The Pretender Page 8

  I walked behind the toolshed and I began to morph. The one morph that would seem perfectly at home here.

  I morphed Ket Halpak.

  I swaggered confidently out from behind the toolshed and walked over to the Hork-Bajir who looked like he was in charge.

  "They want to see you," I said.

  "Who?"

  I jerked my head over my shoulder toward the main building. "They."

  It's one of the things you can count on in this world: There's always a they.

  The Hork-Bajir scowled. The Yeerk in his head was half annoyed, half afraid. "The Visser isn't here yet, is he?"

  I turned my head and looked away. Like I wasn't allowed to say more. Now the guy was ten percent annoyed and ninety percent scared,

  I held out my claw. "Give me the key."

  130 And it was just that simple. He handed me the key. I walked over and unlocked the cage.

  "What are you doing?" one of the other Hork-Bajir-Controllers demanded.

  I turned on him and swung my left fist up in a vicious uppercut. It connected with his jaw. He went down.

  The remaining four guards hesitated for a split second. Just long enough for Jara Hamee and the others to come tearing out of the cage. I caught sight of something growing fast on the dirt floor of the cage. It was still about halfway mosquito, but there was no mistaking the tail growing out of that bug.

  There was a minute of sharp, brutal combat. Five free Hork-Bajir (including myself) against the four guards. Then Ax joined the fight and it all ended quickly.

  We shoved and dragged the guards into the cage and locked them up.

  Everyone morphed to battle morph. Me, I de-morphed. We would need an eye in the sky. I caught a little breeze and floated up, just a dozen feet off the ground. I looked at our little force. Four free Hork-Bajir, a tiger, a wolf, a gorilla, an Andalite, and a very large elephant.

  A strange little platoon of warriors.

  «The beautiful thing is, they can yell all they

  131 want. The Yeerks will just think they're our Hork-Bajir,» Cassie said of the guards in the cage.

  «0kay,» Jake said. «So far, so good. But we have a job to do.»

  «0oh, he's getting all John Wayne,» Marco said with a laugh.

  Jake ignored the remark. «We have to take that weapon and blow it up. Quiet and fast. We want to be in there before anyone has a chance to react.»

  There was a moment of expectant silence.

  Then Marco said, «Rachel! What's keeping you» ?»

  «0h, I forgot,» she said. And then, in true Rachel style, she yelled, «Let's do it!»

  «Thank you,» Marco said. «We can't run off on another idiot suicide mission without the blessings of the always insane Xena, Warrior Princess.»

  We formed up and then, on a signal from Jake, they tore out of there, out of concealment, out into the open, racing like mad to reach the weapons platform before something could go wrong.

  But I was in the air, and I had my own hawk's eyes. So I could see that already something had gone wrong.

  132

  Up the steep road my friends and allies ran. They were directly behind a big dump truck. Mostly invisible to the unsuspecting Yeerks above them.

  But they were not invisible. Not to the helicopter that came fwap-fwap-fwapping its way over the trees and into the concealed facility.

  It came around and swept low. It was a small helicopter. With one of those bubble canopies just large enough to hold a pilot and one passenger.

  One human passenger. Nothing else would have fit.

  The Hork-Bajir guard had acted as if Visser

  133 Three was expected. This had to be him arriving now.

  The sun was on the canopy, blinding, hiding the persons inside. An eagle or an osprey might have been able to see better. They're adapted for looking through sunlight on water. But all I could see was the vague outline of a human form. A finger pointing at my friends. And a flash of a pony-tail.

  Aria!

  The helicopter roared past, oblivious to me, spinning me roughly in its rotor wash. It disappeared around the far side of the mound.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  How could I have ever been stupid enough to hope? How could I have failed to know? Had I been blinded by some pathetic desire for normalcy?

  It was all an act! Aria, saving the little girl's life, just an act! A show put on for the benefit of any Animorph who might be watching.

  I raged at myself. Raged and berated myself, piling anger on top of anger.

  Anger was good. Anger was safe. Anger was so much better than the other emotions that threatened to surface and overwhelm me.

