The doors began to open, motors whining loudly in my horse ears. And that's when the second group of horses started to run. Three horseControllers, followed, after a moment's hesitation, by Marco, Ax, and Rachel, suddenly broke into full-out gallop straight for the hangar door.

  Tobias groaned.

  I asked.

  Jake said grimly.

 

 

  Jake said grimly.

  Suddenly, our group of horse-Controllers surged forward. I was startled, but I quickly ran after them, followed by Jake and Tobias. The first group was racing full tilt toward the hangar. They were almost there. The armed guards were watching them in bemusement. But you could see the bemusement turning to puzzlement. And finally ... too late .

  . . fear.

  WHAM!

  The lead horse slammed bodily into one guard, knocking him into a second guard. Hooves flashed as the horse ran over the guard. I could see it, even with my weak horse eyes, because we were close now. Running straight for the door of the hangar.

  We were there!

  A madhouse! Guards mingling with seemingly insane horses. Guards being knocked to the ground.

  "Get these horses outta here!" someone bawled.

  "Neigh-heh-heh-heh!" the horses screamed.

  "Sarge, what do we do?"

  "Ahhhh!"

  "HrrrEEEE-heee-he-he!"

  "Shoot 'em!"

  "Negative, soldier, do not fire! We could hit what's inside!" Our group jumped into the melee of frantic soldiers and madly dancing, rearing, screaming horses. But our group stayed close together and plowed straight through.

  Straight through and into the Most Secret Place On Earth.

  Chapter 19

  Into the hangar we thundered!

  My hooves scrabbled on smooth, painted concrete. Through the eyes on the side of my head, I saw flashes of heavy equipment, banks of computer consoles, and flashing numerical readouts. There were men and women in white lab coats running as if we were a pack of wolves or something. There were uniformed airmen running after us, waving their guns in the air. There were stuffy old officers with medals on their chests, standing with hands on hips and outraged expressions on their faces.

  And everyone was yelling.

  "What the blazing Hades is going on here?"

  "Stop those horses!"

  "Shoot!"

  "Don't shoot!"

  "Help! I'm allergic to horses!"

  It was nuts. But the truth is, in a weird way, it was fun, too. Minneapolis Max was running. And when he was running, he felt fine. Every nerve in my big horse body was tingling. I was incredibly alive with fear and excitement and the lust for competition. I wasn't some plow horse! I was a running fool. I was a born and bred champion! A big, tough, dominant stallion!

  Yee hah!

  "HREEE-HEEE-He-he!" I screamed for no reason, scaring a woman in a lab coat into dropping her open yogurt on the floor.

  We thundered by, our weird herd of real horses, Yeerk-infested horses, and Animorphs in horse morphs.

  And then we came to the room. You could tell it was the center, the nexus, the reason for all the security.

  Marco exulted. It was glass on all sides. Glass that looked like it could be a foot thick. Through that glass we saw a pedestal of shining steel. And all around that pedestal were cameras, sensors, wires, lights, glowing screens, and rows of massive computers.

  Bathed in the light, high on the pedestal, was something not from this planet.

  It was about eight feet across. The shape was like a cube with the corners rounded off. The entire surface was covered with tubing and painted symbols.

  At one end was an opening, large enough for a person to walk inside. I could just barely get a glimpse of the inside. It was smooth, a lovely green in color, with soft lighting. There was some sort of instrumentation on one wall.

  I've never heard Marco sound happier.

  Jake and Ax and Marco and I, along with three or four horse-Controllers, all stared transfixed at what Marco had called "the most closely guarded secret in all of history."

  "Cullem fallat?" one of the horse-Controllers asked.

  Ax translated.

  "Jahalan fornella," another horse-Controller said. I didn't even need Ax's translation to understand: The Yeerks had no idea what it was.

  They had succeeded. They had busted in.

  They had laid eyes on the big secret. But they had no clue as to what it was.

  "SERGEANT! GET those HORSES out of my facility! NOW!" a colonel bellowed.

  "Yes, sir!" the sergeant yelled. "Horses! About face!" It must have surprised the poor sergeant when, amazingly, we all complied. Animorphs and Yeerks, we turned and walked away.

