The Message Read online

  Marco said urgently. Jake said. He pressed his beak against the panel.

  Instantly the outer door opened.

  Marco said.

  I said. My lungs were burning. I needed air.

  The four of us swam in through the outer door. There was a second red panel. I punched it with my beak and the door closed, sealing us into a small, glass room. We could see out and up into the ocean all around. But the side leading into the dome was opaque.

  Marco said.

  The water began to drain from the room, slowly, a little at a time. This opened an area of air at the top of the enclosure. I raised my blowhole and sucked in blessed oxygen.

  Jake said.

  I had already started. By the time the enclosure was half drained, I could stand on my own human feet.

  “We made it,” Marco said after his human mouth re-formed. “I don’t know where we made it to, but we made it.”

  The enclosure was empty now. The four of us stood there barefoot, dressed only in our soggy morphing outfits. There was one last red panel beside the door leading into the dome.

  “Ready?” Jake asked. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Marco said. Jake pressed it with his hand. The door slid open. I felt a wave of warm, incredibly fragrant air rush in. I caught a glimpse of … Then a brilliant flash of light … And suddenly I was unconscious.

  CHAPTER 18

  I opened my eyes. I was staring straight up. I was on my back. Above me I could see the ocean all around. High overhead, fish swam by, sparkling. Higher still I could see the bright barrier between sea and sky. But it was very far away.

  I rolled my head to the side. Jake was beside me, still unconscious. There was blue grass under my head. I looked the other way.

  “Yaaaahh!”

 

  He stood on four delicate hooves, looking, at first glance, like a pale blue and tan deer or antelope.

  But he had a strong upper body, like a mythical centaur, with two small arms and many-fingered hands. His face was almost triangular, built around two huge, almond-shaped eyes. There was a small vertical slit where his nose should have been, and nothing where his mouth should have been.

  From atop his head rose twin horns. Only they were not horns. They each ended in an eye and turned this way and that, independent of his main eyes.

  He seemed gentle, quizzical, almost delicate. Until you noticed the tail. The tail was like a scorpion’s. It was thick, powerful, and ended in a wicked scythe blade that literally glittered along its razor-sharp edges.

  I knew what he was. There is no mistaking an Andalite when you see one.

  And there was no question about what he was holding in his hand, either. It looked a lot like a Yeerk Dracon beam.

  He was pointing it at me.

  The others were waking up all around me.

  “What the … Oh,” Marco said. “Please tell me that’s a real Andalite and not Visser Three.”

  Suddenly, without warning, the Andalite’s tail arched forward. The blade stopped inches from Marco’s face.

  the Andalite thought-spoke.

  “O-o-o-o-kay,” Marco said slowly. “Whatever you want.”

  “We are friends,” I said.

  the Andalite said. But he withdrew his tail and Marco started breathing again.

  “You called me,” I said. “We’ve come to help you.”

  He fixed all four of his eyes on me.

  “Human. A person of Earth.”

 

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I heard it in my dreams. So did a friend of mine. We guessed it was an Andalite. We wanted to help.”

 

  “We knew one Andalite. We were with him when … when he was killed.”

  The Andalite narrowed his main eyes.

  I searched my memory for his name. He had told us, but it was a strange, long name. “I can’t remember all of his name. But part of it was Prince Elfangor.”

  The Andalite jerked as if he’d been hit. His entire body seemed to quiver. His deadly tail arched high in the air.

 

  “Someone did,” Jake said. “We were there.”

 

  “The one whose name you don’t want us to speak,” I said softly.

  The Andalite held his head high, but his tail sagged and dragged down to the grass. He lowered his weapon.

  Jake answered. “He died protecting us, and defying the Yeerks to the end. At the very last moment he struck with every weapon he had.”

  The Andalite closed his main eyes for a brief moment.

  I was surprised by what Jake said next. “I’ve lost a brother, too. He’s one of them. A Controller.”