  «Fool, Tobias! Fool!» I cried. «Every two hours she went back to the bathroom at the hotel. Fool!

  134 How could you, of all people, have missed it? How could you, of all people, Tobias, not know what that meant?»

  Two hours! Two hours in morph!

  A morph! Aria was a morph!

  I felt sick. I could barely flap my wings. I couldn't think. I couldn't see. Everything was just spinning around me.

  I hadn't realized till that moment how much this hope had meant to me. A home. A family.

  «Not for you, Tobias, you idiot! You fool! I hate you! I hate you! I want you to die!»

  I couldn't fly. I landed hard and lay there in the dirt. I just kept saying it, over and over in my head. «l hate you, Tobias. I hate you. I want you to die.»

  In my life as a human, in my life as a bird, I have never been lower than that. I knew my friends were fighting. I knew they needed me. But I couldn't. . .

  . . . couldn't.

  After a while, a clawed hand snatched me roughly from the ground and I realized I was moving very fast.

  "Come with me, Tobias. The weapon is about to explode."

  It was Toby. In some distant corner of my mind ! wondered how, why she had come. Later I would learn that the battle had gone badly for my

  135 friends. It was Toby who'd come to the rescue with the other Hork-Bajir.

  She had seen me fall. She saved me. And when we were safe again, she handed me to Rachel.

  How did Toby know to give me to Rachel? I don't know. All I know is I was carried, bundled up in Rachel's arms, till we made it back.

  They took me to the barn. Cassie looked me over, lifting wings and spreading feathers. Looking for an injury.

  "Tobias, where were you hit?" she asked me, puzzled.

  I felt like I had to pull the words out of a deep well, like they each weighed a thousand pounds. «l wasn't,» I said.

  "Then what's the matter?" Jake asked.

  «It's Aria,» I said.

  "Your cousin? The woman who wants to take you in?" Jake said.

  «She's a morph,» I said without any emotion at all. «It's all a trap. She's Visser Three.» Then I laughed. «The "woman" who was going to be my family? She's Visser Three! Hah, hah, hah! Now, that's funny. That is really, really funny.»

  136

  I didn't have much time to sit and feel sorry for myself. That would have to come later. I had an appointment.

  It was my birthday. I was supposed to hear the last statement left to me by my father. Or my real father, whatever that meant.

  All a sham, of course. But I had to go through with it. It was a trap, but the only way out of the trap was to step right in.

  Aria was Visser Three. She/he had been looking for me. Which meant she/he suspected me. If I didn't show up, the Yeerks would assume I had figured out the trap. They'd assume I was an Animorph.

  137 Why did they suspect me in the first place? Who knew? But it was an easy leap from deciding I, a human boy, was one of the so-called Andalite bandits to guessing that the others were human, too. To guessing that they were kids I had known.

  From then on, it would be a deadly chess game with only one possible end.

  They would get Jake. He had been my friend.

  Jake would be made into a Controller. Even if he died resist
ing them, they'd move from him to Marco, his best friend, and Rachel, his cousin. From Rachel to Cassie. Game over.

  I had to find a way to walk into that lawyer's office and let Visser Three spring his trap. And not get caught.

  And worst of all, I had to do it alone. He would have his forces clustered all around De-Groot's office. One glimpse of a strange animal and it would be all over. Visser Three would know,

  In fact, my friends would have to be somewhere else. While I went in to face DeGroot and the foul fake of Aria, they would go back and launch an attack on the Yeerks, attempting to clean up the weapons site we'd hit earlier.

  I morphed to human a long way from the office, just to eliminate any chance of being seen. I walked eight blocks to the lawyer's office. Walked. I hadn't walked that far in a very long time.

  138 It's a lame way to travel. When you fly, you're living in three dimensions. When you crawl the earth like a human, there are just two. It was slow as well. And there were traffic lights and other people and cars and . . . flying was so much better.

  So be happy, I told myself bitterly. It's a good thing you aren't going to be human again. You can still fly.

  No family, but I could fly.

