It's the beginning of the end. . . . Time stopped.

  He came to me. The Ellimist.

  The puppet master came to watch my final act. It figured. He was in his saintly old-man guise. As fake as everything else about him. The all-powerful weakling. The mighty manipulator.

  "You," I said accusingly.

  "Yes."

  "Who are you?" I demanded. "Who are you to play games with us? You appear, you disappear, you use us. Who are you? What are you?"

  And then, f o r what seemed a very long time, the Ellimist told me. I saw. I understood.

  But I also knew he would not save me. That he couldn't under the arcane rules of his millennia-long war with Crayak, The Ellimist was there to honor me, and I guess t h a t was nice of him. Wasn't going to help me much.

  I wanted so much to live. I wanted so much to stay and not leave. In a moment no answer would m a t t e r to me, but just the same, I wanted to know what I guess any dying person wants to know.

  "Answer this, Ellimist: Did I . . . did I make a difference? My life, and my . . . my death . . . was I w o r t h it? Did my life really matter?"

  "Yes," he said. "You were brave. You were s t r o n g . You were good. You mattered. . . . "

  CHAPTER 1

  My name is Rachel.

  I knew what was coming. I knew.

  I'd seen it in Jake's eyes.

  And you know what? I was scared.

  I never thought I would be. Cassie thinks I'm fearless. Marco thinks I'm reckless. Tobias . . . OCRed By Arpit Nathany

  well, Tobias loves me.

  I guess they all do, in different ways. Jake, too. But Jake had to do the right thing.

  I felt sorry for him, you know? He's carried the weight so long. He's made hard decisions. None as hard as this maybe. I didn't blame him, not even for a minute.

  But I was scared.

  1

  I guess no one wants to die. I guess everyone then flatten themselves out, spread themselves is scared when the time comes.

  down into the crevices, tie directly into your We were so close. We were right there, right at synapses. They take control. Absolute control. the finish line, I'd already survived so many times They read your thoughts, they sense your

  when I shouldn't have. It seemed unfair. To come emotions. What your eyes see, they see. What this far, get this close . . .

  your tongue tastes, they taste. If your hand moves, Jake gave me the job because he knew that

  it's because they moved it. If you speak, it is the only I could do it. Would do it. Ax might have, sure, Yeerk who has spoken through you, made you

  but he was needed for his skills. Me, I'm not the into a ventriloquist's dummy.

  computer genius. I'm the one you send when you Over the course of years they spread like a need someone to be crazy, to do the hard thing. virus. Invisible. Undetectable.

  I don't know whether I'm proud of that or not. They are your teacher, your pastor, your best I was Jake's insurance policy. He thought

  friend. They are the police officer, the TV newsmaybe he wouldn't have to use me. He hoped, man, the soldier. Anyone.

  anyway. But down deep he knew, and I knew, and Jake's parents had recently been taken; they we both hid the truth from the others because were human-Controllers — people controlled by Cassie couldn't let Jake make that decision, and Yeerks.

  Tobias couldn't let me, and those two, by loving Jake's brother Tom, my cousin, had been a

  us, would have screwed everything up.

  Controller for a long time. He was a powerful It was a war, after all. A war we had to win. Yeerk. Jake still cared for him, still hoped someWe hadn't asked the Yeerks to come to Earth. how he could be saved.

  They made that call on their own. They're a paraJake had sent me away with Tom. sitic species, not very big or impressive to look I understood. I approved. If Jake hadn't sent at, just these snail-like things that can enter your me I'd have gone anyway.

  head through your ear. They have a capacity to Still, though, I was scared.

  anesthetize the inner ear enough to allow them to I had power myself. We all did. The strange, burrow through the soft tissue. It still hurts but unsettling power to absorb DNA from any living not as much as it should.

  creature, to then alter our physical bodies to beThey dig their way straight to your brain and come that creature.