  The Andalite opened his eyes.

  “I fight them. We fight them.”

 

  “Only the weapon your brother gave us,” I said. “The power to morph.”

  He seemed disturbed.

  “The situation is worse than you think,” Marco said. “The Yeerks seem to know you’re here. Some piece of Andalite wreckage washed up onshore. They are up on the surface right now.”

  For the first time the Andalite seemed uncertain.

  “To get you out of here and hide you,” I said. “Yes.”

  He smiled with his eyes, just as Prince Elfangor had done.

  “A little while, yes,” I agreed. “What is this?” Rachel asked. “This dome, I mean. It’s like a park or something.”

 

  “Like a mushroom. Or an umbrella,” I suggested.

  The Andalite just looked blank.

  “Never mind,” I said.

 

  “Why?”

  The Andalite dug at the grass with his fore hoof.

  “You’re a kid? I mean, like, a young person?” Marco asked.

 

  “Are you the only one left? The only Andalite here?”

  He stopped, and looked embarrassed. ngry with me.>

  “Just you survived,” I said sadly.

  he said.

  I felt a sinking in the pit of my stomach. I think the others felt the same way. I guess we’d all kind of been hoping this Andalite would be like the prince. A leader. Someone who could take over the battle. Someone who would know more than we did.

  “We’re young, too,” I said. “Too young to fight, according to the laws of our people.”

 

  “We feel like we don’t have a choice. Look, we don’t even know your name. This is Jake, Rachel, Marco. I’m Cassie. There’s one more. His name is Tobias.”

 

  We all just kind of stared.

  “Ax,” Marco said. “Pleased to meet you.”

 

  One by one we looked at Jake.

  “Oh, give me a break,” Jake said. “I am not anyone’s prince.”

  But the Andalite had stepped forward. He bowed his head and lowered his tail.

  CHAPTER 19

  This is a derrishoul tree,> Ax said. He pointed to one of the asparaguslike spears that grew straight and tall. He was showing us around while we recuperated from the morphing.

 

  “What?” I didn’t see what he was pointing at.

 

  “You have a word for something like that?” I asked.

  he explained.

  Rachel caught my eye and silently mouthed the words He’s cute. Then she winked.

  I wasn’t sure I agreed. Andalites are halfway between looking cute and looking scary. You can get past the weird stalk eyes and the fact that they don’t have mouths (at least not that you can see), but that scorpionlike tail is far from cute. It reminded me of the sharks.

  “You all live here?” Marco wondered. “I mean, just out in the open? Out on the grass?”

 

  “This is like actually being on another planet,” Jake marveled. “This is all like part of the Andalite world.”

  he added grimly.

  “Why do they care what you take into space?” Marco asked.

 

  I grabbed Ax’s arm. “What … what are you saying? What do you mean about making the planet barren?”

  He turned his big eyes on me.

  He said it like it was obvious. Like it was just something I should know.

  He started to move on, but I held his arm tightly. “Wait, wait. I don’t think I understand you. What do you mean, they eliminate species?”

 

  I let go of his arm. I rocked back and grabbed at the air for balance. I felt like I’d been hit by a car. “No,” I whispered. “That can’t be. You’re just saying that because you don’t like Yeerks.”

  The others were staring. No one was moving.

  Ax looked around at us. His eyes narrowed.

  “We know they take over people’s minds,” Rachel said weakly.

 

  I felt cold. Small and weak and cold and afraid. I looked around, but even the inviting, lush Andalite landscape did nothing to warm me. Up in the “sky” and all around us, I felt the immense pressure of the ocean, waiting to rush in.

  Ax said proudly.

  “How long until your people return to Earth?” I asked.

  He hesitated.

  “Two years!” Jake looked stricken. I went to his side and slipped my arm through his. “Five kids against an enemy that has destroyed half the galaxy? Five of us?”

  Ax gave that smile, the one he did with his eyes. he said.