  I was shaking and scared by the time I reached the office. It wasn't so much for me. I guess at some level I didn't care all that much if I lived or died right then. I just worried about blowing it somehow. For the others. For my friends.

  I guess it's true what they always say about combat soldiers. They may start out fighting for their country, but they end up fighting for the guy next to them in the foxhole.

  I didn't so much care about the fate of the human race at that moment. I wasn't human. I was a hawk. But I cared about Jake, and Cassie, and Marco, and Ax-man, and Rachel. Always Rachel.

  The receptionist was gone when I walked, trembling, through the door. I stood there, unsure of what to do. Then the two of them came from the inner office.

  139 Aria smiled a big smile. "You must be Tobias," she said.

  I remembered seeing her for the first time. Watching her through her window at the hotel, me flying hundreds of feet in the air. Then it struck me. The thing that had bothered me then: Supposedly, she'd been in the African bush for years or whatever. But when she'd left her room, she'd paused to check her hair.

  Perfectly appropriate for a normal woman. Just a bit wrong for a woman who spent her days hiding in blinds and racing around in open-topped Land Rovers.

  I nodded. "Yeah. I'm Tobias."

  My role was tough street kid. It was easy for me to pull off, given that I usually forgot to make facial expressions and had a tendency to stare.

  She came and put her arms around me. She hugged me close. The morph that called herself Aria.

  Visser Three.

  I stiffened and tried to pull away.

  "It's okay," she said with perfect sincerity. "Tobias, we're family. I want to take care of you."

  DeGroot came over and shook my hand. He said, "Come on in, young man."

  If you weren't looking for it, you'd never notice it: the way DeGroot stayed back from Aria.

  140 Like she was someone he didn't want to get too close to. Like she was someone he didn't want to touch.

  Someone he feared.

  So, I thought, DeGroot is in on this. He's a Controller. He knows who Aria is.

  We all took seats in the office. DeGroot, looking to Aria for cues. Aria, playing the role of concerned, decent woman. Me, being the tough street kid.

  One wrong move. One slight wrong move, and Yeerks would pile in on me from directions I hadn't even thought of yet.

  "We are here today to carry out the reading of an important document left for Tobias by his father. By ... by a man different than the man you believed to be your father."

  I shrugged. "Whatever."

  Aria leaned toward me. "Aren't you interested in finding out who your real father is?"

  I laughed. "Did he leave me any money?"

  DeGroot's eyebrows shot up. "No."

  I rolled my eyes. "Figures."

  DeGroot tapped the pages to straighten them. "Then we'll just go straight to reading the document. If that's -"

  Some little bit of Visser Three showed through then. "Read it," he/she snapped. Then, forcing a

  141 smile, said, "I'm anxious to hear what this is all about."

  So the lawyer began to read.

  I had forgotten how to use facial expressions. I was used to being a hawk and not a human.

  It saved my life.

  142

  ?Dear Tobias," the lawyer read.

  He hesitated, pulled a pair of glasses from his desk, and put them on. Then started again.

  "Dear Tobias. I am your father. You never knew me. And I never knew you. I do not know what your life has been over these many years. I hope that your mother found someone else to love. I know that all memory of me has been erased from her mind. All evidence of my time on Earth has been erased."

  I could feel Aria staring at me. I could feel her predatory alertness. She was watching my eyes. I did not look at her. She was watching for the twitch that did not come, for the grimace, for the worry, for some emotion that would give me away.

  143 I gave her/him nothing.

  "I am being given this opportunity to communicate with you by the very creature who has erased my life on Earth. He has called me back to my duty, and I cannot fail.

  "This will all seem very strange to you, my unknown, unseen, unmet son. But I am not one of your people. I have taken on the form of a human, but I am not human."

  My lungs wanted to stop breathing. My heart wanted to stop beating. I felt like suddenly everyone, everything was very close in, like Aria/Visser Three was breathing on my cheek, and the lawyer was leaning clear over his desk to whisper his words right in my ear.

  Not human!

  A reaction! I needed a reaction!

