The Reaction Read online

  90 At least, it didn't feel like I was. But I couldn't see to be sure. I was blind.

  Don't panic, Rachel, I ordered myself. But that was easier said than done. I was blind!

  «l can't find her,» Ax yelled in frustration. «These shark eyes are too weak. She was too small. I think she was morphing an insect.»

  Insect?

  Slowly, reluctantly, I took stock. I had legs. I could move them, feel them. Four legs. No, six! Yes, I had become an insect. I had feelers. I waved them around and tasted the air. Nothing. Just my own smell.

  And what brain was in with my own? None. No awareness. No thought. It was the body of a mindless machine. There were two possibilities: termite ... or ant!

  «Ax? Cassie? I think ... I think I went into ant morph!» I cried. «Nobody swallow anything. It could be me.»

  «Are you okay?» Cassie asked.

  «You mean aside from the fact that I'm in ant morph, trapped inside an air bubble in the middle of the ocean?» I said, more sarcastically than I should have. «Yeah, aside from all that, I'm great.»

  «Uh-oh,» Marco said.

  «Uh-oh what!» Jake snapped.

  91 «Uh-oh, Visser Three is going from Andalite form to something else.»

  «What is it? What's he morphing?»

  «l don't know what it is. But it's big and it looks like it could swim.»

  «0h, man! Can anything else go wrong?!» Jake yelled in frustration. «Rachel, can you de-morph? Can you get human? Or dolphin? Or something useful?»

  «l don't know.» I tried to calm my panicky, jumbled mind. I tried to focus on morphing. On getting human again.

  Come on, Rachel, you can do this, I told myself. But I had the feeling I was lying.

  And yet I could feel myself growing once more. I felt myself press against the rubbery walls of the air bubble.

  «l think I see her!» Cassie said. «No, wait. Just seaweed. No, wait again. I do see her. She's green, maybe half an inch long but growing fast.»

  «Rachel, what are you morphing?» Jake asked.

  «Why don't you tell me? Because, guess what? I DON'T KNOW!»

  «Stay cool, Rachel,» Jake advised.

  «Cool? Cool? Hey, sorry if I sound tense, but I keep turning into things I don't want to turn into.»

  92 «It's the crocodile!» Cassie said. «Jake, over here. This way.»

  Suddenly, I could see again. Eyes appeared just in time for me to see sticklike ant legs morphing into stubby, green-scaled crocodile legs.

  I was growing at incredible speed. I could feel the water sliding over and around me as I occupied more and more space. But at least I could see again. And I wasn't drowning. The crocodile has the ability to hold its breath for a very long time.

  Above me I could see the bright sheet that was the divider between water and air. And in the water around me hovered two big, gray bottlenose dolphins, both grinning their eternal dolphin grins. Cassie and Jake.

  Moving swiftly past, just a hundred feet off, was a menacing-looking tiger shark. Ax. I hoped.

  I looked at Jake. Or maybe it was Cassie. «l guess maybe I should have mentioned I was having this little problem with morphing, huh?»

  «No, it's much better to find out this way, Rachel. You know - when you could get us all killed,» Jake said.

  It's not like Jake to be sarcastic.

  «0h, man,» Marco said. He was still in seagull morph. «l don't know what Visser Three is now, but he's getting ready to dive in the

  93 water. And you don't want to be there when he does.»

  «Let's get out of here while we can,» Jake said. «Rachel, if you feel any more morphing happening, tell us, all right? If you don't mind.»

  «Yell at me later, okay? Let's get some distances

  I turned my long body easily and began swimming, using my big crocodile tail.

  Cassie and Jake and Ax all turned on the speed and in ten seconds they were far out ahead of me. I saw Jake stop and look back.

  «Alligators aren't exactly fast swimmers, are they?»

  «Crocodiles,» I corrected him. «And no. I guess not.»

  Then we heard . . .

  PUH-WHUMPF!

  It was a sound like a depth charge. Like something very large had just cannonballed into the water.

  «Here he comes,» Marco announced grimly. «Look out for those spears. They look nasty.»

  «The what?» I asked. «The spears? What spears?»

  «The thing Visser Three morphed into. I can't be sure, but I think maybe it shoots spears out of its mouth.»

