The revelation animorphs.., p.1
The Revelation (Animorphs 49), page 1
The author wishes to thank Ellen Geroux for her assistance in preparing this manuscript.
For Michael and Jake
Cover illustration by David B. Mattingly
Art Direction/Design by Karen Hudson/Ursula Albano ml.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this y name is Marco.
book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payAnd I am to cuisine what Sammy Sosa is to ment for this "stripped book."
baseball.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored When it's my night to make dinner, I don't orin a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permisder in. I don't crack open a can of Chef Boyardee sion of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 555 Broadway, and call that a meal. Please.
New York, NY 10012.
I go the extra mile.
ISBN 0-439-11519-1
I use the oven.
Copyright © 2000 by Katherine Applegate.
I know. You're saying to yourself, "But, All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. Marco, man, you're fighting a war against alien SCHOLASTIC, APPLE PAPERBACKS, ANIMORPHS and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. invaders. You and your friends, you guys battle 1 2 1 1 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5/0
Yeerks twenty-four seven. How do you find the Printed in the U.S.A.
time to cook?!"
First Scholastic printing, September 2000
It isn't easy. But with a little help from the 1
freezer aisle and a guy I know called Red Baron, I forced a smile. "Crazy, isn't it?" it's a lot simpler than it could be.
Another car pulled into the drive. Whistling, Plus, this particular night, I was trying to then rapid steps up the walk.
make my stepmom feel, well, glad that she'd I grabbed a few sodas from the fridge.
married my dad. Even if I wasn't one hundred The front door opened. Dad was all spring-inpercent behind the whole thing, she made my his-step, a big smile plastered across his face. dad happy. That's worth something.
His cheeks were flushed. He looked like he'd just A car pulled into the driveway, a car door struck oil.
closed, heels clipped up the sidewalk. Nora, my
"Hello, family!"
stepmother.
Okay, that was more enthusiasm than I wanted I threw three paper plates on the table,
to see. And the word family, when applied to anyspread out some silverware, grabbed cups and one but me, Dad, and my real mom, would ala block of napkins. Nora doesn't go for paper ways sound very weird. To worsen the nausea, plates, but hey, it wasn't her night to do the Dad pulled a bouquet of flowers from behind his dishes.
back.
The door opened. I heard a sigh, the sound of They were not for me.
a heavy bag dropped to the foyer floor.
I think there was a kiss. Maybe some mushy
"Hey," I called.
whispers. I don't know. I looked away. I see
"Hey," Nora called back. "That faculty meetenough of the "power of love" between Jake and ing lasted far longer than it . . ." The smell of Cassie, and Rachel and Tobias.
Red Baron's home cooking met her nostrils, no
"What's the occasion?" Nora giggled like a doubt. "Marco!" she cried, entering the kitchen. middle-schooler and sat at the table.
"You're really making dinner!" She glanced at
"Oh, nothing," Dad said, beaming at her from the paper plates and decided not to comment. the chair opposite. "You're just the most wonder"You're the stepson of my dreams." ful woman in the world."
The woman was a math teacher. I would never
"I know better than that." Her adult voice really understand her. And now she was going reemerged as she set the flowers aside. "What's goopy on me.
gotten into you?"
2
3
"Let's just say things are getting pretty excit"Okay," Dad said slowly. "If you promise not ing at work. Taking those stock options could be to say a word . . . and I mean to anybody . . . I the best thing that ever happened to us." guess I can give you the basics."
The buzzer rang. I pulled the pizza from the He swallowed a bite of pizza, then pushed his oven and cut it up on a pizza board.
plate aside so he could lean forward, elbows on
"What's the big deal, Dad? We gonna be the table.
rich?"
"We've discovered what could be thought of I heaped a cheese-dripping slice in front of as a whole new dimension, yet not a dimension him.
at all. It's sort of like . . . Marco, you've studied
"Well . . ." he said slowly, "what my team is conic sections, haven't you?"
working on may just be one of the greatest adWhen would I learn not to ask Dad to elabovances in human history." rate? Engineers, like math teachers, have a way
"An HBO descrambler?"
of waxing prolific about theoretical situations
"Marco, I'm serious. Discoveries like the one that put my feeble mind to sleep almost inwe just made make me want to see you do well in stantly. Even faster than my math book.
math." He looked knowingly at Nora. "Or at least
"Forget math class," Dad said, realizing that pass an exam."
he was losing me. "You know what a cone looks
"He's right. Mathematics is the language of like, right? Well, the surface of a cone is the nature. It's the universal language. Everything two-dimensional analogue to the five-dimensional around us can be represented and understood space we inhabit."
through numbers." Nora's face had taken on a I sighed and got up to get another slice. Dad weird glow. I wondered how numbers could make grabbed my arm and made me sit down.
anyone feel like that.
"But a cone is three-dimensional," Nora corThe nightmare of my last algebra test flashed rected.
before my eyes.
