The Weakness Read online

  the inspector spat.

 

  ZZZIIISSSPPP!

  A bluish blur that seemed to shoot through the air over the Yeerk pool.

  The creature ran on water!

  Whoooosh!

  THUUWMPF!

 

  I was down!

  Thwacked off Cassie’s back by the Garatron’s whiplash speed before I could even lift off!

  I was on my back. Slightly stunned. I beat my wings madly against the steel pier, trying to right myself.

  Whooooosh! Whoooosh!

  The inspector zipped around and around Cassie, in an ever-tightening-then-widening circle. In and out, in and out. Amazingly fleet and surefooted on the narrow pier.

  Cassie, huge and suddenly cumbersome compared to her foe, smacked and batted the air with her massive paws. Hit nothing!

  Reared up to her full height and swung the length of chain over her head —

  FWUPFWUPFWUP!

  — and let it fly!

  SPUH-LOOSH!

  Into the Yeerk pool!

 

  Whoooosh! Whoooosh!

  Cassie batted again. Missed. Fell back to her four huge feet and swung her massive body around and —

 

  Her back right leg slipped off the edge of the pier! She scrambled back up, one paw wet and matted with sludgy gray liquid.

 

  I was back on my feet. The air was not good for flying — for gaining altitude, getting high enough so that I could dive and attack.

  But I had to try!

  I was a bald eagle! A bird of prey that could spot darting fish beneath the surface of a river or lake at a thousand feet! A bird that could dive for that swimming fish — that moving target — and catch it, still alive and squirming, in my talons’ strong grip.

  I flapped — hard, harder, even harder.

  Threw my body upward into the motion, willing myself to climb.

  I rose off the slick surface of the steel pier where the inspector was still madly, untiringly circling Cassie, impossibly creating a whirlwind in the wet air, slowing only every few revolutions for less than half a split second to THWAP! her with his brutally fast tail.

  A tail that was beginning to leave deep, bloody slashes along the polar bear’s already lacerated flesh.

  I rose into the damp mold-and-earth-smelling air.

  Saw that all around us, ringing the pier and the pool like Romans cheering on the gladiators, were Controllers watching the inspector destroy my best friend.

  Controllers led by Visser Three, evil emanating from his stolen Andalite body like the nauseating smell of sour milk.

  It ticked me off.

  A lot.

  I had enough height, was maybe a few hundred feet above Cassie and the Garatron.

  No Dracon beam sliced through the air to stop me. Obviously, the visser didn’t want to interfere with this interesting event. This fight to the finish.

  For a second I wondered who he was rooting for — his nemesis, the inspector, or the Andalite bandits.

  Politics, I thought with disgust.

  I targeted my prey. The moving target. The vague blue blur that was menacing my friend and making the lives of the Animorphs seriously uncomfortable.

  I dove. Closer … closer.

  Couldn’t … there! Banked slightly … no …

  Dive, dive!

  Talons forward, big feathered legs stretched and eager!

  Got him …

 

 

  WHUMPF!

  I was down!

  Smashing down onto the pier, twisting and wrenching my neck, bending back my left wing. Sliding! Coming to a bad stop inches from the end of the pier.

  I’d missed, maybe only nicked the inspector’s sleek Garatron head, maybe not.

  I couldn’t …

  I was the hero. Warrior. King. And I couldn’t defeat the enemy! Couldn’t save my best friend.

  Couldn’t …

  “Tseeeeer! Tseeeer!”

 

  “Tseeeer!”

  Yes!

  From the arched roof of the vast underground space that is the Yeerk bastion …

  From what seemed to be the very center of the high dome, past the steel supporting beams, down, down past the high walls of dirt … came the cavalry.

  A red-tailed hawk.

  A northern harrier.

  And in the talons of the hawk and the harrier — a cobra!

  Fast, muscular, crushingly strong. A body that was nothing more and nothing less than a long and powerful whip.

  A whip and a mouth that contained fangs and sacs of deadly poison.

  Kinda the perfect morph for Marco, when you thought about it.

  The Garatron came to a dead stop, somehow at the safe end of the pier. Out of reach of the injured bald eagle and dazed and bleeding polar bear.

  Visser Three. he boomed.

