The Departure Page 8

  I understood Ax's near-silence. This was a matter between humans. Not his business.

  I understood Rachel's anger. She felt like she was being accused of being immoral, compared with Cassie.

  I understood Tobias, after thinking about it for a minute. Tobias is a human being living inside a hawk. Holding onto human ideas and human virtues is important to him. He values pity and kindness, because he lives in a world where there is no pity.

  I understood Marco. Marco is one of those people who jumps right to the conclusion, without a lot of wondering and guessing. You could say he's smart. Or efficient. Or I guess you could say he's ruthless. He's not mean or cruel. He just gets from point A to point Z faster than most people.

  «So what are we going to do when we get there?» Rachel asked after a while.

  130 «l don't know,» I admitted. «Let's see if we find her first.»

  «l just found her,» Rachel said. «There's an osprey just breaking out of the trees. It's her.»

  «l see it,» Tobias said.

  We all saw it. And we knew that the osprey saw us.

  131

  Jake

  We flew toward the osprey, but it soon went below the trees and out of sight. It was quite a distance away, and we'd been in morph for a long time.

  «We need to land and demorph,» I said.

  «We can't! She'll get away!» Marco said.

  «Ax? How's our time?»

  «We must demorph, Prince Jake. Unless we wish to become trapped in these morphs.»

  Down we went, spiraling down through warm updrafts, to land on the shady forest floor. We quickly demorphed, all but Tobias, of course. He stayed aloft, keeping an eye out.

  Then, after a few minutes' rest, we morphed

  132 again and took to the air once more. Now we had a solid two hours.

  But we had also given Cassie, or the Yeerk inside her, plenty of time to hide or escape.

  We flew toward where we'd last seen her. Through the trees, we began to catch glimpses of a search force up ahead.

  «Those are state police uniforms,» Tobias observed.

  «We have to find Cassie and that girl Karen before they do,» I said. But I wasn't thinking anything more about it than that. We flew above the dozen or so cops.

  Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

  «What the . . .»

  BamBamBamBamBamBamBamBamBam!

  «They're shooting at us!»

  Pistols, rifles, and even automatic weapons were firing up at us.

  Flit! Flit! Flit!

  The bullets whizzed past me, one so close the wind from it ruffled my feathers.

  «They're Controllers!» Rachel yelled. «She warned them!»

  «Just keep flying!» I said. «We'll be past them in a few -»

  «Aaahhh!»

  I looked left and saw Rachel fall from the sky. With peregrine eyes I could see the blood coming

  133 from her tail. She'd been hit! Hit too badly to keep flying. She'd have to demorph and remorph.

  But the woods below were full of Controllers.

  «Fine,» Marco said. «They want a fight, we'll give them a fight.»

  «No,» I said. «It's what they want. Or at least it's what that Yeerk wants. Tobias! Keep flying, find Cassie! Everyone else, with me!»

  Rachel dropped down toward the treetops. I could hear the human-Controllers yelling in savage glee.

  I dropped like a rock. Nothing on Earth is faster in a dive than a peregrine falcon. I aimed straight for Rachel.

  The air blew past me like I was in a hurricane. Faster, faster, the ground rushing up to hit me! Rachel was five feet from hitting the ground.

  And just below her, a human-Controller waited, grinning, holding an automatic rifle.

  Full speed! I raked my talons forward.

  Shwooooooop!

  I hit Rachel hard. It could almost have killed her, except that I absorbed some of the shock into my legs. I grabbed and opened my wings, hoping to save some momentum.

  "Hey!" the Controller yelped, sounding very human.

  Now, let me put this in perspective. Rachel was in bald eagle morph. I was in falcon morph.

  134 They are both birds of prey. But they're similar, like a cocker spaniel is similar to a Great Dane.

  The eagle was huge. The big white head alone would have been too much for me to carry. The odds of me flying away holding her were zero. All I could do was hope to get her a few feet away from the Controller.

  But even that wasn't happening. I took the limp weight of the eagle on my talons, spread my wings, flapped like mad, and fell like a rock.

  "Tseeeeeeeeeer!"