"Exactly. While the surface of the cone is two"Dad. Just tell us what you're working on." dimensional, the surface exists in three dimen"I really shouldn't," he said suddenly. "It's sions."
secret. Top secret."
"Hmm." Nora seemed perplexed.
Nora gave him a look. It worked.
"Yeah," I said even louder. "Hmmm." 4
5
"Let's just say things are getting pretty excit"Okay," Dad said slowly. "If you promise not ing at work. Taking those stock options could be to say a word . . . and I mean to anybody . . . I the best thing that ever happened to us." guess I can give you the basics."
The buzzer rang. I pulled the pizza from the He swallowed a bite of pizza, then pushed his oven and cut it up on a pizza board.
plate aside so he could lean forward, elbows on
"What's the big deal, Dad? We gonna be the table.
rich?"
"We've discovered what could be thought of I heaped a cheese-dripping slice in front of as a whole new dimension, yet not a dimension him.
at all. It's sort of like . . . Marco, you've studied
"Well . . ." he said slowly, "what my team is conic sections, haven't you?"
working on may just be one of the greatest adWhen would I learn not to ask Dad to elabovances in human history." rate? Engineers, like math teachers, have a way
"An HBOdescrambler?"
of waxing prolific about theoretical situations
"Marco, I'm serious. Discoveries like the one that put my feeble mind to sleep almost inwe just made make me want to see you do well in stantly. Even faster than my math book.
math." He looked knowingly at Nora. "Or at least
"Forget math class," Dad said, realizing that pass an exam."
he was losing me. "You know what a cone looks
"He's right. Mathematics is the language of like, right? Well, the surface of a cone is the nature. It's the universal language. Everything two-dimensional analogue to the five-dimensional around us can be represented and understood space we inhabit."
through numbers." Nora's face had taken on a I sighed and got up to get another slice. Dad weird glow. I wondered how numbers could make grabbed my arm and made me sit down.
anyone feel like that.
"But a cone is three-dimensional," Nora corThe nightmare of my last algebra test flashed rected.
before my eyes.
"Exactly. While the surface of the cone is two"Dad. Just tell us what you're working on." dimensional, the surface exists in three dimen"I really shouldn't," he said suddenly. "It's sions."
secret. Top secret."
"Hmm." Nora seemed perplexed.
Nora gave him a look. It worked.
"Yeah," I said even louder. "Hmmm." 4
5
"The cone contains a singularity," Dad in"What are you calling your discovery?" I sisted.
heard Nora ask.
"A what?"
"I don't really know," Dad said tentatively.
"The place where all lines intersect. The place
"What can you call something that is nothing at where you can head out in any direction, or in all all?"
directions at once. Where you can move in any There wasn't anything on TV. An old Star Trek. direction without moving anywhere at all." A new Star Trek. My life was pl
enty sci-fi. How
"What does this cone have to do with your about some Real World?
work?" Nora's puzzled look revealed that Dad
"What could you call it?" Dad continued. had just surpassed her in geekitude. Which, un"Zero, I suppose. Zero-space." fortunately, only made him more determined to explain.
"We live our lives on just one line on the cone, in a mere four dimensions, including time." I felt my eyes rolling up into my head.
"We've been stuck on the surface of the cone all this time. When we want to go anywhere, we have to travel on the line. But now, imagine someone notices the singularity. A point with no size, no breadth, no extent. The physical representation of nothingness. By itself, it's nothing. Yet it's the starting and ending place of everything! A multiplier of real space!"
"Cool," I said. "Look, I've got homework. Lots of math." I dumped my paper plate in the trash and walked into the living room. Flopped on the couch and picked up the remote. I'm an advocate of the quick, pre-homework channel surf. 6
How!
I grabbed the cordless and dialed Jake.
"Hello?" he answered.
"We have . . . " I said in a whisper, coughing between words to muffle the sound, "a situation." There was a pause. I heard a voice in the background, then Jake faking a laugh at one of Tom's wisecracks. Tom, his brother, a Controller. I waited.
Finally, Jake mumbled, "Twenty minutes?"
"Fine," I said, and hung up.
Dad was still talking to Nora. "We're working on a way to communicate through the singularity. I almost swallowed a lung.
Normal matter is dimensional and in theory I sprang up, looked over the couch, stared couldn't , pass through."
into the kitchen.
News flash, Dad: My matter passes through ZERO-SPACE?!
the singularity several times a week. Every time I Nora glanced at me with alarm. "Marco, you morph, my excess mass gets sucked into nothokay?" ingness. A bubble in time.
I shut my gaping mouth. Forced myself to
Dad continued with unchecked enthusiasm.
blink.
"But we've determined that certain elementary Normal. Be normal. Act normal.
particles could pass through . . ."
"Fine . . . uh, yeah, urn, fine." I couldn't keep my mouth shut.
I sat back down. My hands were shaking. My I had to know.
head was a rush of adrenaline. How had I missed If Dad was a Yeerk . . . well, it was simple. I it! He'd been describing Zero-space. For the past would not lose two parents to the enemy.
five minutes! How?