  I rolled my eyes and said, "Oh, man," in as sarcastic a tone as I could manage.

  The lawyer glanced at Visser Three, then went on.

  "I was in a terrible war. I did terrible things. I had to, I suppose. But I grew tired of war, so I ran away. I went and hid among the people of Earth. Among humans. While on Earth, and living as a human, I took the name Alan Fangor."

  The lawyer was quoting from memory now, no longer reading. His eyes were narrowed to slits as he watched me.

  144 "I took the name Alan Fangor. But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul."

  Time stopped.

  I felt like I'd grabbed hold of a million-volt power line. Every cell in my body was tingling.

  Elfangor! My father!

  I could not let a flicker of recognition appear. Not a movement. Not a widening of the eyes. Nothing! Nothing!

  The lawyer had stopped. Visser Three glared at me with a woman's eyes.

  I shrugged. "Is that it?"

  I saw Aria's eyes dim. He/she was disappointed. The tension, the electricity, seemed to slowly seep out of the airless cube of an office.

  "There's more," the lawyer said, drawing a delayed breath. "But my true name is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul," he repeated, like he couldn't quite believe that name didn't make me jump up and run around the room. "And though you will never know me and we will never meet, I wanted to make sure that you knew my disappearance from your life was not by my choice. I wanted nothing more than to live out my life, loving your mother and loving you as well."

  But we did meet, Elfangor, I thought. We met as you lay dying. Did you know? Did you guess . . . Father? Did you sense, at that last, terrible moment

  145 when I had to leave you to the murderer who now sits beside me, that I was your son?

  Tears! NO! NO! One tear and I would die.

  DeGroot looked annoyed now. Let down. He mumbled through the last paragraph of the letter like he had somewhere else to be.

  "But I was part of something larger than myself. I had my duty. There was a great evil I had to fight. There were lives I had to tr
y and save. Including yours and your mother's. I am from a race called Andalites. Duty is very important to us. As it is to many, many humans. I cannot say that I love you, my son, because I do not know you. But know that I wanted to love you. Know that, at least.

  "It's signed Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul, Prince."

  I barked out a harsh laugh. "Well, that figures, doesn't it?"

  "What figures?" the creature calling itself Aria asked.

  "My so-called 'real father' shows up and he's some lunatic. Some idiot. Perfect. So: No money, right?"

  "No money," DeGroot confirmed.

  I stood up. Aria did, too.

  "You really want to take me in, or were you just hoping I was going to inherit something?" I demanded.

  146 "I do want to take you in," she said, smiling falsely. "But it may have to wait just a little while. You see, I was suddenly called back to Africa to do some reshooting of ... of some lions."

  I laughed derisively, still the tough street kid. "Great. I ha ve a nut for a father and a fake for a cousin."

  I turned my back on them and walked away.

  "Tobias," Aria said.

  I turned back to face her. "What?"

  "I ... I knew your father. We were, shall we say, on the opposite sides of certain issues. But he was no fool." Suddenly Aria/Visser Three smiled. It was a faraway smile, like she/he was remembering something from long ago. "Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul was no fool. And the galaxy will not soon see his like again."

  I threw up my hands. "Good grief, you're as crazy as he was."

  I walked out and closed the door behind me. I heard DeGroot say, "Shouldn't we take him? Just to be safe? Make him one of us?"

  Aria snorted derisively. "He's street trash. A waste of a Yeerk. Elfangor would be ashamed. His son should be a warrior. A worthy adversary, not some young fool. A pity, really."

  I'd been in morph for a long time. I left the office and made it to a safe place without being followed

  147 or watched. I demorphed. I didn't think about the fact that I'd decided to remain as a human. I demorphed to hawk before I could be trapped.

  But then I morphed again. Back to human. See, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry a lot, for a long time. And hawks don't cry.

  148

  I could see it all, now. DeGroot said he had inherited the letter when his father died and he took over the law practice. The younger DeGroot was a Controller. He must have almost had a heart attack when he went through his father's old files and the name Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul jumped up at him.