  “Six. Well then,” Marco said with grim sarcasm, “with six it shouldn’t be any problem.”

  “How did these Yeerks get this far?” Rachel demanded. “How did this happen? If you Andalites are so tough, why didn’t you stop them a long time ago? How did a bunch of slugs who live in dirty ponds manage to become so powerful?”

  Ax looked at her.

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You’re telling us all of planet Earth may be scheduled for destruction and we are the only thing standing in the way, and you are going to keep secrets? I don’t think so.”

  The Andalite looked angry, but no angrier than Rachel.

  “Look, um, I feel ready to morph again,” I said, interrupting the tension. Rachel was angry because she was afraid. What Ax had told us had shaken her. It had shaken all of us. I guess we felt enough pressure already. We didn’t really need to think that every living thing on the planet was depending on us.

  It was kind of a lot to handle.

  “Cassie’s right,” Jake said. “It’s time. Let’s get going before it’s too late.”

  I followed him along with the others as we crossed alien land, heading for an environment just as alien—the ocean.

  I wished I could forget what Ax told us. I wished I could stop seeing the pictures in my head of an Earth without birds and trees. An Earth where the ocean was empty and dead.

  the Andalite had asked.

  Yes.

  Now I knew.

  CHAPTER 20

  Hey, I have a stupid question,”

  Marco said.

  “What?” Jake asked.

  Marco jerked his thumb toward the Andalite, Ax. “How do we get him out of here?”

  Jake looked blank. “Um, Ax, I don’t suppose you can swim? Swim really well, I mean. We’re a long, long way from land.”

 

  “Like what?” Marco asked bluntly. “We have to travel far and fast.”

 

  “What kind of animal? What did he —” I stopped suddenly. I’d felt something. A shadow. I looked up. Through the air of the dome. Through the clear dome itself and up through the water.

  It was on the surface. A cigar-shaped shadow riding the surface of the sea.

  “That’s a ship,” I said. “Up there. I think it’s stopped.”

  “Let’s get out of here. Now,” Jake snapped.

  We ran for the hatch.

  PING-NG-NG! PING-NG-NG!

  The sound echoed through the dome.

  “Sonar!” Marco hissed.

  “How do you know?” Rachel asked.

  �
�Didn’t you ever see The Hunt for Red October? Great old movie. Now let’s leave. They’ve found us!”

  PING-NG-NG! PING-NG-NG!

  We crammed inside the small hatch enclosure, the four of us and Ax.

  “Morph!” Jake yelled.

  I had already started. I could feel the dolphin features emerging. My friends were beginning to mutate. Water rushed into the chamber, swirling up around our legs.

  Ax was changing, too. It almost broke my concentration, watching him. In their normal forms Andalites are strange enough. When they morph it is totally bizarre. Instead of two legs shriveling and disappearing, it was four. And then there were the stalk eyes. And the tail, which lost its scythe blade but split into a new kind of tail, with a long, raked, vertical blade and a shorter lower blade.

  The water swept up to my neck, but by that point I was more dolphin than human.

  BA-BOOOOM!

  The explosion shuddered through the dome. It rattled my teeth. I felt like my eardrums would explode.

  Ax said. He said the word in our heads the way his brother had. With hatred and rage so deep it was impossible to comprehend it.

  BA-BOOOOM!

  A second explosion! Suddenly the exterior door opened and we swam out in a rush. Four dolphins and one …

  Shark!

  I’d been distracted by the explosions.

  Ax had morphed a shark.

  Marco said.

  the Andalite wondered. I explained.

 

  Marco screamed.

  I soared up through the water, angling toward the distant surface. But as I rose I looked behind me. There were two jagged holes in the dome. Water was gushing in like Niagara Falls. As I watched, a third dark cylinder was falling slowly from the surface. Even I had seen enough submarine movies to know it was a depth charge.

  Ax demanded urgently.