  From the sky there fell a gray and white missile. Ax flared his harrier wings, swooped neatly, and sank both talons into Rachel's bloody tail.

  We were still falling, but now at least we were gliding away from the nearest Controller.

  He stomped toward us. We hustled and dragged Rachel's unconscious body over sticks and rocks and through bushes. But the human-Controller was plenty fast enough to keep up.

  «We have to fight!» I said. «Demorph, Ax!»

  Ax released his grip on Rachel, fluttered a distance away behind some trees, and began to demorph.

  The human-Controller saw me helpless with Rachel. «Hah-hah-hah! I have you now! Hah-hah-hah!»

  What are you, the Joker? I thought.

  135 Suddenly, something blew past, leaving trails of blood on the man's face.

  "Aaarrgghh!" he cried and clutched at his eyes.

  Marco sailed past. «They're coming!» he yelled. «It's fight or flee time.»

  I looked to see Ax halfway into Andalite morph. Marco and I were still one-hundred-percent bird. Rachel was out cold. Marco and I would have to pass through human morph before we could get into anything dangerous.

  «Ax! Finish demorphing, grab Rachel, and run!» I said. «Marco, you and I are outta here!»

  I could hear voices, even over the yelling and cursing of the injured Controller. Footsteps and large bodies shoving through bushes.

  «Ax?» I said.

  «l can carry her.» he answered.

  Still not totally Andalite, Ax ran over, scooped up Rachel in his weak Andalite arms, and turned tail to run like a deer.

  I flapped my wings, praying for a breeze, and skimmed across the ground. Marco was right behind me.

  Four men appeared! We were flying straight at them.

  They raised their guns, we flapped like lunatics and skimmed inches above their heads.

  136 Blam! Blam! Blam! They began blazing away.

  Flit! Flit! Flit! The bullets blew past us. But then we found that breeze, filled our sail-like wings, and rose up, up, up above the trees and out of sight.

  137

  Jake

  We met up a few minutes later, out of the paths of the human-Controllers. Ax easily outran the humans, even carrying the big eagle. It only became difficult when Rachel suddenly woke up.

  «What are you doing? Put me down! I'm going back and find the guy who shot me and -»

  «Rachel! Glad you're awake. Now, shut up and demorph!» I said.

  I was frantic. The battle had cost us time. Too much time. And now Rachel demorphing and re-morphing would cost us more time. «Marco, go after Tobias. See if you can help. Keep track of the Yeerk - whatever body it's in.»

  «You have some kind of instructions for me, oh, fearless leader?»

  138 «Yeah. I do. The Yeerk does not make contact with anyone. I don't care if it's in Cassie or that girl Karen. Neither of them gets away. No matter what.»

  Marco hesitated for a moment. «You mean . . . ?»

  «l mean, one way or the other, neither Cassie nor that girl gets away.»

  Marco muttered a curse. «How did it come to this?» he wondered. But he flew away at top speed.

  I felt sick inside. It was right that I make the decision. And it was probably the right decision to make. But oh, man, I felt like I'd swallowed broken glass.

  «Hurry up!�
� I yelled at Rachel. I wanted someone to be mad at and she was the first person I saw.

  Rachel quickly demorphed back to human. Because the eagle morph is merely DNA, when she remorphed it, the bullet wound was gone.

  Ax decided to stay on the ground and I agreed. We were close enough that he could run. And we might need his blade. Rachel and I took off again.

  I instantly spotted Tobias circling over a small meadow just a few thousand feet away. We sped toward him. Marco was not in sight.

  139 «Tobias! What's happening?» Rachel demanded.

  «You really don't want to know,» Tobias said harshly.

  We caught up to him and looked down at the scene below. There, a little girl, Karen, squatted in the grass, looking intently at a leaf.

  I focused my falcon eyes and saw tears running down the little girl's face. Then, I saw what she was looking at. It was a caterpillar. It hung, squirming, from the bottom of the leaf.

  I don't know how I knew. But somehow I did.

  I landed a few feet away. Rachel landed beside me. Karen looked at us without surprise.

  "It's too late," she said simply.

  «What's too late?» Rachel demanded.