  2

  3

  I've been a whole zoo, you know. Everything that barrier and soar through the air. . . And from a fly to an elephant. Bat. Owl. I've flown, then, splash! And do it all over again.

  way up in the sky with eagle wings. I've flown up So, anyway, we decided we had to try and

  there with Tobias. Way up in the clouds. If there's stop the Yeerks. Jake and Tobias and Cassie and something better than that, well, I never found it. Marco and Ax, who is Elfangor's little brother, It's not magic. Just technology. Of course techand me. We lived this secret life. We fought and nology always seems like magic at first. Haul a mostly lost, but we survived. We frustrated the tenth-century knight into the modern age and Yeerks. We ruined Visser Three's life, though he show him your cell phone or your TV or your comstill managed to be promoted to Visser One. puter or your car. Magic.

  Maybe we did too good a job frustrating the This technology came from the Andalites. The visser. The Yeerks grew tired of infiltration. Visser Andalites are enemies of the Yeerks, and I guess One had been craving open war. And when we

  allies of ours, though right at the moment they blew up their ground-based Yeerk pool, the source were more likely to annihilate Earth than the of their food, the center of their lives, it was Yeerks were. You know the old saying, "With gloves off.

  friends like these, who needs enemies?" So much the better as far as I was concerned. Anyway, it began with a chance meeting. An

  The time had come to settle things.

  Andalite prince named Elfangor crashed his

  The Yeerks obliterated our town to create a shot-up fighter in our path. Coincidence? No, dead zone around their construction of a new history. And a helping hand from the Ellimist Yeerk pool. They were in a hurry. Without a funcwho of course never lends a helping hand. tioning pool they were getting hungry.

  Elfangor died, but not before he told us what But there was a worm gnawing at the Yeerk

  was happening and gave us the morphing techrace. They had acquired morphing technology nology.

  themselves — in part because of what Jake

  I've been a rat. A dolphin . . . oh, man, do thought was Cassie's betrayal.

  they have fun. That rush when you're zooming Cassie sees further than I do. Further than straight up through the water, when you see the any of us. She sees deep. The girl cannot dress or ripply surface of the sea, when you blow through accessorize to save her life, she's a girl who 4

  5

  wears manure-stained Wal-Mart jeans for crying Yeerk Pool ship. Tom had control of the visser's out loud, but Cassie sees connections and possiown personal Blade ship. bilities that others don't.

  Tom — the Yeerk in Tom's head — was closShe let Tom take the morphing cube. And that ing in for his final act of betrayal: He would kill changed everything. Some Yeerks began to see a his master, Visser One, and doom his fellow way out of their parasitic lives. The hunger-crazed Yeerks. He thought we were already dead.

  Taxxons — a race held captive by the Yeerks —

  Surprise, Tom.

  began to dream of a life without their Yeerk overMy favorite morph was the grizzly bear. Seven lords. A revolution was brewing.

  feet tall standing erect. You cannot imagine the At the same time, the Andalite fleet was clospower, especially when united with human inteling in, ready to obliterate Earth as the only way to ligence and knowledge. Compared to my grizzly stop the Yeerk infestation. They had watched the morph a human being is like something made

  Yeerks concentrate their forces on Earth. They out of glued-together Popsicle sticks.

  were ready to bring down the curtain: Obliterate How many times have I felt that change as

  Earth and the Yeerk Empire would be gutted. muscle piles on muscle, as the thick brown fur Too bad about those creatures who got in the covers me, as the rail spike claws grow from my way. What were they called? Oh yeah, humans. fingers?

  But Tom betrayed his visser, betrayed the

  The grizzly bear and I had been through a lot Yeerk race. Not for the sake of poor old humanity, together.

  but for his own ambition. He would escape with I would go to grizzly to kill Tom.

  the morphing cube and with a hard core of faithful Yeerk supporters. He would abandon the Yeerk people to the Andalite vengeance, destroy the hated Animorphs, and if H. sapiens was annihilated, too, well . . . That's where Jake saw his chance. Tom's

  Yeerk is smart. Jake is smarter.

