The Conspiracy Page 7

  "Yeah, well, it's stupid," Tom said, watching me crouch in front of an old chest. "What're you doing?"

  "Nothing," I said, lifting a stack of old, dusty books off a small, dark gray leather trunk. "Don't

  113 you remember this, Tom? This is Grandpa G's old footlocker."

  Tom glanced at it. Then he looked past it, around the room, searching for something to do.

  I opened the footlocker, filled with sudden urgency. "Remember back, like, I don't know, when I was ten or so? He showed us his canteen and these pictures of his outfit from the Battle of the Bulge?"

  "Maybe," Tom muttered.

  "They didn't know whether they were gonna freeze or starve or get shot. That's what he said."

  Tom rolled his eyes. Indifferent. Perfectly Tom, I thought, almost admiring. The Yeerk was keeping up the illusion. Playing the part to perfection.

  "Christmas, when they were all homesick in their foxholes, they sang 'Silent Night.' The enemy sang it, too, in German. Far off they heard it. Both sides lonely for their homes. Both sides wishing the war was over."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Don't you remember how he told us all this, Tom?" I pressed, wanting him to admit he remembered. Wanting, ridiculously, the real Tom inside to push hard enough to break through, just for a minute, and be my totally human brother again.

  114 Tom sighed. "Vaguely. I'm not real big on old war stories."

  I lifted out the small box that held Grandpa G's Silver Star and his Purple Heart. "He was a brave guy. He believed in honor. All that stuff out of old movies. Honor and courage and all."

  "Yeah, well, that was all a million years ago," Tom said. "Honor and courage aren't what matters, not in the real world. What matters is whether you win. After you win then you start talking about honor and courage. When you're in battle you do whatever you have to do. Honor and courage and all that? Those are the words you say after you've destroyed all your enemies and anyone else who gets in the way."

  "You're wrong," I said flatly.

  He rolled his eyes, bored now. "You're a kid." I saw Tom's eyes narrow. "What's this?" He reached into the footlocker and lifted out a cracked leather scabbard. From the sheath he drew a dagger. The blade glittered dully in the dim lamplight. It was a long blade, maybe eight inches or so.

  Suddenly, the attic was close and airless.

  "SS," Tom mused, examining it. "It's an old Nazi dagger. Grandpa G must have taken it off a dead soldier as a souvenir. Cool."

  "What're you gonna do with it?" I asked.

  115 Tom cocked his head and looked at me.

  "I mean, you can't take it," I added hurriedly. "It isn't yours."

  "Hey, you get the medals, I get the dagger, right?" he said. "It's perfect. You can sit around thinking about honor and bravery and all, and I get the weapon that gets the job done. Sounds fair to me."

  I kept my expression as blank as I could. I, too, was playing a part.

  "I'm not taking anything until I talk to Mom and Grandma," I said, carefully putting the medals back in the velvet case and waiting for Tom to do the same with the dagger.

  "Well?" I said. "Come on, man, put it back."

  "Mom and Grandma," he mocked. "You're still such a kid. You think everything is so simple, don't you? That it's all either right or wrong, black or white. A good guy, a bad guy, and nothing in between."

  No, Yeerk, I don't. Not anymore. I used to. But I've been across the line; I've done things I can't let myself think about. I know all about the shades of gray.

  I said, "Sometimes even the good guys do bad things. Doesn't mean there's no difference between good and evil."

  "Good and evil," he said with a tired smile.

  116 "Strong and weak. That's the reality. Winners and losers."

  "The knife, Tom," I said.

  He laid it back in the footlocker.

  He turned out the light. We crawled into our respective bunks. Our separate foxholes.

  117 L was cold.

  Freezing.

  Night.

  My feet were solid blocks of ice despite the filthy rags I'd wrapped around my torn boots. My fingers were numb, stiffly clutching my M-l rifle.

  I had a clip and a half of ammo. One grenade. If the Germans came it would be over fast.