  "She did it," Karen said. "She gave her life. I watched her for almost two hours. I kept expecting her to change her mind. But she did it. She gave her life for this little human girl. And because she thought she could make peace with one enemy at least."

  Rachel and I stared in horror at the caterpillar. It was hanging straight down. It was shedding its outer skin, pushing the skin up its body. And even now it was carefully, cautiously, stepping out of its old skin.

  "Right at the end, right before the two hours

  140 were up, I told her to stop. I told her she'd proven herself to me. I begged her to stop, to demorph." Karen raised her green eyes to me. "But I'd forgotten. I don't think the caterpillar could hear. At least not speech. She didn't know that I had seen enough. And now . . ."

  «Cassie!» I screamed. «Cassie! Demorph! Demorph!»

  "Too late," Karen said again, and slowly rose to her feet.

  «Cassie!» Rachel cried. «0h, God, no! Cassie!»

  There was the sound of hooves and Ax arrived at a run. Karen looked at him and sneered. "Ah, of course, the Andalite aristh."

  «What have you done, Yeerk?» Ax demanded. His tail twitched. «I'll destroy you for this!»

  «NO!» Rachel yelled in a blinding rage. «NO! This Yeerk is mine!»

  She began to demorph at top speed, flesh and face emerging from feathers and beak.

  "You fools! Don't you see?" Karen cried. "She gave her life to make some small fragment of peace! We have a deal! Cassie and I made a deal!"

  She looked from one of us to the other. I guess she found no pity or understanding in our weird, demorphing faces.

  Karen turned and ran. She ran as fast as little

  141 girl legs could move on a swollen, bruised, and bloody ankle.

  «Shall I get her?» Ax asked calmly.

  "No," Rachel said. She was human for the moment. "Let her run. Let her feel what it's like to be helpless. I'll deal with her soon enough."

  And with that, Rachel began to morph from human into the African elephant whose DNA was a part of her.

  Karen staggered and ran and fell. She reached the edge of the meadow and crawled into the trees.

  And that's when we saw the flash of black and tan. It fell, silent, from a tree branch.

  It dropped straight down on Karen.

  It opened its mighty jaws, bared its railroad spike teeth, and prepared to sink those fangs into her unprotected neck.

  "Aaaaahhhhh!" Karen screamed.

  I froze. I was in mid-demorph. Rachel was in mid-morph. Maybe Ax could save the girl from the leopard, but he wouldn't move unless I gave the order.

  And I just froze. Did I think Good, let the leopard do our dirty work for us? Maybe. I don't know if I thought anything very clearly.

  "Oh! Oh! Oh!" Karen wailed as the leopard crouched over her, aiming for the perfect bite.

  And then . . .

  142 A hand! A huge, black, hairy hand came out from behind the tree.

  Fingers the size of bratwursts closed on the scruff of the leopard's neck. Huge arms flexed, massive shoulders lifted, and the leopard was suddenly hanging in midair.

  «l don't think so, kitty,» Marco said.

  He spun halfway around and flung the leopard about twenty feet.

  143

  Jake

  We made a strange little group, there at the edge of the meadow. An Andalite. An elephant. A gorilla. A hawk. And me. I was human again.

  In the middle of the circle we formed was Karen. Or Aftran, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

  "What are you going to do with me, Jake?" she asked.

  It shocked me, hearing my own name come from her. I mean, it shouldn't have surprised me, because I knew she'd been inside Cassie's head. But it made it all so terribly clear: Nothing had changed. Our lives were still in this Controller's hands.

  "I don't know what to do with you," I admitted.

  144 «Sure you do,» Rachel said coldly. «Marco just saved her for me. Isn't that right, Marco?»

  But Marco didn't answer. Instead he began to demorph back to human, shrinking within the gorilla.

  Rachel moved her Miata-sized head and looked at Ax. «You're with me, aren't you?»

  "Of course he is," Karen snapped. "Humans may be capable of wanting peace, but not the almighty Andalites. Go ahead, Andalite. You have that tail of yours. Go ahead, use it."

  Ax looked at Rachel with his stalk eyes. He kept his main eyes on Karen. And he said, «l will do as Prince Jake says.»