  Chapter 20

  It was getting dark by the time we walked away, none the wiser, from the Most Secret Place On Earth.

  The horse-Controllers walked glumly away into the Dry Lands. We shadowed them, keeping just a little distance. We'd been in morph for more than an hour. But Jake decided we should stay a while longer.

  Marco complained.

  Jake pointed out.

 

  I said.

  <"lt is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Shakespeare,> Tobias said.

  Ax began. Then he stopped.

  Rachel pressed.

 

  I yelled. Something was swooping in fast across the darkening desert. It flew along the ground, just inches above the scattered scruffy trees. It churned up the dust as it came. It was smallish, no bigger than a large human fighter plane. But it was shaped like a streamlined, headless beetle. There were long, serrated points aimed straight forward on either side.

 

  I had to resist the urge to run. That was only natural. But what was strange was that once more I smelled fear from the horse-Controllers. They were scared of that Bug fighter. More scared than they'd been in rushing the hangar.

  Or, more likely, scared of who was in that Bug fighter. The Bug fighter swooped overhead, circled, and came to land in a pile of rocks.

  Tobias said.

 

  Rachel said grumpily.

 

  We followed the horse-Controllers around the back of the rocks. The Bug fighter was waiting there, already on the ground. But the door didn't open until the horse-Controllers were assembled before it. Fear was radiating from them.

  So much fear. It gave me a pretty good idea who was in that Bug fighter. The door of the Bug fighter opened.

  Out stepped a Hork-Bajir warrior. Seven feet of razor-bladed death. The Hork-Bajir swung his horned snakehead left and right, all the while holding a portable Dracon beam weapon.

  Then, when it looked safe, the other occupant of the Bug fighter stepped out into the rapidly cooling air.

  He was an Andalite. At least, he had an Andalite body. But of course he was no true Andalite.

  I said. It was not a surprise.

  Jake said grimly. Visser Three: leader of the Yeerk forces on Earth. Leader of the invasion. The only Yeerk in all of history to successfully seize control of an Andalite body. The only Yeerk in all history to gain the Andalite morphing power and Andalite thought-speak abilities.

  Our greatest enemy. The human race's greatest enemy.

  he said in a tone of complete casual ness. The lead horse-Controller began to reply in Galard. "Visser, gahallum fillak—"

 

  "Visser, kir fillan —"

  FWAPPPP!

  The visser's Andalite tail moved so swiftly it cracked the air. The deadly blade stopped a millimeter from the horse-Controller's throat. A twitch would send his head rolling.

 

  According to Ax, the horse-Controller answered yes.

 

  Again, he answered yes.

 

  The horse-Controller hesitated. And that's when the visser twitched his Andalite tail.

  the visser screamed in enraged thoughtspeak.

  The visser indicated the no-longer-in-one-piece horse-Controller, like it had been someone else's fault he'd been lost.

 

  He was enraged. And Visser Three mad is beyond dangerous. His horse-Controllers backed away as far as they dared.

  the visser said in a suddenly low, sinister, thought-speak voice.

  For a while no one moved or spoke or even breathed. No one, me included, wanted to take any chance of attracting the furious visser's attention. Then,
  We still have the backup plan. It was always the better plan. We'll simply take control of a few of the humans working at this base. Have you idiots at least identified the right targets to infest?>

  "Jihal, Visser!" one of the horse-Controllers said.

  Suddenly he stopped.

  In Galard, the horse-Controller explained that it was normal for horses to herd together. It was good for real horses to be there. It provided camouflage of sorts. This was not the answer the visser wanted to hear. He aimed his Andalite stalk eyes directly at me.

  I hissed to the others. I lowered my big golden head and crunched up a mouthful of grass. And then I did what horses do. And I wasn't modest about it. The visser laughed derisively. I took a relieved breath.

 

  I said.

  The Hork-Bajir warrior leveled his Dracon beam at us. A second HorkBajir came running from inside the Bug fighter. I felt a thrill of terror. I ordered myself to run away. But I wasn't the only creature in my head right then. Minneapolis Max was in there, too. And he didn't feel like running away.