 

  the visser said, his tone taunting, his voice thick with false emotion. With a weak Andalite arm, the visser gestured grandly. Dramatically.

  Mockingly.

  he went on,

  The inspector said nothing.

  the visser said, his voice suddenly flat and cruel.

  “Tseeeer!”

  The inspector looked up. Shifted his hooves and seemed to tense when he saw the three Earth creatures so close, only yards above his head.

  Once again, I struggled to my feet. Watched as Tobias and Ax released their dangerous burden within striking distance of the Garatron!

  Who didn’t zip away. Who looked down at the slowly wriggling creature. Dismissed it as unimportant. Looked upward.

  To watch Tobias, flapping madly to regain some height. Then coming back around again, diving, talons outstretched, for the inspector.

  The inspector moved, maybe only an inch or two, but so amazingly fast that Tobias missed. Circled, struggled for height again.

  I shouted.

  Hork-Bajir! I hadn’t heard the visser give an order but Hork-Bajir, ten or fifteen of them, were moving toward the Garatron from where they’d gathered around the cages of human-Controllers.

  To his aid or … for a moment I wondered.

  But the inspector’s attention was riveted on Ax, who was demorphing to Andalite. And then, up, to the screeching, attacking bird …

  Marco, being carelessly stepped on by a running Hork-Bajir. Then, more deliberately stomped …

  I cried.

 

  ZZIIISSSPPP!

  The Garatron was back in action. He dashed away from Marco’s reach. Spun madly around Ax.

  Fwapp! Fwapp! Fwapp!

  Ax missed, every time.

  Marco ordered.

  Slither, coil. Uncoil, scrunch. Forward, slow but sure.

  The cobra advanced silently around the Hork-Bajir guards who had gathered in a loose ring around the battling inspector and Ax.

  To make sure the inspector didn’t walk away? To make sure he fought to the death? Whose death?

  But their eyes weren’t on the ground. Their eyes were on the spec
tacular, dizzying display of stunning speed before them. On the madly, futilely slashing young Andalite.

  Slither, coil. Uncoil, stretch.

  Closer and closer.

  Close. Inches.

  HSSSIIIPP!

  Marco launched!

  For a brief moment I saw more of the inspector than just a blue blur as Marco held one of his legs with his fangs. As he pumped killing poison into the Garatron’s unsuspecting alien body.

  Marco had struck the Garatron while he was moving at full speed. Like snatching a bullet out of the air.

  Marco said.

  And then Marco released his victim, slithered, coiled, uncoiled, and stretched off behind the confused Hork-Bajir.

  But still the Garatron ran!

  Cassie said.

 

  But before Cassie and I could drag our battered bodies back up the pier and into the fray …

  The Garatron! The inspector was slowing. Stumbling.

  Still circling Ax, but his long tail drooping.

  One slim front leg suddenly, awkwardly, entwined with the other.

  he cried, even his speech was slower, thicker as he came to a faltering, swaying stop.

  Visser Three boomed, his voice dripping phony concern.

  I commanded. I didn’t turn around when I heard a smooth sliding dive behind me.

 

  Tobias, still circling.

 

  The inspector fell to his knees. And then rolled over onto his side. I rose into the air with difficulty and watched the Garatron’s legs straighten, stiffen.

  The ring of Hork-Bajir guards stood still. Silent and unmoving. Not going to the inspector’s aid. Not making any attempt to stop Ax from finishing his morph. Not preventing Tobias from swooping down to grab Marco in his talons.

  Too afraid to infuriate the visser by turning their attention to the polar bear in the Yeerk pool.

  But the visser was watching and noticing everything.

  he cried.

  the inspector responded weakly, haltingly.

  Visser Three said matter-of-factly.

  Slooop!

  Cassie!

  Rising from the sludgy gray Yeerk pool as seagull!

  I cried, already giddy with the sense of victory, no matter how bizarre it was or in what strange way it had been gained.

  We were going home. All of us.

  The sense of triumph didn’t last. It never does. Real life is complicated. It gets in the way of nice, simple emotions.

  I went to see the old man’s grandson.

  Maybe I would have gone to the funeral or something if they’d had it here. But the news said the man’s family had flown his body back to his own hometown somewhere across the country for the funeral and burial.