  I saw the shock in Karen's eyes as she looked back at me to learn her fate.

  "You said you had a deal with Cassie. Tell me about it."

  "If she would suffer the same fate that awaits me - a life without sight, without pleasure, without freedom - then I would do what she asked me to do," Karen said simply.

  "And what did Cassie ask you to do?"

  "To make what small peace I could," Karen said. "To let this host body go free. And never to take another human host."

  "You'll do this?" I asked.

  Karen nodded. "Yes."

  «Yeah, that's real likely,» Rachel said derisively.

  145 I took a deep breath. "Why will you do it? Why?"

  Karen smiled a small smile. "We are not all like Visser Three," she said. "Some of us are just little Yeerks, unimportant nobodies who are caught in this war. Some of us also want peace. Some of us want to find a better way. But how can we give up everything and leave the universe to ..." She jerked her head toward Ax. "To them? They'll never feel anything but hatred and contempt for us. Cassie . . . Cassie did not hate."

  «Jake, stop listening to her! She wants to destroy us. She'll say anything she has to!» Rachel cried. «She'll tell any lie she has to! You can't let her walk away. She can't be trusted.»

  «Cassie trusted her,» Tobias said quietly.

  «This is insane! Ridiculous!» Rachel yelled.

  She was right. What Cassie had done was insane. But it wasn't wrong. And I just kept thinking, as idealistic and naive and even dumb as Cassie's actions might have seemed, did I want to undo them all now? Did I want to destroy the meaning of her sacrifice?

  Cassie had given her life, making an absurd, hopeful bet on peace. If I gave one order... her bet would be wasted. If I gave the other order, we might all die.

  "I guess sometimes you have to choose between smart, sane, ruthlessness, and totally stupid,

  146 insane hope," I said, not even realizing I was speaking out loud. "You can't just pick one and stick with it, either. Each time it comes up, you have to try and make your best decision. Most of the time, I guess I have to go with being smart and sane. But I don't want to live in a world where people don't try the stupid, crazy, hopeful thing sometimes."

  I looked at Rachel, towering above us all. "Rachel, I'm no
t going to give any orders. Each of us has to decide for ourselves right now."

  I looked at Karen again and then turned away. I walked back to the caterpillar. I plucked up the stalk of the plant, and carried it carefully away into the forest.

  Tobias joined me a few minutes later. And then Ax. And Marco.

  Rachel didn't come, not at first.

  But after a while there she was, human again.

  We looked at her, wondering.

  "Cassie was my best friend," she said, gritting her teeth to control the tears. "I'm not going to be the one to call her a fool."

  Rachel reached out her hands to take the stiffening, drying chrysalis.

  "I'll carry her," she said. "I'll keep her safe."

  147

  Cassie

  For a long time, I was gone.

  Unconscious.

  Unaware.

  A worm in hibernation. The limited caterpillar mind not even functioning at its very limited level.

  It was like I was dead, only there were still these faint, far-off dreams. Wisps of dreams, really. Nothing to hold on to.

  Faint images of people and places. My parents, most of all. Not that I knew what those vague faces meant.

  I was changing, but I didn't know that I was changing. I didn't even know that I existed.

  I was inside a hardened shell. Hanging from

  148 the bottom of a leaf. I was becoming one of the miracles of nature. I was living through nature's own morphing.

  Slowly, so slowly, I became aware. I stirred and shifted and my own movement woke me up.

  My dried, stiff sack of skin began to crack open like an egg. It split, and I felt a new, strange sensation. The first new thing I had felt for a long time.

  Air!

  Now things seemed to be happening very quickly. I was pushing, squirming, trying to get out. Impatient.

  I pushed and suddenly . . .

  I could see!

  In an explosion of awareness, I knew who I was. I was Cassie! And I could see again!

  Colors! Like some lunatic artist run nuts, spraying everything in brilliant, iridescent, glowing, insane colors!

  Compound eyes, I told myself. Then I laughed, because I still knew the term. I was back. I was me again.

  But not the human me.

  Compound eyes. And now, antennae that unfolded from the stickiness of the chrysalis and smelled all the delicious smells of the world.