  Now Jake and the others had control of the

  6

  7

  I hit the deck, a fall of thousands of times my own height. Flea didn't care. Not even a bruise. A strained voice said, "That's . . . that's not a waste dump. They aren't dumping waste! That's the pool. The main pool. It's been flushed." There was an audible gasp from several voices. The human-Controllers and Hork-Bajir-Controllers CHAPTER 2

  who were Tom's bridge crew.

  "Sensors showing . . . it's our people. Sixteen thousand . . . maybe seventeen thousand." Tom cut in harshly. "It saves us the trouble of killing them ourselves." Then, in an undertone,

&nb sp; "But why? Why would the visser flush . . . what does this mean?"

  I was a flea on Tom's head. A flea can't see It means Jake's alive, Tommy boy. You'll fig- much really, just an impression of light or dark. ure it out in a minute, Yeerk. But I'm guessing it Not my favorite morph. But if you want to hide will be too late.

  out, unnoticed, on a human body, you can't beat Away from blood. That's where I had to go.

  the flea. And with practice you can learn to unThe flea's senses were all attuned to the warm derstand speech from the distant, distorted viscent of blood. But that scent represented danbrations that reach your quivering antennae. ger to me now, and I hopped away, each boundMy time was coming, and I had to find a place ing leap the equivalent of a human jumping over to demorph and remorph. I fired the spring-loaded the Grand Canyon. Try getting a flea morph to legs and catapulted into the air.

  move away from blood. Amazing how much resisIt took forever for me to fall. The first time you tance you can get from a brain that's about ten do it it scares the pee out of you. Falling and cells big.

  falling like that. Like you jumped off the moon I felt shade. Absence of light. Distance from and were falling to Earth.

  vibration. No scent of blood.

  8

  9

  Was I in a safe place? Surely not, but maybe I saw the viewscreen light up. I saw Visser safe enough.

  One's Andalite face. It was different. There was a I began a slow, cautious demorph.

  dull look in his usually aggressive eyes, a slackI heard a yell. ness in the normally tensed body.

  "The Pool ship is preparing to fire!"

  "You seem to be experiencing some engine

  "Hard left!" Tom yelled.

  trouble, Visser," Tom gloated.

  A moment later, Tom laughed. "The visser's I was completely demorphed now. There would lost maneuvering ability. The Pool ship handles be no room for me to morph all the way to grizzly like a drunken Gedd at the best of times, and and stay concealed. Every eye on the bridge was now look at it."

  watching the screen, but a seven-foot bear loomSomeone else reported, "His Dracon cannon ing up will definitely attract attention.

  is powering down. I show his reserves at less than I started the morph. If it turned out I wasn't ten percent."

  needed, well, then it would be fatally stupid of

  "Are they? Well, well," Tom said. "Hail the me. But I had no real doubt.

  visser. On screen."

  Visser One said,

  and human flesh spreading across me like a wave.

  "Oh, I doubt it. I think the Empire will have The sickest imagination could not conjure up the its hands full," Tom said cheerfully. "The Antrue creepiness of a half-flea human. Human eyes, dalite fleet is rather close by. It's possible that I my own eyes, bulged from an insect face.

  misled you on that point."

  I could see. Not well, confused, distorted, my He was all but giggling.

  visual cortex still more flea than human. I was Then, the viewscreen widened out and he

  still on the bridge of the Blade ship. I was actusaw, and I saw, the lithe Bengal tiger standing ally crouched beneath an unoccupied control stanear the visser. tion. It was like hiding under a desk. Fortunately Tobias was there, too.

  it was designed for a Hork-Bajir body, so there Tom saw the tiger and knew it was Jake and

  was some room.

  knew in that split second that he had been out10

  11

  maneuvered, outfought. He took a step back, ever they saw a morph. It was strangely gratifying like he'd been punched. "You're not dead!" he that at last they knew who we were.

  cried.

  I said,

  Visser One said I did what I do better than anyone. What Jake dryly.

  counted on me to do.