  94 «Ah!» Ax said, speaking up. «l bet it's a Lebtin javelin fish! I've always wanted to see one of those. I mean . . . you know ... in a zoo or something.»

  «Well, we can't outrun it with Rachel in alligator morph,» Jake said.

  «Crocodile,» Cassie said. «Not alligator.»

  «You guys get out of here. I'll take care of Visser Three,» I said, sounding much braver than I felt. «It's my fault we're in this mess.»

  «Yeah, right, Rachel,» Jake said.

  Then he began rapid-fire orders. «Spread out. Thirty feet apart. Keep moving so he doesn't get an easy target. Marco? We could use your help down here. And for future reference, I don't give a rat's butt if it's a crocodile or an alligator, so long as it can fight.»

  95

  I drifted up to the surface, showing just my nostrils and my eyes above water. I breathed out and refilled my lungs with fresh air.

  The dolphins did the same, blowing out through the holes in the backs of their heads and sucking in fresh air.

  In the few seconds before I dived again, I saw Jeremy Jason standing on the back of the boat. He had a huge, fierce grin on his face. He was pointing and laughing like a fan at a boxing match.

  Something he yelled drifted to me on the breeze.

  "Is he awesome, or what?!"

  96 He was referring to Visser Three. He had just watched the Visser shed his human form, meld into his stolen Andalite body, then morph into a fearsome beast from some far-distant planet. And his reaction to it all was admiration.

  I felt cold fury. What kind of a human being would sell out his own species?

  Enjoy the show while you can, I sneered silently. It may not end the way you expect.

  I sank back beneath the choppy waves, down and down. And then I saw it. Him. Visser Three.

  It was a bizarre morph. Like nothing on Earth, that's for sure. It looked like a vast, bright yellow stingray. Like a living pancake, flat and oblong. It sort of flew through the water by slowly flapping its sides. There were two stalk-mounted eyes on top, and two long, trailing antennae below.

  All along its back it had spears. They were lined up flat. You know how a fighter jet has missiles tucked up under the wings? That's how it held the spears, only they were on top. But all neatly in a row, facing forward.

  The spears - there must have been twenty of them - were each as long as a broom handle and just about as thick. They had irregular striping, yellow and green and bits of blue. It was probably camouflage back on the home planet of the Lebtin javelin fish. But here, in Earth's oceans, it seemed gaudy and too bright.

  97 It flew through the water. Faster than my crocodile could ever have moved. But faster, too, than the dolphins or the shark.

  «Fast,» Jake said.

  «Yep,» I agreed.

  «Probably not all that agile, though,» he suggested.

  «No. It will be slow in a turn.»

  «I've changed my mind,» Ax said. «l do not think I want to see a Lebtin javelin fish.»

  I glanced left. Ax was holding position there. Beyond him was Jake. Cassie was on my right. The javelin fish was now just a hundred feet away. I could only pray I wouldn't suddenly start morphing again.

  Then . . .

  The javelin fish - Visser Three - began to swell up. It seemed to inflate like a balloon. It slowed . . . slowed . . .

  SHOOOOOOP!

  A spear fired from the javelin fish's mouth! Like a rocke
t, it lanced through the water. I didn't have time to even think about dodging it.

  «AHHHHHHH!»

  The spear went through my tail, near the base. Pain shot up my spine. Blood billowed into the water around me. My blood!

  I looked down. The spear was still there, piercing my scales. All I could do was stare at it.

  98 It seemed ridiculous. It was just stuck right through me!

  «Rachel!»

  «Hah-HAH!» Visser Three exulted. «It works! I just acquired this morph, and look how well it performs!»

  I looked at Visser Three. One of the spears stored on his back rolled neatly into a flap. Then he began to swell again, ready to fire another spear.

  «Look out! Move! Move!» Jake howled in our heads.

  But I couldn't move. My tail was paralyzed. I wanted to charge the alien creature, but I could barely move at all.

  SHOOOOOOP!

  The second spear flew straight for Cassie. But her dolphin was too fast. She kicked hard and the spear missed by millimeters.

  No, she had been hit! I could see the cut across her back where the spear had opened the flesh.

  «I'm okay, I'm okay!» she cried.

  She'd been lucky. A split-second slower and she would have been impaled.