  I hadn't had a warm meal since . . . Had I ever had a warm meal? Had I ever, ever been warm? Hadn't I always been in this freezing foxhole, this black hole punched in the snow? Hadn't I lived my entire life right here at the edge of the dark forest, shivering, shaking, waiting to

  118 hear the scream of incoming shells, waiting to hear the clank-clank-clank of the tanks?

  Christmas Eve.

  Merry Christmas.

  I heard a racking cough from the next foxhole. Matthews. He was from Arkansas. Alabama. One of those places. A southern boy. A kid, one of the last replacements to make it to our unit.

  "Hey, kid," I said in a hoarse whisper. "Goose or ham?"

  "What?" he gasped between coughs.

  "Back home, what does your mom cook for Christmas dinner? Goose or ham?"

  For a while he didn't answer. Then, "Ham."

  "Yeah? We always have a goose. My mother cooks up a goose."

  From a second foxhole, to my right, a voice said, "Don't listen to him, kid. Sarge ain't got no mother."

  I think the kid laughed. Hard to tell with the coughing. Pneumonia, most likely. He should be evacuated. But no one was being evacuated. The joke was that even getting yourself killed only got you a three-day pass and then it was back to the line.

  "Sarge," he called when the coughing subsided. "Sarge."

  "Yeah."

  "You write the letter, okay? I know it's the

  119 captain's job, but he don't know me. You write the letter."

  There was only one letter. The one that would inform Private Matthews's family that he was among the honored dead.

  I said something rude and obscene. Couldn't have him thinking that way. You start thinking you'll die, maybe you do.

  "Tell my mom I did okay," he said.

  "Tell her yourself, I'm not the U.S. Mail," I said. "You tell her when you get home."

  "Merry Christmas," a bitter voice on my right said.

  For a while no one spoke. We listened for the incoming shells. We listened for the tanks. We waited for the crack of a sniper's rifle and the cry of a man dying.

  But then the thin, biting air was filled with the sound of voices, ragged at first and then soaring into a harmony that sweetened the night, bringing me home to my family, filling my empty, aching belly and soothing my torn, battered heart.

  "'Silent Night.'"

  '"Holy night,'" Private Matthews whispered, smiling.

  "I think I hear the Germans singing, too," I said.

  "Yeerks don't sing," Matthews said. Suddenly, he was beside me.

  120 He opened his eyes. Bared his teeth.

  And rammed the Nazi dagger straight into my heart.

  My eyes snapped open.

  Darkness.

  I sat up, heart pounding.

  Glanced sideways.

  The other bed was empty.

  I was at Grandpa G's cabin.

  Sharing the attic bedroom with my brother.

  And it was late. Too late for Tom to be up.

  My breath froze in my throat. I rolled over and opened the footlocker.

  The dagger was gone.

  121 J. shot out of bed.

  Pulled on sweats and padded out of the bedroom.

  Down the stairs.

  The night-light cast a thin, golden glow.

  Snoring. Murmuring.

  Everyone was still sleeping.

  I paused in the main room and looked at the pull-out couch.

  My mother was in it.

  My father was gone.

  Oh, no! Was I too late? Had I given Tom the exact and perfect chance he'd been waiting for?

  I eased open the front door.

  Creeee . . .

  I went still.

>   122 Held my breath.

  Nothing.

  Squeezed out through the gap and waited in the shadows on the porch.

  Listened.

  The breeze carried the sound of voices.

  There!

  My father and Tom were sitting down at the end of the dock, talking and dangling their feet in the water.

  My father laughed and gave Tom's shoulders a quick, spontaneous hug.

  Tom's sweatshirt bunched up in the back.

  Revealing, for a moment, the gleaming dagger wedged in his pocket.

  My father didn't notice it. He laughed again and removed his arm.

  Tom and my father, sharing a private conversation in the middle of the night.

  Tom, the betrayer.

  My father, the betrayed.

  I had no doubt who'd instigated it.

  Tom, apologizing for his bad behavior. Wanting to talk to my father, man to man.

  Lying.

  He'd lured my father outside, where no one would hear.