  “Interment,” they said. Ugly word.

  The news also said the old man had a history of serious heart trouble. That he was bound to die at any time. “Just any old time,” his sister was quoted as saying.

  Maybe going to the funeral would have been easier. Probably. I could have sat at the back of the church or whatever and just paid my respects silently. Without having to come face-to-face with the man’s grandkid.

  Without having to say anything to him.

  Like, “Gee, sorry your grandpa died. I’m kind of responsible, actually, so if you hate me or anything, that’s okay….”

  I didn’t say that.

  I got the kid’s phone number — easy enough — and spoke to his mom. The old man’s daughter. I asked if I could come by and … I told her I’d been in the TV studio that day and seeing her father die had been really …

  Somehow, she gave me permission to speak with her son. He was about Sarah’s age.

  He was okay with the death now.

  At least, he seemed okay. I think he was kind of weirded out by having to talk to this strange blond girl while his mother watched and listened intently. Making sure I wasn’t a whacko there to hurt her kid, I guess.

  “I’m sorry,” I finally said.

  The kid shrugged. “Okay.” And then he looked up at me. “Why?”

  I tried to smile. I stood up. “I just am, I guess,” I said. “I have to go now.”

  I raced out of that house so fast. And ran straight into Jake, waiting at the end of the driveway.

  “You’re back.”

  Jake raised an eyebrow. “You noticed? Your powers of observation are really amazing, Rachel.”

  I grimaced and we turned toward our own neighborhood.

  “You heard?” I asked. Very afraid of the answer.

  Jake smiled. “Got home late last night. My dad turned on the late news. They’re talking about ‘escaped’ wild animals busting up a TV studio, bunch of other places. A private jet doing a swan dive into a high rise. That all sounded like maybe some people I knew were involved.”

  “It was a big day.”

  “I figured I’d better call Cassie. She told me some of it. I talked to Marco, and he told me some more. They both said you’d probably want to tell me some stuff yourself.”

  “I don’t want to tell you anything,” I admitted. “But I guess I have to. I screwed up. Big time.”

  He walked in silence beside me for a while. “How many Animorphs were there when you started?”

  “Six.”

  “And now?”

  “Still six. Yeah, I didn’t get anyone killed.”

  “Well, that’s the first thing to do, you know: Don’t get anyone killed. If it makes you feel better, the others think you did pretty well.”

  “Do they?” I thought for a moment. Kept my eyes forward. “We failed to get rid of the visser. Like Tobias said, we’re back to the evil we know.”

  Jake laughed. “Yeah, well, Rachel, the visser’s hard to get rid of. Doesn’t mean we stop trying,” he added.

  “I know. Hey, maybe the Yeerks will reconsider the Garatrons’ usefulness as hosts,” I said hopefully. “At least for combat.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure we’ve seen the last of them.”

  “Aren’t you Mr. Optimistic,” I said, feeling a little deflated. Like the little bit of glory I’d taken away from the whole episode was not worth very much, after all.

  “You did good, Rachel,” Jake said simply. “You did what you had to do.”

  I stopped walking. I looked at Jake. “How do you do this? How do you make decisions that may get people killed? How do you live with that?”

  “It’s a war,” he said. “We do what we have to do because we’re forced to do it, right? Someday it will all be over. Someday the Andalites will come. Or the Yeerks will decide we’re not worth it. Someday we’ll win.”

  “Maybe. But how do you make decisions that get your friends hurt? That maybe someday will get us killed? How do you keep it from getting inside your head and just eating away at you?”

  Then I saw something strange on his face. For just a fleeting moment it was the face of a terrified kid on the edge of tears. It shocked me. I knew what I was seeing. It was my face when I’d realized the old man had died. My face when I thought I’d lost Cassie forever.

  But then the mask came down. And he was Jake again. “I don’t think about it,” he lied.

  We walked on in silence for a few minutes.

&
nbsp; “You okay?” Jake said finally.

  I shook my head, as if to shrug off the question. “Yeah, you know. Um, Jake?”

  We made a left at the end of the block and started to walk toward home, the setting sun at our backs.

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t ever, ever go away again.”

  The author wishes to thank Elise Smith for her help in preparing this manuscript.

  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.