  My hindquarters bunched up and fired every muscle fiber at once. And, before I knew what was happening, I was running. But not running away. I ran straight for the first Hork-Bajir.

  "HrrrEEEEE-HEEE-he-he!" I whinnied. I reared up, all the way back till I was standing on my hind legs, and I flailed madly with my forehooves. I couldn't exactly aim my hooves, mind you. Horses aren't predators. But I flailed away and just as the Hork-Bajir was pressing the trigger...

  BONK!

  "Raaahhhh!" the Hork-Bajir bellowed. He dropped the Dracon beam from his hands. It

  clattered on the ground, and down I came. I

  landed directly with both hooves on the weapon.

  . CRUNCH!

  I'd like to say it was deliberate. But the truth is that with my side-vision horse eyes I could barely even see my hooves, let alone aim them. But sometimes luck is as good as skill.

  Jake yelled.

  Now Minneapolis Max was ready to run away. So I ran. We all ran. The two Hork-Bajir took off in pursuit.

  Rachel said.

  She was right. And to be honest, if it had been a hundred horses versus two Hork-Bajir, the horses would have lost. I asked Rachel. She had morphed a Hork-Bajir once.

  she said grimly.

  We bolted. We hauled. But the two bounding Hork-Bajir were hot on our trail.

  Then we saw spotlights bouncing wildly toward us. Humvees! The security troops from the base were coming out to investigate. We ran and the Hork-Bajir hesitated. When I looked back next, they were gone.

  Rachel said as we got far from Zone 91.

 
  Jake said.

 

  I said with a sigh.

  Ax asked.

  I said.

  Ax said calmly.

  One by one, we each stopped walking. One by one we turned to face Ax.

  Tobias asked.

 

  Marco demanded.

 

 

 

 

  For about a full minute, no one said anything. Then Marco spoke.

 

  Ax said condescendingly.

  Chapter 21

  We got out of horse morph and into bird morph and flew home. We alone now knew the secret of Zone 91. An entire base built to analyze what they thought was an alien spaceship but was, in reality, a high-tech Andalite Porta-John.

  There was, according to Ax, absolutely zero chance that the Andalite toilet would give humans the ability to fly through space. We had done some very important things as Animorphs. We had fought some terrible and vital battles.

  This wasn't one of them.

  I got home just in time to walk into my living room and realize both my parents were waiting for me.

  They had their angry-parent faces on.

  "Where have you been?" my mother demanded.

  Mom always takes the lead in discipline. She knows my dad will give in too easily. She thinks she's tougher. She thinks that because it happens to be true.

  "I was out with Rachel," I said, more or less truthfully.

  "Out with Rachel doing what?" my mom hissed. "You missed dinner. It's dark out. You didn't tell us where you were going." My mom isn't a real big person. Until she's mad. Then she somehow gets larger. She seems to rise up and tower over me. It's weird. I mean, normally she's maybe two inches taller than me, but right then she was at least eight feet tall.

  "We were very worried," my father said in a soft, quiet voice. I sighed. I could feel the guilt welling up inside me. I hate it when they say they've been worried. See, I understand about worry now. I feel worry all the time for Rachel and Jake and the others. Sometimes I lie in bed at night and worry for the whole human race.

  "I'm really sorry," I said.

  "Where. Were. You. Young. Lady?" my mom asked, doing her one-wordat-a-time voice.

  "I was just with Rachel," I said. "And Jake." My parents exchanged a look. My dad put his hand over his mouth. He was hiding a smile. At the same time, he was trying to look extra stern. My mom leaned back and put her hands on her hips. "You know we have discussed your dating," she said, "and I thought we decided you were still too young."

  "Dating?" I said weakly.

  My mom sighed. Then she shook her head. "Maybe it's time for us to have another talk about the birds and the bees." I swear the blood drained out of my whole head. Then it came rushing back into just my cheeks and neck so that they burned. "Urn . . . I'm not dating."

  "It's nothing to be ashamed of," my dad said gruffly. "You're a normal young girl, you have certain . . . interests, certain . . . fascinations, a natural . . . curiosity."

  At this point I wanted to dig a hole right in the living room floor, crawl in, and pull the rug over me.

 

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