape that was terribly familiar.

  Visser Three!

  Prince Jake shouted.

  I stared at the heavily muscled adult Andalite body. At the tail blade that could kill with one swipe. Looked with hatred at the only Andalite-Controller in the galaxy.

  Visser Three had no right to that body. No right to the eyes. The brain. The strength. The speed. No right to the morphing power.

  Visser Three is an evil thing. A Yeerk slug within the brain of an Andalite who had once been called Alloran-Semitur-Corrass.

  Alloran’s was a hideous fate. He was still alive. His mind and memories intact. He was a slave of his own enemy. And he knew the depths of his own powerlessness.

  Crrrraaassshhh!

  The glass partition fell in splinters.

  The visser leaped. Straight for me.

  Fwapp!

  I blocked the blow. Barely. He was fast, very strong. Stronger than me.

  But I was not alone.

  “ROOAARRRR!” The tiger’s roar shook the light fixtures! Their fluorescent glow flickered!

  Jake bounded over three desks and landed, claws extended, on the visser’s back.

  His claws raked deep and drew blood.

  Tseeew! Tseeew!

  The Hork-Bajir were firing. All that saved us was the care the Hork-Bajir had to take not to hit their master.

  Prince Jake rolled off the visser and onto the floor. His fur burned and smoked where a Dracon beam had penetrated the muscled shoulder.

  Prince Jake yelled.

  Marco yanked it open.

  An armed Hork-Bajir stood in the doorway. More behind him. How many? Too many.

  We were blocked in two directions. The only way out was the hole we had made to get in.

  No time to think. The visser was on me.

  Fwapp!

  He struck. I felt his blade bite. Felt my left front leg go numb from the blow.

  Fwapp!

  I blocked, but he knocked my tail, whipping back. Too strong! I was as fast, but he had power I couldn’t match.

  Fwapp!

  I felt the wind of the blow on my exposed neck.

  I drew back and then made a lunatic feint. It threw him off balance.

  Small victory. And temporary.

  The visser ducked his upper body, clearing the firing line, and roared,

  I yelled.

  Tseeew! Tseeew!

  Beams singed the fur down both sides of my back. The wall behind me was all burning wallboard and wood, half-incinerated by the Dracon beams.

  Prince Jake ordered.

  Tseeew! Tseeew!

  Jake cried. One of his legs was simply gone, a sizzling, bleeding stump.

  Rachel yelled. She charged toward the exit door, straight into the nearest Hork-Bajir blocking our path. The Hork-Bajir folded, crumpled. Marco was right behind Rachel with the Chee on his shoulder.

  Tseeew! Tseeew!

  A hole the size of a fist burned through
Rachel. But the grizzly is not easily stopped.

  Rachel yelled.

  They pushed back through our own doorway. Into the file room.

  Rachel yelled.

  Jake ordered.

  But before I could run, a sound. My stalk eyes swung upward in response to the noise. Ceiling panels were being pulled up as if they were trapdoors.

  Hork-Bajir began to drop like hailstones.

  Prince Jake ordered.

  We plowed down the hallway, staggering, bleeding, scared. Not fast enough. The Hork-Bajir were rushing up behind us, slashing, cutting into muscle and sinew.

  I killed one with a lucky swipe of my tail. He fell and tripped one of his brothers. The two of them sprawled, delaying the rush by a split second.

  Down a dark hallway, walls all around, hemming us in, a tunnel, and with Hork-Bajir roaring after us. If they were ahead of us as well …

  Stairwell leading down. Freight elevator just ahead. Hallway took a turn just past the elevator. Which way? Prince Jake’s decision, but Prince Jake was weakening, stumbling. How much longer could he keep going on three legs?

  I wasn’t much better off. Bleeding. Staggering. Hurt.

  “Sssree! Sssree!”

  A frenzy of squealing from below!

  Taxxons!

  Enormous voracious centipedes. Drawn by the carnage. Forcing their way up the narrow stairwell. Scrambling over the fallen Hork-Bajir, tearing limbs and pieces of flesh from their still-breathing bodies.

  Visser Three stepped into the hallway directly ahead. How? Some back way. We were surrounded.

  Prince Jake gasped.

  I slammed the button, willing it to come quickly.

  Where was Marco? He had gone down the hallway where the visser now appeared. Had he escaped? Or was he already a prisoner?

  Visser Three sneered. To his troops he said,

  The Hork-Bajir lifted their Dracon beams.

  My chest was tight with panic. I could hardly breathe.

  My hearts ached for my parents. They had lost one son on this distant planet. I feared they would soon lose a second.