  Tom slipped his hand behind him and closed his fingers over the dagger.

  123 Tightened his grip on the handle.

  I had to do something.

  Fast!

  I edged off the porch and took off running, keeping to the deep, dark tree line and morphing as I went.

  I didn't care that once I did, Tom would realize I was the enemy.

  And that once he knew, I couldn't let him live.

  His action, my reaction.

  Adrenaline pulsed through my veins.

  Drowned out the fluttering panic.

  Thick, orange-and-black fur sprouted, rippling over my body. My nose flattened, widened. My senses lit up. Smell! Hearing! Night vision almost as good as an owl's.

  I could smell my brother's exultation.

  He was excited, anticipating the kill.

  Tiger senses. Tiger strength. Tom would be helpless. A boy with a knife against a tiger? Like going up against a tank with a Nerf gun.

  I fell forward as my bones ground and remolded into four strong, muscular legs.

  Hurry! I shouted silently, stumbling as my feet widened and my toenails curved into deadly claws.

  But I was still only halfway to the dock when Tom withdrew the glittering dagger.

  124

  LCCRRRRAAAACCCKKKK!

  The sharp sound split the night.

  My father and Tom looked up in shock as the wooden dock tilted and collapsed with a screech.

  They scrabbled to hold on, but the planks were an accordion being squeezed. The entire dock was being folded back on itself by some massive force.

  Tom and my father both slipped into the water.

  "Hey!" my father shouted, going under.

  He bobbed back up, gasped, thrashed, and went down again.

  I stopped dead in the shadows, surprised, amazed, waiting to see what was happening.

  125 My dad could swim like a fish. Why was he surfacing and going back under?

  "Glug," he croaked, surfacing several yards away from the ruined dock and almost immediately disappearing again.

  It was almost as if something was pulling him down and towing him away from Tom. . . .

  Tom was frantic, splashing and swinging around in the water, not trying to save my father, just trying to keep him in sight. Why? So he could watch him die? So he could catch up with him and use the dagger?

  Silent anger roared in my ears.

  My fur rippled and stood on end.

  My still-human mouth tightened into a snarl.

  I moved forward again.

  "Gak," my father burbled, surfacing another ten yards away from the dock.

  Tom swung around in the water, searching for him.

  Suddenly, a fin broke the lake's surface behind Tom.

  Shark? I thought blankly. Shark in a mountain lake?

  No, not a shark.

  A dolphin!

  Before I could move, the fin sliced through the water and something slammed straight into Tom's back.

  126 "Oof!" Tom arched, eyes wide with surprise, and shot forward, plowing facedown in the rippling lake.

  He didn't move after that.

  The fin - no, there were more than one - the fins slipped soundlessly below the surface.

  "Tom! Tom, are you all right?!" my father yelled, clambering up onto shore. He'd been dragged some twenty yards down the lake and was staggering back through the thick, vine-covered underbrush.

  Tom was floating facedown, motionless in the water.

  My father would never get there in time to save him.

  I could. The tiger can swim. I could save him.

  But I didn't move. Frozen. Brain locked around the simple fact that if Tom died he would, at last, be free. That if the Yeerk died I would have had my revenge. That we would be safer, stronger, freer with the Controller named Tom dead and gone.

  Didn't know what to do.

  «Jake! Demorph!» a voice ordered. «You're in the open. Demorph!»

  I obeyed, glad for once to take orders rather than give them. Relieved to have the decision made for me.

  The others had followed me to the cabin.

  127 They'd backed me up even though I'd said not to. They'd taken the decision out of my hands.

  I stepped forward. My feet had remolded to human.

  I stood up. My fur had disappeared.

  Tom would drown unless I saved him.

  Saving him might still mean my father's death.

  Help me! I wanted to scream. Tell me what to do!

  The lake water rippled. Surged.

  And suddenly Tom's limp, unconscious body was skimming across the water like a surfboard, being pushed rapidly toward shore.

  I ran to the water's edge. My reflection in the moonlit ripples was human.

  Panting, I dragged Tom's body up onto the land.