I would not.
8
9
"So, Dad," I called, striding back into the
"Dad," I said. "When you say you could send kitchen. "You can, like, talk to people through communications through this Zero-space thing, this thing?"
what do you mean? I mean, who would you con"Precisely," he said. tact? I know there are some fossilized life-forms
"How's that any better than a radio?" on Mars, but I don't think they're big on answerI watched his face, his eyes, closer than I ing the phone."
ever have. If he was a Controller, I would see it. Dad rocked back in his chair. "Marco, you're The Yeerk residue. The arrogance, the conceit. I a prisoner of your education. They teach you i would see it. You couldn't fight an enemy this about the solar system. They give you a glimpse long and be helpless to sense its presence, to tell of the Milky Way. But do they ever suggest how if there's a Yeerk slug wrapped around your own much is really out there? How many very real father's brain.
chances there are that somewhere beyond our Could you?
ability to scope, in a place so distant our bodies
"Marco," he said. "Communication through couldn't hope to live long enough to journey this singularity, through this Zero-space, would here, life thrive?'"
be instantaneous. Unlike light, for example, the He sounded so innocent. A Yeerk wouldn't let communication would actually travel zero disa host go on like that. It just wouldn't. tance." Dad's eyes were bursting with excitement
"What language would you use for the comand wonderment. No evil, no mystery. munication?" I probed. "If there's life out there,
"Just think!" he said. "We could talk to the don't tell me they speak English."
farthest star in an instant, send information faster
"We could try music," Dad answered easily. than the speed of light. No travel distance at
"Or math, the universal language." His eyes met all!"
Nora's in a look of tender affection.
He smiled, certain he'd floored me and Nora So pure. So un-Yeerk.
both.
But I needed proof. Proof that he was still just
"That's fascinating, honey." Her interest, earnDad and no one else. Hunches weren't good est at first, now seemed mostly just polite. She enough.
took her bouquet to the sink and began to put
"I should get back to the office," he said sudthe purple buds in water. I sat down in her chair. denly, standing up. I stood up next to him. 10
11
"Higher-ups say that if by the end of the week No biology. My boy, the plants will survive five our team perfects this small device that could, days." He squeezed Nora's hand. "I've gotta go." theoretically, send and receive communications He stopped at the front door. Turned back to through Zero-space, we get to present our findus. ings at next month's conference. You two know
"You know what?" he said. "This Zero-space what that means
discovery? It's big. Really big. I don't think our Dad grabbed me and Nora around our waists lives will ever be the same."
and tried to lift us into the air. Maybe he was a Controller. He'd never done that before.
"It means an all-expenses-paid, bring-yourfamily-along vacation at an amazing mountain resort. HBO for the boy. Pool time for the wife. Raiding the mini-bar for everyone! We can stay through the weekend. Skip town for five whole days!"
"Five days?" I said.
"If you'd rather go to school . . . "
"No," I said quickly. "It's not that. I just thought . . . " I watched Dad's eyes. "You know, the plants. Five days. That's a long time without Miracle-Gro."
It was a test. Dumb but necessary. If there was a Yeerk in Dad's brain, it wouldn't allow a trip of more than three days. The Kandrona ray feeding cycle is three days. Yeerks aren't flexible on that one.
Dad looked at me like I was an idiot.
"Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm going to pull you out of school. No conic sections. 12
13
Ax wasn't in morph. I felt we were vulnerable here, just after dinnertime.
"Are you sure we're safe, Cassie?" I said. She looked up from her math book. I tell you, it was a conspiracy.
"You kidding?" Cassie said. "A PBS documentary on lemurs? A Dome ship could land on the lawn and my parents wouldn't even notice." Cassie's parents are vets, the only people I know who like animals — and animal documentaries— more than Cassie does. "Plus," she continued, nodding toward the red-tailed hawk perched in the hayloft, "we've got Tobias."
"Too elaborate," I shot back. "Do you really such a leap. This is the Yeerks at work.> think the Yeerks would go to the trouble of plant"Why would Yeerks use humans to develop a ing the seed of Z-space technology in some pidcapacity they already have? That's just weird." dling human engineering firm? Then wait for Rachel looked up from her math book. My ruthhumans to pick upon it? And wait even longer for less fellow warrior. Rachel isn't content with the nows of the development to leak out and reach whole beauty thing. No, she has to have brains, US? That's slow and uncertain. Not Yeerk." too. She actually planned to pass the test we had
"It could be simpler than we think," Jake said the next day.
calmly, lowering himself onto a bale of hay. This We were at Cassie's barn, aka the Wildlife Rewar had aged my best friend in ways you couldn't habilitation Center. The place was packed. Verreally see. But you could definitely tell that in his min of every size and description sprawled out mind he was no longer just a kid. None of us in cages, some scratching, some cawing. Some were. "Maybe there's no Z-space device at all. silent, yet watching.
The Yeerks could have put out a rumor, knowing 14
15
it would draw the Andalite bandits like bees to