  Tom yelled, "Bring us around to target the I attacked.

  Pool ship's bridge. Do it! Now! Now! Bring us around!"

  At that moment I could have morphed all the way to elephant without being noticed. Tom's panic was infectious. They all knew they'd been had.

  But they didn't know how. Tom's reaction was pure instinct: shoot. He'd forgotten that the Pool ship was helpless. The sight of Jake — who

  should be dead — standing there with the other Animorphs, standing there alive and apparently in control of the Pool ship . . . all Tom could think of was shooting.

  The danger was closer than that.

  Jake looked at me. Like he knew I was watching him.

  he said.

  Tobias said.

  I said.

  I was still not completely morphed when someone shrieked. "Animorph!" After all these years of the Yeerks thinking we were Andalites, always yelling "Andalite!" when12

  13

  I swung a paw at him, and it should have

  been all over right then, but I missed. He dropped and I missed.

  I reared up to my full height and Tom rolled into a ball. He was down under my legs. I swiped his back and laid his spine open. But I didn't stop him.

  He was through my legs and behind me and

  CHAPTER 3

  staggering toward the exit.

  I spun, dropped to all fours and bounded to cut him off. I reached the exit a split second before him and shouldered him aside in the process. He spun like a top and fell on his butt. I was in a clumsy stance so I just sort of

  dropped on him. It was like some WWF body

  I charged straight for Tom, on all fours, head slam, only I wasn't faking it. He grunted and I down, an express train of muscle and fur, claws saw blood gush from his nose and mouth.

  and teeth.

  Too easy. My final battle. It couldn't be this I hit him with my lowered head and knocked

  easy.

  him back into the viewscreen. Not enough to take I drew back, ready to go in and finish the job. Tom out, but I had to try and damage the ship. But I had wasted too much time. There were othTseeew!

  ers on the bridge. And I had overlooked the fact Someone fired a Dracon beam. I felt the searthat we were no longer the only ones who could ing pain in my right flank but it didn't matter. I morph. Every member of Tom's handpicked crew was in berserk mode. Pain was something that could morph, and I was surrounded now by a half could be stored up for later. Right now I was an endozen half-morphed beasts. raged bear. I slammed a shoulder left, slammed a shoulder right and felt crumpling metal.

  Tom himself was starting to morph, but he

  wasn't my main problem now.

  Tom yelled, "No shooting! You'll destroy the

 

  bridge! Morph! Morph you idiots!"

  15

  14

  No one moved.

  It was Jake. He was watching the fight from

  I asked.

  the Pool ship.

  I spun, slashed horizontally and something

  No answer.

  that may have been a half-morphed leopard crum I said, almost laughing. pled like a Dixie cup.

  I lunged, straight for the polar bear. Go for the The main weapons station was right there, a main opponent first. Go for the danger. I barreled sort of waist-high, freestanding lectern. I threw straight into him. It was a train crash. I slammed myself back into it and heard a nice crunch as it him, my shoulder into the side of his head. toppled.

  He had a bear morph. I was my bear morph. Experience is very helpful.

  But that was more seconds lost while the

  Yeerks were completing their morphs. All but Tom. The polar bear staggered. I extended my claws His scarred back was crusting over with reptilian and in a move no real bear had ever learned, I scales, but he was nothing recognizable yet. And drove them straight into him, like four daggers, in any case, I had plenty to keep me busy.

  right beneath the front right shoulder: the heart. I faced two lionesses, a cape buffalo, and a polar I hit him again before the cape buffalo slammed bear. It was a whole zoo full of dangerous animals. me and knocked me, windless, rolling into the The polar bear was my equal all by himself. The bulkhead.

  cape buffalo maybe as well. I could take either liThe buffalo backed up and came at me again, oness, but the combination was going to be rough. the wide, thick horns like a battering ram. But For a wondrous, frozen moment we all waited, the beast's hooves were designed for dirt and stared, breathed, tensed, expectant.

 

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