  Flipped him over.

  Water streamed from his still face.

  His right leg flopped and twisted at a crazy, sickening, unnatural angle.

  "Help," I croaked, leaping to my feet. "Help!"

  Tom groaned. Coughed.

  He gagged and barfed up buckets of smelly lake water.

  "Don't move," I babbled, trying to hold him still as he thrashed. Something was wrong with

  129 his leg. There was a hinge where there shouldn't be one. "I think your leg is broken."

  "Jake!" my father shouted, staggering up. His clothes were sagging, sopping, and ripped, and he was covered with dark, slimy mud. "Is Tom all right?"

  "No," I said, shaking my head. "Someone better call an ambulance. Dad, hurry!"

  My father ran to the cabin.

  I looked down at Tom. Inside his head was a killer. He'd almost killed my father.

  But what I saw, the eyes I looked into, those belonged to my big brother.

  I settled into the mud next to him.

  His face was white and tight with shock, his eyes filled with dark agony. His teeth were chattering and tears leaked down into his hair.

  "Get out of here, midget," he gasped, writhing. "Get out of here and leave me alone!"

  "No," I said, moving closer. "I ... don't think so."

  And I didn't until I heard a deep, pulsing THWOK THWOK THWOK and a medevac helicopter dropped out of the starry sky and swept Tom away.

  128

  Ukay, honey. You, too."

  My father hung up the phone and sighed. He ran a hand through his rumpled hair, then turned to face the sea of anxious faces.

  "Well?" I asked.

  "Your mom says they medevaced Tom all the way back to the hospital back home," my father said, plopping down in a chair. "It seems he has a complex break and our hospital's the only one in the area equipped to deal with it."

  "No kidding," I said, not at all surprised.

  Of course: back home. Back where there were plenty of Controllers around to make absolutely certain Tom would have access to the Yeerk pool's lifesaving Kandrona rays.

  130 "He's in some pain and he'll
be laid up for a while, but at least he's gonna be okay," my father said thickly. He reached over and hugged me. "Thank God you got there in time to save him, Jake."

  "I didn't save him," I said. "He drifted into shore. I just grabbed him and hauled him out of the water."

  "And saved him," my father insisted, releasing me. "I was really scared tonight, Jake. I don't ever want to lose either one of you."

  "Me, either," I said.

  And we had come so close. A dagger half-drawn. A tiger running.

  "Well, I need a cup of coffee," my father said.

  "I'll make it," my grandmother said.

  "Make one for me, too, please," my grandfather called after her.

  "First thing tomorrow morning, I'm gonna call whoever built that dock and read them the riot act," my father said. "And then I want to talk to somebody about the undertow or the current or whatever it was that dragged me down that lake. It's dangerous!"

  "Yeah. Um, look, I'll be right back, okay?" I said. "Need some fresh air." I slipped out of the door and into the fading darkness.

  I stood for a moment listening, but it was no use.

  131 Human hearing is so limited.

  I spread my hands like, Well?

  «0ver here, Jake,» Tobias called from a thick stand of pine trees.

  I walked over and met them in the shadows.

  Without my asking, they told me how they'd done it.

  How Tobias had kept endless watch and sounded the alarm when Tom and my father exited the cabin.

  How Cassie had quickly morphed to whale and struggled through a shallow, nerve-wracking twenty feet of water to ram the dock, praying she wouldn't be beached before she got there.

  How Rachel and Ax had morphed into dolphins, rammed Tom, broken his leg, and dragged my father to safety.

  I wanted to say a lot.

  Like how they'd saved my family.

  My sanity.

  "Thanks," I said.

  "Hey, don't mention it," Rachel said fliply. "We needed a vacation, anyway."

  «We have spent time exploring that decrepit, architectural structure riddled with rodents and assorted wildlife,» Ax said, turning an eye stalk toward the abandoned hunting lodge across the lake. «We discovered several extremely large spiders^

  132 "And rats. Don't leave out the rats," Cassie said with a laugh.

  «Personally, I had fun,» Tobias offered.