  The javelin fish was still rushing at us. I rolled onto my back, pale belly up. «Jake! Back off. Get out of here. It's too fast! You have to split up and hope you lose him!»

  99 «I'm not leaving you!»

  «You have to. I'll play dead. And if he comes close enough . . .»

  He hesitated, but only for a second longer. «Split up! Run for it!»

  «I'm not leaving Rachel!» Cassie cried.

  «Cassie, you have to,» I said. «Now! Get out of here or we'll all be dead!»

  Visser Three flew toward us, gliding swiftly through the water. I saw a new spear roll into the flap. He began to swell, sucking in the water he used to propel the spear.

  «He's getting ready again. You guys, GET OUTOFHERE!»

  Cassie and Jake and Ax all wheeled sharply away, each heading off in a different direction.

  SHOOOOOOP!

  The spear raced after Ax! He was a hundred feet away and moving at full shark speed. But the spear gained swiftly.

  «Now, Ax! Now!» I yelled.

  He swerved right, and the spear blew past.

  «Thank you, Rachel,» Ax said.

  The Visser hesitated. «Ah, splitting up, eh? Well, that will only affect the order in which I kill each of you. What have ! heard the human children say? Ah yes, eeny, meeny, miney, moo.»

  I almost said, "It's moe, you jerk. Moe, not moo."

  100 But I had slightly more sense than that. I just lay there, hanging in the water, belly-up, looking dead and trying not to feel the pain from the spear in my tail.

  Go after Cassie, I begged silently. Go for Cassie, you disgusting creature.

  If the Visser went after Ax, he would pass too far from me to reach. The same if he chased Jake. Only Cassie would bring him near me.

  Visser Three flapped his water wings.

  I grinned a crocodile grin.

  He came closer, closer, then he slowed and began to swell. Larger and larger he grew, like an overfilled balloon. And closer and closer he came.

  Ten feet. . . five . . . two . . . twelve inches . . .

  Close enough.

  I jerked every muscle in my powerful crocodile body. My head thrust forward. My jaws opened wide.

  And I bit down.

  I definitely bit down.

  Did you know a crocodile has the most powerful jaws in the animal kingdom? Did you know they can practically crush rocks with their jaws?

  I clamped that long, toothy crocodile jaw down on the left wing of the Visser's javelin fish. And then . . .

  POOOOMPFF!

  101 SPWOOOOSH!

  It was like biting into a water balloon. The inflated javelin fish exploded. All the water it had sucked in to fire its next spear went blasting out through the hole I made.

  And that Lebtin javelin fish learned a whole new way to fly. It squirted wildly through the water, blasted up through the surface, arced through the air like a sick dolphin, and landed far away with a loud, satisfying splash.

  And the whole time, we heard Visser Three's thought-speak voice crying, «Ahhhhhhhhhhh!»

  I relaxed a little then, although relaxing just made me notice the pain in my tail. A dolphin came nosing up to me.

  «Hey, it's me, Marco. I'm here to save the day!»

  I actually laughed. «Just in time, Marco. Just in time.»

  102

  «Allergy,» Ax said. «You acquired some animal you're allergic to. It happens sometimes.»

  "This out-of-control morphing is an allergy? I have an allergy? To what?"

  "What was the last animal you acquired?" Cassie asked. Then she answered her own question. "The crocodile. You must be allergic to crocodiles,"

  We were in the safety of the woods out beyond Cassie's farm. It was a little area we went to fairly often for privacy. Ax needed to morph back to his own body. And Tobias . . . well, Tobias needed to hunt dinner before it got dark.

  As we all talked, Tobias waited in an overhead

  103 branch. We were on the edge of a small, grassy meadow. A meadow full of mice.

  Tobias kept his laser vision focused on the tall grass of the meadow. The others were all glaring at me. Except Cassie, of course, who was just shaking her head. She felt she'd made a mistake letting me keep my secret.

  "You're saying because I acquired that crocodile I lost control of my morphing powers?"

  «Not all control. Just some. It's . . . it's like when you humans suddenly make violent exhalations through your nostrils and shout, "Achoo!"»

  "Sneezing. You're saying I've been sneezing."

  «Hah!» Tobias said. He opened his wings and swooped out across the grass, just a few feet above the ground. He flared suddenly, raked his talons forward, and for a few seconds disappeared from sight.

  "And another mouse bites the dust," Marco commented.

  «Yes, Rachel,» Ax said. «You've been having an allergic reaction to the crocodile DNA.»

  "So what do I do? Is there some medicine I can take or something?"

  «No medicine. At least none that humans could create. But there is a process. Something that happens naturally in these cases. At least it happens to Andalites. It's called hereth illint.»

  104 "That sounds poetic," Cassie said.

  «A literal translation would be something like "burping DNA."»

  "Now that's poetry," Marco said, laughing.

  «Since we have no mouths we don't have phrases like "spitting out" or "vomiting up." Hereth is what we say instead.»

  Even Jake smiled. "How does Rachel do it? This process?" he asked Ax.

  «The offending DNA will eventually be expelled from your system. You can't control when it happens. You just have to be careful, especially since this crocodile is a dangerous creature.»

  "Sounds easy enough," I said. "I'm always careful."

  «It isn't easy. See, you basically have to morph the animal while you retain your own body. You have to create a whole, living animal out of the excess matter floating in Zero-space.»

  I looked at Ax. "Excuse me?"

  «Until the hereth illint begins, you can control some of the symptoms by remaining very calm and unemotional. The out-of-control morphing in the water happened when you were upset or emotional.»

  I shrugged. "I was mad because that jerk Jeremy Jason McTraitor was betraying his fans. Not to mention his entire species, yeah."

  «And you said a similar thing happened when

  105 you were in Chapman's office, where you were afraid.»

  I nodded. "Uh-huh. I mean, not like afraid afraid. Just sort of nervous afraid."

  «And the first time? When you morphed inside your house? What emotion were you feeling then?»

  "Nothing." I kept my face blank.

  "What w
ere you doing when it started?" Jake asked me.

  "I don't remember," I lied.

  Cassie cocked an eyebrow at me. "Rachel, you were pulling up pictures of Jeremy Jason off the Internet."

  "So?" I demanded. "That's not something emotional!"

  "It was l-o-o-o-v-e," Marco crowed, drawing the word out. "The deadly, dangerous emotion of puppy love. Rachel was overcome by attraction! By desire! By intense, uncontrollable Tiger Beat passion! And it -"

  He was interrupted by the fact that I tried to grab him and choke him. But he dodged behind Ax.

  "It turned her into a wild animal!" Marco yapped on. "Several wild animals, actually. She became the alligator of l-o-o-o-v-e!"

  "It's crocodile," Jake said, smirking in a most un-Jakelike way.

  106 And then, suddenly, I realized a feather pattern began to appear on my skin. Bald eagle feathers. I groaned.

  «You see?» Ax said, noticing the beginning of the morph. «Passions and emotions set off the allergic reaction. You must try to eliminate the emotions.»

  "How about if I just eliminate Marco?" I growled.

  "It's so perfect," Marco said. "Mighty Xena has a weakness: human emotion. She's a victim of l-o-o-o-v-e."

  Jake grabbed Marco's arm and squeezed tight. "Marco, if you make her mad, she'll morph. And if she starts morphing, she might end up in full grizzly bear. Do you really want Rachel mad at you and in grizzly bear morph?"

  Marco hesitated. He glanced at me. He bit his lip. "I get your point, Jake. I think I'll just go watch Tobias eat his mouse."

  I was halfway feathered by the time I was able to reverse the morph. It took that long to calm down.

  "Ax, tell Rachel whatever you can about this hereth thing. Get her prepared. And Rachel, until you are better, keep a very low profile. As in don't go to school. And forget about this TV show you were going to do with Jeremy Jason. Visser Three knows we're on to Jeremy Jason. The Visser will

  107 make him a Controller immediately. Actor boy has seen too much. They're probably infesting him right now."

  "But we still have to stop him! We can't have him speaking for The Sharing. We could grab him, keep him locked up somewhere for three days till the Yeerk in his head dies."

  "I know we have to stop him, and we will. We'll just have to figure out some other way to get at him."

  "He's probably going to start endorsing The Sharing on the Barry and Cindy Sue Show. Then he'll leave town," I argued. "It's our last chance. They'll be on guard now. They'll be watching for us. We'll never get near that stupid yacht again. That show may be our last shot at him!"